NORTH SOUTH UNIVERSITY

BUS 520 (Management and Organizational Behavior)

Section- 02

Submitted to, Submitted by,

Dr. Muhammad Shariat Ullah Md. Sazzad Khan 211 5301 660
Department: Management, School of
Business
 Case Questions and Answers
1. Write a synopsis of the case.

Amusement park had become one of the best means of entertainment in the industry. People
could easily rush their Adrenaline and Dopamine through experiencing thrilling rides from the
amusement park. Advanced engineering and safety system had enabled people to play with the
gravity and amplify the speed of falling by four times. More the speed, more the thrill.

International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions had reported that, one out of
seventeen million people got serious injuries from the rides of the amusement parks. To assure
the well-being of park visitors, responsible managers were to consider regular inspection and
monitor. They make reliable maintenance and check all the safety features, unlike, Malcolm
Thornton.

A loyal employee like Malcolm Thornton who had been working in the amusement park
throughout his entire school to college, got promoted into management team of the park after
his graduation. A new dangerously thrilling ride was introduced in the amusement park despite
failing numerous safety tests. Thornton didn’t mention any problems while signing these test
reports.

Videos went viral of the ride not having any guard rails. However, the designer made the ride
approved to be operational in the park. He further added that, this ride wouldn’t be any
exception for having a thrilling adventure. This statement of his made the ride more
demandable to people.

There three approaches to ensure rider’s safety-

i. Testing and Inspection; Every day rides were tested before the park is open for visitors.
Employees would volunteer these test runs. However, Thornton’s amusement park
employees had stopped volunteering these test runs as the accidents were increasing
gradually. Monitoring system to check condition and performance of the rides was
absent. Due to the lack of any specified parameters for test runs, the employees didn’t
have any guidelines to deal with problems and dangers regarding the rides.
ii. Maintenance; Every amusement park had its own maintenance manual with proper
instruction. However, Thornton’s amusement park’s manual had zero instructions and
directions on repairing the rides.

iii. Third Party Inspection; Thornton’s amusement park was free of any third-party
inspection. Therefore, all the reports were managed internally.

Before the first season had ended, one serious injury was reported. Neither any inspection nor
adjustment was considered for the thrilled ride. Number of injuries rose to five during second
season. The fifth injured person was an employee of the park who was only provided with first-
aid treatment. Though the victim signed the report but it was never found again. The injuries
took a more serious form in season three. Due to abnormal acceleration speeds and vehicles
colliding with concrete walls, people were facing open wounds, broken toes, dislocated spinal
disks, concussion, memory loss, and numbness.

Thornton not only refabricated the statements of the victims but also ordered the staffs to edit
the medical reports into his (Thornton) favor. Sadly, a boy of 10 years old died due to a deadly
collision on August 7. This accident was recorded and witnessed by many visitors. It was quite
evident from the recorded video that, the boy had followed all the safety instructions. At last,
the police arrived and involved into actions.

After this incident, the park was closed for two days and rejected permanently by people that
year. Malcolm Thornton had violated the principles of crisis management, safety and signal
detection. He had ignored and destroyed all the warnings and evidence which suffice above
circumstances. He had been charged with- manslaughter, endangerment of a child and
interference with law enforcement for destroying evidence.
 2. As per the case, how did signal detection go away?

Unlike an effective manager, Malcolm Thornton had transgressed all the principles of signal
detection of the amusement park. The ways signal detection went away are-

i. While Thornton signing the failed reports of the thrilled ride, he didn’t introduce a single
problem in the report of the ride,
ii. One of the first and most important approach is testing and inspecting the ride. However,
Thornton didn’t maintain any systemic tracking of warnings resulting all the ride operators
to become blind about inspecting present situation with the help of past incident records.
Neither guidelines nor recommendations were provided to them in order to take precaution.
iii. Secondly, Thornton had served a vague maintenance manual to the employees. There was
no content regarding the inspection and repairs of the rides.
iv. Local authorities didn’t have any surveillance system on the park. As the park owner took
initiatives to make the park totally free of third-party inspection, everything was controlled
internally.
v. An employee who had been working in the park for two years, faced an accident which
made her disabled. However, Thornton treated her only with first-aid support. Later, a
report was not only made but also removed by Thornton himself from the park.
vi. Thornton had destroyed the written statements of witnesses and manipulated his first-aid
staff to edit those.
vii. Lastly, Thornton being the only individual to monitor all accident and safety records, he
ignored all of them. Health care staffs, ride operators, and other employees kept on
notifying Thornton about the dangers and potential ride failures. However, Thornton
continued to overlook them all.
3. What types of circumstances or work/life issues could have compelled Thornton to
commit illicit behaviors? In each case, describe a few ways that Thornton could have
overcome them.
As far as the previous studies are concerned, personality and value govern human behavior. It
falls under the individual level to analyze behavior. Pop-personality theorist, Segmund Freud
believes a person’s behavior stem is caused by his/her childhood experiences which are locked
deep within the psyche (Bishop et al., 2016, p. 2). In the case, Malcolm Thornton’s personality
is quite similar to the Machiavellianism. These individuals are cold selfish and pure
instrumental (Fehr et al., 1992, p. 77-116). They are assumed to have such motives which are
intrinsic in nature.

i. Master Manipulator; Thornton ordered his medical staffs to edit the reports of the accidents
in accordance to his favor. He forces his employees to rewrite the accidents records and
omit the actual information about the incident.
ii. Power Player; Thornton vanishes one of his employee’s accident report after the treatment
has provided to her.
iii. Win more Attitude; The designer of the thrilled ride has a good connection the owner and
sometimes designer himself has been pointed owner in the case. Considering the designer’s
position, Thornton overlooks all the problems and signs the report of the ride anyway. This
expresses Thornton way of winning more trust and securing his position to the top.

Thornton’s dark traits flourished due to-

➢ No Rules and Regulation; Thornton’s amusement park is free of any surveillance by local
authorities. There is none to oversee the activities of the park externally. Everything is
controlled and managed internally. Thus, it gives Thornton ultimate power to practice his
motives and goals.
➢ Direct Interaction; Being the sole monitor of all accident and safety records, every records
of the accidents have to go through him. None but Thornton is the one to interact all these
reports directly. There is no one above him in this matter.

Thus, the above circumstances stated have quite explained Thornton’s committing illicit
behaviors.
Thornton could overcome these illicit behaviors through-

✓ Increasing Emotional Intelligence; Through Emotional Intelligence (E.I), Thornton could

have escaped his illicit behaviors. If Thornton is awarded for his good deeds, he would
never let the ride permitted in the first place. Not only that, if his seniors instruct him the
right and wrong doings, he could have stopped the wrongs. If he is able to develop empathy,
he would feel other people’s pain and emotion. Empathy would have stopped him to force
his employees to change statements and provide only first-aid treatment to serious injury.
✓ Third-Party Involvement; There should be a regulatory body from the third party to monitor
all the actions of the park externally. Making Thornton accountable for each action, could
have prevented him to be a criminal.
✓ Just and Transparent System; If park’s owner is just and transparent, it would govern
Thornton’s action not to do any illicit behaviors.

4. In your view, how should executives have been involved?

Executives should have been involved in such manner where customers’ or visitors’ well-
being are totally preserved and ensured. To achieve this, followings are to be maintained-

i. Regular Testing and Inspection; Executives should maintain a schedule to test all the
rides everyday before the park allows visitors to enter. Each test result should follow a
specific parameter to make a conclusion. If the result is against the parameters, the
conclusion will be unfit otherwise fit. The unfit rides would be recorded according to
its past interactions with the customers. The report on the unfit rides should include the
recommendations and directions to solve the problem.
ii. Maintenance; Executives should publish a complete manual for maintenance where
instructions for each ride is clear and precise. Thus, this manual should be followed as
a holy book of the amusement park.
iii. Third Party Inspection; Executives should allow the park to be under federal regulation
body. Also, the park should be under the surveillance by the local authorities. Thus,
every action occurring in the park would be monitored by them and take action if there
is any unfair means happens in the park.
5. In today’s fourth Industrial Revolution techno-focused environment, why is it no
longer possible to keep organizational crises private? How does this exposure affect
the role of the corporate executives regarding signal detection and action?

This the era where modern technology has brought everything under a fingertip. Introduction
of internal has turned all our lives to public from private. If something is not recorded and
uploaded, it will consider as if it never happened. For organization, there would always be
someone who is continuously recording and uploading information about the organization on
modern devices. If any serious incident takes place in the organization, one way or another it
leaks out.

Suppose, an employee has witnessed an accident in his/her office. On that day or next day, s/he
would talk about this incident to his/her fellow mates using social media. People who are
managing these social websites can easily get this information. Also, hackers may hack these
modern devices and take the information.

I think, exposure affect positively in the role of corporate executives regarding signal detection
and action. Because, each and every action is being recorded and there is no way to escape
from it. Executives are bound to become transparent and extra cautious before doing any
actions.

Whenever, an executive faces any problem, s/he would try to solve it with first priority so that
news may not come out which could hamper the good will of the organization. In Thornton’s
case, Thornton was able to charge with many actions because there was exposure effect. Other
than that, the way Thornton refabricated and destroyed the evidence, it would impossible for
any of us to indict him with any charges. A criminal would be free from his actions.
6. This crisis so mentioned took place in the U.S., but there are amusement parks all
over the world. Based on data regarding cross-cultural norms, describe how the
process and outcomes of Thornton’s actions might have been handled differently in a
country in Asia.

Bangladesh United States

(Compare Countries, 2020)

The picture that we can see has been taken from the website, ‘Hofstede Insights’. This data
shows cross-cultural differences between U.S. and Bangladesh under six dimensions. These
are-

1) Power Distance 3) Masculinity 5) Long-Term Orientation

2) Individualism 4) Uncertainty Avoidance 6) Indulgence

Bangladesh is country from Asia. The process and outcomes of Thornton’s action will have
been handled differently in here. Because-

1) Power Distance; Bangladesh has a power distance of 80 which is twice as much as U.S. It
explains people of Bangladesh believes unequal distribution of power. They expect to be
told what to rather make a decision on their own. Boss is considered to be benevolent
autocrat. Thornton’s actions might seem normal to the people of Bangladesh and he
wouldn’t be charged for any of his illicit behaviors.
2) Individualism; Bangladesh scores 20 which depicts Bangladesh to be collectivistic. It
means people consider employer/ employee relationship in terms of family. Thornton
claims that he was just following company policy. In Bangladesh, it would consider as an
individual following orders from his/her family and that individual holds no accountability
for his/her actions. If the actions are bad, an individual cannot disobey as it will be recoded
as disloyalty towards the family.
3) Uncertainty Avoidance; Bangladesh has higher uncertainty avoidance than U.S. This
incorporates which such environment where people are scared and try to avoid uncertain
situations. Before complaining against Thornton, people of Bangladesh would feel
uncertain about getting justice. So, s/he would avoid whole complaining process resulting
Thornton to free of any charges.
4) Indulgence; Bangladesh scores very low in Indulgence. It shows people here are very
cynical and pessimistic. People considers, it is normal to happen bad things at places like
amusement parks where thrilling rides are present. Knowing the dangers behind a thrilling
ride, an individual would expect a bad thing to happen normally. S/he would consider it is
his/her fault to get injuries from the rides. Again, Thornton wouldn’t be charged for any of
his actions.
 References

1. Bishop, S. K., Dixon, M. R., Moore, J. W., & Lundy, M. P. (2016). Behavioral Perspectives
on Personality. Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences, 1–11.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_962-1

2. Compare countries. (2020, June 8). Hofstede Insights. https://www.hofstede-

insights.com/product/compare-countries/

3. Fehr, B., Samsom, D., & Paulhus, D. L. (1992). The construct of Machiavellianism: Twenty
years later. In C. D. Spielberger &J. N. Butcher (Eds.), Advances in personality
assessment (Vol. 9, pp. 77-116). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.