CASE STUDY #1: MANAGING THE VIRUS HUNTERS I.

Time Context

Dec 11, '10 2:25 PM for everyone

The period in this case study is from 1999 to 2003. Vincent Weafer has been the leader of Symantec Corporation's virus hunting team since 1999. The Launch of Blaster-B worm took place in 2003. II. Viewpoint

This case study is about the computer virus hunters at Symantec Corporation. It focuses on the nature of their job and the managerial challenges faced by Vincent Weafer. III. A. Relevant Facts Symantec Corporation.

Symantec is a global software company. Its mission is to provide complete online security to its customers and safety to the cyber world. Symantec deals with the production of antivirus software, which provides protection against harmful contents for computers. Symantec is a long-term survivor since 1982. B. Vincent Weafer

Vincent Weafer has an extensive range of experience, gained from more than 20 years in the information technology industry, ranging from software development, systems engineering, to security research positions. For the past 10 years, he has been the operational leader of the Symantec Global Security Response team, where his mission is to advance the research into new computer security threats and provide security content solutions such as anti-virus, antispam, intrusion and vulnerability response, real-time alerting, content solutions, research, and analysis. Weafer has also been one of Symantecs main spokespeople on Internet security threats and trends, with national and international press and broadcast media, appearing on CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, and BBC, among many others. In addition, he has presented at many international conferences on security threats and trends, presenting papers and contributing to technical panels run by the European Institute for Computer AntiVirus Research (EICAR), Virus Bulletin, Association of AntiVirus Asia Researchers (AVAR), and Australian Computer Emergency Response Team (AUSCERT), among many others. Weafer holds a bachelors degree in electronics engineering from Dublin City University, Ireland. IV. Problem Statements

A. Keeping professionals excited about work that is routine, standardized and chaotic is a major challenge for Vincent Weafer. B. Weafer has to identify the management roles that he would be playing to be efficient and effective manager of the organization. V. Alternative Courses of Actions A. Vincent Weafer should focus more on the technical skills to be effective as manager. Technical skills are essential to effective leadership. Besides, if you dont know how to effectively complete a task, how can you rightfully judge others when it comes time for review? Youll have no way of knowing whether or not your team members are completing their jobs properly, opening up the possibility for a future disaster. In this case study, the individual in question is actually a member of upper management. While lower level managers have the most technical responsibility, there is no excuse for middle or upper management to go without proper training as well. As a team leader, Weafer should provide security storage and system management solution. Specialization of work force should also be considered such that it has to be divided into smaller groups where specific tasks are to be operated. As to their office environment, the work never stopped so as to maintain efficiency. This is duly practiced by the company. In this case, when Santa Monica team finished, Tokyo team took over and then handed over to Dublin Team and back to Santa Monica team. In all likelihood, the average manager in business today possesses fewer than half of business knowledge. The result? A high degree of failure, evidenced through attrition, frustration and dislocation. But while technically-skilled manager can define generalized success for most business. B. Vincent Weafer should give equal level of importance to technical, human and conceptual skills to maintain an environment that encourages his virus hunters. In order to perform the functions of management and to assume multiple roles, managers must be skilled. In additon to the technical skills, managers should know human and conceptual skills as well. These three managerial skills are essential to successful management. Technical skill involves process or technique knowledge and proficiency. In this case, Vincent Weafer should know everything his people are doing. In return, Weafer would be more reliable and trustworhty. Human skill involves the ability to interact effectively with people. Managers interact and cooperate with employees. Weafer should coach and mentor the virus hunters. He should also establish networking outisde the organization. Working as a team to combat the problem is a big yes. Increase in the work force and the work itself should be done globally round the clock. Employees should not be treated as machines. Weafer should be able to work well with people in diverse cultural environment. Conceptual skill involves the formulation of ideas. Managers understand abstract relationships, develop ideas, and solve problems creatively. Weafer should

recognize the problems and acknowledge his employees' concern for better handling of the organization. Also, he should identify opportunities for innovation. VI. Conclusion and Recommendation

Therefore, with the alternative courses of action provided, giving equal level of importance to technical, human and conceptual skillls is the best option. Although having the technical skills as a core value is still a good choice, managers should make it a point that they do their job as humane as their employees are. This study recommends that every supervisor, manager or people managers should live his life in the company in such a manner that his behavior must inspire his subordinates. His actions must provide a good model for emulation, a role model of good conduct and proper behavior. His decisions must be imbued with wisdom and integrity. In Weafer's case, respect to employees and giving value to their contributions would be great. He should be dedicated to a work environment that is professionally challenging and personally rewarding. He must believe in teamwork, and with his team delivers exceptional results to out clients and their customers. Finally, Weafer should commit to the professional development of each of his subordinates as they progress through their careers in Symantec Corporation.

A Perfect Response to an Imperfect Storm

1.

Using Exhibit 3-2, describe the culture at Mississippi Power. Why do you think this type of culture might be important to an electric power company? On the other hand, what might be the drawbacks of such a culture? Mississippi Powers culture appears to be high in attention to detail, high in outcome orientation, high in people orientation, high in team orientation, low in aggressiveness, high in stability, and high in innovation and risk taking. These dimensions of organizational culture are important to an electric company, especially because of the potential life-and-death nature of the services it provides.

Very few drawbacks exist in this kind of culture for a company of this type. While a strong level of outcome orientation might be detrimental in the culture of some companies, a high degree of outcome orientation enabled Mississippi Power to get the power back on, as illustrated in one crews decision to strip a generator off an ice machine to get a substation working.

2.

Describe how you think new employees at Mississippi Power learn the culture.

New Mississippi Power employees learn corporate culture by observing the dedication of managers who walk the talk and employees who demonstrate vital elements of the culture not only by their words, but also by their actions. Even before Hurricane Katrina made landfall, managers at Mississippi Power formulated a large-scale disaster plan so that employees were able to respond quickly and effectively in a terrible disaster. Employees thus saw their leaders epitomize the can-do organizational culture that the company espouses.

New employees also learn the culture as they are empowered to find solutions and make decisions in a decentralized decision-making environment. The unquestionable trust of their supervisors that is experienced by employees of Mississippi Power enables them to get the job done, even in the direst of emergencies. Again, experiencing these elements of the cultural climate instead of merely reading about them or hearing them spoken helps employees to learn, value, and support the culture themselves.

3.

What stakeholders might be important to Mississippi Power? What concerns might each of these stakeholders have? Would these stakeholders change if there was a disaster to which the company had to respond? Stakeholders include individual and corporate customers, suppliers, competitors, and all groups and community members served in ordinary times. Lost power creates life-and-death situations for many stakeholders, including the very young, senior citizens, and persons with health concerns. In a disaster when crews from other states are called in to assist the affected region, stakeholders could include the above groups in those crews states as well as in the home state.

4.

What could other organizations learn from Mississippi Power about the importance of organizational culture? By observing and studying the response of Mississippi Power in Hurricane Katrina, organizations of all types can learn about the importance of a proactive organizational culture that encourages contingency planning, teamwork, enacted values, empowerment of employees in the decisionmaking process, and the value of trust between and among employees and management.

ADDITIONAL CHAPTER INFORMATION

Ask students to look for different examples of organizational culture in business publications such as Wall Street Journal (Marketplace section). Students could research Forbes, Fortune, Working Woman, and

BusinessWeek for current information. You might have students choose either one of the companies to study in depth or look at a number of different companies. Tie this material into your discussion of organizational personalities. Ask students what they expect from an organization and whether organizations that they have researched are consistent with their expectations. You might want to ask students whether they would like to work for the company (companies) they studied, and to tell why or why not.

A perfect response to an Imperfect storm

Ques 1.Describe how you think new employees Mississippi power learn the culture.Answer. Organizational culture has been described as the shared values, principles, traditions, and waysof doing things that influence the way organizational members act.In most organizations, these sharedvalues and practices have evolved over time and determine, to a large extent, how things done in theorganization.Our definition of culture implies three things, First culture is a perception. Its notsomethingthat can be physically touched or seen, but employees perceive it on the basis of what theyexperiencewithin the organization.Second, organizational culture is descriptive.Its concerned withhowmembers perceive the culture, not with whether they like it.Finally even though individualsmayhave different backgrounds or work at different organizational levels, they tend to describe theorganizations culture in similar terms.Thats the shared aspect of culture. Employees learn anorganizations culture in a number of ways. The most common are stories,rituals, material symbols andlanguage Stories Organizational stories typically contain a narrative of significant events or people, including suchthings as the organizations founders, rule breaking and reactions to past mistakes Rituals The Passing of the Pillars is an important ritual at Boston Scientific facility near Minneapolis. Whensomeone has a challenging assignment, theyre awarded a 2-foot-high plaster of-pillar to show thattheyve got support from all their colleagues .Corporate rituals are repetitive sequences of activities thatexpress and reinforce the important values and goals of the organization.At Aditya Birla, an Indianmultinational company, there are three high profile awards that are given by the company to recognizeindividual contributors every year, awards for superior teamwork, awards for internationally benchmarked outstanding achievement and a monetary award for performance recognition in deliveringexcellence.The awards are presented by the Chairman in a very extravagant award ceremony.It conveysto the companys employees that delivering excellent performance is important. Material Symbols When you walk into different businesses, do you get a feel for what type of work environment it is-formal, casual, fun, serious and so forth?These reactions demonstrate the power of material symbols or artefacts in creating an organisations personality. Material symbols convey to employees who isimportant and the kinds of behaviour (for example, risk taking, conservative, and authoritarian, participative, individualistic) that are expected and appropriate. Language Many organisations and units within organizations use language as a way to identify and unite membersof a culture.By learning this language, members attest to their acceptance of the culture

and their willingness to help preserve it. The Mississippi power employees learn the Organizational culture bytwo ways which we are mentioning below: MATERIAL SYMBOLS In Mississippi power one key elements is the companys can do organizational culture, which isevidenced by important values inscribed on employees IDENTIFICATION TAGS unquestionabletrust Superior performance, total commitment.Because the values were visible daily, employees knewtheir importance. STORIES The employees at Mississippi power worked in difficult and demanding situation in the wake of hurricane Katrina. For their dedicated and devoted work during the situation the Mississippi power washonoured with an emergency response award by the Edison electric institute in January 2006 its anaward that all the companys -employees are proud of. During such situations do stories of variousemployees and the culture of the company come forward and new employees can learn from thesestories the real culture of the company.Ques 2. What stake holder might be important to Mississippi power? What concern might each of thesestake holders have? Would these stake holders change if there was a disaster to which the company hadto respond?Answer. Stakehol ders :Stakeholders are any constituencies in an organizations environment that areaffected by the organizations decisions and actions.These groups have a stake in or are significantly nfluenced by what the organization does.In turn, these groups can influence the organization. The ideathat organisations have stakeholders is now widely accepted by both management academics and practising managers.Stakeholders include both internal and external groups. As both can effect what an organization doesand how it operates. Managers care about stakeholders relationship for one thing; doing so can lead todesirable organizational outcomes, such as improved predictability of environmental changes, moresuccessful innovations greater degree of trust among stakeholders and greater organizational performance.As a provider of one of the most important services, almost all stakeholders are important to theMississippi power company such as (employees, customers, trade and industryassociations,governments, shareholders) As for the concerns that each stakeholder might have Employees : Employees are their main concern is to restore the power network as soon as possible. Theymight also be concerns that their efforts should be encourage and reward must be given to boost their motivation level. Customers : their concern will be about being reconnected with power Governments : Government can also be stakeholder as government can earn tax revenue from companyand its also the responsibility of government to provide electricity to citizen of state. Shareholders : Shareholders are also key stakeholder in company as they have invested in company.They mainly concerns with the profitability of company.In case of a disaster, stakeholders will not change; however, the companys priorities will change, in our case, restoring the power network; i.e., employees are the most important stakeholdersQuest 3. What could other organization learn from Mississippi power about the importance of organization culture?Ans: The other

organizationcan understand the companys decentralized decision making approach tocontribute to the way in which employees were able to accomplish what they did.The old approach wereresponding to a disaster with top down decision making being push further down to the electricalsubstation level, a distribution point that serves some 5,000 people. This structure made things happenfaster then the expected people were getting more done.At the endall employees if Mississippi power worked in difficult treacherous and often dangerous situations did what they had to do they got the job

Answers to Case Application Questions

Fast Company

1.

How do you think good decision making has contributed to the success of NASCAR? The decisions made by the management of NASCAR have been carefully considered since the founding of the company in 1948 by Big Bill France Sr. His grandson Brian carries on the legacy today as chairman and CEO of NASCAR. As the companys top manager, Brian France uses the steps in the decision-making process to adapt to a changing environment while preserving strengths that have contributed to the phenomenal growth and success of NASCAR.

In identifying problems, for example, Brian gathers information from a variety of sources and secures the resources necessary for taking action. Since NASCAR remains a privately held company, the number of its stockholders is much smaller than would be the case if it were a publicly held firm, but Brian is still clearly mindful of the interests of all of the stakeholders of the company when he contemplates alternatives to use in making corporate decisions.

2.

A decision to go after a new market as Brian is doing is a major decision. How could he have used the decision-making process to help make this decision? It is clear that Brian is using the eight-step decision-making process in reaching the decision to expand his target market. He faces a two-fold problem: holding the loyalty of the companys current fans and, at the same time, building a more diverse customer base. After identifying the companys problem, Brian must apply decision criteria that are consistent with the companys philosophy and goals. Once the decision alternative has been selected and implemented, it must be followed through and monitored through customer feedback. Much of NASCARs historical success can be attributed to managements responsiveness to its loyal customers, and one can

expect that the companys leadership will actively seek this customer feedback for its decisions now and in the future.

3.

What criteria do you think would be most important to Brian as he makes decisions about the companys future? These criteria would include maintaining the viability of the firm; retaining the brand loyalty of NASCAR devotees; ensuring responsible corporate behavior, including car and driver safety; maintaining high quality products and services; and remaining true to the companys philosophy of origin.

4.

Would you characterize the conditions surrounding NASCAR as conditions of certainty, risk, or uncertainty? Explain your choice. Elements of all three conditions can be found. Conditions of certainty exist in the importance of adapting to changing times and changing demographics and being a socially responsible company. The element of risk can be seen as Brian considers changes that threaten to erode his customer base and the support of NASCARs sponsors and advertisers, while attracting new markets. The NASCAR organization must make decisions under the condition of uncertainty when it considers factors in the external environment of the future over which it has little control, including the national economy, government regulations, and competing entertainment industries.

5.

What could Brian learn from the concept of highly reliable organizations to help him be a better decision maker? Brian is learning several important concepts associated with HROs. As he prepares the NASCAR organization to adapt to changing times, he is leading proactively and is not being tricked by . . . success. He remains alert to potential problems and acts quickly and early to prevent them. He recognizes and studies the complexity of the changing business environment in which his company operates and is open to consideration of a variety of alternatives. NASCARs leadership anticipates, but also anticipates its limits, as top management thinks by acting and uses decisiveness after careful consideration of the steps in the decision-making process.

ADDITIONAL CHAPTER INFORMATION

You may want to provide additional challenges for your students by asking them to research a recent business situation in the news. Why do they think some of the decisions were made? Which decisionmaking styles appear to have been used by management in this situation?

Fast-Forwarding Blockbuster
Fast-Forwarding Blockbuster
Subject: Fast-forwarding Blockuster Case Summary : Fast-Forwarding Blockbuster Blockbuster is the the worlds largest video rental company. The past few years have not been good ones for Blockbuster, because they have posted losses in 9 of the past 11 years, closed many stores and lost many customers to Netflix. One of the most important changes that Blockbuster did in order to remain competitive was to hire a new CEO, James W. Keyes who faced a similar situation as the former CEO of 7-eleven Stores. Who after facing bankruptcy in 1990 his company achieved 26 consecutive quarters of revenue growth and a profit of 106 million in 2004 , by relying on numbers by implementing the quantitative approach. Keyes is now using the same method with Blockbuster. Case Questions: 1. Mr. Keyes obviously is a big fan of the quantitative approach .How might principles of scientific management be useful to Blockbuster? By using the principles of scientific management Blockbuster can improve production efficiently and thus can increase their ability to satisfy customer need so they will have a competitive advantage and can re-open their stores and have profit instead of lost. 2. How might knowledge of organizational behavior help the companys frontline store supervisor manage their employees? Would Mr. Keyes and other top managers need to understand OB? Why or Why not? Organizational behavior is the field of study that researches the actions of the people at work, so by knowing this you know your employees behavior and thus you know how you have to deal with each of them so you also know how to manage them better. Yes they would, because it is very useful to know about your employees and specially their behavior, because the success of a company starts by the people in the company. 4. Based on information from Blockbusters website, what values does this company embrace that might be important for successful organizations in the twenty-first century?