The Case Study should encapsulate all you have learned in the MBA Program. Theories and methodologies should be incorporated into your scholarly work. The contents of your case study should be thought-provoking and challenge professional ideologies relating to socio-cultural, economic, political, financial, environmental concepts affecting leadership’s role in business.
All contents citations/references should be written in APA format.
below is the template of the case study
AMTRAK Running the Race
CASE DESCRIPTION
The
primary topic of this case is leadership practices amongst supervisors within
the workplace. The case evaluates aspects of leadership and explores several
managerial facets affecting organizational culture. The issues relevant to the
case include moral awareness, social cognition, cultural diversity, social
responsibility and ethics, incidental and informal learning processes, along
with leadership behavioral methods and theory. Other correlations present areas
of power in leadership. The administration methods prescribed depict methods
utilizing managers and subordinates business practices in organizational
culture. The case was written for undergraduate students in business. The
developments in leadership provide discovery of other multi-disciplinary
dimensions as the contents convey several essential, valuable methods of
administration. The study shows a figurative fictional display of issues in
leadership amid high-profile positions exploiting their impressive power and
will upon the organization. The case study has the potential for other
multidisciplinary approaches.
CASE SYNOPSIS
The case study records judiciously the undeviating communication between
several characters that are relevant to the discussion of leadership. Although,
the case study focuses on AMTRAK and its leaders there are several key learning
objectives in leadership. Two important constructs in the study: incidental and
informal learning methodologies. All personalities within the case face
significant duress as the stress of meeting corporate requirements, consumer
needs, and communicating requirements are the highlight of the story. The topic
centers on several characters consisting of John Brown, Ted Sanderburg, Dr.
Frank Martinez, Robert Forbes, Tiger Phan, and Marisol. The case study provides
an energetic descriptive approach to corporate leadership culture, demands,
problem-solving and decision-making amongst each distinct character within the
case study.
BACKGROUND
Tiger
Phan is a young AMTRAK Executive with an MBA from the Wharton School of
Business at the University of Pennsylvania. He has been with AMTRAK for only
two years and worked remotely from his home. He has made tremendous strides in
the Marketing Department for the organization and makes several trips a month
to AMTRAK Corporate Headquarters located in Manhattan, New York. Recently,
several meetings are being held throughout the week amongst all of the higher
echelon executive leaders within the organization. Recently, Tiger was asked by
the CEO to visit the East, West, North, and South regions of AMTRAK to complete
an assessment of the company consumer report standing.
The
AMTRAK Board of Directors is interested in finding out how well their doing
within the transportation industry especially due to several airline industry
disasters such as Malaysian Airlines lost the plane and Turkish Airlines terrorist
attacks. They have seen an increase in consumer spending in railway
transportation. The domestic stakeholders are very interested in a mass merger
or acquisition of international railway transportation in foreign countries.
The Consumer Report will help the organization define parameters, goals and
strategic advantages needed for a push into the global market. Leadership at
the highest level thoroughly interested in the future developments of the firm.
Currently,
AMTRAK has four domestic, regional sites hosted by the following cities:
a.
East
Coast Region Headquarters – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (John Brown)
b.
West
Coast Region Headquarters – Seattle (Tacoma), Washington (Robert Forbes)
c.
North
Coast Region Headquarters – Detroit (Birmingham Suburb), Michigan (Dr. Frank
Martinez)
d.
South
Coast Region Headquarters – Charlotte, North Carolina (Ted Sanderburg)
Tiger
decides since he lives in Philadelphia that he will meet with the East Coast
Region Lead Operations Manager first before beginning his journey to visit each
site. Tiger meets John Brown at his office.
John is a former African-American NFL Football player, with a Mechanical
Engineering degree who worked his way up the ranks to become Lead Operation
Manager. Tiger and John hit it off right away.
III.
CONCEPTS & THEORY TECHNIQUES OF STRATEGIC ANALYSIS
Hersey and Blanchard (1969) introduce the concept of situational leadership, meaning
that a leader adapts his or her style to the situation. In the case study,
AMTRAK has commissioned Tiger to complete an important task for the company
stakeholders. The enterprise believes Tiger to exemplify the necessary traits
needed to perform this management task-oriented endeavor. The case demonstrates
political and bureaucratic leadership style as developments are going on behind
the scenes at the highest level. Notwithstanding, much of the information has
not been disseminated to Tiger but to his colleague Dr. Martinez as they both
have dual authority on the project of completing the Consumer Report. AMTRAK is
exercising a transactional theory as Tiger and Dr. Martinez are expected to
meet corporate expectations. Expectancy theory used anticipation based on an
activity or event (Bass, 1985). Other implications within the case study
include attribution theory as each operation manager attributes information to
some event or activity related to the situation. However, each manager
perceives correlating and conflicting views of leadership behavior. Leadership
further characterized through emotional and cultural intelligence throughout
the case study (Goleman, 1998a; Cheok & O’Higgins, 2013; Eken, et. al.,
2014). Emotional intelligence characteristics highlighted at each facet of
leadership style create the greatest need to approach resolution through
efficient means of communication (Goleman, 1998a; Papworth, Milne, & Boak, 2009;
Hersey, Blanchard, & Johnson, 2001). Although Tiger needs the support of
the operations managers the lack of support at the highest level will prove to
be a defining moment in future developments. Some situations require planning
before responding and then grouping participation to render the best result.
Nelson and Economy (2005) pose a list of today’s best leadership qualities:
decisiveness, awareness, focus, accountability, empathy, confidence, optimism,
honesty, and inspiration.
IV.
RECOMMENDATIONS
The
recommendation in the case study involves promoting egalitarianism.
Egalitarianism implies using democratic means within the workplace for
employees to be involved in making leadership decisions (Bolman & Deal,
2013). The idea is ‘adhocracy’ leadership that is loose, flexible,
self-renewing an organic form of tying things together (Bolman & Deal, 2013).
In allowing employees an opportunity to share in the responsibility leaders can
be held accountable. The purpose of the case is to show greater evolutions of
leadership and provide elements of the adoption of situational leadership.
Situational leaders should be able to
demonstrate four core, common and critical leadership competencies: diagnose,
adapt, communicate, and advance (Hersey & Blanchard, 1969; Hersey, et. a.,
2001). The amount of guidance and direction is contingent on the task. The amount
of socio-economical support from leadership and subordinates essentially based
on the functionality of the leader’s behavior and performance goals. Leaders
must have the acute awareness of their surroundings and develop an innate
ability to strengthen ties to leadership-employee relationships goals (Oshagbemi,
& Ocholi, 2006; Nanjundeswaraswamy & Swamy, 2014). Path-Goal Theory
suggests individual contributors alone are not the answer to the organizational
cultural issues within the firm rather setting a realistic path for achieving
long-term goals (Oshagbemi, & Ocholi, 2006; Nanjundeswaraswamy &
Swamy, 2014).
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