OBM260

ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR

GROUP CASE STUDY (20%)

Instructions: 3-4 students are assigned to a group. Students need to provide the correct
answers to each case study related to Chapter 6: POWER & INFLUENCE IN THE
WORKPLACE.
The students are required to:

1. Answer all 5 questions correctly. Support your judgement with relevant

material. Don’t forget to cited the resources.

2. Must have: Acknowledgement; Synopsis; Answer to that 5 Questions, and

References (more than 1).

3. Minimum page is 6 pages, maximum is 10 pages (not including appendix).

4. Left bound report (Left margin 1.5 inch, top, bottom and right 1 inch).

5. Insert page number starting from Synopsis page and end at Reference page

(Bottom Right).

6. Type your report using Arial 11, Double Spacing.

7. It must be submitted in Week 14 via online platform according to your

respective lecturer’s preferences.

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 Read the following situation and answer the questions that follow.

Steve Jobs cofounded Apple in his parent’s garage in 1976, was ousted in 1985, returned to
rescue it from near bankruptcy in 1997, and by the time he died, in October 2011, had built it
into the world’s most valuable company. Along the way he helped to transform seven
industries: personal computing, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, retail
stores, and digital publishing. He thus belongs in the pantheon of America’s great innovator,
along with Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and Walt Disney. None of these men was a saint, but
long after their personalities are forgotten, history will remember how they applied imagination
to technology and business.
Jobs is someone who set deadlines to his employees and they comply even though they think
the deadlines were overly ambitious, and he used his power to influence people to work long
hours week after week to help the company survive. He created his company with the idea of
launching other new companies as soon as they could develop viable ideas. If members would
convince him that their ideas were viable, he gave the company a maximum of $250,00 in
seed money, and gave the management team and employees a 30% stake in the company
and the CEO 10% of the company.
Therefore, everyone had a stake in the company. Once, when John Wiley & Sons Inc.
published an unauthorized biography of Jobs, Jobs’ response was to prohibit sales of all books
from that publisher in any Apple retailer store (Hafner, 2005). Jobs knowledge and skill, helps
him know what his customer want even before they can articulate it. His personal
characteristics and knowledge also caused people in other big company ask for his advice.
As written in Harvard Business Review, Isaacson revealed that some of the readers have been
insightful, fixate too much on the rough edges of his personality. However, he sees Job’s
personality was integral to his way of doing business. He acted as if the normal rules didn’t
apply to him, the passion, intensity, and extreme emotionalism he brought to everyday life
were things he also poured into the products he made. His petulance and impatience were
part and parcel of his perfectionism.
During his interview with Job about his tendency to be irregular on people. “Look at the
results,” he replied. “These are all smart people I work with, any of them could get a top job
at another place if they were truly feeling brutalized. But they don’t. And we got some amazing
things done.” Indeed, he and Apple had a string of hits over the past dozen years that was
greater than that of any other innovative company in modern times: iMac, iPod, iPod Nano,
iTunes Store, Apple Stores, MacBook, iPhone, iPad, App Store, OS X Lion – not to mention
every Pixar films.
In year 1997, Apple was producing a random array of computers and peripherals, including a
dozen different versions of the Macintosh. After a few weeks of product review session, he’d
finally had enough. “Stop!” he shouted. “This is crazy.” He grabbed a Magic Marker, padded
in his bare feet to a whiteboard, and drew a two-by-two grid. “Here’s what we need.” Atop the
two columns, he wrote “Consumer” and “Pro.” He labeled the two rows “Desktop” and
“Portable.” Their job, he told his members, was to focus on four great products, one for each
quadrant. All other products should be cancelled. There was a stunned silence. But by getting
Apple to focus on making just four computers, he saved the company. “Deciding what not to
do is as important as deciding what to do.” He told Isaacson that “That’s true for companies,
and it’s true for products.”
During the design of iPod interface, Jobs tried at every meeting to find ways to cut clutter. He
insisted on being able to get to whatever he wanted in three clicks. One navigation screen,

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 for example, asked users whether they wanted to search by song, album, or artist. “Why do
we need that screen?” Jobs demanded. The designers realized that they didn’t. “There would
be times when we’d rack our brains on a user interface problem, and he would go, “Did you
think of this?” Says Tony Fadell, who led the iPod Team. Jobs redefined the problem or
approach, and their problem would go away. At one-point Jobs made the simples of all
suggestion: Let’s get rid of the on/off button. At the first, the team members were taken aback,
but then they realized the button was unnecessary. The device would gradually power down
if it wasn’t being used and would spring to life when reengaged.
Jobs’ (in) famous ability to push people to do the impossible was dubbed by colleagues his
Reality Distortion Field, after an episode of Star Trek in which aliens create a convincing
alternative reality through sheer mental force. An early example was when Jobs was on the
night shift at Atari and pushed Steve Wozniak to create a game called Breakout. Woz said it
would take months, but Job stared at him and insisted he could do it in four days. Woz knew
that what was impossible, but he ended up doing it. When Jobs was designing the iPhone, he
decided that he wanted its face to be a tough, scratchproof glass, rather than plastic. He met
Wendell Weeks, the CEO of Corning, and told him that he wanted a major shipment of Gorilla
glass in six months. Weeks told him that Corning was not making the glass and didn’t have
the capacity. But Jobs told him not to be afraid. Weeks tried to explain that false sense of
confidence would not overcome engineering challenges, but Jobs had repeatedly shown that
he didn’t accept that premise. Jobs stared unblinking at Weeks and said “Yes, you can do it,
get your mind around it, you can do it.” Weeks then, immediately making Gorilla glass full-time
and Corning was able to made it under six months.

Discussion questions (25 Marks)

1. What are the bases of power that available within Jobs and what are the example of
those power that lies within him?

(5 marks)

2. Identify and briefly explain ONE (1) influence tactics used by Jobs to increase
employees’ involvement in the organization. State the example from case study.

(5 marks)

3. Refers to paragraph 5. In your opinion, what are the influence tactics that may be
used by the employee to survive in the organization.

(5 marks)

4. Refers to paragraph 6, identify ONE (1) way on how expertise helps the company to
cope with uncertainty. Provide with the example from case study.

(5 marks)

5. In your opinion, where Job’s action in the last paragraph consider as organizational
politics? Justify your answer.

(5 marks)

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