preview

Essay on Marshall’s Processing Plant: a Case Study

Decent Essays

Marshall’s Processing Plant: a Case Study
Case Analysis 1

Marshall’s Processing Plant: a Case Study

Laura Knight

I chose the case study from chapter three, Teamwork atMarshall’s Processing Plant (Miller, 2009, p. 57-58). The case study explains that management at the processing plant would like input about getting employees to participate again in the Team Management System. The Team Management System at Marshall’s consists of teams of employees representing their job function within the plant. These teams meet once a week to discuss ways to improve production. Once a month a representative from each team of employees is chosen to attend the Marshall Team Meeting and bring issues to the table for discussion from each work group …show more content…

Is your workplace safe? Do you encourage camaraderie and team building exercises? Some examples might be: company picnics, luncheons or holiday pot-lucks. These lower level needs will need to be addressed and achieved in order for workers to move onto the issues that management wants to focus on such as productivity, innovation and efficiency. Looking at McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y I would determine if Marshall’s management is using the negative aspects of the classical management theory and making assumptions about the workers (p. 43). If I found that Marshall’s management was adhering to Theory X more than Theory Y I would suggest a shift towards Theory Y thinking and managing. Theory Y states that workers will seek out satisfaction of the higher-order needs if management treats them as such and if those lower-order needs are satisfied. I would focus particularly on point number five of Theory Y, which states: the capacity to exercise a relatively high degree of imagination, ingenuity and creativity in the solution of organizational problems is widely, not narrowly, distributed in the population (p. 43). Looking at this point could address participation levels in the team management system. For example instead of allowing employees to elect the same people to represent each production area in the Marshall Team monthly meetings, perhaps try a

Get Access