Case Study: Analysis

Question:

Prepare a Report on your analysis of the given case study based on the case study questions.

Answer:

As discussed by Ludwig and Frazier (2012), the management of organizational behavior is a vital aspect of the management domain, which applies psychology related principles and depends on the analysis of the relative behavior and the respective attitude of the employees in an organization, with the utmost motive of improving the scale of individual performance and group-based operations for the organization. As argued by Elias et al. (2012), the workplace attitude is a decisive facet for controlling the respective emotions of the employees that, in turn, drive their behavior in the organization.

The report primarily analyzes the given case of Matalvi Engineering joiner Barbara and the eventual consequence of her losing the job. Initially, appointed as the Assistant Cost Accountant, Barbara found herself at the MIS department and that too, assigned with clerical jobs rather than professional operations. Later, she attended a workshop with Chief Accountant Bob, without consulting her immediate boss Peter. As an immediate consequence, she was subject to her boss’s verbal offences and personal distress that led her to write a letter raising complaints regarding her lack of work and her boss’s negative attitude. At a critical point of transfer or her resignation, she applied formally for the post of Assistant Accountant, as per Vernon’s suggestion. But to her misery, the Chief Accountant rejected her application and Peter sacked her.

Identification of the problems evident from the case

Job Dissatisfaction

 Barbara was not satisfied with her job roles at the MIS department. After two weeks of working for the compilation of the management report for Big Brother, Barbara assessed her work to resemble to that of a clerk such as photocopying documents, collecting and compiling the report documents as well as binding, punching and stamping the report pages. Besides, she did not enjoy delivering the documents to the senior management departments and analyzed her volume of work to be quite low. Eventually, she was also subject to her boss, Peter’s verbal offences and negative attitude towards her.

The problems relating to the emotion of the employee are Bored, Unhappy-Sad-Gloomy, and Distressed-Fearful-Jittery.

Barbara was bored of her assigned responsibilities at the MIS department. She found the work volume to be low and uninteresting. Being informed about Peter’s discontent with her not intimating him about her workplace Barbara was full of panic to join her workplace. Later, she was attacked verbally by Peter, which made her sad. Later after the revision of the Big Brother project plans, she was distressed. As a result, she had disagreements with her relatives, outside the workplace. She became fearful about losing her job in less than a year.

Cognitive Dissonance

Barbara believed that she was eligible for the core Accountancy operations rather than what she does at the MIS department. Her beliefs, feelings as well as her behavior were inconsistent of one another. As a result, she was in a state of Cognitive Dissonance.

Psychological Harassment

The inconsistency of some of the organizational head’s actions or decisions and Peter’s negative behavior towards her provoked her to mentally reach a situation of either being transferred from her current job or straightaway resigning. She was definitely being psychologically harassed due to facing the unexpected conduct and actions that obviously affected her self-respect.

Analysis of the problems evident from the case

Job Dissatisfaction analysis

As argued by Si and Li (2012), according to the EVLN theory, the responses to Job Dissatisfaction are-

Exit- Trying to leave or transfer from the situation

Barbara consistently looked forward to change her department at the MIS and even with utter enthusiasm, attended the Management workshop at Auckland. Later, she applied for a change in her job roles. 

Voice- Change/solve the situation or lastly complain

Barbara reached a position of opting between a transfer from her current job role and ultimately resigning from her job. She was also forced to lodge a complaint letter regarding Peter’s negative attitude towards her.

The other responses are Loyalty and Neglect. As for Loyalty, Barbara held patience for the job situations to improve, but she did not Neglect her job.

Emotional problems analysis

The reasons for the emotional problems that aroused are due to the transition of Barbara’s initial beliefs to the current behavior in the office.

Initially Barbara was enthuciastic about joining the job, and she had beliefs about herself being fit for the Accountant job roles. But, as she found herself in the misfit job, she experienced boredom about her job role. Analytically, the feelings are driven by the person’s beliefs. The expectance-value theory, the beliefs or the expectations lead to the judgement of the facet and results in the person’s feelings regarding the facet. Here, Barbara believed that she was eligible for the Accountancy jobs and expected somewhat similar jobs at the office. But, being placed at the MIS department, she was confused and did not receinve her expected outcomes. As a result, she was under a gloomy influence. She found the work volume to be low and uninteresting. Being informed about Peter’s discontent with her not intimating him about her workplace Barbara was full of panic to join her workplace. Later, she was attacked verbally by Peter, which made her sad. Later after the revision of the Big Brother project plans, she was distressed. As a result, she had disagreements with her relatives, outside the workplace. She became fearful about losing her job in less than a year.

Cognitive Dissonance analysis

Although Barbara was highly anxious of her corporate future, she could not coordinate her actions and her perceptions. Initially, she was comforted by Bob, who assured her of improving the situation, but later, she was verbally abuse by Peter. She was once again promised by Bob to raise the chaotic situation in front of the senior management against Peter and she accordingly wrote a formal letter that comprised all her experiences. Barbara was under a lot of distress. Later she discovered that even Vernon who has been a positive negotiator for her, was eclipsed by Peter’s Big Brother Project plans and that he tried to deviate from the issue. Even her formal letter of applying for the Accountancy job role was rejected by Bob, though she had been earlier recommended to do such. As discussed by Desai et al. (2014), all the transition of the mixed feelings and repercussions drove her to a confused state of mind, with no being able to make out who to believe and what exactly to perform. So she reached a state of mental cognitive dissonance.

Psychological harassment analysis

As it is evident from the case, Barbara was subject to a highly unexpected set of actions and conduct from her boss and the other operational heads. Being a woman, she was still subject to verbal attacks from her boss, Peter. The harsh allegations from her boss did violate her dignity and she eventually lost her psychological integrity. According to Neall and Tuckey (2014), as a result, her work environment turned to be harmful and drove her into a state Psychological harassment.

Conclusion

The report thus provides insight into the analysis of the case given, in compliance to the domain of Workplace emotions and attitudes. The study indicates the emotional and psychological issues faced in the organization as per the case. It has pointed out the problems namely Job Dissatisfaction, emotional issues namely Bored, Unhappy-Sad-Gloomy, and Distressed-Fearful-Jittery, Cognitive dissonance and psychological harassment. The report has also analyzed the issues critically relevant to the case. Besides, the study also lists a number of recommendations for dealing with the problems.

Recommendations

Dealing with Job Dissatisfaction

The company should consider the following aspects-

Effective Communication: The Company should arrange meetings to communicate with the employees, preventing their perceptions to hurt their morale. As opined by Ruck et al. (2012), the positive communication helps in ultimately reducing the issues relating to the dissatisfaction towards the job.

Cooperative supervision: According to Palanski et al. (2014), the leading heads of the Company must carry motivating opinions regarding their subordinates to achieve good leadership and shrug off bitter experiences.

Respond effectively: The supervisors and the chief operational heads must respond well to any reported problems from the employees’ part. As argued by Thompson and Phua (2012), they must pay attention to solve the sub-ordinate’s respective issues instead of acting egoistically. 

Dealing with emotional problems

The philosophy of emotional issues is that, the longer they are suppressed, with more intensity they are expressed. According to Bjorkelo (2013), the boss has the primary responsibility to share his sub-ordinate’s issues without expressing his own rage about it. The smartest step is to predict the triggers and simplify the employee’s problem. It is essential to grant the employees adequate personal space and maintain their dignity.

Dealing with cognitive dissonance

The issues regarding the cognitive dissonance of the employees should be dealt by the following measures.

According to Kenworthy et al. (2014), the employees must be trained to first address the issues mentioned below-

As discussed by Eccles et al. (2012), the employees must strictly be intimated about the Circle of influence that states their Strong influence zones, Weak influence zones, No-influence zones, Areas of direct control and areas of Indirect control.

Dealing with psychological harassment

According to Mathieu et al. (2014), the following steps may help in dealing with psychological harassments of the employees-

• Man oeuvre dignified inter-personal communication

• Effectively dissolve organizational conflicts

• Resort to specialized resources to prevent such cases

• Have 1-to-1 sessions with the employees to resolve the issues

• Predict and root out harassment causes

• Bring the employees’ issues to attention

References

Bjørkelo, B., 2013. Workplace bullying after whistleblowing: future research and implications. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 28(3), pp.306-323.

Desai, S.D., Chugh, D. and Brief, A.P., 2014. The implications of marriage structure for men’s workplace attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors toward women. Administrative Science Quarterly, 59(2), pp.330-365.

Eccles, R.G., Ioannou, I. and Serafeim, G., 2012. The impact of a corporate culture of sustainability on corporate behavior and performance (No. W17950). National Bureau of Economic Research.

Elias, S.M., Smith, W.L. and Barney, C.E., 2012. Age as a moderator of attitude towards technology in the workplace: work motivation and overall job satisfaction. Behaviour & Information Technology, 31(5), pp.453-467.

Kenworthy, J., Fay, C., Frame, M. and Petree, R., 2014. A meta‐analytic review of the relationship between emotional dissonance and emotional exhaustion. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 44(2), pp.94-105.

Ludwig, T.D. and Frazier, C.B., 2012. Employee engagement and organizational behavior management. Journal of Organizational Behavior Management, 32(1), pp.75-82.

Mathieu, C., Neumann, C.S., Hare, R.D. and Babiak, P., 2014. A dark side of leadership: Corporate psychopathy and its influence on employee well-being and job satisfaction. Personality and Individual Differences, 59, pp.83-88.

McShane, S. and Von Glinow, M. (2008). Organizational behavior. Boston: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

Neall, A.M. and Tuckey, M.R., 2014. A methodological review of research on the antecedents and consequences of workplace harassment. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 87(2), pp.225-257.

Palanski, M., Avey, J.B. and Jiraporn, N., 2014. The effects of ethical leadership and abusive supervision on job search behaviors in the turnover process. Journal of Business Ethics, 121(1), pp.135-146.

Ruck, K. and Welch, M., 2012. Valuing internal communication; management and employee perspectives. Public Relations Review, 38(2), pp.294-302.

Si, S. and Li, Y., 2012. Human resource management practices on exit, voice, loyalty, and neglect: organizational commitment as a mediator. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 23(8), pp.1705-1716.

Thompson, E.R. and Phua, F.T., 2012. A brief index of affective job satisfaction. Group & Organization Management, 37(3), pp.275-307.

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