The character that has been chosen for the case study is Rick Stallsworth, the founder and CEO of The Games Forum. Rick is very arrogant and does not like the idea of other people challenging his decisions.
For example, whenever the sales and marketing director gave a suggestion, Rick would be quick to remind her that he was the boss. Thus, everything he said was right and should not be challenged. Rick is also demeaning. He starts to criticize and demean the sales and marketing director whenever she disagrees with his actions.
Additionally, he also dismisses the opinions of other directors accusing them of being alarmists. Cherry (2010) explains that an alarmist is someone who often sees the bad things in life. Alarmists often get too scared to do anything as they see danger all over. Such people often fail in business because business involves a lot of risk-taking.
Rick made a lot of decisions that touched the careers of the directors. For example, he decided to penetrate the Chinese market by the end of the year. He made this decision without consulting anyone, and the directors clearly have had a hard time trying to push this agenda through.
Rick also made a promise that everyone would get a 10% pay increase if they did the job on time. This decision falls under the ethics nature of business. It would appear that he bribed the directors with the promise of a 10% pay rise so that they do not oppose his expansion plans.
This essay will analyse various decisions that Rick made and attribute the decisions to several psychological and sociological theories. Three theories will be used in explaining Rick’s behaviour. The three theories are stereotyping, Hofstede’s framework and the Big Five theory.
Analysis of the Critical Decisions
As mentioned, Rick is the founder and the CEO of the company. Davey (2011) and Heynoski and Quinn (2012) assert that many founders of companies believe that they can make better decisions than any other person in the company. As the ‘boss’ Rick’s first main decision was the penetration of the Chinese market.
It is obvious that he did not think the project through as he has allocated very little time to the implementation process. The sales and marketing director decides to challenge his plan in an attempt to stop a disaster. It is at this point in the case study that one can identify stereotyping.
Maddox (2006) defines stereotyping as the use of common, yet not necessarily true, assumptions that people have about other groups of persons based on their culture and behaviour.
The theory is evident when Rick claims that Sue, the sales and marketing director, was only complaining so that people hear what she wants to say, which is typical of an American. It suffices to mention that Sue studied in America, thus, probably has some character traits that can be associated with Americans.
However, in this particular case, the statement is a stereotype because it cannot be proven. In addition, the statement was used to dismiss the argument raised by Sue and make the other directors view her argument as unimportant.
According to Hofstede’s framework, cultural influences can affect the values and attitudes of people in a society (Imada & Yussen, 2012). For example, people living in community A will react differently to persons living in community B because of their differences in culture. In the case study, the difference is pronounced.
Rick is an Australian and so he adheres to the culture of the Australian people. Ogbonna and Harris (2011) explain that Hofstede’s framework consists of 5 entities: individualism versus collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity versus femininity, long-term orientation and indulgence versus restraint.
Rick, coming from the Australian community appears to fall under the categories of individualism, masculinity and restraint. Additionally, he has a very low uncertainty avoidance index and a very little long-term orientation index.
The third theory that can be used to analyse Rick’s decision-making and behaviour is the Big Five theory. The theory states that there are five personality dimensions that each and every person adheres to.
The five dimensions extraversion/introversion, emotional stability, agreeableness or likeability, Conscientiousness or Conscience, and Intellect or Intellectence (Barrick & Mount, 1991). Out of these five dimensions, Rick falls under the introversion category. He is the opposite of a person in the extraversion category as he is not very sociable.
The rest of the directors are also afraid of disagreeing with him because he has been dismissive of those who have disagreed with him in the past.
Barrick and Mount (1991) explain that emotional stability refers to people who are anxious, depressed, angry, embarrassed, and insecure. The conscientiousness or conscience category consists of people who are hardworking and achievement-oriented.
Rick could fit into this class because he had established a very successful gaming company. On matters of agreeableness and likeability, Rick is not likeable. He wants things to go his way without considering the input of the other directors.
Barrick and Mount (1991) explain that intellect or Intellectence refers to people who are imaginative, creative, curious and original. Again, Rick could fall into this category because he was the founder of a company that designed different games.
Critical Discussion of the Strengths and Weaknesses of the Decisions
Rick’s decisions have both advantages and disadvantages. In order to point out clearly the pros and cons of his decision, it is critical to mention the core decisions he made. The first choice, as noted, is forcefully advising the directors to penetrate the Chinese market.
The first advantage of his decision is that it would increase the profits of the company if it were successful (Mullins, 2007; Buschman, 2013). Given that he falls under the masculinity category of Hofstede’s framework, he made the decision and forced the rest of the team to accept it because he believed that he was on the right track.
This makes it easy for people to be accountable for their actions. If the decision backfires, it will be clear that it was Rick who made the mistake. However, there are also several disadvantages that can be cited. One is that he did not consider the worries of the other directors.
This proves clearly that he falls under the introversion category of the big five theory. In addition, he uses stereotypes when dismissing concerns about the expansion. Using stereotypes is a disadvantage to any business person as they base their decisions on assumptions and lies.
A second decision that Rick makes is forcing the rest of the team to start implementing the project, even though, there were some members who were not comfortable with the idea. The advantage of doing this is that no time would be wasted debating the project. In this light, Rick is perceived to be very hard working.
However, one disadvantage of the decision is that the team involved in the implementation will have to jump through hoops to get the job done in time.
Moreover, the team will be I such a hurry to do the task before the deadline that they might fail to consider all the options they have. In turn, this might lead to miscommunication, misunderstanding, and the failure of the project.
Recommendations
Rick has to change a lot of things in the future to ensure that his decision-making does not negatively affect the other people in the company. Even though he has been successful using his strategies, his decision-making skills are getting worse by the day. The first thing that he has to change is the use of stereotypes in decision-making.
On several instances in the paper, the issue of stereotyping has been discussed. Rick cannot use stereotypes to argue his points because they are not factual, and there is also no way of proving them true. The stereotypes, therefore, offer a false net and might lead him to make wrong decisions.
On top of this, using stereotypes makes the other employees in the company feel unwanted and marginalized. While dismissing Sue’s argument, Rick not only used a stereotype, but he also did it in front of other people. This must have been very embarrassing for Sue.
Rick should also consider the cultures of other people. Indeed, the company is based in Australia, thus, people have to conform to the Australian culture. However, Rick understands that some of his employees are not from Australia. In order to accommodate each other, it is crucial that they all learn about each other’s culture.
For example, Sue’s American culture will push her to deliberate over every decision in order to come up with the best strategy possible. However, Rick through his Australian culture believes that everyone else should do what he says because he is the boss.
If he understood what the other people from the different countries expect in any discussion, he would become more likeable and he would also avoid confrontations.
Moreover, Rick can improve his decision-making skills by giving other people a chance to air their views. According to the case study, he did not take it lightly when Sue tried to challenge his decision. In fact, he started criticizing her work after she challenged him. The purpose of the directors is to manage different aspects of the company.
Therefore, at some given point, they know more than Rick bout their departments. However, because they are afraid of the CEO, and they keep their suggestions to themselves because they already know that he will not listen to what they have to say.
Rick can encourage the employees and the directors to speak up by first introducing suggestion boxes. Given that these boxes are anonymous, many employees will have an easier time dropping letters explaining what can be done to make the company more profitable into the box.
Rick should also consider creating a board that approves decisions (Luthans & Doh, 2012). He should not be part of the board because he will be biased and might force the board to accept his decision. The other directors can be included on the board to represent each of their departments.
The greatest advantage of this is that Rick will not have full control over the decisions made. In turn, the suggestions will be critically analysed. The decisions will also be made on facts and not personal bias, and stereotyping.
References
Barrick, M. R., & Mount, M. K. (1991). The big five personality dimensions and job performance: a meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 44, 1-27.
Buschman, J. (2013). Organizational culture, political fallout. The Journal of Academic Leadership, 39, 357-59.
Cherry, K. (2010). The everything psychology book (2nd ed.). Avon, MA: Adams Media.
Davey, G. (Ed.). (2011). Applied psychology. West Sussex, UK: Blackwell Publishing Limited.
Heynoski, K., & Quinn, R. E. (2012). Seeing and realizing organizational potential: Activating conversations that challenge assumptions. Organizational Dynamics, 41, 118—125.
Imada, T., & Yussen, S. R. (2012). Reproduction of cultural values. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38(1), 114-128.
Luthans, F., & Doh, J. P. (2012). International Management: Culture, Strategy and Behavior. (8th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Maddox, K. (2006). Rethinking racial stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination. Web.
Mullins, L. J. (2007). Management and organization behavior. New York, NY: Financial Times Prentice Hall.
Ogbonna, E., & Harris, L.C. (2011). Leadership style, organizational culture and performance: empirical evidence from UK companies. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 11(4), 766-88.