Business-Essay

1. Include an in-text citation when you refer to, summarize, paraphrase, or quote from another source.

2. In-text references should immediately follow the title, word, or phrase to which they are directly relevant, rather than appearing at the end of long clauses or sentences.

3. In-text references should always precede punctuation marks.

4. For every in-text citation in your paper, there must be a corresponding entry in your reference list.

Using in-text citation for one journal with one author:

Author's name in parentheses: One study found that the most important element in comprehending non-native speech is familiarity with the topic (Gass & Varonis, 1984).

Author's name part of narrative: Gass and Varonis (1984) found that the most important element in comprehending non- native speech is familiarity with the topic.

Using in-text citation for one journal with more than one author:

A. Two authors: (Gass & Varonis, 1984)

B. Three to five authors:

a. First citation: (Tremblay, Richer, Lachance, & Cote, 2010)

b. Subsequent citations: (Tremblay et al., 2010)

C. Six or more authors: (Norris-Shortle et al., 2006)

Note:

• When using multiple authors' names as part of your narrative, rather than in parentheses, always spell out the word and.

• For multiple authors' names within a parenthetic citation, use &.

A group as an author:

A. First citation: (American Psychological Association [APA], 2015)

B. Subsequent citation: (APA, 2015)

If using multiple works (more than one journal): (separate each work with semi-colons)

· Research shows that listening to a particular accent improves comprehension of accented speech in general (Gass & Varonis, 1984; Krech Thomas, 2004)

If a Direct quote was taken: (include page number): Author's name in parentheses , Author's name part of narrative.

Web page with author: In-text citation, Reference entry

T205A Systems Thinking & Practice

Fall 2017-2018

TMA CASE STUDY

Organizational Behavior: Conflict Management at Olite

This essay has been submitted by a student. This is not an example of the work written by our professional essay writers.

Olite is a multinational company with its headquarters in USA.

To create a footprint in the telecommunication Business & Operation Support System (BSS and OSS) a well-known fortune 500 company, Olite, acquired a leading software company in the billing and revenue management sector named PTL in the year 2004. This acquisition was consolidated at Olite, under the Telecommunication Business Unit (TBU). To utilize the cost advantage and the technical expertise, Olite started its TBU division activities at the India development center (IDC). Olite also maintained a group (here after referred to as HQ team) at its headquarters, which focused on R & D activities and for supporting a few key customers. Most of the employees who were part of TBU division came from PTL software. The main responsibilities of the IDC group were to provide support to the existing customers and provide minor enhancement to the existing product.

This case study discusses the growth of the TBU's engineering division at IDC and the challenges it faced while dealing with the needs of the employees, aspirations of its leaders and the effects and challenges it created to the group at its HQ division and the HQ group heads reaction to it.

Description of the Case

This is a case study of the Engineering (Product Development) group of the TBU division. The TBU's engineering group was organized in a simple hierarchical structure.

Michel (VP)

Suraj (Director)

Ashok (Director)

Mahesh (Senior Director)

The entire engineering division at IDC was lead by the directors, Ashok and Suraj. Mahesh was leading the R & D group at HQ. Both Ashok and Suraj had independent teams. Ashok and Suraj's teams worked on customer support activities and were responsible for addressing product issues and implementing minor enhancements of the product. Under their leadership, these groups delivered many customer success stories and created a good impression and were viewed as an asset to the organization. Both the directors were leading the customer support activities. As the IDC group achieved more and more success, the aspiration of the directors started to change. Both the directors started showing intent to lead the entire IDC engineering division. Ashok was very aggressive and ambitious. He was action-oriented and forward thinking. While Suraj kept to his duties and focused on the day to day customer issues, however, he also showed intent to lead the division.

As the team in IDC successfully managed the customer support activity, some of their key engineers also expressed a desire to work on R & D activities. They wanted a break from the routine work. Ashok encouraged the team to express their views on the type of work they would like to do in the future and promised to explore the feasibility of these ideas.

During this time, the entire customer support activity was shifted to the IDC center and the team in HQ focused solely on R& D activities. As the IDC organization grew (in terms of domain expertise, strength, and excellence), there were concern from the HQ division (Mahesh's team) about their role and future. Meanwhile, poor economic conditions in the USA had also impacted the IT job market and job security was a major worrying factor for the HQ team.

Creating new group

To take the IDC organization on a further growth path, during one of the Staff meeting, Ashok proposed to create a focused group (consisting of key engineers from Ashok and Suraj's group) within the organization (under his leadership) to work on new product development and to collaborate with the R& D division in HQ.

This proposal shocked Suraj as Ashok had never discussed this idea with him and he felt let down. Suraj opposed this idea. On hearing the proposal from Ashok, Mahesh started worrying about the R & D team located at HQ. The HQ team expressed the concern that they may lose their jobs once the R & D work is offloaded to IDC. He also started worrying about his position in the organization as he knew Ashok was a very aggressive leader and had a good rapport within organization. Michel promised to look into this idea and promised to provide his views on it soon. Michel relied on Mahesh's inputs to make decisions related to the engineering division, as he was new to the division.

Organizational politics -Divide and Conquer

Organizational politics can be described as self-serving and manipulative behavior of individuals and groups to promote their self-interests at the expense of others, and sometimes even organizational goals as well. Organizational politics in a company manifests itself through the struggle for resources, personal conflicts, competition for power and leadership and tactical influence executed by individuals and groups to attain power, building personal stature, controlling access to information, not revealing real intents, building coalitions etc.

While most leaders try to achieve organizational unity, some do use divisive tactics to maintain control, or to elevate performance by fostering competition.

Game Changes-Divide and Conquer

In the meanwhile, problems started cropping up between the groups headed by Ashok and Suraj. Ashok tried to convince Suraj about the benefits of new group but Suraj has different ideas. Suraj suggested that, instead of forming new group (consisting of key engineers from Ashok and Suraj's group), we should utilize part of every engineers’ time to do the R & D activity. Talks about starting a focus group became a conflicting point between Ashok and Suraj. Even on common issues, they had different views. This difference became quite public during team meetings. This started affecting the team morale and the day to day activities of the IDC group.

Michel kept on delaying the decision (on suggestion from Mahesh) on the new group formation at IDC. This uncertainty about the new group formation and the differences between the IDC directors was taking toll on the productivity of the teams and eventually on customer satisfaction. He always took care of his team members very well. Along with the formation of the new group, he had proposed better benefits and flexibility to his team members to motivate them.

Ashok frequently reminded the higher management about the new group formation and the difficulties he was having in co-coordinating with Suraj. The management kept on delaying the decision and eventually Ashok resigned from the company. As Suraj's performance was not up to the mark, the upper management decided to terminate his employment. The sudden departure of both the directors created huge gap in the leadership of the IDC organization. Most of the team started worrying about the future of the group and some of the experienced engineers left the company.

During this period, Mahesh reached out to a few key engineers at IDC and assured them job opportunities at HQ's R& D team. The attrition level went up to 60% at IDC center. This affected the customer support activity. Sensing an opportunity, Mahesh made a pitch to the higher management that, with current capacity and expertise at IDC, the division can no longer handle the support activities and the HQ team needs to pitch in to complete this work. Finally, the upper management agreed and the critical customer support activity was moved to the HQ division. The job security concern of the HQ division vanished as they started playing a key role in support as well as in R & D activities. At the end of all this, the IDC division was functioning in a lesser role and had hired a new leadership team.

Please read these instructions carefully, and contact your tutor if you require any further clarifications. You should submit your completed assignment to your tutor to arrive no later than the cut-off Date (December 2017, exact date as announced by VPAA office).

Introduction

This TMA has one question with three sub sections. You should answer them all. The questions in this assignment are all about different aspects of the process of exploring a complex situation.

Question 1 (100% marks)

You are strongly advised to use the e-library to locate additional relevant resources which can support your analysis and argument. This will earn you extra points.

(a) Read through the attached case study “Organizational Behavior: Conflict Management at Olite”, as you read through the article, create one Spray diagram to summarize the different ideas of the article respecting the conventions, and techniques. It is advised that students submit hand drawn diagrams as opposed to computer generated ones. Photocopies of diagrams should not be accepted. Reflect on your diagram in no more than 200 words. (15 Marks)

(b) Based on what you learned in T205A (T552/Diagramming), and on the content of the article, and taking “Organizational Conflict”, as your system of interest, draw a System Map diagram to show all the components of such a system. The system map should include all the Subsystems/components of the system paying special attention to the grouping and the hierarchy. Reflect on your diagram in no more than 200 words (15 Marks)

(c) Using an essay format (one essay with different sub-sections with sub headings), and based on what you learned in T205A concept files 02, and 03, and T551 Linear Programming, and T553 Modelling:

1. Analyze the type of situations discussed in the case; justify your answer based on what you learned in T551 linear programing (Word Count 400; 10 Marks).

2. Discuss the different ways of thinking presented in T551 Linear programing and assess how applying each of the three ways of thinking (causal, logical, and reductionist) can enlighten our understanding of the problems at Olite (Word Count 450; 15 Marks).

3. Assess how different worldviews, perspectives, and mental models, can help us better understand the problems at Olite. (Word Count 450; 15 Marks).

(2200-2450 words) (70 marks) (Please see guidance below)

General Mark’s deductions of 20% as follows

· PT3 Form (failure to use the PT3 completely filled) (deduct up to 5% marks)

· TMA Presentation and Structure, and word count (untidy, work way below or above the word count, no display of word count) (deduct up to 5% marks)

· Referencing and in-text citation (poor referencing and in-text citation, without plagiarism, (deduct up to 10% marks).

TMA Guidance to students

(a) Note that the submission for this question requires your rough spray diagrams, and a condensed or tided up version. You should do your best to follow the conventions for the spray diagram as explained in T552. It is also important that the diagram communicates to your tutor, so make sure the writing is legible and not too small. However, don't redraw your initial rough spray diagrams just to tidy them up; we want to see what you drew as you worked. You need to identify the main idea of the article and include it within your central topic, and then identify the most important points and include them within the subtopics blobs then branch out as explained in T552 appendix (A1.1.)

(b) Here you are required to draw a system map diagram, which shows all the components of a system of “Organizational Conflict”. Your tutor’s feedback will be helpful in clarifying to you any misconceptions you might have about drawing the diagram and it will also help in assessing your diagramming skills.

(c) Here you are required to draw back on concepts learned in T551 and Concept file 02 and 03 as applicable in order to analyze the questions. Please remember that for each section you need to provide a clear theoretical discussion, and then explain how those concepts are related to the case on hand. Again you are strongly advised to use your own words to discuss the concepts as you understood them. Do not copy material from the books since it will have a negative impact on your grade, and very importantly do not get consumed in a purely theoretical analysis without assessing how these concepts are applied in the case study. Make sure to respect the word count as it is an indicator to you of the depth of analysis required. Please remember that failure to paraphrase, and to reference will also lead to failing the TMA.

What type of situation is the organization facing. How it can be understood and managed, what are the sources of the problems. There are different ways to tackle and structure your ideas. Please remember that your work should be structured in one essay format with introduction and five different subsections/sub headings to assess each idea and a conclusion.

The introduction should set out the topic of the discussion clearly. For each of the body paragraphs/sub-sections you need to provide a clear theoretical discussion which explains how the relevant course concepts are related to the article on hand. The conclusion should summarize your findings and reflect on your learning. You should not write in the first person (i.e. I think), the third person is more appropriate for college level writing (i.e. we can conclude), but in any case, it is preferable to avoid both styles and to state your argument (i.e. instead of saying “this essay will tackle the motivation and the systems thinking approach”, you can start with a statement about motivation in organizations). Similarly, in your conclusion you should not use “it could be concluded”, rather simply restate the main points and your findings.

End of T205A TMA Questions

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