Moss and Mcadams Accounting Firm

Grant Thornton, LLP is the accounting firm that was hired by the First National Bank of Keystone to complete an outside audit. After being found negligent in their performance of the Keystone Audit, Thornton appealed the final decision and order from the Comptroller of the Currency that required the firm to pay $300,000 in civil penalties for reckless failure to meet the Generally Accepted Auditing Standards ("GAAS"). Grant Thornton also appealed the Comptroller 's cease and desist order that mandated that the firm would need to comply with several principles whenever they audit depository institutions.

As a result Dr Brownlow decided he needed to develop his senior staff by sending them on a training course, he chose Brenda Frame and Judith Smythe for this training. Richard believed the problems lie not with his style of management but by the lack of leadership and management by Brenda Frame and Judith Smythe. Brenda and Judith implemented there ideas but Richard and Fred Windows were negative about it saying that it was just a fad as they had been on these courses and knew more about management and leadership and gained nothing from the courses. Brenda who normally would issue instruction as a manager does, turned herself into a leader my taking on board other ideas from her colleagues and creating working parties to make the working of her department run more efficiently and smoothly. She included Richards’s project staff into her working groups but he was unhappy about this even after Brenda protested and Richard adamantly refused to yield on this matter. Also at the start of the year Richard decided to off load several tasks to his three projects team leaders Ian Campbell, Carole Devlin and Joanne Cassidy. Richard only believed that Carole had the necessary experience and commitment to take on the extra work load issued and he did not consult his other staff nor did he explain the job role that it entailed.

I believe that one of Engstrom’s strengths would be the fact they were able to identify the low morale by the employees and correlate it with the low productivity. I actually commend Bent for doing research and finding a program that has proven to work in many other companies. The Scanlon Plan is the oldest organization-wide incentive plan with proven success still in use in the United States. The first Scanlon Plan was developed in the 1930’s by Joseph Scanlon. Scanlon was a cost accountant by training and a steelworkers’ union official at a steel mi facing bankruptcy. (Beer & Collins 2008). The Scanlon Plan reinforced teamwork and cooperation across work groups while they focus attention on cost savings and motivating employees to “work smarter, not harder”. (Beer & Collins 2008). A problem and weakness in the program came when the employees distrusted the bonus calculations. Some employees felt the company was “playing with” numbers when they changed the

This case shows how hard it is for two people to work together for a common goal and vision when they are not on the same page; if Scott trusted and had confidence in Peterson they could succeed as a team

Ivan Korsky presents a ubiquitous problem in talent and skill management. Korsky is a valuable employee, has a wide array of talent and skills that are unique and invaluable. The on-going Alpha 3 project was allocated to him because of his capabilities. However, he has not been focusing on the project because of his “pet project.” The Alpha 3 project is required to reach its deadline in order to revive and sustain customer confidence in the organization.

Many different techniques exist to intrinsically motivate employees(Walker, 2008). Some include: job enlargement, job rotation, and job enrichment. As noted earlier, job satisfaction among employees is important for a company to attain, thus, the use of techniques that boost intrinsic motivation is key. However, the employees were happy because they were paid well. The flip side to that is those older employees are closes to retirement, and have no intrinsic motivation. They are not motivated in sharing to new ways in doing things for the organization, such as saving money and hiring new clientele as suggested by Hubres in her memo. Therefore, it has been suggested by Willis that James and Counts work together to develop a retirement package for senior employees in the division without any immediate replacement for retirees. This would be a start in saving money for the division.

Engstrom Auto Mirror Plant is facing an internal crisis which primarily is a motivational problem. Ron Bent, the manager, and Joe Haley the assistant has seen workplace culture and productivity decline over the years. Ron joined the company when it was going through a similar issue in the past. He came and implemented an employee incentive program which is general across the United States. The incentive program called Scanlon Plan was originally very effective in employee motivation and increasing productivity at Engstrom, but it is now failing.

A successful motivational program recognizes these factors and combines awards, recognition, and peer pressure. To even further maximize full potential, managers should personalize these incentives based on the employee’s interests, hobbies, and recreational activities (Boe, 2011). This is consistent with the ERG theory developed by Clayton

This would not only be advantageous for the employer but also the employee since it would result in higher wages. Due to this, the worker’s level of motivation and drive to do better would escalate leading to overall productivity of the organization (Salimath and Jones, 2011, p.88).

Carter Racing and NASA examples discussed in the class taught us the value of the voice of dissension. While Stevens acts like the character of Tom from Carter Racing, Jack Bryant from Personnel Audit team would have been the voice of Paul. Carter should have included him on the team and listened to his experiences while talking to the employees and their managers. After all, his “on-the-ground” experience and intuition gained through the audit process was more likely to reveal the real situation than PAS or the brief audit reports. Just as NASA, after the Challenger Disaster instituted a rule that a launch could be vetoed by anyone in the team, including Jack in the conversation would have served as an antidote to overconfidence bias that would otherwise creep in.

In the Romano Pitesti case, Tickton-Jones’ Management Team is faced with a situation that is not altogether uncommon in the business world, in that some employees feel that members of the Sales staff are being given “special” treatment by the company. Romano’s actions have probably not been as bad as what has been described to Management, but due to the fact that employees are still trying to find their place in the new, combined company, any hint of “unfairness” is immediately put under a microscope by other employees, and therefore, Management will have to take some sort of action, in order to show the other employees that their concerns are being taken seriously.

There was a legitimate conflict that arose from conflicting agendas and responsibilities. The Springfield project was clearly a higher priority than the Johnsonville audit and Sands should have told Palmer, that although he is valuable to the audit, he would be more successful for the Springfield project. Palmer could have pulled another resource to take Olds place or hire a contractor to fill in the time when Olds would not be available. Olds was caught in a stressful situation where he was working in an environment in which he was being told to do two different tasks and had two different agendas by two different managers. This all led to infighting over Olds being shared across both projects and the two managers competing over for one resource. Palmer and Crosby were only concerned about their respective projects and Crosby knew what his end game was all along. Palmer was not clever enough to outwit Crosby and therefor he lost out on Olds.

Ellen and Jack were both initially appointed as the co-manager to the SI project, however, from the organizational structure perspective, the power was not equally distributed between the two participants: Jack clearly had much more commanding authority than Ellen. With Andrew involved in a distance manner and

Explain how you would respond if you were Peter at the end of the case.

Resolution to this problem between Saunders and Martin would be difficult. It is clear that Saunders is aware of Martin’s prowess, skill and knowledge for the job and is potentially threatening to Saunders’ position in the company. In problems such as these, communication is an important aspect. As far as I see it, resolution is not going to happen between these two very different people. One or the other would have to quit or lose his job. Options could be discussed between the two or other parties could become involved such as the stockholders who may have a share of votes in the matter and could decide for the company which man would take the company further or promote their company more successfully.