Case Study 11.

1
TAMARACK
INDUSTRIES
By :
Nahdy Niza M (1312000214)
Bagus Hendi Yanto (1312000217)
Rayindra Joko W. (1312000162)

Introduction
Tamrack

industries
manufactures
motorboats that are
primarily used for
waterskiing.
During summer
months, 3rd
production line is
created to meet
heavy summer
demand.
Assigned
experienced workers
to all three lines and
also hired college
students (summer
vacation) to
complete the crews.

In the past, experienced

workers resented to work
with college kids and
complained that the kids
were slow and arrogant.

Dan Jensen, implement a

new strategy where the
3rd line only consist of
college students, The
Greek Team.

Mark Allen Supervised

the team, and spent
many hours in training.
By the end of June,
production rate up to
standard with minimal
error rate.

Dan Jensen assigned

the new crew to produce
more to 40 identical units
from before that generally
consisted 30 units and still
can reduced errors.

Beginning of the problem

1.

2.

Greek Team

(The college Students)

By mid July, rivalry

occurs between Greek
team and older workers
The experienced
workers hated it
because they had to
perform all the shorter
production runs and
began to revenge with
sabotage

1.

2.

Older workers (Permanent

employee)
Greek team often met its
production schedules, goofed
around at the end of the day,
and go to another line to
make demeaning comments
The older workers sneak over
during the break, hide tools,
dent materials, install
something crooked, and do
something that would slow
the production for the Greek
team

QUESTIONS 1. What are the signs

(symptoms) of conflict in this case ?

Older Workers In the

past, the older workers
resented working with
college student.
Older workers complain
that the kids were slow
and arrogant even it
happens in previous
year.
Sabotage of the other
teams work.

Older workers

The Greek Team

Demeaning remarks or
comment about older
workers.
Greek team continue to
finish early and flaunt
their performance in
front of other crews.
Sabotage of the other
teams work

The Greek team

2. Use the conflict model to

(a) identify the structural causes of conflict
and

Different background (College

student vs. experience
workers).
Younger and older employees
have different needs.
Older workers and Greek team
had a different perspective on
how things should be done.
Older workers and Greek team
had different goal (Fix job vs.
fulfill spare time during
summer).

Differentiation

No clear rules about

behavioral norms
including respectful
behavior.
No clear rules or
punishment to
execute the
wrongdoing of
sabotage.

Ambiguous Rules

Poor Communication

Older workers dont have

motivation to
communicate to college
worker because they still
assume the college
worker are slow and
arrogant (Stereotype).
College workers lack the
ability to communicate in
diplomatic, no
confrontational manner.
(When one party
communicate his
disagreement arrogantly,
other party likely to
respond it as a conflict).

(b) discuss the

escalation of conflict
described in the case.

Basically, the conflict

was based on verbal
taunts by the Greek
team and complaints
by the older workers.
This conflict escalated
into sabotage of the
assembly product.
Conflict Escalation

3. If you were Dan Jensen, what action

would you take in this situation ?

Dan
strategy
to
shuffle
the
job
assignments between different crews
might work if the level of differentiation is
low, but in this case the level of
differentiation is quite high. It might result
in resignation.

Conflict - Handling Style

Necessary for the

students, because in
this case the manager
knew that they are not
correct..

Forcing.

Its appropriate for the

older workers,
because they clearly
have more power and
it will give them
unrealistically high
expectation .

Yielding.

The best alternative solution is to

introduce action that minimize conflict

Set a behavioral norms that includes

respectful behavior (need to avoid verbal
abuse).
Dan Jensen need to decisive about the
wrongdoing of sabotage.
Introduce reward and punishment to
improve the performance or at least to
reduce attempts to sabotage.