CASE STUDY:
The Alex Wholesale Food Cooperative is a warehousing company owned by
sixty retail food stores in a south- south city. Its operations consist mainly of
purchasing foodstuff in large quantities, storing them, and carrying them to branches stores on request.
As part of a comprehensive internal management study, Chizaram Joanna, the
ware house supervisor, examined the turnover, absenteeism, and productivity
figures of all work groups in the organization. The results she obtained contained no real surprises except of the case of the cooler and the data processing
departments.
The study revealed in general that the departments displaying high turnover and
absenteeism rates had low product on figures, and those with low turnover and
absenteeism were highly productive. When she began to analyze the cooler and
data processing figures, she discovered that both departments were tied for the lead for the lowest turnover and absenteeism figures. What was surprising was
that the cooler department ranked first as the most productive unit while the
electronic data processing department ranked last.
That inconsistency was further complicated by the fact that the working
conditions for cooler employees are extremely undesirable. They work in
sub zero temperatures for 30 minutes at a time and then, for safety reasons, come
out of the cooler and work outside for 30 minutes. Cooler employees are prone
to catch colds, and attacks of, the flue throughout the land. The computer room is air conditioned with a stable temperature all around; it has perfect lighting and is extremely quiet and comfortable. It
was known that both groups are highly cohesive and that the workers function
well with others in their department. This observation was reinforced by the
study ‟finding of the low levels of turnover and absenteeism.
In an effort to understand this phenomenon, supervisor, Donald-Paul decided to
interview the members of both departments. He hoped to gain some insights into the dynamics of each groups behaviour. He discovered that the cooler
department displayed a great deal of loyalty to the company. Most of the groups
are unskilled or semi-skilled workers, although they have no organized union, each person felt that the company had made special efforts to keep their wages
and benefits in line with organized operations. They knew their work required team effort and were committed to high performance.
A quite different situation existed in the data processing department. Although
the workers like their fellow employees, there was a uniform feeling among ‟this highly skilled group that management placed more emphasis on production ‟than on staff units. It was their contention that pay increases had been better for operating departments and that the gap between the wage earners and salaries
employees did not reflect skill differences. Because of that, a large percentage of the group displayed little loyalty toward the company even though they were very close among themselves.
QUESTIONS
A. How would you explain the situation that has developed in the two
departments? Is it possible that one highly cohesive group can be productive
and another unproductive? Explain your answer.

B. What does this situation say about the relationship between group cohesiveness and productivity?

C. What actions should Supervisor Donald-Paul take to maintain the productivity
of the cooler department and increase the output of the data processing
department?Explain your answer.