Sagar Bansal

Case#1-David Shorter- Individual

Outline
MW 11:00am
9/30/2013

Description:
After having graduated from Queens College, in September 2001, Bob Chen began
working as a Junior Staff accountant at New Enterprise group. The company had a
process for promotion. In 2003, Bob passed his accounting examination and became
an audit senior to Jane Klink. In January 2004 David met Bob. David suggested
future plans for Bob. He wanted Bob to continue his further auditing experience and
hence in the interest of the company attract Hong Kong clients. But Bob was more
inclined to work in tax. He made his intensions on working in tax very clear to
David. Instead of his repeated requests he was not heard until a final meeting where
David finally agreed. Bob was finally granted permission to become a tax specialist
but with conditions to do accounting and fill the gaps. But just when everything was
going on well, all of a sudden Bob decided that he could not work for Mike and
wanted to resign. David believed that Chen would have a great impact in the
company but this was only his perception and his way of looking at things but David
never thought about the interests of Bob. So now Bob begins to see limitations at
this company as he is not allowed to choose his specialization. He feels his career
growth was being compromised.
Diagnosis:
1. Herzbergs Motivation-Hygiene (Two Factor) Theory:
Motivation to carry out your responsibilities leads to a term called job satisfaction.
Job satisfaction clearly was where Bob was not getting his area of specialization
which would keep him motivated in his job and hence also build his career.
2. Attribution bias:
Fundamental attribution error is nothing but the cultural differences we face in the
world. Here Mike believed that he understood all about Bob as he had this idea of
his culture more than anyone else. Most of them in the company believed that Chen

does not understand things due to cultural difference even though he has been in
Canada since longtime.
3. Social Perception:
Joe had a preconceived image about Bob as he heard people talking about him and
hence developed a personal schema and used this to compare the performance of
Bob with an ideal employee who works for the company. He also wanted Bob to
accept whatever the company offered him and this was because he had developed
a role schema.
4. Partial Reinforcement:
Making false promises and not fulfilling what someone expects is what was
happening in the case of Bob. The managers were denying him an opportunity to
work in the area which Bob is interested in which is tax. They want him to work in
the audit side and help attract the business from their Hong Kong clients. But then
they also partially reinforce his desires but with a condition.
Prescriptions:
How can the problems be corrected?
I.

We can have David sit down with Bob and ask him for his side of the
story. Additionally, he should sit down with everyone directly
involved to discuss the issue and take a step back to look at the
problem as a whole.

II.

Evaluating people on objective factors can be difficult, so if they

invite an outside perspective to mediate the talks and give their
recommendation on what should be done that would meet the
objective. Additionally, if they ask for people who work at the office
that were not directly involved to give their opinions on what they
had seen around the office this would give more views on the
situation.

Sagar Bansal
Case#1-David Shorter- Individual
Outline
III.

MW 11:00am
9/30/2013

Going forward, the company needs to look at their chain of

command and communication to ensure that even if Shorter is out
of the office someone is in charge.

IV.

They should think creatively to eliminate stereotypical ideas of the

rest of the staff. Therefore, by thinking differently the entire office
may be able to move forward without as many stereotypes. This
could be done by have a training session on creative thinking so
that

going

organization.

forward

they

solve

problems

creatively

as

an