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Expert Q&A

Done

subject organization behaviour

Case study

Julie's Bakery is a local company that produces halal instant cake mix flour. The company has been operating for ten years now and its expanding rapidly. Recently, Julie's Bakery has expanded to the ASEAN markets which include Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei, Thailand and Vietnam. In order to cater for these new markets, the company's new branches have been established in these countries.

A new product development team that consists of employees from these branches is also being set up. The main purpose of this team is to design and develop products that are suitable and marketable in all siz countries including Malaysia. Mr. Najib was appointed as the new product development team leader. The team consists of twelve people with two representatives from each country. Because of their diverse backgrounds and newly formed group, the team dynamic is very mush visible. The team members have conflicting opinions and are defending each countries' product preferences. The situation has become uncontrollable and creating a stressful work environment. Mr. Najib tries very hard to manage the situation, but the team members do not respect him as their leader and always have verbal fights with him. The team members always need to stay up until late at night to finish their work. This situation contributes to higher stress among them.

Another problem faced by Mr. Najib is only a few members are committed. The other members are less committed and always skip meetings. Moreover, they always ask other to do their work by offering them something in return of the favour. The most critical point of this self-serving behaviour is it starts influencing others. They also embrace Machiavellian values (the beliefs that deceit is a natural and acceptable way to influence others and that getting more than one deserves is acceptable). They seldom trust their co-workers and tend to use cruder influence tactics to get what they want.

1. Identify FIVE (5) consequences of team cohesiveness. (5 marks)

2. Discuss FOUR (4) personal characteristics of people who involve themselves in the organizational politics behaviour. (8 marks)

3. Discuss TWO (2) most appropriate source of power that Mr. Najib can use to rectify the situation. (4 marks)