UNIT TWO CASE STUDY 1
Unit Two Case Study – Nice Manager
Purdue Global University
GM501-01: Management Theories and Practices II
Dr. Carrie A. O’Hare
January 24, 2023
UNIT TWO CASE STUDY 2
Unit Two Case Study – Nice Manager
Introduction
In “A Nice Manager,” (Daft, 2017, pp. 485-486) a prototypical company, Chisum
Industries, is known for its excellent upward mobility and numerous advancement opportunities.
The promotion process is vigorous and fair with candidates being thoroughly vetted by upper
management. Chisum is concluding one such process and has been reviewing the different
candidates’ performance reviews. After a frank discussion on the skills and shortcomings of a
particular candidate, the management team has decided the candidate is not quite prepared for
the rigors of a top management position within the company. However, there is agreement on the
candidate’s future potential and one manager suggests they work with the candidate to better
prepare them for such a position in the future.
Analysis
Simply stated, the one problem I will address is the perceptual judgment errors the
leaders of Chisum are making regarding the promotional candidate. Errors Daft (2017, pp. 459-
460) refers to as perceptual distortions. In reading the narrative, the discussion between the
managers involves instances of conclusion jumping and making inferences about interviewees’
statement not based in fact. There are several perceptual distortions or cognitive biases which
might explain why the conversation went the way it did.
The management team is looking to make a decision on the Candidate. They conduct
interviews with his employees who all had glowing responses. Several employees mentioned
how helpful the candidate could but did not elaborate with specific examples. The managers
began creating conclusions attributing behaviors to the candidate based on external factors,
which Daft (2017, p.461) describes as external attributions or judgements. A somewhat
UNIT TWO CASE STUDY 3
correlating cognitive bias related to external attributions is correspondence bias (Epley et al.,
2002, p. 301). Research has suggested that people tend to give weight to specific situational
factors they are directly involved in when making judgements about a subject’s personality.
While they tend to give people some benefit of the doubt, it is often insufficient. A simple
example of correspondence bias that most people have likely had is witnessing a critical driving
error by someone while driving and inferring that the driver must be a bad driver to have made
that mistake. At least one of the managers was directly with interviewing the candidate’s
subordinate employees and after not getting a thorough enough answer to their question, began
inferring character traits to the candidate without any tangible evidence to support it.
The managers conversation of the candidate gave the impression another kind of
