Business 5301 – Organizational Theory
Winter 2014
Memorial University of Newfoundland
Case Analysis
A case analysis method of study provides experiential education—learning by doing. Therefore, the amount of learning students receive from an individual case is directly related to the amount of work they put into it.
A major goal of the use of cases is to allow students to gain experience in problem solving.
Cases help students learn to:
• Develop an understanding of problems • Learn how to dissect various factors relevant to problems • Learn how to think creatively about solutions to problems • Learn to critically and thoroughly evaluate alternative solutions • Learn
…show more content…
It helps to identify potential alternatives and then use the situational analysis to assess those alternatives. To help differentiate relevant from irrelevant information, students should confront each piece of information with the following question: does this provide support for or ammunition against a recommendation and if so, how? Key strengths and opportunities generally provide evidence to support alternative courses of action while key weaknesses and threats provide evidence against. Hint: think like a trial lawyer – facts!
3. Alternatives This section should identify three or four viable alternative solutions to the problem and discuss the positive and negative outcomes for each. For example, one possible alternative for nearly every problem is to do nothing. What will happen if nothing is done? Will the company continue to face declining sales? Will a competitor or the government take legal action? Will the competition continue to erode our market share? While it is difficult to thoroughly discuss more than a few viable alternatives, students should be encouraged to identify ALL possible alternatives before weeding them out or combining them.
Be Creative!
Consider the alternatives that appear at first to be a bit ridiculous. What would happen if you do that? Are there any reasons why it might work? Many instructors would much
A case study is an intensive type of research that involves a process in which detailed information is collected
A case study is “a method of analysis and a specific research design for examining a problem” (University of Southern California, 2010). It can be used to analyze a person, place, event, or other subjects in order to help discover mitigating issues, misconceptions, failures, trends, or recommendations (USC, 2010). Case studies will be used to gain a better understanding of situations and topics to help others make better policies, procedures, and decisions (USC, 2010).
A case study is a puzzle that has to be solved. The first thing to remember about writing a case study is that the case should have a problem for the readers to solve. The case should have enough information in it that readers can understand what the problem is and, after thinking about it and analyzing the information; the readers should be able to come up with a proposed solution. Writing an interesting case study is a bit like writing a detective story. You want to keep your readers very interested in the situation.
2. To introduce students to the process of problem identification and potential solution analysis that will be used in case discussions throughout the semester.
The objective of this report was to analyze Vivint-Smart Home Solutions’ performance in terms of organisational culture, management and leadership styles and motivation and how organizations have been affected by them. In this report, we identified that Vivint has an association of Hierarchy and Market organisational culture, relationship-oriented and task-oriented leadership styles and servant leadership style. Moreover, it demonstrated that Vivint has intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. These resulted in successful and unsuccessful practices of Vivint based on the Undercover Boss TV series based on three aspects which have been mentioned above. In addition, this report critiqued the Undercover Boss method for discovering the problems within an organisation and recommended other processes for uncovering issues. The results showed that organisational culture, management and leadership styles as well as motivation played significant roles in Vivint’s performance. Recommendations have been made to improve the unsuccessful practices of Vivint such as training managers to be empathic problem solver, examining and updating the working condition regularly, bonus for employees who give feedback voluntarily on management processes and offering fund to employees who are in need of support.
This section provides the context for the issue / organization being examined. It is necessary and important that the class be given a feel for the type of organization and industry being examined, the marketplace in which that industry operates, and the overall business environment in which the discussion and analysis will take place.
Because the case is nondirected, there is ample opportunity for students to be creative in their solution approaches. Thus, it is impossible to provide a single solution here that is applicable to every student's work. As a starting point in evaluating students' solutions, we provide a solution that is based on the questions contained in online Case Questions section. It is important, however, to recognize that this solution is merely a starting point, and student work should be graded at least as much on the
Because the case is nondirected, students have ample opportunity to be creative in their solution approaches. Thus, it is impossible to provide a single solution here that applies to every student’s work. As a starting point in evaluating students’ solutions, we provide a solution based on the questions in the online Case Questions section. However, this solution is merely a starting point, and student work should be graded at least as much on thought processes, assumptions used, creativity, and the ability to
Case studies are one of the first types of research to be used in the qualitative methodology and repeating the study several times will lead to the increased reliability of the study (Starman, 2013). This methodology is appropriate because it will allow for data collection results to be generalized based on the theoretical propositions and not the population (Harrison et al. 2017).
According to the CMSA (Case Management Society of America) and several others organizations that case management alone means that it is a collective system that helps the patient and their family needs through the communication, available resources of promoted quality, and cost-effective outcomes.
While we will mostly concentrate our alternatives on the three points mentioned above, we will also include other alternatives, even if they may not be realistic or feasible in the short/medium term.
Basing on the information provided in the case material and your class learning, submit a written assignment (800~1200 words excluding bibliography) answering all of the following case questions. Answer the questions in the order they are asked and answer each question separately instead of weaving several questions together. Make use of headings/subheadings wherever appropriate to facilitate the instructor’s reading and understanding of your assignment. No executive summary is necessary.
In case study research, an investigator studies an individual or small group of individuals with an unusual condition or situation. Case studies are typically clinical in scope. The investigator (often a clinical sociologist) sometimes uses self‐report measures to acquire quantifiable data on the subject. A comprehensive case study, including a long‐term follow‐up, can last months or years.
Spokane Industries has contracted Franklin Electronics for an 18 month product development contract. Franklin Electronics is new to using project management methodologies and have not been exposed to earned value management methodologies. Even though Franklin and Spokane have worked together in the past, they have mainly used fixed price contracts with little to no stipulations. For this project Spokane Industries is requiring Franklin Electronics to use formalized project management methodologies, earned value cost schedules, and schedules for reports and meetings. Since Franklin Electronics had had no experience with earned value management, the cost accounting group was trained in the methodology in order to bid for the
There are several areas of interest that Vitality Health Enterprises have to address. To start, we can look at the earliest changes to the performance management system that were brought about in the transition between the founding CEO and the new CEO. When Williams came on board at Vitality Health Enterprises, the organization was in decline due to the crash of ’08 and Williams wanted to address the stagnating revenues by bringing about a lean organization with a focus on innovation among their R&D department. However, I am wary of the reasoning behind the inefficiencies of the old performance management system as an antecedent of stagnating revenues. In my opinion from a contingency theory perspective of organizational change, Williams could have begun her tenure by measuring the changing business environment (due to the recession) and identifying whether the subunits that comprise Vitality Health Enterprises were aligned and best suited for the changing and turbulent environment. By analyzing the environment, Williams would have gone into the needs assessment and analysis of the legacy performance management system with a clearer strategy in mind, and a purpose of aligning this new performance system with the new strategy. However, the purpose of the new system was based around incentivizing strong employee performance through additional compensation methods and additional employee accountability.