Exam 1 Study Guide MGMT 3123 – Principles of Management Fall 2017 Exam Format - 140 total points - 30 multiple choice questions (a-d) at 4 points each - 1 short essay question (I will present you with 2 of the below essay questions, you will select 1 to answer) worth 20 points Essay Questions focus on asking you to apply course concepts to our activities. Also, I am happy to look over your answer before you hand in your exam to make sure you answered all parts of the question and/or explained sufficiently – I won’t tell you if you’re right, but I can tell you if I need more or if you forgot to answer something. 1. Identify two management theories/perspectives that you think most heavily influence the management approach at the Delta Pride catfish skinning plant. Describe the theories/perspectives and how they are evident at Delta Pride. As we discussed at length, Delta Pride’s approach to management is arguably ineffective. What management theory or perspective do you think would help them improve their approach? Explain. 2. Define a competitive advantage. Explain whether the Jonesboro Kroger has a competitive advantage and, if so, in what. Identify and explain at least one strength or weakness that affects this competitive advantage, or lack thereof. Define a sustainable competitive advantage. Using the four criteria discussed in class, address what might need to change in the internal or external environment for Kroger to develop a sustainable competitive advantage. 3. Explain how the culture at Honest Tea could be considered a clan control system. Using one of the ethical perspectives discussed in the text and in class, describe how this use of a clan control system could be considered unethical. Using a second ethical perspective, describe how the use of a clan control system could be considered ethical. Be sure to define any course concepts or terms you use. 4. Consider a bureaucratic control system. Describe what it is, how such a system works, and how you can use it to influence the behavior of employees like Maria (in How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?). How could a bureaucratic control system contribute to an unethical climate (i.e., a “bad barrel”), and what should managers consider when designing a control system to ensure the creation of a more positive ethical climate? Week 1a Activity: Catfish Case MGMT 3123 - Principles of Management Fall 2017 Hilary Schloemer This case is a slightly modified and modernized version of the following article: Kilborn, P. T. (1990). Charges of Exploitation Roil a Catfish Plant. The New York Times, December 10. http://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/10/us/charges-of-exploitation-roil-a-catfish-plant.html?pagewanted=all INDIANOLA, Miss., Dec. 8— Charlean Campbell runs a skinning machine at the Delta Pride Catfish plant here. After a fish is decapitated and eviscerated, Ms. Campbell slides one side of it over a blade imbedded in the surface of a stainless steel table that tears off the skin. She does the other side, then the back. Ms. Campbell, who is 31 years old and the single mother of three young children, must skin 15 fish a minute to earn her $8.10 an hour. Nearby is a supervisor with a stopwatch. If Ms. Campbell lags she can be dismissed, and with poverty and unemployment high in catfish country, there is always another single mother to take her job. Until a few months ago that was her routine. In September, Ms. Campbell and 500 of 1,200 employees went on strike against Delta Pride, the General Motors of catfish processing factories. Wages are a major issue, but another is the way the white managers and owners of Delta Pride treat workers, nearly all of whom are single black mothers. The plant still runs despite the strike because Sunflower County's 9.2 percent unemployment permits the company to tap a ready pool of substitute workers. The workers say the culture of an Old South plantation permeates the industry and is in some ways more offensive than when people picked cotton. At Delta Pride, even restroom breaks are rationed. "Group leaders stand right there in your face with the stopwatch," said Brenda Wade, 27, who transfers fish from the hopper, where they are stunned, to the band saws that decapitate them. "In the cotton field, the man can see you, but he's not right there in your face." Larry W. Joiner, president and chief executive of Delta Pride, denied racism played any role and disputed charges of a plantation mentality. "We have all professional managers, not farmers," Mr. Joiner said, "and they never were farmers." In the cotton fields, he said, workers received wages and nothing else, while at Delta Pride, they receive health and pension benefits. "But I'm not going to tell you that we don't need better supervisor training," he said. "We need to include some sensitivity training." Catfish production is now the biggest business around Indianola, a town of 8,000 people in the heart of the Mississippi Delta, bigger even than cotton. With the mechanization of cotton farming in the 1960's and the unemployment that followed, catfish farming was seen as economic salvation for the chronically poor Delta. But the poverty persists, along with the nation's highest rates of infant mortality, teen-age pregnancy and illiteracy. The catfish industry has provided some jobs, but high unemployment also persists, and wages rarely exceed the $7.25 Federal minimum wage by more than a dollar. At Delta Pride, the average is $7.65, which for a full-time job works out to $15,912 a year, far below the $19,096 that the Federal Government says a single parent with two children needs to stay out of poverty. At a personnel department counter in the plant, a sign says "welfare forms." The company helps workers fill them out. Wages might be higher were it not for the industry's overexpansion. Starting slowly in the 1960's, the Delta's cotton and soybean farmers took to catfish in the 1980's as Atlantic City took to gambling. Like Atlantic City, the catfish establishment acknowledges it went overboard. To process their fish for market, they built 37 plants, mostly in the Delta, enough to process twice the fish the ponds can produce. Three plants have closed in recent months. The overbuilding and the industry's efforts, legal in agriculture, to fix prices at which processors buy from farmers has played havoc with the industry's finances. Farmers are promised 80 cents a pound for fish that costs them around 70 cents to raise. But because most fish farmers also own stakes in the processing plants, they are losing money. Delta Pride is a cooperative in which 155 fish farmers sell their fish to the plant and share in its profits. But for the last two years, the cooperative has lost money, and most of the farmers have had to pay tens of thousands of dollars each to cover the losses. "From a processing standpoint," Mr. Joiner said, "the industry is sick. Processors are selling for less than their cost of production." The processors have responded to the squeeze not only by holding wages down but also by pressing workers to produce more, magnifying conditions that workers and their advocates compare to the Old South. The workers' anger, said Aaron Henry, president of the Mississippi branch of the N.A.A.C.P., arises from "a combination of race and economics, coupled with the philosophy of the plantation." The workers complain about their working environment less in terms of discrimination or racism than in terms of being treated like children. In addition to their half-hour lunch breaks and two other 15-minute breaks a day, Delta Pride workers are allowed six five-minute restroom breaks a week. The penalty for three violations is often the loss of a day's work and then dismissal after three more. Debra Morgan, 27, said: "A woman has personal needs each month. I feel she needs more than five minutes then." Mr. Joiner said the company tries to accommodate such needs but that it also requires supervision to protect reliable workers from doing double duty when others slough off. "After six times," he said, "the supervisor begins to make note. I think the people complaining about it are in some cases people abusing the system." Workers also complain of repetitive motion injuries. Ms. Wade and several other women display the four-inch long, wrist-to-palm scars of operations to relieve the pain of a common repetitive motion injury that without treatment can incapacitate the hand. Ms. Morgan, a skinner who has children ages 10, 7 and 6, said that three years ago she developed pain and tingling in her right hand, signs of the ailment, carpal tunnel syndrome. After her operation, she took three months to recover. To prevent a recurrence, doctors order light duty and tasks requiring different and less strenuous motions. She said she was given light duty for a month and was then returned to skinning. "You either get on skinning or go home," she said the company told her. "It's a situation you have to deal with. If you've got children, you have to work." The workers complain of insensitivity to family demands on mothers. Rosie Mae Willard, 35, has been working as a filleter her seven and a half years at Delta Pride. Single, with children ages 17, 10 and 3, she said the 10-year-old boy started having epileptic seizures five years ago and that the 3-year-old contracted meningitis as an infant. Once a month, she had to shuttle one and then both to doctors two hours south of here. The company switched her to a night shift, making child care arrangements chaotic. Like other workers, Ms. Willard said a few supervisors were civil, like one who had encouraged her to see to her children's health. But that supervisor has been transferred. "He was reassigned to a smaller department," Mr. Joiner said, "because he did not have the performance standards of other individuals." Dick Stevens, the president of Country Skillet Catfish Company, in nearby Isola, said, "I don't think there's any doubt about the plantation mentality around here." He said he did not regulate restroom breaks. Mr. Stevens broke ranks with the industry a few days ago and signed a contract with the union that pays slightly more than Delta Pride last offered its workers. Country Skillet, like Delta Pride, is losing money, and Mr. Stevens said it would be perilous to raise wages significantly because that would give competitors a cost advantage. "But even with our new contract our wages are dangerously low," he said. "People can't live on what we're paying." Questions for Discussion: 1) What strikes you about this case? a. What are important elements of the external environment? b. What are important elements of the internal environment? 2) Given the characteristics of the environment, how could we solve the identified problems? MGMT 3123 – Principles of Management Hilary Schloemer Fall 2017 Week 2b: External Environment Analysis - Kroger Macroenvironment Laws & regulations – What laws and regulations affect Kroger? How do they do so? Economy – What is happening in the economy (local, regional, national, global) and how does it affect Kroger? Technology – What is the current state of relevant technologies? How is technology evolving and advancing? How do these things affect Kroger? Demographics – What are the demographics of the markets Kroger operates within or near? How are those demographics changing and how might they affect Kroger? Social Values – What are the social values of these markets? How are they changing and how might that affect Kroger? MGMT 3123 – Principles of Management Hilary Schloemer Fall 2017 Competitive Environment (Porter’s Five Forces) Rivals/Competitors – Who are Kroger’s rivals (think broadly)? What are they doing that might pose a risk to Kroger? New entrants – Are the barriers to entry in Kroger’s industry high or low? How likely are new entrants in this market and where are they likely to come from? Customers – Who are Kroger’s customers? What do they think is important/what do they expect? Is the customer base varied or small? Are customers final or intermediate consumers? How much do Kroger’s customers control them? Substitutes & complements – What else exists that could fill Kroger’s niche? What might be coming in the future that could do so? What are Kroger’s complements and how are those industries doing/changing? Suppliers – Who are Kroger’s suppliers and how good are their relationships? What are the alternative suppliers and are they appealing (switching costs)? How much do Kroger’s suppliers control them? MGMT 3123 – Principles of Management Hilary Schloemer Fall 2017 Week 2a Activity: How do you Solve a Problem like Maria? Scenario: You are the office manager at a large law firm, and several administrative assistants have come to you over the past few weeks to complain about Maria, another administrative assistant in the firm. They tell you that Maria is often late, sometimes takes longer lunches than is allowed, and spends considerable time on personal telephone calls. When you confront Maria, she acknowledges that although she may come in late occasionally or make personal calls, her work is always done on time, and the quality of her work is impeccable. She suggests that this should be the measure used to evaluate her performance, not small infractions. Questions: • Using your assigned perspective (Scientific Management, Weber’s Bureaucracy, Human Relations, Quantitative Management, Systems Theory), how would you address this situation with Maria? o Should her performance be measured by the quality of her work outputs alone? Why? ▪ If not, what other factors should be considered? Why? o If you desire a behavior change from Maria, what would you do to get it? • What assumptions does your assigned perspective make about employees, management and work relationships? How did these inform your decisions about Maria?
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