Expert answer:Case Study explain why you chose your solution and

Solved by verified expert:case study should be a minimum of 500 words in length, NOT COUNTING REFERENCES. In the case study report in which you identify the problem in the example, you are to propose not only your solution but at least two other solutions which you did not choose. You are to explain why you chose your solution and why you did not choose one of the others. Your case study report should have at least 4 references, only one of which can be your textbook. You may use professional journals, lay periodicals such as Forbes,Harvard Business review, or Wall Street Journal, or internet sources as long as they are properly referenced. APA format must be used and a separate reference page included and the case study must be written in Microsoft Word, Word count does not include references. No abstract is required.
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The Virtual Work Environment Team
T. A. Steams was a national tax accounting firm whose main business was its popular tax
preparation service for individuals. Stearns’s superior reputation was based on the high
quality of its advice and the excellence of its service Key to the achievement of its reputa
tion were the superior computer databases and analysis tools its agents used when
counsel ing clients. These programs were developed by highly trained individuals,
usually lawyers and tax accountants who had picked up programming skills on the side.
The programs that these individuals produced were highly technical both in terms of the
tax laws they covered and the code in which they were written. Perfecting them required
high levels of programming skill as well as the ability to understand the law. New laws
and interpretations of existing laws had to be integrated quickly and flawlessly into the
existing regulations and analysis tools.
The work was carried out in a virtual environment by four programmers in the greater
Boston area. Four work sites were connected to each other and to the company e-mail,
telephone, and conferencing software. Formal meetings among all of the programmers
took place only a few times a year, although the workers sometimes met informally
outside of these scheduled occasions.
The following paragraphs describe the members of the virtual work team.
Tom Andrews was a tax lawyer, a graduate of State University end a former hockey
player there. By the age of 35, Tom had worked on the programs for six years and was
the longest-standing member of the group. Along with his design responsibilities, Tom
was the primary liaison with Steams. He was also responsible for training new group
members Single, he worked out of his farm in southern New Hampshire where in his
spare time he enjoyed hunting and fishing.
Cy Crane. a tax accountant and computer science graduate of State University. was 32
years old, married with two children, ages 4 and 6. His wife worked full-time in a law
firm in downtown Boston, whereas he commuted from his kitchen to his computer in
their home in the Boston suburbs. In his spare time, he enjoyed biking and fishing.
Marge Dectir, tax lawyer, graduate of Outstare University, 38 years old. was married
with two children, ages 8 and 10. Her husband worked full-time as an electrical engineer
at a local defense contractor, She lived and worked in her suburban Boston home, and she
enjoyed golf and skiing.
Megan Harris, tax accountant and graduate of Big Time University, was 26 years old and
single. She had recently relocated to Boston to take advantage of the wide range of
opportunities in her field and to enjoy the beauty of New England She worked out of her
Back Bay apartment.
In the course of the work these four people exchanged e-mail messages many times each
day and it was not unusual for one of them to step away from guests or children to on and
check in with the others. Often their e-mails were amusing as well as work related
Sometimes they helped each other with the work as for example when a parent with a
sick child was facing a deadline Tom occasionally invited the others to visit with
him on his farm and once in a while Marge and Cy got their families together for dinner
About once a month, the whole group got together for lunch. All of these workers were
on salary, which, according to company custom, each had negotiated separately and
secretly with management A major factor in their commitment to the job was its
flexibility. Although they were required to check in regularly during every workday they
could do the work whenever they wanted to. When they got together they often joked
about the managers and workers who had to be in the office during specific hours
referring to them as “face timers and to themselves as free agents”.
When the programmers were asked to make a major program change, they often
developed programming tools called macros that would help them do their work more
efficiently. These macros greatly enhanced the speed at which a change could be written
into the programs. Cy in particular realty enjoyed hacking around with macros. For
example on one recent project he became obsessed by the prospect of creating a shortcut
that could save a huge amount of time. One week after he had turned in his code and
released notes to the company, Cy bragged to Tom that he had created a new macro that
had saved him eight hours of work that week. “The stripers are running,” he had said,
“And I want to be on the beach.” Tom was skeptical about the shortcut, but after trying it
out in his office he found that it actually did save him many hours.
T. A. Steams had an employee suggestion program that rewarded employees for
innovations that saved the company money. The program gave an employee 5 percent of
the savings generated by the innovation over a period of three months. The company
alsohad a profit-sharing plan. Tom and Cy felt that the small amount of money that would
be generated by a company reward would not offset the free time they gained using their
new macro. They wanted the time either for leisure or for other consulting, and
furthermore, they agreed that because the money came out of profits, the money was
really coming out of the employees pockets anyhow. There seemed to be little incentive
to share their macro with management.
They also believed that their group could suffer if management learned about the
innovation. They could now do the work so quickly that only three programmers might
be needed. If management were to learn about the macro, one of them would probably
lose his job, and the remaining workers would have more work thrown at them. Cy and
Tom decided there was not enough incentive to tell the company about themacro.
However, they were just entering their busy season and they knew’ that everyone inthe
group would be stressed by the heavy workload. They decided to distribute the macroto
the other members of the group and swore them to secrecy.
Over lunch one day, the group set for itself a level of production that it felt would not
arouse management’s suspicion. Several months passed, and they used some of their
extra time to push the quality of their work even higher. The rest of the time they used for
their own personal interests
Dave Regan, the manager of the work group, picked up on the innovation several weeks
after it was first implemented. He had wondered why production time had gone down a
bit, while quality had shot up and he got his first inkling of an answer when he saw an email from Marge to Cy thanking him for saving her so much time with his brilliant
mind.” Not wanting to embarrass his group of employees, the manager hinted to Tom
that he wanted to know what was happening, but he got nowhere. He did not tell his own
manager about his suspicions, reasoning that since both quality and productivity were up.
he did not really need to pursue the matter further,
Then one day Dave heard that Cy had boasted about his trick to a member of another
virtual work group in the company. Suddenly, the situation seemed to have gotten out of
hand. Dave took Cy to lunch and asked him to explain what was happening. Cy told him
about the innovation, but he insisted that the group’s action had been justified to protect
itself.
Dave knew that his own boss would soon hear of the situation, and that he would be
looking for answers from him.
Study Guides 1. Why is this group a team?
2. What characteristics of the team predispose it to making ineffective decisions?
3, What are the characteristics of groupthink that are manifested in the work team?
4. Has Dave been an effective group leader? What should Dave do now?
Your case study should be a minimum of 500 words in length, NOT COUNTING REFERENCES. In
the case study report in which you identify the problem in the example, you are to propose not
only your solution but at least two other solutions which you did not choose. You are to explain
why you chose your solution and why you did not choose one of the others. Your case study
report should have at least 4 references, only one of which can be your textbook. You may use
professional journals, lay periodicals such as Forbes,Harvard Business review, or Wall Street
Journal, or internet sources as long as they are properly referenced. APA format must be used
and a separate reference page included and the case study must be written in Microsoft Word,
Please note that the Creative Toy case has two parts, the case itself and the diagrams showing
the floor plan before and after changes were made.
Word count does not include references. No abstract is required.
…
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