ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR

Case3:

FAIRFIELDS NURSING  HOME

Fairfields  Nursing  Home  is  a  well-respected  facility  established  primarily  to  provide medical attention to the elderly and to other invalid or semi-invalid persons. The home is owned by five businesspeople, and one of the men, Lewis Starrker, serves as full-time administrator. The patients or their relatives pay rather sizeable monthly fees for the continuing care provided. The service and attention given by the home is considered by most to be excellent. In the early years, the home was rather small, and the administrative problems were few. As the capacity of the home was increased and the volume of patients began to grow, the duties of the administrator grew too large for starker to handle alone. About  five  years  ago,  an  assistant  administrator  was  hired  and  given  the  duties  of overseeing the business office, building and grounds maintenance, and laundry and housekeeping activities. Complete authority was given to the assistant administrator over these activities. In addition, the assistant administrator was designated to serve in the full capacity of the administrator when the administrator was away from the nursing home. In

this event, all workers were under his jurisdiction. About a year ago, the position of assistant administrator became vacant, and Bentley Cantrell was hired to fill the position. The current duties  of  the  assistant  administrator  remain  basically  identical  to  the  responsibilities outlined five years ago.

Cantrell is well qualified for his position. He has a bachelor’s degree in management with a good foundation in accounting. For two years prior to coming to Fairfields Nursing Home, he was office manager in a position where he supervised purchasing, receiving and delivery, and payroll and book-keeping. On occasion he also worked on the problems of the physical plant of the hospital and its upkeep. Mr Starrker is somewhat disappointed in Cantrell’s performance over the past year. Cantrell knows how the work should be done, and he gets along with the employees; but he fails to handle problems promptly. He puts off telling his subordinates what to do and is especially reluctant to correct them when they make a mistake. The reluctance to act apparently cannot be explained by ignorance, because when Starrker confronts Cantrell with the need for action, Cantrell always proposes a good solution. However, when Cantrell is instructed to move ahead, he expresses doubt that the supervisors and employees beneath him will be able to follow his instructions. Many times he elects to do a job himself rather than direct his subordinates to handle it.

Questions:

1. Consider the organizational chart for Fairfields Nursing Home. What problems, if any, do you see in the planned structure for the nursing home? Do the spans of supervision seem to be about right?

2. How are the supervisors of the three shifts and the nurses, helpers, and therapist who report to  them  different  from  other  workers  at  the  nursing  home  according  to  the planned structure?

3. Does the organization need a mechanistic structure or an organic structure? Why?

4. How  would  the  organization  structure  look  if  the  organization  was  organized  as  a network structure? Who would the partners be? What would be their responsibilities?

5. What  problems  exist  at  the  nursing  home   that  aren’t  related  to   its  structure?