John Baker Case Study

Description:

John Baker is a chief engineer at a company in a foreign location, and is in the process of attempting to mentor a young engineer, who is a local national, to assume Baker’s duties when he departs for his next assignment. The young engineer, Matt Rennalls, is the son of a politically influential father and takes the suggestions from Baker as racially insensitive, ultimately immediately resigning from his position.

Diagnosis:

Baker decided to approach his interview with Rennalls in what may have been an appropriate fashion a few years earlier. Because the country of Barracania is still so young in it’s independence, it is not surprising that native citizens would be in the process of learning how to live independently and also how to work with management from other nations. It most likely is a feeling that there has been change all around the company but very little, if any, on the inside of the company. Baker failed to account for the fact that he should adhere to mentoring or evaluating only work performance and standards, rather than telling Rennalls that he would be best suited to strive to please the foreign workers at the company. Baker inadvertently told Rennalls that he was of a higher caliber than other natives of Barracania, which was obviously a mistake on his part.

Theory:

The theory which may apply most significantly to this situation is complexity theory. Complexity theory has been proposed as a means to explain human interaction as organic, nonlinear and multifaceted. It also reflects the complicated relationships between individuals and the changing conditions in which they operate which are characterized by uncertainty, unpredictability, and dynamic evolution over time (Lowell, 2016). The company which Baker and Rennalls work for could easily be described as a workplace under changing conditions where there is some uncertainty due to the changing political and social climate beyond the doors of the building. The “multifaceted” aspect of complexity theory applies as there are multifaceted personalities in all relationships, most importantly in the workplace. Relationships are the principal organizing factors in complex organizations in which everything exists only in relation to everything else. The weak relationship between Baker and Rennalls creates negative energy and limit the organization