Ramsey Stockwell Case Study

Ramsey Stockwell

1. What are the major issues in this case?

The major issues that surround the Ramsey Stockwell case start with the practices of the upper level management. Ramsey Stockwell, the vice president of production, is where some of the issues originate from. Since he is the person who is in control of the product that comes and goes from the company, it is his role to inform other members of management what is going on during the process of production. Forecasts for the future are necessary for the whole process to flow smoothly and to maximize their output potential. The problem has risen because Stockwell, whether out of pride or actual misinterpretation of the facts, does not give accurate status updates while products are in production. This makes it difficult for the people above him to make decisions on contracts with clients and impossible to give the potential clients accurate time scales for the completion of their product. One reason he may be obscure when updating his colleagues on the status of production is his attention to detail in relation to the aerospace metal fabrication. The aerospace industry is the most profitable and probably the most interesting as he is working with materials that are highly valuable and so unique. But the uniqueness of the material also brings about its specificity and therefore raises the buyer's expectations. Another major issue that may become a problem with the case is Dick Benson being the son of Fred Benson and there being an emotional family tie between these higher management positions. We predict that there will be issues if the son does not live up to the expectations of the company's needs and that people who are more qualified for jobs will be overlooked because of these ties. The other problem that is pointed out is the fact that the person in charge of the sales department, Rob Bronson, often overlooks the levels of management by delegating things out to people and stepping over official processes. By stepping over the processes by which management has in place, he could jeopardize the power that the managers have over their workers and make the workers question the abilities of the managers.

2. What are Stockwell's vertical sources of power?

As stated in our textbook there are many different vertical sources of power including: formal position, resources, control of decision premises and information, network centrality, and people. Ramsey Stockwell utilizes the vertical powers of the control of resources, the control of decision premises and the control of people. Stockwell has the power to control the production of the plant and has used this power to "pry some new production facilities out of the board of directors" (Daft, 2010, pg. 552). Ramsey also uses the control of information by not giving reliable information to the sales