BUMGT1501 Management Principles Case Study: Sunset Prayers

This case study report analyzes the 'Sunset Prayers' case, which involves Frank Piechowski, a plant manager, dealing with the hiring of Somali refugee workers and their religious practices impacting the workplace. The report identifies and discusses key management theories, including the situational leadership model and external organizational environment factors. It evaluates the impact of political, social, cultural, and economic factors on the company. The analysis suggests that Frank should adopt a coaching leadership style, being both supportive and directive, to improve organizational efficiency. The report recommends a flexible approach to accommodate the workers' cultural customs, such as sunset prayers, and emphasizes the importance of maintaining a positive work environment. It also recommends that the company develops a policy for sunset prayers and to adopt a highly supportive and directive approach toward Somali refugee workers. The report concludes with the importance of low labor costs and hard working employees. References from academic sources are included in the report.

Running Head: MANAGEMENT
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Management
Management Principles: Sunset Prayers
(Student Details: )
9/15/2019

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Contents
Case Study Report: Sunset Prayers............................................................................................2
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Case introduction...................................................................................................................2
Discussion: Case Questions.......................................................................................................2
Answer 1................................................................................................................................2
Answer 2................................................................................................................................3
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................5
Recommendations......................................................................................................................5
References..................................................................................................................................7

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Case Study Report: Sunset Prayers
Introduction
This report is based on analysing a case study in order to identify, discuss and thereby
evaluate a wide range of selected management theories as well as concepts from
management. Apart from this, this case study report will discuss and include such theories
that managers along with modern organizations can utilise for operating effectively and
efficiently. To do so, this report is going to analyse the case study ‘Sunset Prayers’ which is
based on decision-making, organizational environment and situational model of leadership.
Case introduction
In the given case, Frank Piechowski is a plant manager of an Appliance Corporation
refrigerator plant situated in Minnesota North Woods. Recently, the plant managers have
been told by the vice-president to hire 40 more contingents or we can say temporary workers.
Frank already knew that most of the new hires will be Muslim Somali refugees on the basis
of his past experience. The reason behind was the need of surviving into a highly competitive
market, which needs keeping the production costs further low. They hire Muslim Somali
refugees as the contingent workers because it helps with keeping production budget low. On
the other hand, Piechowski was worried because the Muslim faith of the refugee employees
could get in the manner of a productive workflow in the refrigerator plant.
Discussion: Case Questions
The case study questions are going to be answered in this section of this report as follows:
Answer 1
It is a well-known fact that external organizational environ is capable of determining
the success or failure of any organization, hence this case study needs to evaluate on the basis
of aforementioned fact. Usually, external environment factors affect a company from the
political, economic, social, legal and environmental. It has been found that companies are
affected by external changes in society like effect of sexual harassment and many more.
There can be so many external environment component or elements which are capable to

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impact Frank Piechowski’s refrigerator company. The factors which have impacted the
company described in the case study are as follows:
 Political
 Social
 Cultural
 Economic (Chawla & Renesch, 2010).
In the context of this case study, political factors have impacted the company
considerably as any changes in the policy might result in the risk of alienating his workforce.
Policy guidelines are playing huge role in the success of the refrigerator production plant.
Policies-making and required changes in the existing policies can also affect refrigerator
company’s growth and development.
On the other hand, as discussed above, social factors associated with Muslim workers
in the production plant have affected the refrigerator production firm largely. The reason
behind this is that the Muslim workers are sunset prayers, which means they usually have to
go for doing their prayers as per their social identity. In this way, it has affected the
company’s growth and production with profit and revenue.
Moreover, from a cultural perspective, as described by (Samson, Donnet, & Daft,
2018) suggested the majority of the workers of the refrigerator company were Somali
refugees which is clearly related to their cultural origin. In this way, cultural factors like
traditional clothing, food, prayers’ patterns, afternoon and midday rituals, sunset prayers, and
many more have impacted Frank Piechowski’s company largely.
While talking about economic factors, the case study analysis is suggesting that hiring
Somali refugee workers is in favour of company’s cost management. As described by
(Samson, Donnet, & Daft, 2018), Somali workers help to keep labor costs low for the
company which in turn contribute to low production cost to company. In this way, hiring
Somali workers or temporary workers has contributed positively to the budget perspective.
Thus, it can be said that external factors like economic factors in terms of labor as well as
refrigerator cost have impacted the company’s profit at large extent.

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Answer 2
In general, the Situational Leadership Model (SLM) is a model formed by Paul
Hersey and Ken Blanchard (Maxewell, 2007). They developed this leadership model while
working on the Management of Organizational Behaviour (OB). In this context, fundamental
principle of the SLM is that there is no single ‘best’ style of leadership exists in the modern
OB. For instance, the figure shown below is showing two main axes include supportive and
directive behaviour. In this way, when goes above onto supportive behaviour the leadership
style will be more supportive, contrary the second axis of leadership style is of directive
behaviour which depicts increased directive nature of an effective leader.
Source: (Maas, 2014)
In the context of the given case study, while referring to the SLM, the leadership style
Frank Piechowski should adopt to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the
organization, is S2 coaching leadership style. This leadership style has been suggested on the
basis of situation of the given case as discussed in the above paragraphs. Apart from this
coaching leadership style is all about being highly supportive and high directive while acting

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in an organizational scene based on specific situations. It is clear from the figure that
coaching leadership lies in the second quadrant of the four quadrant diagram of leadership
styles.
The chosen leadership style based on SLM seems right for Frank Piechowski, which
he should adopt for improving the effectiveness as well as the efficiency of his organization
because he is going to hire more temporary employees. In this case, if Frank Piechowski will
be low directive then they all will not be able to work efficiently and effectively as they are
having less required knowledge for their allotted work. On the other hand, based on
(Goldman, 2017), Frank Piechowski needs to be highly supportive in the context of their
cultural, social aspects like food-habits; rituals and sunset prayers then the workers will be
able to work more effectively and efficiently rather than facing problems while willing to go
for sunset prayers from their workplace. Furthermore, based on (Chawla & Renesch, 2010), it
is clear that cultural intelligence requires to be demonstrated by effective leaders as without
being understanding the leaders cannot evolve positive work environment at organizations.
This is the reason coaching leadership style which is all about being highly directive and
highly supportive has been chosen for Frank Piechowski which will ultimately allow him to
improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the organization.
Conclusion
In whole, the given case study on ‘Sunset Prayers’ has been studied successfully. It
has been found that there are two key decision-makers in the whole scene include Halima
Adan and Frank. Out of the two, Frank is the chief decision-maker for North Woods. Besides,
the spokesperson for the Somali people is Halima Adan being the secondary decision-maker.
The case study analysis suggests that Halima and Frank work together for accommodating
the Muslim customs during working hours at the refrigerator company. While conducting the
detailed analysis, Frank has been taken into consideration mainly because he is the ultimately
responsible leader for the company decisions. Moreover, it has been observed that North
words are typically struggling for surviving within a highly-competitive appliance industry
with huge firms like Home Depot and Best Buy. For surviving, Frank needs to keep
production costs low with the help of keeping their labour cost low. In addition, Title VII of
the Civil Rights Act needed which Frank makes ‘reasonable’ accommodations for his
employees’ religious practices, has been found as a casual issue in this case study.

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Recommendations
There are some useful recommendations for solving all possible issues in this case,
which can be applied by Frank Piechowski to improve effectiveness and efficiency of the
organization, as follows:
 A policy for Sunset Dinner can be evolved and implemented, which would include a
flexible dinner break for the Somalis as they need to practice their cultural customs.
 The policy may include three set breaks which would mean the Somalis would not
always have a sunset break
 The leaders should adopt an approach of being highly supportive and directive
towards Somalis refugees workers.
 Sunset dinner must be taken into an action plan
 The company should do things which keeps the hard-working employees happy as
low-labour cost rely on these contingent hard-working workers who are actually
working for the whatever wages the company offers

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References
Chawla, S., & Renesch, J. (2010). Learning organizations: Developing cultures for
tomorrow’s workplace. New York: Productivity Press.
Goldman, E. (2017). Leadership practices that encourage strategic thinking. Journal of
Strategy and Management, 5(1), 25-40.
Maas, W. (2014). Leadership styles and organizational commitment: literature review.
Bachelor Thesis Organisation & Strategy, 1-21.
Maxewell, J. (2007). The 21 irrefutable laws of leadership: Follow them and people will
follow you. London: Thomas Nelson.
Samson, D., Donnet, T., & Daft, R. (2018). Management (6th Asia Pacific ed.). South
Melbourne: Cengage Learning Australia.