RECENT ASSIGNMENT

Individual Case Study 2
Problem Statement:
You need to consider how you will identify the range of issues and problems in the following problem statement.
Lee Bineesh is a highly qualified but aggressive Singaporean CEO educated in Sydney who has just taken over as CEO of a company we shall call VRD Industries located in Singapore. Lee had a track record of working in fast cycle markets and achieving above average growth in developing industries. Lee’s arrival at VRD was greeted with much initial surprise followed by a steely resolve to change things. For over 40 years, the company manufactured component parts for the auto industry in both Europe, GM in the US and other US automakers. Recently, VRD has also exported to GM in China which has been identified as a growth market. VRD operated as three product-divisional strategic business units (SBUs) all located within the same industrial complex: 1) Automotive Parts 2) Infotainment and 3) Electrical & Energy. Each SBU has its own Divisional General Manager with a small office staff, a manufacturing manager, Quality Control Engineers, Process Supervisors, leading hands and upwards of 150 staff working within each factory centre. The three SBUs shared the normal Head Office functions of R&D, Technical, HR, Sales & Marketing, Accounting and Warehouse and Distribution. The top management team comes from the main VRD Head Office structure (8 senior managers). Middle management consists of about12 managers in each factory. Functional or line managers consist of another 6 managers.
Lee took over from Frank Delacy who had worked his way up in the business from the factory and had retired at age 70. For over 30 years, Frank had a steady team of managers at each of the SBUs including middle managers. Staff turnover was low with most managers (functional staff included) having been with the company for over 20 years. Staff loyalty to Frank was extremely high. Changes had been few. Despite discontinuities within the auto industry, Frank and some senior sales staff had built up long-term relationships at Detroit resulting in a fairly consistent sales growth with consistent supply contracts to Europe. Recently, discontinuities and the relentless pace of competition from China, Taiwan and Vietnam for component exports placed heavy pressure on VRD to compete. A new line of managers at Detroit following the GFC and aggravated supply contracts out of Europe meant sales had halved. This coincided with Frank’s retirement placing heavy pressure on Lee and the top team. Lee also appointed a change manager, May Wong, to assist the divisional and manufacturing managers to implement a change agenda. After some weeks of constant review, Lee realised that the company was too slow in production, had old job design methods and that conflict existed between the SBU divisional managers and their teams and between each SBU.
The basis of the conflict related to maintaining the current processes and systems that had held the company in good stead for many years and the type of change being imposed by Lee. For his part, Lee wanted an agile company, highly responsive to shifting markets, a cooperative team, and a highly efficient production process. It was no surprise then that each divisional manager had been advised that a staff reduction of 10 per cent had to occur within the next 6 months. This was difficult for senior management who had long-standing friendships with lower managers and line staff dating back to the 1990s and in some cases, the 1980s. Indeed, some factory staff had been on the same machine and processes for over 20 years. That processes needed to change and that manager’s had to “get off their backsides and do some real work” had suddenly become the ‘new’ culture. This shocked the senior team as they were more familiar with Frank’s easier fine-tuning and collaborative style. The problems and issues facing VRD came to a head for Lee after May’s quite detailed interviews and assessment of staff practices and policies. Mays exit polls consisting of qualitative questionnaires and several focus groups revealed further issues. Warehousing and Distribution staff accused sales and marketing of imposing unrealistic delivery estimates. Sales and marketing accused warehousing of being ‘too slow’. Fractious lines of communication started to appear within groups in each factory since more pressure was being placed on divisions for more efficiency. Also, following Frank’s departure, the impact of less capital expenditure and funds for resources appeared to create conflict between each SBU manager competing for a decreasing slice of the pie. This led to falling morale, a clash between managers for updating technical processes, and lower-level staff accusing managers of ruining a perfectly good company. After 6 months of constant conflict and falling sales, Lee asks May to also hire an outside change consultancy firm to assist the organisation deal with its next phase of growth. Lee was struggling for control and May was being flooded with an increasing list of day-to-day issues.
Use the VRD Industries case information from Case Study 1.
Required: Based on your analysis of VRD Industries in Case Study 1, you are now required to continue the external change consultancy role. Case study 2 requires you to implement change intervention models to solve the company’s range of change issues. Use the same list of issues and problems and assumptions from Case Study 1. However, if needed, add additional relationship and behavioural assumptions based on less than perfect information as follows:
1. Intervention 1: Use the ideas presented on pages 191-210 in your text. Be creative. Design an intervention based on organizational learning to solve the problems of VRD (400-500 words). Justify why the intervention will be useful and how it will work. Note: You may also use the process interventions in Chapter 7 of your text if it relates to organizational learning;
2. Intervention 2: Use the team building process intervention on P240. Justify why the intervention will be useful and how it will work (300-500 words)
3. Intervention 3: Use the integrated strategic change intervention in Chapter 9 of your text. Justify why the intervention will be useful and how it will work (400-500 words).
4. In relation to intervention number 2, design a team building survey similar to (but not the same as) Table 7.2, page 241-242 in your text. Your survey should be related to the facts in the case. Include the survey as a Table(s) in text. Then explain in 400-500 words why you have chosen the variables in the survey.
5. Evidence: From the information relating to intervention 1, 2 and 3, use 7-10 separate references from the study book that support your selections of interventions and why you used them (900-1000 words). How can theory here be used as evidence to support your claims?
Guidelines to Case Study 2
Required: Based on your analysis of VRD Industries in Case Study 1, you are now required to continue the external change consultancy role. Case study 2 requires you to implement change intervention models to solve the company’s range of change issues. Use the same list of issues and problems and assumptions from Case Study 1. However, if needed, add additional relationship and behavioural assumptions based on less than perfect information as follows:
A. Intervention 1: This intervention is asking you to be creative in choosing an organisational learning technique to get people to work more cooperatively and yet more creatively. For instance, if you used a ladder of inference, how would this work and how would it help to solve the issues in VRD? Please quote from some classical articles in this field such as Espedal, B. (2008), Murray, P (2002), Argyris, C (1993)
B. Intervention 2: Use the team building process intervention. Describe and explain why this process will be useful and how it can be implemented within VRD given the facts in the case. For the team building exercise, use the intervention techniques explained on P240 through 242 of Waddell et al. Try to use team skills or behaviours that seem applicable for VRD, not what is in the text. Use the text table structure however as a basis to build and describe your team building process intervention. Please use and quote relevant theoretical points from at least the following readings in your Module books including Bulla, R. Bell, C. (1986), Murray, P. Millett, B. (2011), Kirkman, B.L., & Rosen, B.( 2000).
C. Intervention 3: Use the integrated strategic change intervention explained on P311 through 314 of Waddell et al. Please note that this intervention is not asking you to do a Strategic Plan as in Strategic Management. Rather, it is focused on developing an Integrated Strategic Change Process. Please use and quote relevant theoretical points from at least the following readings: Cummings, TG 1997, Greiner, L. Bhambri, A. (1989).
D. In relation to intervention number 2, design a team building survey similar to (but not the same as) Table 7.2, page 241-242 in your text. Here, have a closer look at the problems and issues in the case. Now if you were May or Lee, what things would you like to see in your team? (e.g. innovative thinking).
E. Evidence: This is very explicit in Point 5 above. There are enough references listed above for you to demonstrate how theory is linked to practice.
Good luck with Case Study 2 and I look forward to reading it!
Assignment 3 – Case study 2 Marking Criteria Sheet
Extensive ---- Minor level of evidence

Possible Mark Criteria 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 YourMark
1 15 Intervention 1: Quality of organisationl learning intervention
2 15 Intervention 2: Quality of team building intervention
3 15 Intervention 3: Quality of integrated strategic change intervention
4 15 Team building survey design
5 15 Evidence: Clear use of recommended references
6 5 Quantity of your research – did you collect enough information and write enough to explain the problem and its solutions
5 The overall structure and logical development of your case report
7 Communication aspects of your presentation
8 5 Referencing (if applicable)
9 10 Writing clarity
100 Tertiary standard: does your analysis reach a high standard of research?
Guidelines for late Assignments
Please note that unless prior arrangements are made with your lecturer/tutor, all assignments are due to be uploaded onto EASE on the study desk by the due date. Due to fairness and equity for all other students who submit their assignments on time, if a student submits an assignment after the due date without (prior) approval of the examiner then a penalty of 5% of the total marks gained by the student for the assignment may apply for each working day late up to ten working days at which time a mark of zero may be recorded.
If you require an extension for a legitimate reason (e.g. ill health, personal circumstances not including work commitments, or for some other critical reason), please seek an extension on or before the due date by writing to the course examiner listed earlier.