Response to case study scenario 1

One of the feasible approaches will involve convincing the supervisor about the ethics and the associative merits of complying with the standards that regard the production, distribution and selling of any quality passed industrial products. The supervisor will be taken through the merits of meeting customer needs beyond the eye and the grave consequences of failure to do so. The supervisor has to be made to understand the financial consequences of having the batch retuned and client withdrawing their engagement with our company or the ultimate dissatisfaction of the end client. These will precipitate high client turn over and eventually our company will not be competitive or sustainable. The supervisor has to understand that if the client notes the disparities in the batch, our company will potentially lose one of the valuable clients we have, something we certainly do not need in such an unfriendly global economic milieu forcing a diminished individual and business spending.

The supervisor has to understand core business and work ethic that governs the maintenance of ethical and acceptable conduct. As a junior engineer with obviously power subordinated to that of my superior, the feasible approach will entail means to ensure that as management we reach an agreement on how we officially regard the failed test for the 200 units batch of memory drives .The catch in the given scenario is that my influence over supervisor is limited as I am his/her subordinate. Nonetheless this does not stop me from pursuing the right recourse, which must be primarily and principally focused on retracting the sent batch and sending a perfect batch with units that would have all passed the safety and quality test. The guidelines that I must follow to better address the impasse is to do everything according to organization’s work policy and principle, which must presumably underscored the ensuring of quality and customer satisfaction as well compliance to governing statutory and regulatory requirements. If the supervisor uses his power to block my proactive endeavors, the best way will be to document all my efforts and intentions as well as the official position of the safety and quality management team in disregarding and neglecting the failed tests. This will serve to protect me as an employee as a subordinate to the supervisor. All recourse details of my action will be recorded and documented ensure my protection in the case of the case getting under probe, authorities concerned can be satisfied that I did everything in my prescribed powers to redress the disparities.

The forgoing is in tandem with the perspectives of Henry P Knowles (1971) on conflict handling and management. In the theoretical and conceptual frameworks of Henry P Knowles (1971); in organizational conflict management theory this nature of conflict would fall under the structural category rather that the behavioral category. The scholar further notes that the handling of typically structural conflicts demands initial pursuit of resolution with the persons involved, failure to do that, the scholar advocates for the following and complete adherence to the internal environment (organizational structural policy) as well as the external environment (statutory or regulatory or governing principles like the international Safety and Quality Standards in this case). This lays the basis for the adopted path of recourse outlined above.


References

Henry, P. Knowles, (1971). Personality and leadership behavior. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co, New York.

Richard, A. Johnson (1976). Management, systems, and society: an introduction. Pacific Palisades, Calif.: Goodyear Pub. Com, Sidney