NewTel Is a Telephone Company with a Policy of Filling

question 99

Essay

NewTel is a telephone company with a policy of filling positions through promotions rather than hiring from outside. Until recently, the company had a strong engineering focus and tended to promote people into senior executive positions from the engineering areas. Consequently, almost all of the company's 14 senior executives joined the company over 20 years ago in junior engineering positions. There is increasing pressure on NewTel to become more marketing and service oriented, so four people were hired one year ago from consumer products and retail firms to fill new senior executive positions in marketing and service management. The external hires were necessary because employees were not sufficiently qualified. Now there are signs of tension among senior executives, particularly during budget deliberations where there is limited discretionary spending on new corporate activities. The four new hires have been frustrated in their attempts to have the company put more money into marketing and customer services instead of technology investment. What conflict management strategies could be applied at NewTel to minimize dysfunctional conflict among these senior executives?

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Definitions:

Conversion Costs

The combined costs of direct labor and manufacturing overheads incurred to convert raw materials into finished products.

Blending Department

A specialized sector within a manufacturing operation where various inputs are combined to produce a homogeneous product.

Weighted-Average Method

An inventory costing method that averages the costs of goods available for sale to determine the cost of goods sold and ending inventory.

Conversion Costs

The costs incurred to convert raw materials into finished goods, typically including labor and overhead expenses.