AOU – OMU
BMHR5103
Assignment 2: Case Study
OBJECTIVES:
1. To evaluate the student
understanding on the basic principles of HRM with enhancement of critical
thinking in current HRM issues
2. To highlight the link
between theory and the practicality of HRM through research and case study.
EVALUATION
This assignment accounts for
30 % of the total marks for the course.
GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS TO
STUDENTS
1. Your assignment should be
typed using 12 point Times New Roman font and 1.5 line spacing.
4. You must submit your
assignment on LMS by 10 May 2016,no assignments will be accepted after
this date.
5. Your assignment should be
prepared individually. You should not copy another person’s assignment. You
should also not plagiarize another person’s work as your own.
This assignment should be
completed individually. You are required to submit the following assignment
case study analysis:
You are required to analyze
and answer a case with regards to human resource management issues pertaining
to an organization given. You are required to work individually. Total of words
is not to exceed 2000 (Questions included). You are allowed to discuss with
your classmates but you are also required to answer the questions assigned to
you individually. Please read the case as in Appendix 1 and answer the
following questions:
Questions (Each carries 10
marks):
1. How would you evaluate
Harvey’s decision to bring Hopwood Manufacturing to the university? Did he make
any mistakes? Should he have done anything differently? Were there warning
signs that he should have recognized, and, if so, how should he have responded
to those signals?
2. How did the
characteristics of the organization and the events that transpired in the
previous academic year affect Harvey’s situation? Would the problem have been
different if the anonymous e-mail hate message had not been sent?
3. Who are the stakeholders
that Harvey must consider as he contemplates his next steps? What are the
interests of each stakeholder group?
4. Why did Harvey just sit
there silently in the face of these stereotypical and discriminatory
statements? Why didn’t he do something then while he had the recruiters sitting
across the table from him?
5. What specific action(s)
should Harvey take at the end of the case and in what time frame?
NOTES:
Assignments should be
submitted according to the fixed date.
Plagiarism is a serious
offence. Those who are caught doing it will not be given any scores. If you are
not sure what is meant by plagiarism, refer to the various websites which
discuss this matter, e.g. owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts.
Appendix 1:
HOPWOOD MANUFACTURING:
SEEKING TO HIRE THE BEST AND
THE BRIGHTEST, OR NOT (A)
Professor
Robert Harvey did not notice the music streaming from his radio as he drove
home on the evening of April 14. He was stunned by what he had just heard from
Hopwood recruiters in a wrap-up meeting. They had interviewed a dozen Lambert
University students, nine for management training positions and three for
summer internships. Had he misunderstood what they had said? Could
representatives of a Fortune 500 company actually state that they could not
place a young Hispanic woman in a manufacturing facility in the South? It was
2006 after all. He did not want to believe it, but that is what they said.
Harvey wondered what he should do.
LAMBERT
UNIVERSITY
Lambert
University, a small, church-affiliated liberal arts institution located in
rural northern Iowa, had an enrollment of approximately 2,500 students. It was
founded by a group of Mennonites in the late 1800s, and it graduated mostly
teachers and preachers through the first half of the twentieth century.
However, beginning in the 1960s Lambert began to develop a strong reputation in
the natural sciences and in accounting while continuing to maintain a strong
education program. By the early part of the new century, the university’s
pre-medicine program was among the finest in the Midwest, and the accounting
department was one of the best in the nation.
Eighty
per cent of the university’s students came from rural northern Iowa, and their
homes were located within a two-hour drive of the school. Many of these
students were the first in their families to attend college. Within that
two-hour radius there were also three large (for Iowa) cities, yet few city
kids attended Lambert. The school was in the middle of the Iowa cornfields, and
students from the city generally felt isolated on its 250-acre campus. As a
result, 95 per cent of the student body (and an even greater percentage of the
faculty and staff) was white.
Recently,
the issue of diversity had taken centre stage at Lambert. Despite the low
number of non-whites, minority students had generally felt welcome, but in the
spring of 2005 an anonymous e-mail hate message had been sent to several
minority student organizations on campus. This event was used as a springboard
by the administration to emphasize the institution’s commitment to diversity.
Over the next 12 months, the university hired a consultant who conducted a
diversity audit on campus; faculty, staff and students completed diversity
questionnaires; diversity consultants were assigned to all employment search
committees; and diversity was a recurring topic at many campus meetings.
THE HOPWOOD
OPPORTUNITY
Robert
Harvey was finishing his eighth year teaching various business classes at
Lambert. In early November 2005 he was contacted by David Maggert who had
spoken in his classes as a guest lecturer
twice a
year for several years in the late 1990s. In fact, on those occasions Maggert
had travelled to Lambert at his own expense and had not requested any
remuneration for his time. In addition, he had hired Lambert students both as
interns and as permanent employees when he worked for a major auto
manufacturer. Harvey had not seen him for several years and was surprised to
hear that Maggert had left his high level position in the auto industry to join
the Hopwood Manufacturing Company. Hopwood was a billion-dollar producer of
recreational equipment including fiberglass swimming pools, hot tubs and
saunas, exercise equipment, swing sets, jungle gyms and various other items.
Maggert said that he had always been impressed by Lambert students and that he
would like to meet with Harvey to discuss a new program he was developing at
Hopwood. Harvey agreed and set up a lunch meeting with Maggert, himself and
Sharon Wilson, another faculty member in the School of Business.
At the
meeting several weeks later Maggert explained what he was trying to accomplish.
Hopwood had traditionally promoted people from within, which meant that strong
performers in the factory were promoted to entry-level management positions
from which they continued to climb in the organization. Maggert—who revealed at
the lunch that he had not joined the company as an employee as Harvey had been
led to believe but in fact was an independent consultant under contract with
Hopwood—sought to professionalize the company’s management. He was working to
develop a program through which the company would hire college and university
business students as summer interns. From there, the top performers would be
offered permanent positions as managers in training. Maggert was visiting small
institutions such as Lambert where there would be few Fortune 500 companies
recruiting, thereby increasing Hopwood’s opportunity to hire, in Maggert’s
words, “the best and the brightest.”
Though a
little put off by the fact that Maggert had not revealed his consulting status
earlier, Harvey and Wilson were thrilled with the possibilities this
opportunity might provide. Under the proposal, students who were selected for
internships would be placed in one of Hopwood’s 30 manufacturing facilities
around the United States. The company would pay for relocation and housing, it
would provide an hourly wage, and a performance-related bonus would be
available at the end of the summer. As it turned out, the company would also be
interested in recruiting managers in training for the coming spring, even
though the internship program was not yet off the ground.
HOPWOOD
VISITS LAMBERT
Wilson
and Harvey worked hard to develop excitement among students for the Hopwood
recruiting visit. On paper it sounded great, and it was unusual to have such a
large company that was not an accounting firm coming to the campus. They began
talking about the Hopwood opportunity informally in their classes and with
their top students. Other faculty members in the School of Business were
encouraged to do the same. They then arranged for an evening presentation by
Hopwood representatives the night before the interviews. The idea was to invite
all business students, whether they would be interviewing the next day or not,
in an effort to generate excitement about the new internship/manager-in-training
program that might carry over into future years. Posters were hung around
campus, and the faculty continued to promote the visit.
Off to a
Poor Start
David
Maggert arrived with Wendy Blair, a human resources representative from
Hopwood, on April 13 in the middle of the afternoon. Harvey welcomed them to
the university and, for Blair’s benefit, gave the two a quick tour of the
campus. They stopped in the lecture hall where they would give their
presentation that evening to make sure the necessary equipment was available.
Harvey was a little surprised that they needed only an overhead projector. He
had expected something a little more sophisticated—even students were now using
PowerPoint as a matter of course in their class presentations. But he was too
excited to let this minor detail bother him.
Following
their short walk, Harvey, Maggert and Blair headed for the coffee shop to visit
before the presentation. During their conversation, Harvey sensed some tension
between Blair and Maggert, and he quickly discovered that she did not have a
college education. She was part of the rank and file that had been promoted
into management. As the evening wore on, it became apparent that this new
recruiting program was Maggert’s baby; Blair felt threatened by it and was
clearly not on board. That evening approximately 225 students showed up for the
Hopwood presentation and reception that followed. Twelve of them would be
interviewed the next day. The lecture hall was packed, and Maggert began the
presentation. His portion proceeded smoothly, although Harvey had seen him do
much better. Blair, on the other hand, was not well-prepared. She came across
as uninterested and less than professional, and on more than one occasion
during the question-and-answer session, she cut Maggert off or chastised him
for his response. It was obvious to the few who knew that Maggert was a
consultant that Blair was taking every opportunity to remind him of that fact.
As Wilson and Harvey discussed the presentation the following morning, they
agreed that Hopwood’s performance was less than stellar. Certainly a Fortune
500 company could have done better than that. However, if the interviews went
well that day, the poor presentation would fade from people’s memories.
Unfortunately, that was not to be.
The
Interviews
The
interviews were scheduled to begin on Wednesday morning, April 14, at 9:00.
Harvey had a class scheduled at that time, but he walked over to the Office of
Career Services beforehand to greet Maggert and Blair and to make sure they had
everything they needed. When Harvey left for his class at 9:10, Maggert and
Blair still had not arrived, and the first student to be interviewed sat
waiting. Harvey wondered to himself as he climbed the stairs to the
third-storey administration building classroom what else might tarnish the
Hopwood visit. His question would be answered soon enough.
Christine
Ramirez was scheduled for the first interview. Ramirez, who was born in Mexico,
was a senior business major with outstanding academic credentials. She had
international experience, excellent writing and oral communication skills (not
a trace of an accent) and a strong interest in working with a large company.
She waited patiently for the recruiters, who finally arrived at approximately
9:15. Among the other students to be interviewed was one black male from Kenya,
whose English was good but laden with a heavy accent, and one white female from
northern Iowa. The remainder of the interviewees were white males. During the
course of the day, Harvey saw two or three of the students who had interviewed
with Hopwood but learned nothing unusual. One student commented that the
interview was quite short; the others remarked that their interviews were
relatively comparable to what they had experienced with other recruiters.
The
Post-Interview Meeting
Harvey
returned to the Office of Career Services shortly after 4:00 that afternoon.
The final interview was scheduled to end then, and he wanted to talk with
Maggert and Blair about their impressions before they left the campus. Harvey
gave the pair about 15 minutes to talk privately after the last interviewee
left before knocking on the door and inviting himself into the room where the
interviews had been conducted. Blair and Maggert sat side by side comparing
notes at the oval-shaped table. Harvey sat facing them. Maggert greeted Harvey
warmly and thanked him for returning to visit; he and Blair had some issues
they wanted to discuss.
Maggert:
Bob, this
was a good group that we saw today, and they did a nice job with the
interviews. For the most part they were well-prepared and quite professional.
We do have some general concerns, however, about the fit between the students
here and Hopwood.
Harvey:
Tell me about your concerns.
Blair:
Well,
let’s take Bill. What a nice kid. I swear I thought he must be a student pastor
somewhere. He’s just a real nice young man, and northern Iowa is exactly where
he should stay. I think he has an offer with a small company nearby, doesn’t
he? He ought to take that offer and stay here. I don’t think he could survive
in the kind of environment we work in.
Harvey:
Who else
did you have concerns about?
Maggert:
David
Smith was another one. He did well in the interview, but with that baby face of
his I think he’d get eaten alive in our customer service department.
Harvey:
[silence]
Maggert:
We were
quite impressed with Christine Ramirez, though. She did very well.
Blair:
She was
excellent. She’s bright and talented, and she handled herself very well. But we’re
not sure we can make her an offer.
Harvey:
Why not?
Blair:
Well, you
know that many of our plants are in the South.
Harvey:
Yes.
Blair:
Well . .
. many of the people who work in those plants grew up in the South. They’ve
lived in the South all their lives.
Harvey:
Yes.
Blair:
I just
don’t think that we can place a young Hispanic woman in that environment.
Harvey:
[silence]
Harvey
could not believe what he was hearing. The meeting wound up shortly thereafter,
and the parties exchanged perfunctory thank you, but his head was spinning. He
knew that discrimination still occurred, but he had never heard anything so
blatant from people in such high positions. The words swirled in his mind as he
drove home. He couldn’t imagine how Sharon Wilson would react.
CONCLUSION
The
following morning, Thursday, April 15, Harvey entered Wilson’s office and
closed the door behind him. It was not unusual for the two to meet privately to
discuss important issues related to the business school. They regularly
brainstormed together and bounced ideas off each other, but this was different.
The stakes were higher than usual, and they needed to decide what to do
quickly. After Harvey explained what had happened the previous afternoon,
Wilson recounted a similar statement made by the Hopwood people when she hosted
them for lunch the previous day, only the lunch statement was directed not only
at the “young Hispanic woman” but also the black male student from Kenya.
There was
no misunderstanding then. Both faculty members had heard the same thing from
Hopwood Manufacturing’s recruiters, and they knew that such behavior could not
go unchecked, especially not at Lambert University. Wilson and Harvey (both of
whom were white) were Lambert graduates, and they knew that, aside from general
societal standards of decency, Maggert and Blair’s behavior was simply unacceptable
in the Lambert environment. One of the focal points of the Lambert Statement of
Mission was a recognition of “the infinite worth of every person.” The people
at the university, including Wilson and Harvey, believed in that principle, and
it guided their conduct. Now they would have to decide what corrective action
was appropriate.
Source :
Richard Ivey School of Business Foundation (2011)
1-
I
think Harvey shouldn’t rush in brining Hopwood to the campus even if it was a
great opportunity for the members and students because he didn’t realize the
serious discrimination behavior , he should have been notice that among the
company’s hiring polices and through seeing the white majority of people there.
2-
The
problem of racism and discrimination made the school very sensitive and these
issues are almost forbidden to mention. However , the Email should have made
the school consider the hiring policy of the company. It was a clear message
that there is an obvious discrimination issue within the company. They should
have made a programme to a advice or guide the companies to avoid racism.
4-
Harvey
was amazed by the hatred and the discrimination comments the Blair and Maggret
made. He should have interfere but he rather kept silent I guess to think of a
deeper and more effective plan to deal with this situation. I also believe that
if he interfere he would risk the internship chance to be approved.
5-
He
should take actions quickly to overcome the issue and he should remind Maggret
and Blair of the goals of Lamberts diverdity and show them that a preson is
worthy no matter where he is from.
