CASE : I The president of a large and successful cosmetics firm attributes his success to waiting for his competitors

to do his innovating, forecasting and testing for him. We let them dream up the new products and promotions and we watch the results. If they go over, we copy all the best features and add a few of our own. Sometimes we get a little less for being second, but considering the number of flops they have which we do not copy, and the cost they incur by Pioneering we come off far better than they. What do you think of this approach to developing, forecasting, and testing innovations? Under what conditions will it be most and least successful?

CASE: I A manufacturing company is encountering difficulty in its job analysis programme. A new personnel manager, who joined less than a year ago, began the programme by asking employees to fill out a job questionnaire. When answers came in, he asked supervisors to comment. Some supervisors insisted that employees were not actually doing all they claimed. In some cases, supervisors admitted that employees were doing what they claimed but said that they should not be doing some of the tasks. The new personnel manager now finds himself faced with a difficult problem. He intended only to find out what each job involved. Now he is being asked to settle arguments as to what should be expected of jobholders and, even more difficult, what to do about employees who insist they have long been expected to do more than their supervisors think they are doing. How should the personnel manager resolve the differences?

CASE: II In the New India Insurance Company, two of the sessions in the ten-session supervisory development programme are concerned with the topic of communication and its importance in managerial success. Near the end of the first session, Ram Dayal, supervisor of the billing department, volunteered the comment that even though he found the topic to be interesting and agreed that it was important, something vital was missing in the company s training programme. As a supervisor, my problem is that people just do not know how to listen, he said. With a lot of my people, after I spend a great deal of effort instructing them as to exactly what to do, they are just as likely to be doing something entirely different when I check on their progress later. What we should do is set up a course in good listening and have all our employees take it.

a) Do you agree with Ram Dayal that communication can be improved by having people develop better listening skills? b) Do you think Ram Dayal is effective as a communicator? How might he improve?

CASE : III Parmeshwari Prasad, superintendent of the Green Roadways company is in charge of the operation and maintenance of all company buses. The company has over 50 buses which operate on 8 long-distance routes in the country. Because of recent complaints, Prasad is concerned about controlling the quality of service provided to bus travelers. Schedules, setting of fares and replacement of equipment are outside of prasad s jurisdiction: instead his attention focuses on bus drivers, garage crews, and the few people working at the main terminal. Assume Prasad has asked you for recommendations for a control system. 1. What control points do you suggest be used? 2. How should actual performance be measured at these points?