The 12 Angry Men Case

The 12 Angry Men Case

Dennis Ojwang

Organizational Management 701

February 26, 2015

        When this movie was made, no one could have depicted that it would greatly speak of the ever changing dynamics of our world today. Immigration and diversity seem to have plagued the world now more than ever and it is no surprise that the business world has been changed tremendously. When this movie came out in 1957, there wasn’t much diversity as we see it today. Upon watching this movie, various topics covered, ranging from power and influence, ethical decision making and diversity, group formation and dynamics, cultural diversity, organizational culture, conflict management and then, there’s an introduction of Fiedler’s leadership model.

        The setting of the movie offers consistency, investment, rigidity, autonomy and fairness in terms of assessing different levels of conflict and negotiation. I would say that the most evident styles of conflict in the movie are accommodating, compromising and collaborating conflict resolution styles. The jury is involved in a high profile case about a young boy who, if found guilty, then he will be sent to the electric chair. There are several topics that are related to organizational management class that will be portrayed throughout this jury process. The jury, in determining the fate of the young man, who murdered his father, must closely work together and whether consciously or unconsciously, they have been introduced to the forming, storming, norming, performing and transforming, that are involved in the group formation process. The conflict resolution styles will later work but they were laid in motion by Juror 8.

        When the movie starts, eleven jurors believe that they have been presented with an easy case to handle. They thought that they would just deliberate and soon everyone will be going home early. They are locked in a room where they have to make a decision about the defendant’s fate.  Groups that do not agree on goals and are low in cohesiveness tend to have negative results. They tend to focus on individuals versus the group, which decreases the overall effectiveness of the team (Ivancevich, Konopaske, & Matteson, 2014, p. 281). The goal of the jurors was to reach a decision while operating under constraints. Their intention was primarily not aimed at destroying one another. There are chances that they might fail to even reach an agreement. In this case, there has to be persuasion, collaboration and even bargaining agreement.

        The framing in this case nearly worked if had it not been for Juror 8 who introduced argumentative analysis. The evidence presented was concocted in such a manner that it could have been ab “open and shut” case. Framing was used in this case when the evidence pertaining to the knife that was used as the murder weapon although the defendant has said that he lost it. Another example was when an old man said that he heard the defendant say “I’ll kill you. The old man said that he was in his apartment when the shouting was taking place, he saw the defendant flee. There was evidence presented that an old lady saw the young man kill his father although it was also heard that at the same moment, there was a passing train. What is framing? “In the USA, a frame-up (frame-up) or setup is the act of framing someone, that is, providing false evidence or false testimony in order to falsely prove someone guilty of a crime.”(Wikipedia.com).