Case Studies on Management Failure

Paper Summary:

This paper examines two case studies concerning aspects of management were either violated or overlooked by those in charge. The paper first describes an incident in 1977 at the Occidental Chemical Plant where workers were exposed to a pesticide without being informed that it was a threat to their overall health and also to their ability to procreate as fathers. The paper highlights how the management was guilty of not communicating to the workers about the dangers of this very poisonous pesticide. The paper then focuses on the software company Accolade, Inc., that was charged with illegally making copies of a source code used by Sega, one of the largest computer games manufacturer in the United States. The paper shows how the leaders/managers of Accolade were guilty of failing to apply proper leadership traits to the problem associated with the Sega console games.

From the Paper:

"After a close reading of both case studies, it is clear that two important aspects of management were either violated or overlooked by those in charge, namely, a failure to communicate effectively and a lack of leadership ability. In the first case study, in 1977, workers at the Occidental Chemical Plant in Lathrop, California, were exposed to a pesticide known as dibromochloropropane which Dow Chemical discovered in 1951 was a "highly effective soil fumigant capable of eliminating small worms that attack the root systems" of many common agricultural products, such as corn, soybeans and grapes."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Daft, Richard L. and Dorothy Marcic. (2006). Understanding Management. 5th ed. Thomson Learning, Inc., 489.
• Leadership in Organizations. (2006). Ch. 11. Thomson Learning, Inc., 412-413.

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