Additional Activities
Twitter Focus:
Serious Materials is a maker of eco-friendly building products that stepped in to buy Republic
Windows and Doors. Republic’s owners, with little warning, closed the plant without giving
workers severance pay and secretly began to transfer machinery to a non-union plant in another
state. The employee’s union filed complaints against Republic with the National Labor Relations
Board. At the same time, the owner of Serious Materials bought the Republic facility and saw it
as a chance to expand the business into the Midwest. When he decided to make an offer, the
owner talked first to the employee’s union rather than to Republic’s creditors. This unusual move
helped seal the business deal, and all 300 employees were rehired by Serious.
Question:
Which owners—Serious Materials or Republic—strike you as the more ethical and honest? Do
you think that makes them or would make them a better employer?
Manager’s Hot Seat Exercise: Partnerships: The Unbalancing Act-Please refer to the Asset Gallery
on the OLC for Hot Seat videos and notes.
1.1
I. Introduction
This scenario highlights a business partnership that is in decline. The conflict that this creates
and the resolution of it provide a good background for discussion of the types and causes of
conflict in organizations. Partnership agreements and issues with venturing into business with
personal friends are also explored.
II. Learning Objectives
1. To assess students’ understanding of the sources of conflict in organizations.
2. To analyze and evaluate approaches to conflict in a novel situation.
3. To identify issues concerning business partnerships.
III. Scenario Description:
Overview: Jonas Goldberg and Rande Gedaliah, lifelong friends, went into business
together to establish The LivingRoom, a café bookstore. Lately, Jonas has not been doing
his fair share of the work and has been unreliable, shirking many of his important duties.
Rande has reached the point of confronting Jonas and wants to take immediate action to
resolve this situation.
Profile:
Rande Gedaliah is a Partner, manager, and co-owner of The LivingRoom, a café
and bookstore with an active community center and bakery. She is solely
responsible for overseeing the bakery, which distributes to local restaurants and
stores. In addition, she also manages the café and its community events along
with her partner.
Jonas Goldberg co-founded The LivingRoom. As Co-owner and Manager, Jonas
oversees all bookstore needs and manages the café and community events portion
of the business with his partner and long-time friend, Rande Gedaliah.
References: The references included in the DVD are:
Sources of Conflict in Organizations (PPT 7-3)
Types of Conflict in Organizations (PPT 7-5)
Partner’s Duties (PPT 7-7)
Nonwrongful Dissociations of Partnerships (PPT 7-8)
Back History: “The Living Room” is a small business located in the Boston suburbs.
The business is a new spin on the café bookstore, with the additions of an active
community center and bakery, with distribution to local restaurants/stores.
Jonas is a freelance writer and stay at home Dad with three young children. His wife is a
District Attorney. He was looking for a side venture as well as supplemental income.
Rande is a divorced mother of two young schoolboys and a successful sculptor who
needed income with a schedule she could control. Randee is very level-headed and
generally calm, as long as all the balls she’s juggling stay in the air.
Rande and Jonas opened The LivingRoom two years ago and have recently expanded the
hours/customer flow drastically in an attempt to finally make a decent income.
They split most of the business duties, share the larger tasks, and each spend a certain
number of hours in the café supervising – they are 50-50 partners. They have known each
other for years and years [their parents are family-friends] and have had a generally
smooth relationship. Jonas and Rande had agreed completely about increasing business
hours so drastically about two months ago. But Jonas did not anticipate the impact this
would have on his life and is struggling to deal with it.
In the past six weeks Jonas has canceled meetings last minute, missed the Tax Accountant
meeting altogether, forgot to do employees weekly payroll twice, and has not brought in a
single community event for the month [both are responsible for booking at least three
lucrative events/month]. Meanwhile the change in hours is exhausting Rande and Jonas’
unreliability is totally stressing her out.
Scene Set-up: After calling Jonas three times to remind him, Rande and Jonas are finally
meeting to discuss Rande’s dissatisfaction with Jonas’ contribution to the company.
Scene Location: Back-room coffee-break area
The Meeting – Summary: Rande indicates to Jonas that the distribution of the workload
and his repeatedly missing meetings and other major responsibilities (e.g., payroll) is not
acceptable. Jonas understands this but contends he is doing the best he can and is still
contributing significantly to the business. Rande asks him what can be done to improve
this situation. Jonas cuts the meeting off because he has to pick up his daughter. Rande
tries to pin him down on another meeting time which he half-heartedly agrees to.
6 Days Later – Rande finally meets with Jonas again and asks him what solutions he
came up with. He says he’d like to bow out gracefully but wants to reserve the right to
sell his share to whomever he wants in order to make the most money. Rande seems
relieved at his decision but explains that she has the first right of refusal and that she has
already discussed their partnership agreement with their lawyer. They agree to meet with
the lawyer the following Monday.
Afterthoughts – Summary: Rande is shocked at Jonas’ expectation that he could sell his
share of the business to anyone he wants. She feels the interaction went very poorly and
is saddened that he didn’t seem to make their friendship or the success of the business a
priority in his life. She feels he never truly appreciated the impact of his actions on their
business or friendship. She notes the difficulty of going into business with a friend.
Dossier: The specific artifacts included in the DVD are:
1. Meeting notes on establishing the business
2. Three voice messages from Rande’s assistant to Jonas
3. Email from Rande to their lawyer
IV. Discussion Questions:
The References and related Discussion Questions may be found in PowerPoint slides 7-1 to 7-9
on the instructor’s side of the text’s Website.
Learning Objective #1: To assess students’ understanding of the sources of conflict in
organizations.
1. Jonas and Rande are facing a difficult situation. What sources of conflict contributed to
the problems they are having? See PPT 7-3.
Several of the sources on PPT 7-3 could be offered. Specifically, scarce resources seem
to be a primary source because they need to operate the store longer to be able to reach
1. What is the key problem?
A. Time management
B. Communication
C. Overlapping tasks
2. Jonas’ behavior indicates:
A. Disinterest
B. Burn-out
C. Distraction
Learning Objective #2: To analyze and evaluate approaches to conflict in a novel situation.
1. Which type of conflict is depicted in this scenario? (see PPT 7-5)
2. Evaluate Rande’s approach to resolving this conflict. What conflict management style
did she use: avoiding, accommodating, forcing, compromising, or collaborating?
Support your answer with examples from the scene.
Rande used a problem oriented approach, rather than person oriented. She maintained
3. How was this meeting?
A. A success
B. A good start
C. A failure
Rande feels that this meeting was a failure because she could not get Jonas to understand
Learning Objective #3: To identify issues concerning business partnerships.
1. What unique challenges did Rande and Jonas face when entering into this partnership?
They both have family obligations to juggle as well as shared responsibility of every
2. What impact did their friendship seem to have on this partnership?
Their friendship did not prevent them from creating a legal partnership agreement which
3. What partner duties did Jonas fail to perform? See PPT 7-7.
4. What should happen to ensure that a nonwrongful dissociation of the partnership occurs?
See PPT 7-8.
The partner is volunteering to leave but he needs to abide by the partnership agreement.
4. How should Rande respond [to Jonas’ suggestion that he find a buyer]?
A. Accept offer
B. Refuse offer
C. Negotiate
Her appropriate response would depend on the specific language of the agreement. If in
5. What are Rande’s rights?
A. Choose partner
B. Buy out Jonas
C. None
6. What is the best solution?
A. End partnership
B. Solve problems
C. Redistribute work
Teaching Suggestions
Students are frequently quite interested in how labor relations work. Additionally, they may have
fairly strong opinions about unions and their effectiveness. Discussions are therefore quite easy
to start and keep going. Below are a number of activities that can be added to the text material.
One role play is included that allows students to try out the first step in a grievance procedure.
The HBR case on the clerical and technical employees organizing campaigns gives students a
good chance to think about how HRM policies and practices truly play a role in employee
relations. Finally, the Tong Yang Indonesia end-of-part case is very useful with this chapter,
illustrating the benefits of a constructive joint union-management relationship.
1. An interesting case from the Harvard Business School is listed below with questions for
discussion. This may be assigned to groups as a written case analysis or used in class to
discuss and illustrate a number of points regarding why employees join unions and what
sort of union organizing techniques are used.
Case 9-490-027: Clerical and Technical Workers Organizing
Campaign at Harvard University (A)
Case 9-490-081: Part (B)
Teaching Note (5-490-083)
Supplement (9-490-081)
This case describes a successful organizing drive among clerical and technical workers at
Harvard. The union (HUCTW) relied on unusual strategies: espousing cooperation, avoiding
specific demands, emphasizing the need for worker voice, and making use of volunteer
organizers.
1.1 Discussion Questions
a. Should Harvard oppose unionization?
b. How would a union affect the university’s “business” needs?
c. How effective were Harvard’s campaign tactics?
d. What did you learn about managing human resources from reading and analyzing
this case?
2. Assign the following article from The Wall Street Journal (May 24, 1993): “Why Ms.
Brickman of Sarah Lawrence Now Rallies Workers” by Kevin Salwen. Note also that as
Ask the students to discuss this quote: “Every successful social movement in history,
3. A role-play is useful in talking about the grievance procedure. Using the following
scenario, assign the roles of union steward, supervisor, employee, and observer to
It is Friday afternoon in the special-order fabrications section of the Caseville plant. As the
supervisor Mary Reed is checking work orders, she notes that there is one order that has not been
handled, and delivery is due the next week. Clearly, Mary is going to have to find several people
to work a second shift on overtime. Under the Caseville-Local 484 contract, overtime must be
distributed by seniority. The supervisor quickly pulls her seniority list from the file and,
beginning at the top, walks around her area talking to the employees and asking about their
interest in overtime immediately after the current shift ends. After talking with five men, Mary
has only one who will work. Quitting time is five minutes away, and the whereabouts of Brooke
Youngblood is not known (Brooke is next on the list). In desperation, Stevens asks three
employees standing at their benches who are about to leave. Two of these people agree to work
(both are junior to Brooke). That afternoon and evening the order is completed.
Monday morning, upon arrival, Brooke is greeted and asked about his weekend. It turns
out that he had taken a trip into the city with his son for a major league baseball game
Friday afternoon. The tickets had been purchased a month before, and the special event
was a birthday present. In the course of the discussion, Brooke learns about the overtime
and realizes he hadn’t been asked about it by his supervisor. He immediately calls his
union steward, Carry Stevens. A discussion ensues.
HRM Failures
Top
1.2 Case 14: Limiting a Union’s Activities
When members of the Graphic Communications International Union Local 432-M had a
The mall owner informed the union members that they were trespassing because they didn’t
The union subsequently *led a claim with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB),
The case found its way to the state supreme court, which acknowledged that the mall had
Question
Suppose you’re the owner of the shopping mall. How would you have handled this situation?
Possible answers
Create a handbook outlining the mall rules; before distributing it, have a lawyer
review it for completeness and accuracy.
Case: Fashion Valley Mall LLC v. NLRB, Cal., No. S144753 (12/24/2007).
Source: James E. Hall, Mark T. Kobata, Marty Denis and D. Diane Hatch, “Distributing Union
Lea”ets at Shopping Mall,” Workforce Management, February 4, 2008, p. 6.