Day: October 1, 2020

Apple Case Study

Strategic Leadership and Innovation at Apple inc.

This week you are required to submit a case study analysis. Your paper analysis should be between 3 5 pages, not counting the title and reference page. No submission should be fewer than 1050 words.
Include a clear and concise introduction.
Format your case study assignment paper so that the three questions asked below are clearly defined. Double space your work, cite your work, limit quotes, and edit your work well for spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors. If you use any quotes, you must increase the length of your paper to compensate. Make sure you have two additional references other than the text and use citations.

This case study analysis will be based on the 35 case studies in your textbook (page 540-541). You are to pick ONE (1) of the companies from your text. Choose a company different from the company you used for the week five paper. You may not have two papers about the same company. You may not use a paper or any part of a paper from a previous class. Name your selection on your title page.
No abstract is required.
Read the case study and answer the following questions in your paper.

1. Assess the effectiveness of your company’s leadership.

2. Discuss the basis of your company’s competitive advantage and the potential challenges to its strategy.

3. What growth strategies might your company pursue?

Submit your paper into the assignment section of the classroom.
Font and Spacing – Use Times New Roman 12 pitch font with double-spaced lines.
Length – Write a 3 to 5 page analysis not including the title page and citation page. No fewer than 1050 words!
Reference Page – Include all sources including your textbook on a Reference page
Utilize the APA Style for documenting sources. You will need to include at least 2 sources in addition to your text. Finally, remember Wikipedia is NOT a scholarly source.
Punctuation, essay format (thesis, supporting paragraphs with transition and topic sentences, and summary) grammar and documentation count toward your grade.
Late papers will have deductions.

Your research paper is based on the following scenario:

You have just taken over as a Shift Supervisor at Bad Teddy Bear Manufacturing and have a team of 30 under you. Your educational and training level is exactly what you have today.

Your teams rotate shifts every 3 weeks and there are two shifts, morning, 0700-3:30 PM and evening, 3PM to 11:30PM. You have the flexibility to move people around shifts, and you stay on the same shift, with overlap (i.e. your hours are 9-6). Two co-leads take over when you are not there and stay on shifts with their workers.

The previous supervisor was let go for cause, failure to meet quotas and leadership inability. The department’s morale is very low and there is a great deal of pressure for your shift to perform.

On top of this, there is a problem with two of your employees, one is always late and the other calls in sick frequently (you can decide what factors lead to their absenteeism). The previous supervisor never did anything about this and everyone knew it was an issue. One of your co-leads has brought it to your attention and wants to know when you are going to fix it.

You also have an employee that has been there for 14 years and has never been promoted to co-lead or supervisor. He came to you and wants to know why? He is an older worker and knows what he is doing, however, one of your co-leads told you that some of the younger workers grumble that he is too slow and can’t learn new technology. He also stated that unless he gets the opportunity to move up, he’ll quit and make sure that management knows you never gave him a chance.

Finally, there is a brand new worker, a single mother, who is super sharp and a very hard worker. She told you on your first day there how much she loves working at the company and wants to progress upward. However, childcare is an issue and sometimes she needs to leave early. On top of that, her car has left her stranded on several occasions.

You are to develop a solution to present to each of your co-leads on how to start fixing some of these issues. Make the paper informative, with some of the techniques and terms that we have addressed thus far in the course that deal with new supervisors. This about the terms leaders vs. managers, counseling, feedback, types of leaders, SMART objectives, SWOT, generational differences, Theory X and Y, MBWA, and favoritism. These terms are not all-inclusive and you are welcome to add others to support your solutions.

This can be a narrative paper, informative paper, a letter (albeit a long one) or a talking paper. You can use the first person to discuss what you think needs to be done. You can also assign tasks or take tasks away from co-leaders.

Your supervisor, co-leads, and workers can have fictional names, you can add in additional issues or factors and most of all, have fun and be creative in developing this workplace. Your co-leads can be good or bad at their job, you can decide how little or much you want to delegate to them as well as how much reporting back to you is needed.

Think about these challenges you will face as a new supervisor. You may want to break this into fixing immediate problems, a six-month goal, and one-year goal.

You should use proper APA formatting.

You should have a title page, 3-5 pages of body content and the last page should references. Make sure that your paper has references.

Use at least 3 references for your paper. They should be articles that support your paper or lessons we have covered. Do not use Wikipedia!

The paper should contain no more than 20% direct citations or quotations. That means 80% should be your own analysis, thoughts, and ideas.

Have fun writing this and make sure to use good terms and sources.