Natalie Hunter, General Manager of New Product Development for Mainline Trucking

Question

Natalie Hunter, General Manager of New Product Development for Mainline Trucking, has some decisions to make. The company, which manufactures long-haul trucking platforms and accessories, is trying to decide if it should proceed in designing a new accessory which increases the efficiency of truck loading and unloading. She knows the new accessory fits well with the corporate strategy, will position them competitively within the industry and she feels she has done a good job of selling it to other management. With her engineering training and experience. She also knows the product is reasonably easy to lay-out and probably cost effective. However, a major problem lies with the line workers, who are Unionist. The new product will reduce manpower needs and is unpopular. She has always had a good relationship with her workers, but she knows they are highly suspicious. She also knows the new project will not work without their cooperation. She gazed out her window and struggled with how to best handle this situation.

Discuss the factors below to analyse how Natalie should react in this situation.

Moral development level

Individual characteristics

Structural variables

Organisational culture

Issue intensit

Explanation / Answer

In such cases, individual factors have their own impact and it's very important that how we can analyze the whole situation so that impact analysis could be done. Natalie could use following factors in the following manner for resolving the issue she's facing:

Moral development level: In this stage, Natalie can handle the situation using development levels like Self-interest orientation, Authority and social-order maintaining orientation and Universal ethical principles.

It’s very important for Natalie to explain the positive side of this situation to all the workers that how they will be benefitted from this product development. Workers should be aware that company’s not taking any negative action but a positive strategy for the growth of the company. This comes from the self-interest orientation level of moral development.

As Natalie knows this clearly that new product development will position them competitively in the market so she has to make sure that workers have to maintain a social order. Workers have signed a contract that they have to work for the development of the products and company in accordance with the strategy. Every worker should discuss concerns but remember that there is an obligation to uphold law and rules of their organization. This will confirm the authority and social order moral development level.

And the last stage should be to help realize all the workers the ethical driven principles concept. They should be given some explanation that they have to put themselves in the shoes of management and then take an ethical decision whenever they’re trying to contradict the new product development. They should follow justice and analyze the situation in an ethical environment. This stage would complete the reasoning behind this decision and workers could easily rationalize their queries.

Individual Characteristics: Individual characteristics directly influence employee behavior, motivation, performance, career actualization etc. This situation where Natalie is stuck, it’s very important for her to motivate all the workers and relate this product development with the future performance of the company and hence, better career opportunities for same workers. Natalie can use biographical characteristic to explain to employees that new product will result in more efficient operations and ergonomic aspect of operations will improve. This improvement will help employees to boost their performance. New products and technologies will increase intellectual abilities of all the workers and hence their personality to adapt new changes in a positive way. This will also help them to learn new things and update their knowledge on a regular basis. Indirectly they are developing the workers by taking this action.

Structural variable & Organizational structure: Basically, these two points go hand in hand. Structure variables are broad representatives of three terms: Simple structure, Matrix structure, and Bureaucracy. Advanced structures are also available which can help Natalie to decide and define the organizational structure. Sometimes it becomes difficult to design the organizational structure and satisfy the employees also. So, Natalie has to take care that trade-off should be done properly in work requirements and employee satisfaction so that they can take this strategy in a positive way. Natalie can form a new structure where workers can work in cross-functional teams and where formalization is very low. Such structure will have a comprehensive information network and support participative decision making. Such restructuring would help workers to understand that they’re being given different responsibilities and their participation is very important. Natalie would be able to predict behaviors and reduce ambiguity for workers. Such initiatives help organizations to let their employees take new strategies in a positive way.

Issue intensity: Issue intensity is a very important factor in such situations because here management can show their teams or workers the importance of any important strategy or event. Person’s own beliefs, values, and principles are critical components which help to resolve any issue. Natalie should focus on these components of all the workers and give them a common solution which can fulfill their beliefs, values, and principles. As this product will be cost effective for this company then management should relate this to the profit benefits of the company and same would be transferred to all the employees in terms of bonus. Natalie could put standard points on a sheet and send an email to all the employees stating that these are the factors on which this decision is being taken and these things are aligned with the individual goals of this company and every worker. In such manner, workers could be able to analyze the situation better

Natalie should use all these aspects in a very good way and ordered fashion. This will help workers to develop a structured way of analyzing any new initiative and positively respond to that.

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