Bus220 Case Study

Name:___ Case #:    1        Date:_______10-2-2016___________

1. Case Details

1. Brief Case Summary

Kim and Kevin have personality conflict in our team. Kim and Kevin always oppose each other. Kevin wants to control the whole group. Kim in return, provides thoughtful ideas to the group. Kim engages the group for more ideas than Kevin does.

Kevin bad-mouths Kim privately. Kim has repeatedly conveyed her feelings to the group about Kevin when team members are present. Now, the group members are not willing to be involved in the project because of the personality conflict between Kim and Kevin. The team is under pressure since they work ineffectively and the upcoming deadline of the project.

1. Identify three primary issues and related OB concepts (3 paragraphs)

• Kevin experiences a lack of contact hypothesis towards Kim.  Steven, Sandra and Kevin report in their book, ‘The Canadian Organizational Behavior: Ninth Edition’ that claims, “under certain conditions, people who interact with each other will be less perceptually biased because they have a personal understanding of the other person and their group”(Steven and all, COB, P. 74, 2015). Kevin and Kim do not interact on regular basis so it can be determined they don’t know each other very well to work effectively.  Not identifying what causes disturbance to our teammates can cause potential aggression among the team. Caroline, Vincent and Sebastien express in their Journal “ British Journal of Psychology” that said, “   interpersonal aggressive behaviours are likely to

hamper work teams’ success because these behaviours may negatively affect team

Members and team functioning”(Caroline and all, BJP. Par. 1. 2011).  It is absolutely essential to succeed in the project by making our team members work with each other first to proceed to move to the next step.  

•    The group is identified as Neuroticism, which is defined by the same book “COB” as, A personality dimension describing people who tend to be anxious, insecure, depressed, self-conscious and temperamental”(Steven and all, COB, P.35, 2015).  Due to the upcoming deadline of the project, Kim and Kevin’s personality conflict the group has been working ineffectively since the teamwork element is compromised without possible agreements.
• Self-efficacy is another issue the team faces, which is also described in the book as, “ A person’s belief that he or she has the ability, motivation, correct role perceptions and favorable situation to complete a task successfully”(Steven and all, COB, P. 61, 2015 ). Having to have this problem exists in the group will cause delays and disagreements or possible failure in the organization.
•  

1. Identify three primary Internal & External Factors and briefly explain

Internal Factors:

1. Lack of values and ethics, “Kevin bad-mouths Kim”.
2. Miscommunication.
3. Different personal perceptions.

External Factors:

1. Miscommunication.

2. Competition, who wants to lead the project BETWEEN Kevin and Kim?

3. Pressure of upcoming deadline, “Stress”.

1. Alternatives to Solve Issues

1. Criteria & Assessment

Start by transferring the options you’ve identified from the previous section.  Next - add 3 criteria – 1 qualitative, 1 quantitative and 1 either qualitative or quantitative to the boxes under each of these headings below.  Finally – using your criteria, decide if each option will have a positive (+), negative (-), or neutral (N) outcome and place one of these symbols under each criteria. This should clearly indicate which option is best.