Case Studies

Chapter 2 Case StudyIt Was Really So Simple
Background Information
Brenda Galway leaned back in her chair, sighed heavily and slowly rubbed her eyes in
big circular motions. “I don’t need all this aggravation,” she thought to herself. She had
just finished reviewing the report she had requested from her new employee, Bill Stanley.
The entire report was incorrect and would have to be redone.
Brenda supervised Unit B of the Audit Department. The Unit B team had earned the
nickname of the “Mod Squad” because they were given the unusual, special audit
assignments that cropped up. Unit B also had ongoing audit duties over certain
operations departments within the company. The five auditing specialists in Unit B had
to complete certain reports every month on those operational units. Normally, this
workload was manageable enough. Unfortunately, this was not one of those times.
About three weeks ago, Brenda’s manager, John Rockland, gave her a major project
to complete in three weeks. The “rush priority” nature of the project stemmed from the
decision of the company’s Executive Management Committee to install a new type of
auditing procedure and program. In large part, this meant adapting to an automated
information system. Currently, most of the information they needed and used was being
collected and processed manually. In effect, the new system required the auditors to
switch from being high-priced clerks to being information-system managers. The
auditors would be able to examine, “test,” and display information more quickly, easily,
and clearly—so, at least, was the thinking of Executive Management when it authorized
the new procedures. Brenda’s assignment was to complete an implementation plan for
this new system in three weeks.
At the meeting during which he gave her the assignment, John told her: “Look Brenda,
I know it’s short notice and that you’ve got those operations reports due out soon, but you
need to get your staff working on this project now. You know I’ll do whatever I can to
help. ”
John had paused a minute, leaning against the doorway. “Why not let that new guy,
what’s his name . . . Bill Stanley? Let Bill Stanley tart working on it.”
Brenda could see no alternative. “I guess you’re right,” she said. “I’ll get him on it
today.”
John had been referring to the new employee Brenda had hired just last month. Bill
Stanley graduated two years ago with a degree in accounting and had worked as a junior
auditor at a competitor since then. During the interview process, Brenda told him that he
would have to be a self-starter and that she expected him to pick up on the work fairly
quickly.
She now thought back to her words during that interview: “Look, we’re very busy here
and we get the plum assignments. I can’t baby-sit you. I’ll show you your desk and
introduce you to the team members. You’re going to have to take care of yourself. Of
course, I’m here to help and my door’s always open. But you’ll have to pin me down and
get me when you need my help. After that, you’re on your own.” Brenda had prided
herself on her direct, no-nonsense, upfront communication style.
Bill Stanley seemed to agree with her philosophy. He replied: “Sure, that’s great. I like
to work on my own anyways.”
In fact, Bill Stanley had not been Brenda’s first choice for the open position in her
department. She was looking for someone who had both auditing and computer
experience in addition to a strong background in accounting. Unfortunately, she was
unable to pay the salary that the few applicants with that background wanted. Bill Stanley
was the best remaining choice, even though he had very limited auditing and computer
experience.
Bill had accepted the job and had been doing as well as could be expected. During his
first week on the job, he was placed on an existing audit project and had managed to
perform effectively according to the project leader. He seemed to get along well with the
other “Mod Squad” team members and was fairly eager to work on the project, although
Brenda seldom saw him stay after quitting time.
Brenda had called Bill into her office shortly after receiving the new assignment from
her boss. She told him about the project and gave him the deadline. She repeated that her
door was always open if he needed help. Bill seemed honored that she had selected him.
He tried to ask her for some details about the kinds of plans he needed to work out.
Brenda repeated that it was a simple project plan. After Bill’s third question along these
lines, Brenda said, with a little irritation in her voice, “Look, you can figure this out.
Unless you’ve any other big questions, I’ve got to get ready for a meeting.” Bill answered
that he had no other questions.
Brenda had drawn the meeting to a close with the remark: “Keep in touch.”
In the two weeks that followed, Brenda continued to be as busy as usual. She
occasionally saw Bill in the office. While passing through, she would sometimes stop, put
her head through the door, and ask how things were coming. Bill would always say “Fine.”
On two occasions, Bill asked to see her. In the first meeting, about two days after
receiving the assignment, he tried to get her to explain what exactly she was looking for
in the report. He produced a detailed outline. Brenda looked it over and made a broad,
vague response. Her irritation at having to tell him exactly what to do showed after about
15 minutes. In the second meeting, he asked for some general guidance and help on many
of the specifics of the project. She wondered, at one point, why he didn’t look up the
answers to some of these questions himself. She had to cut their meeting short in order
to attend another meeting. After the second meeting, she had no further contact with Bill.
It was now three weeks since she gave Bill the assignment. The deadline had arrived,
and Bill had submitted the report on time, dropping it off on her desk at 5 0’clock, on his
way home. Looking it over, she had easily seen that it was incorrect. Oh, it was all there,
alright; it was just wrong.
For a long time, she continued to rub her eyes, as if doing so would change the
contents of the report and it would be correct when she looked at it again.
She thought to herself: “Why didn’t he come in and check it out with me to make sure
that he was doing it right, especially after he completed this first part? It was really so
simple and I took so long to explain it.”
CASE QUESTIONS
1. What is the problem?
2. Who was to blame for this, Brenda or Bill? Why?
3. Did Bill do the right thing going to Brenda for help?
4. Why do you believe Brenda was so reluctant to assist Bill?
5. If you had to rate Brenda’s performance on a scale of 1-5, with
5 being the best score, on her ability to supervise Bill, what
score would you give her? Why?
Chapter 3 Case Study
FACEBOOK’S MARK ZUCKERBERG: CAN HE MANAGE THROUGH
TURBULENT TIMES?
Instructions: Read this small case study and answer the questions at the
end. Be sure to be specific and use examples.
What does a manager do? Dream up a bold mission for the company? Build a corporate
structure that ensures success? Inspire others? Keep the company on track toward its
goals?
Most managers perform all these functions to some degree, perhaps none more publicly
than Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook. He has seen his company grow
into a worldwide phenomenon with billions of active users. The company reported
approximately $80 billion in revenue in 2020, making it more financially successful
than ever.
Zuckerberg has faced—and continues to face—management challenges, not just
technical ones. Facebook’s past hurdles included the need for capital to fund its rapid
growth. In 2012, Zuckerberg announced an initial public offering (IPO) of stock to
attract cash and then saw a damaging initial drop in its stock price. Next came the
popularity of smartphones, which forced Facebook to quickly evolve into a mobile
platform. To adapt, the firm developed its mobile app with an increased focus on
advertising, which now comprises almost all of Facebook’s revenue.
Sometimes success brings its own problems. Facebook’s reach is now so vast that it’s
under intense scrutiny and attack from government leaders and corporate watchdogs for
becoming too powerful. For years there has been growing concern about the spread of
disinformation on Facebook related to elections, and the 2020 election produced an
outpouring of criticism of Zuckerberg, including his handling of what many viewed as an
inflammatory post from former president Trump. Concern about disinformation grew
further with the arrival of COVID-19, which produced an onslaught of misleading
commentary.
Zuckerberg and other tech CEOs appeared before Congress’s House Judiciary Antitrust
Subcommittee in July 2020. As part of his opening statement, Zuckerberg stated:
I understand that people have concerns about the size and perceived power that tech
companies have. . . . That’s why I’ve called for a more active role for governments and
regulators and updated rules for the internet. If we do this right, we can preserve what’s
best about this technology—the freedom for people to connect and express themselves
and for entrepreneurs to build new things—while also protecting society from broader
harms.
But not all people feel Zuckerberg is capable of leading the company in the right—or
ethical—direction. Ultimately, for as much success as it has had, Facebook’s future will
come down to how effectively Zuckerberg manages through these turbulent times.
Navigating Facebook through Change
Smart managers plan how to deliver strategic value, not just for the present but for the
future. To do this, Zuckerberg organized Facebook to stay at the forefront of artificial
intelligence (AI) by investing in AI research and buying start-ups to acquire top talent.
As he once said, “We buy companies to get excellent people.” To ensure the company
remains a technology leader, Zuckerberg created a venture capital division to invest in
promising early-stage tech start-ups. Moreover, Facebook recruited top investing talent
in the tech sector for its New Product Experimentation (NPE) team.
But these and other aggressive measures, meant to stay ahead of the competition,
generated heavy criticism that Facebook attempted to stamp out the competition before
it has a chance to challenge Facebook’s dominance. In response, Zuckerberg told the
House Antitrust Subcommittee that “The most popular messaging service in the U.S. is
iMessage. The fastest-growing app is TikTok. The most popular app for video is
YouTube. The fastest-growing ads platform is Amazon. The largest ads platform is
Google. And for every dollar spent on advertising in the U.S., less than 10 cents are
spent with us.”
His argument is that Facebook, far from being monopolistic, is but one company trying
to survive in a constantly evolving business environment.
Working for Zuckerberg
Once ranked as the best place in the United States to work, Facebook’s standing, along
with Mark Zuckerberg’s ranking as CEO, slipped. In 2019, Facebook fell to its lowest
ranking ever (23rd), as had Zuckerberg’s ranking (55th) among CEOs. However, the
firm still rates as one of the best places to work in the technology sector, and for all the
criticism directed at Zuckerberg in recent years, he still received a 94 percent approval
rating from his employees.
Zuckerberg advocates giving employees the freedom to create, maintaining that they
“need the ability to fully exercise all their creativity and all their capacity, or else they’re
not going to be having the biggest impact that they can have on the world.”
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Facebook was one of the first organizations to
shift to all-remote work to ensure the safety of its employees. When the lockdowns
began, Facebook gave each full-time employee a $1,000 bonus to help with childcare
and other essentials. In the months that followed, Facebook extended remote work and
began planning for over half its employees to permanently work remotely by the middle
of the decade. In a recent companywide livestream to all Facebook employees,
Zuckerberg said, “I think we’re going to be the most forward-leaning company on
remote work at our scale.”
Zuckerberg’s vision and accomplishments earned the respect of his employees. Mike
Vernal, a former Facebook engineer, said, “Most people think day to day or week to
week. Mark thinks century to century.”
The Beat Goes On
Zuckerberg sees a future in which AI is a powerful, positive force in society. Joaquin
Quiñonero Candela was the talented executive who spearheaded the creation of AI
algorithms that precisely matched content with users’ interests and maximized
engagement. He spread the algorithms throughout the company, and Facebook became
an AI powerhouse. But multiple studies confirmed that Facebook’s models that
maximized user engagement—and therefore advertising and revenues—increased
misinformation, hate speech, bias, and political polarization. As criticism intensified,
Quiñonero led efforts to develop additional algorithms to identify hate speech and fake
news, and to make the previous algorithms less biased and harmful to society.
Facebook had set up a “War Room” prior to the 2018 midterm elections to combat
election meddling and agreed to work with governments to come up with regulations to
better ensure individual privacy. Ahead of the 2020 presidential election, amid
mounting criticism, Facebook banned political ads and implemented new algorithmic
measures. “We need to be doing everything that we can to reduce the chances of
violence or civil unrest in the wake of this election,” said Zuckerberg. This supported
Facebook’s stated mission to “Bring the world closer together,” but did not quiet
naysayers, who contended that Facebook was not doing enough to solve the problems
inherent in its platform.
News sources across the political spectrum reported that Facebook’s top management
undermined the company’s internal efforts to mitigate election interference and
polarization—for instance, shelving a project that researchers believed would reduce
divisiveness on the platform, and vetoing or weakening several proposals that would
have reduced the spread of hateful and damaging content.
In mid-2021, Facebook still tied pay incentives to engagement and growth metrics
without regard to bias, fairness, misinformation, and appropriateness. Despite new
guidelines intended to clarify ethical criteria to apply in a variety of situations, decision
makers didn’t follow the guidelines and the company didn’t enforce them.
Zuckerberg and Facebook continue to face intense scrutiny and criticism from many
sources. Moving forward, the decisions Zuckerberg, his team, and managers throughout
the company make—that is, how well they execute essential management functions—will
determine the fate of the company and its people.
Questons:
1. Based on what you know about Zuckerberg and Facebook, what do you
think of him as a manager? Would you want to work for him at
Facebook or elsewhere if he started another company? Why or why
not?
2. Which functions of management do you think Zuckerberg is performing
most and least effectively (and why)?
3. What do you think of Facebook’s shift toward permanent remote
workplaces? What are the costs and benefits for employees?
4. What do you see as Facebook’s role in society today? A monopoly with
too much power? A social platform that provides mostly benefit? How
much can you elaborate?
5. What has been happening in the news lately with Mark Zuckerberg and
Facebook? What have been the ups and downs? What should they do
going forward?
Chapter 4 Case Study
Good News, Bad News
Part I—The $3.75 Mistake
Background Information:
Ted Banacek smiled as the “I’ve got some good news and I’ve got some bad news”
refrain kept repeating itself in his mind. “I can really appreciate it now,” he thought to
himself as he sat at this desk, looking out the window at the empty parking lot.
The good news was that Ted had recently been promoted to the assistant manager’s job
at State Bank’s Westbury Mall Branch. The Westbury Mall Branch, one of the larger,
busier branches in State Bank’s network, had seven full-time tellers and three full-time
new accounts personnel. It was something of an honor to be made assistant manager
after starting at the bank less than one year ago.
For the past four months, Ted had really enjoyed his duties; he was learning about new
aspects of banking, meeting customers, working with employees. Ted was particularly
pleased that his time in the bank’s Management Trainee Program had finally paid off.
Once in an assistant manager’s spot, a branch manager’s job was just a matter of time.
He wanted to do this job exceptionally well.
The bad news was the job was a lot tougher than he had imagined, and now he was
sitting in boiling water with his job on the line—or so he thought. He was upset,
nervous, and just plain confused. As he stared out the window, he recalled how it all
began.
From the first day he worked for her, Ted thought his manager, Janice Schuster,
was a good boss: She was easy to talk to and gave Ted attention and advice. Over
time, she had given him increasing responsibility for running the day-to-day
operations of the branch as she made more and more sales calls on customers
outside the branch. They both grew extremely confident of Ted’s ability, so there
was no concern or fanfare when Janice began her vacation two weeks ago.
Indeed, during her first week away, things went smoothly, and Ted had
experienced no major problems.
He thought the second week would be like the first, and it had been, very briefly,
until about 10:30 on Monday morning. A customer had just found a charge on
his checking account. The charge was four months old, well beyond the normal
grace period established by the bank.
The customer explained: “I just got around to looking at my statements and found this
charge. I’ve been a good customer here for a long time and don’t think I should have to
pay for this one item. I’d like the amount refunded to me. ”
Ted had handled these situations before. He knew the fee was a legitimate one and that
the notification period had elapsed. He also knew that the bank wanted to increase fee
income. He felt strongly that there was no mistake on the bank’s part and declined to
reverse the charge. Ted used his best business manner to explain the situation to the
customer nicely, but the customer was not pleased. Obviously upset, the customer
finally left Ted’s desk and went to the teller line to cash a check.
Ted shrugged his shoulders. “If you’d have brought this in sooner,” he thinks, “we might
have done something. Tough luck.” He then busied himself with other things.
About 10 minutes later, Ted scanned the lobby during a work break. He noticed that the
displeased customer was talking to one of the tellers and Judy Miller, a new accounts
clerk. He could see that it was an animated discussion. At one point, the customer
pointed in Ted’s direction. Both the teller and Judy shook their heads in agreement. He
notices that other customers and tellers seemed to be listening in on their conversation.
He shrugged his shoulders and got back to work.
Later that day, after the branch closed, one of the other tellers asked to talk to Ted
privately. Ted listened as she told him: “I think you should know what Judy was talking
about with that customer today. The customer was complaining that you did not refund
her $3.75 charge. Judy just happened to overhear the complaint and then started
agreeing with the customer that you should have refunded the money and that it was
dumb that you didn’t. I was embarrassed because some of the other customers heard it,
too. Some of the tellers also heard the tale, and now they’re making jokes and
complaining about your ‘$3.75 mistake’ ! ” Ted said, “Thanks for telling me.” He felt his
stomach knot a little.
CASE QUESTIONS
1. Is there a problem here worth dealing with? If yes,
what is the problem and how should it be handled? If
no, why not?
2. What kinds of customer service standards should
exist for all employees in situations like this? How
should those standards be communicated and
enforced?
3. Is Judy Miller “guilty” of insubordination?
4. Should Ted respond to the situation? If yes, how?