Case Study Medford Univeristy

John Smith

Business 502

Case Study 5.1

March 20, 2016

Introduction

Medford University is a research university with a student body of approximately 10,000 students. The university has an outstanding liberal arts program, the medical school is known nationally, and it has one of the top law programs in the world. Medford has over 12,000 full-time staff and faculty employees. The majority of the school’s employees work within the schools medical center. Over the last year, the university has had great financial problems due to competitors’ that are also universities. Most of the donations that the school has been receiving are not enough to hold the weight of the school and enrollments are not where they should be due to competitors. The school is under intense pressure to reduce costs health care regulations and insurance coverage. The president of the university has targeted a task force to initiate change in the school’s financial state and to also create a better image for the school.

Why did President Kobayashi appoint a task force to consider the issue of fringe benefits? She could have ask the university’s human resources department to design a plan.

President Kobayaski employed a task force to deliberate the issue of fringe benefits in order to promote collective decision making and team work. Group decision-making is when individuals collectively make a choice from the alternatives before them. The decisions between task force groups allows great minds to come together who have experience from different departments. The only disadvantage they may receive is that it can be a slow and time intensive process. Individuals from different parts of the organization come together to discuss critical issues and find solutions that will benefit all personnel in the organization. It becomes stress-free for employees to accept and adapt to the changes when departments have representatives participating in the decision making.

Should the president anticipate that all member of the task force strive to cut university expenses? What actions can the president take to increase the likelihood that the task force members have this objective as a major priority?

Generally speaking the president may not only push to cut expenses but also to find a solution that would fit the financial state of the university. Also, most employees want to get high salaries and benefits and the university’s employees may also already think if expenses are cut salaries may indeed be increased, but that isn’t the main focus that the president is trying to reach. As long as president Kobayashi is trying to improve the financial status of the university she should work more with her taskforce. The taskforce members will feel that their leader is just as involved as they are and she also has a lot of the answers about financial statuses compared to what they know.