SCENARIO 1: THE PRODUCTIVITY DIVIDEND DECISION As head of the transmission/distribution group (TD group) in the city's water agency (a government corporation), you have been asked to reduce costs over the next year by a minimum of three percent without undermining service. Your department employs about 300 people, who are responsible for constructing and maintaining water lines throughout the city. Although you have an engineering background, the work is complex and involves several professions and trades. Even the TD group's first line supervisors (one or two levels below you in the hierarchy) are not fully knowledgeable of all aspects of the business. You believe that most employees support or at least accept the city's recent mandate to reduce costs (called the "productivity dividend initiative"). The city leaders have stated that this initiative will not result in any layoffs this year. However, the labor union representing most nonmanagement staff in the water agency (including most of your employees) is concerned that the productivity dividend initiative will reduce employment umbers over time and increase employee workloads. Although the TD group is a separate department within the city water agency, it affects most other work units in the agency. It is possible, for example, that ideas that reduce costs in the TD group might increase costs elsewhere. The TD group employees may be unaware of or care about these repercussions because there is limited interaction with or social bonding with employees in the departments.

SCENARIO 2: THE SUGAR SUBSTITUTE RESEARCH DECISION You are the head of research and development (R&D) for a major beer company. While working on a new beer product, one of the scientists in your unit seems to have tentatively identified a new chemical compound that has few calories but tastes closer to sugar than current sugar substitutes. The company has no foreseeable need for this product, but it could be patented and licensed to manufacturers in the food industry. The sugar-substitute discovery is in its preliminary stages and would require considerable time and resources before it would be commercially viable. This means that it would necessarily take some resources away from other projects in the lab. The sugar-substitute project is beyond your techni-cal expertise, but some of the R&D lab researchers are familiar with that field of chemistry. As with most forms of research, it is difficult to determine the amount of research required to further identify and perfect the sugar substitute. You do not know how much demand is expected for this product. Your department has a decision process for funding projects that are behind schedule. However, there are no rules or precedents about funding projects that would be licensed but not used by the organization. The company's R&D budget is limited, and other scien-tists in your work group have recently complained that they require more resources and financial support to get their proj-ects completed. Some of these R&D projects hold promise for future beer sales. You believe that most researchers in the R&D unit are committed to ensuring that the company's interests are achieved.

SCENARIO 3: COAST GUARD CUTTER DECISION You are the captain of a 72-metre Coast Guard cutter, with a crew of 16, including officers. Your mission is general at-sea search and rescue. At 2:00 am this morning, while en route to your home port after a routine 28-day patrol, you received word from the nearest Coast Guard station that a small plane had crashed 100 kilometres offshore. You obtained all the avail-able information concerning the location of the crash, informed your crew of the mission, and set a new course at maximum speed for the scene to commence a search for survivors and wreckage. You have now been searching for 20 hours. Your search operation has been increasingly impaired by rough seas, and there is evidence of a severe storm building. The atmospherics associated with the deteriorating weather have made commu-nications with the Coast Guard station impossible. A decision must be made shortly about whether to abandon the search and place your vessel on a course that would ride out the storm (thereby protecting the vessel and your crew, but relegating any possible survivors to almost certain death from exposure) or to continue a potentially futile search and the risks it would entail. Before losing communications, you received an update weather advisory concerning the severity and duration of the storm. Although your crew members are extremely conscien-tious about their responsibility, you believe that they would be divided on the decision of leaving or staying.

SCENARIO 4: THE SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY DECISION The industry initiatives agency is a group of 120 professionals responsible for marketing the state as a good place for compa-nies to operate their business or open new operations. Although you report to the head of the state's employment and commerce department, your agency is semi-autonomous in its policies and practices from the parent department. One of your highest prior-ities is to recruit and retain young, well-educated, high-potential employees for this growing agency. During a recent recruiting drive at universities and polytechnics, some potential applicants candidly stated that the state government seems out of touch with the younger generation, particularly their use of technol-ogy. A few observed that your agency's website doesn't pro-vide much recruitment information, and they couldn't find the department's Facebook or Twitter sites. These comments led to you think about having a social media policy in the industry initiatives agency, particularly whether or to what degree the agency should allow or possibly even encourage its staff to have work-related Facebook sites, personal blogs, and Twitter sites, and to participate in those sites during work hours. You personally know very little about emerging social media, although many of your direct reports (functional managers and team leaders) have varying degrees of knowledge about them. A few even have their own personal Facebook sites and one manager has her own blog on travel. Some direct reports are strongly opposed to social media in the workplace, whereas others are likely very supportive. How-ever, you believe that all of their views are in the agency's best interests. This social media policy decision would be within your mandate; unlike most governments, neither the state govern-ment nor the employment and commerce department has such a policy or restrictions on any policy that is designed by your agency. However, a few specific government departments pro-hibit Facebook and texting activity during work and, due to concerns about breaches of confidentiality and employer repu-tation, do not allow employees to mention work-related matters in any social media. Your decision is to develop a policy speci-fying whether and, if so, to what degree agency staff should be allowed or encouraged to engage in social network site activity during work hours.

QUESTIONS:-

For each scenario, identify 1) the level of employee involvement that is best for the situation, 2) the factors you considered when deciding on this level of employee involvement, 3) what potential problems, if any, might occur with this level of employee involvement.