Category: Organizational behavior

full PHD Thesis how organisational culture impacts health and safety behaviours

Touchstone 4: Quenchbliss Case Study: Final Report

Scenario: Quenchbliss is a craft soda company headquartered in El Paso, Texas, with additional facilities in Juarez, Mexico. They have 80 full-time employees between the two branches. In 2023 they saw a massive increase in sales from $16 million to $20 million thanks to their expansion into Juarez. This has led them to further planning of opening facilities in Jamaica and the Dominican Republic, particularly to hotels, bars, and restaurants in areas with the most tourism. In this Touchstone, you will synthesize what you have learned throughout the class by making recommendations to Quenchbliss executives on how to maintain organizational health at this time of rapid growth and change. In Unit 1 you developed a SWOT analysis to fully understand the position of Quenchbliss within their market and community. In Unit 2, you recommended an organizational structure and motivational strategies to facilitate change. You will want to have both documents available to help inform your final recommendations.

For this Touchstone, we will make the following assumptions:

• Quenchbliss’s strengths, opportunities, weaknesses, and threats (SWOT) identified in the Touchstone 1 have not changed and should inform your decisions.
• Quenchbliss is following the recommendations from Touchstone 2 to facilitate its expansion. Recall the timeline, organizational strategy, and resources dedicated to this growth.
• Quenchbliss’s employee turnover has improved due to the motivational strategies you recommended in Touchstone 2, but the organization is concerned that despite the motivational strategies youve proposed, the major change and expansion will still negatively impact motivation over the next year.
• Quenchbliss is also concerned about how these changes will affect the working units within their organization. They would like advice on how to help diverse cross-functional teams come together quickly and work effectively despite cultural differences.
• Finally, Quenchbliss knows that times of instability can lead to unhealthy organizational politics, power plays, and conflict. They would like to minimize these problems for their organization.

Assignment: You will write a 8-10 page (2000-2500 word) research paper for Quenchbliss, addressing the theories of organizational behavior and how they should be combined and utilized in a way that applies to Quenchbliss, given the recent changes and expansion occurring within the organization. Your research paper will include at least one concept, model or theory from each of the topic areas listed below. For each topic, review the tutorials and select a theory or model that seems most appropriate. In your Touchstone, summarize the theory or model and explain how Quenchbliss should apply it to their organization. The topics are:

• External Environment (Use the SWOT analysis you wrote in Touchstone 1 as a reference).
• Change Management (Use the recommendations from Touchtone 2 as a reference).
• Diversity and Cultural Differences
• Team Development
• Conflict, Power, and Organizational Politics

Helpful Links:

A. Directions

Step 1: Review tutorials on each of the topics youll be writing about

Some of the most helpful tutorials are listed below, but you should review all the course material and may use any tutorial to inform your decisions.

Step 2: Draft the Research Paper

Prepare a research paper to present to leadership at Quenchbliss. The structure for the research paper will consist of five main topics. For each topic, you will identify a problem or opportunity at Quenchbliss either through the scenario or from your SWOT analysis. For each problem you will propose a solution based on the concepts learned in the tutorials.

For the benefit of Quenchbliss executives, summarize the framework, concept or theory from the tutorial (making sure to use in-text citations!), then synthesize and analysis this concept, and how it relates to Quenchbliss, and the change they have decided to undertake.

The topics and guiding questions for the research paper are below. Be sure to cover all of these topics in your paper.

1. External Environment

• What are the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats the organization is facing? This should be consistent with the SWOT analysis you wrote for Touchstone 1.
• What model may be applied to better understand these factors? Using the model youve chosen, describe how each aspect applies to Quenchbliss.
• How can Quenchbliss address the external opportunities and threats youve identified?

2. Change Management

• What change management model should Quenchbliss use as they enter the new markets? Why is this model the most effective?
• This should be consistent with your recommendations and reflect your organizational chart in the Touchstone in Unit 2.
• List each step of the model, and address specific actions the organization should take at each step.

3. Diversity and Cultural differences

• What cultural differences should Quenchbliss consider when entering the overseas market?
• What specific differences such as minimum wage and vacation time should Quenchbliss consider when entering these two countries?
• What strategies might Quenchbliss use to help them ensure diversity throughout their organization?

4. Team Development

• Given the addition of new team members, how can the organization apply the team development model in order to move new staff and their teams into the performing stage more quickly?
• What actions should be taken at each stage of the team development process to ensure effective teamwork?

5. Conflict, Power, and Politics

• What strategies might be used to understand and manage conflict at Quenchbliss as it arises?
• How might power struggles and organizational politics impact the organization as they make such a large change?
• What mitigation techniques can be used to mitigate negative uses of power and politics?

Making reasonable assumptions to describe Quenchbliss potential challenges is acceptable and necessary. For example, you can assume factors like employment are the same for Quenchbliss as they are for El Paso, or that their product cost is similar to competitors.

You must cite 8-10 sources. At least five of these will be the Sophia tutorials which describe the theories and models of organizational behavior you apply to the case study. The rest (three or more) will be resources that inform your SWOT analysis, such as anticipated market growth for the craft soda industry, labor statistics in El Paso and the other locations, etc. While these do not have to be academic journals, you should use reliable sources of information such as reputable business publications. The paper should be in APA format with a title page; proper headings for each section of the paper, margins and spacing; and in-text citations and references.

Step 3: Check Your Work

Refer to the checklist below throughout the process. Only submit your Touchstone once it meets the expectations for the assignment as described in the assignment and rubric, and meets APA guidelines.

Step 4: Submit Your Touchstone

Once you have verified that the paper meets these guidelines, you can submit as a single file in .doc or .docx format.

C. Requirements

• The paper must be 8-10 pages, 2000-2500 words when using APA formatting conventions.
• The paper should be in APA format with a title page; proper headings, font size, margins and spacing; and in-text citations and references.
• All content must be original, created for this assignment, and appropriate for an academic audience. Plagiarism of any kind is strictly prohibited, including the use of AI-generated content.
• Submission must include your name, the date, and the title of your paper.
• Include all of the assignment components in a single .doc or .docx file.

Including touchstone 1 for reference

Please read the attached pdf, The Productivity of the Knowledge Worker, by Peter Drucker.Download The Productivity of the Knowledge Worker, by Peter Drucker.

The selection ends with the following assertion by Drucker: Each of these requirementsexcept perhaps the last oneis almost the exact opposite of what is needed to increase the productivity of the manual worker. If one considers that Drucker held the Scientific Management view of job design, this could be true.

But now, consider the Jobs Characteristics Model (JCM) of Hackman and Oldham (see Chapter 8 of Robbins and Judge).

How does JCM differ from the scientific management approach of Frederick Taylor?

If factory jobs were designed according to JCM, what attributes of knowledge work would apply to them?

Would Druckers assertion still be valid?

Are professional degreed individuals the only ones who can be identified as knowledge workers? Why or why not?

Be sure to read the materials (readings and video lectures) carefully before you address this topic.

Your paper should be 4-5 pages long (not including the title page and References).

General Guidelines

Most classes have a 2 paper requirement per course. Please be sure to address the following requirements when completing your papers:

The cover page and reference page/s are not included in the above-stated page requirement. These should be in addition to page requirements.

Papers need to be formatted in proper APA 7th Edition style.

Each paper requires a minimum of at least three outside peer-reviewed sources for your references (unless stated otherwise in the guidance above).

o Acceptable/credible sources include: Academic journals and books, industry journals, and the class textbook. To include additional types of sources, please review the Guidelines for finding and utilizing required references for your paper, shared below.

Using your textbook is highly recommended to demonstrate that you have read the required material and/or are connecting new thoughts to the course text/learnings.

Guidelines for finding and utilizing required references for your paper:

For a formal research paper, you are required to locate, understand, and integrate a certain number of peer reviewed journal articles and/or published books, as these are considered reliable and valid sources of information by academics and industry. The best source of these articles is to search through your CiAM Library (LIRN). However, if you find a website you would really like to share in your paper, you can do so if it is NOT counted as one of your reliable/valid articles/books (i.e., goes above and beyond the required amount of reliable/valid sources), and if it is NOT the basis/foundation of your paper. Otherwise, there is no way to demonstrate that: 1. You have done true research and have given the appropriate level of thought to your paper; and 2. There is no way to validate that the information you have received off of the internet has been fact checked.

Here are some guidelines on how to think about this process:

Using Wikipedia: This internet source is very popular, and although there may be some great articles found there, there is no formal process (at this point) for what is posted to be fact checked. Meaning, what you find there is not always true. However, if you read an interesting article, you can go to their references, check on who they researched, then go to that ORIGINAL work (locate it in our library), and then read through that article and reference that article (not Wikipedia). If you want to cite Wikipedia, you may do so if it follows the guidelines shared above (i.e., is NOT the basis of your paper, and is just a supplemental share going above and beyond the minimum required reliable/valid works). You may also simply visit Wikipedia just to get more general information on a subject before you start your formal research process).

General informational websites and business websites: These follow the same rules as shared above.

Question:

Colorado State UniversityGlobal Campus, Google, Netflix, Amazon, Adobe, Panera Bread, Vanguard, Bosch, and many other organizations strive to be agile organizations. Please address the following topics based on your personal experiences with an organization (either one of those named above or another organization that purports to be an agile organization). First, profile the organization (describe the organization, the industry the organization exists within, and any other information that contributes to defining the organization). Then, from a personal perspective, describe your experience(s) with the organization.

From your point of view and using relevant research explain:

1. Why or why not you believe that the organization embodies the organizational cultural characteristics of an agile organization in general.
2. How the organization aligns with the Laloux Culture Model.
3. If the organization’s Laloux model’s cultural level supports agile management or not (Zeyn, n.d.)?

My answer:

Agility is actively sought by many top organizations, regardless of the industries, including technology, entertainment, retail, finance, manufacturing, and education. They are in rapidly changing industries that require innovation, quick adaptation and customer-focus to remain successful.

Personally, in my 2023 marketing internship with one of these leading streaming and content creation firms in the entertainment sector, I witnessed a highly collaborative environment. The teams (cross-functional) worked with high independence and were able to make decisions swiftly and improve through repetitive, frequent feedback, which was building a feeling of trust and empowerment.

In my opinion, such organizations tend to reflect the main cultural features of agile organizations. Agile organizations focus on flexibility, empowerment of workers, speed of iteration, and responsiveness to change (Zeyn, 2016). In such instances, cultures tend to focus on talent density, lack of bureaucracy and openness, enabling the teams to shift rapidly based on the market or technological changes, which closely aligns with agile concepts of flexibility and self-organization.

These organizations generally fit the Green stage of the Laloux Culture Model, which prioritizes shared values, balance among stakeholders, empowerment, and focus on engagement and consensus (as part of the family) (Laloux, 2014). They are very Green, with great staff participation, professional cultures, and attempts to balance customer, employee, and partner demand, and sometimes show some new Teal indicators, such as increased self-management and less traditional hierarchies.

This cultural orientation of Green-Teal greatly helps agile management. According to Zeyn (2016), agile and lean approaches can flourish in Green settings because of values-based interaction and empowerment, which allow self-organization and co-operating without strict Orange-style command hierarchies. They also become more natural in Teal-leaning contexts, although certain formal agile rituals might develop or become redundant. Altogether, this cultural stage enables the long term innovation and agility that characterize truly agile organizations.

References

Laloux, F. (2014). Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness. Nelson Parker.

Need a response to this: 100 words:

Do you have any examples (from personal experiences or research) of teal organizations? I am a tenured professor, and in general, I would describe the organizational culture of my subunit as a teal organization.

Need a response to James:

The Supreme Court has struck down some of Donald Trump’s most sweeping global tariffs, upending one of the White House’s top policy priorities and injecting new uncertainty into global trade.

In a 6-3 decision, the justices in America’s highest court said the law Trump used to impose some of his most significant tariffs did not authorise him to do so.

The ruling opens the door to potentially billions of dollars in tariff refunds, delivering a major victory to the small businesses and states that had challenged the measures.

The Trump administration had contended that the duties were justified under a law empowering the president to respond to national emergencies.

But lawyers for the challenging states and private firms said that the law used by the president to impose the levies made no mention of the word “tariffs”.

They argued that Congress did not intend to hand off its power to tax or give the president an “open-ended power to junk” other existing trade deals and tariff rules.

In his opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts sided with that view.

“When Congress has delegated its tariff powers, it has done so in explicit terms and subject to strict limits,” he wrote.

“Had Congress intended to convey the distinct and extraordinary power to impose tariffs, it would have done so expressly, as it consistently has in other tariff statutes.”

Using your own words, please respond addressing the items below. Each response should be within a minimum of 2 paragraphs. This is a reflection response based on your own words/thoughts, previous knowledge and the new knowledge acquired through reading and reviewing the resources. Sentences should be thought out and complete. This is an Essay Paper you are writing reflecting on you knowledge and understanding of the content covered in this course. Use the questions below as a guide when writing you paper. This is not a question/answer assignment. This is a project to demonstrate all of the knowledge you gained from this course.

1. What are your reflective thoughts about organizational theory? How and why does it make sense to you?

2. What are your reflective thoughts about sources of power used by leaders? How and why do they make sense to you? Please write between 1-2 paragraphs about the topic?

3. What are your viewpoints about the collegial theory? How and why does it make sense to you?

4. What are your viewpoints about the bureaucratic theory? How and why does it make sense to you?

5. What are your viewpoints about the political theory? How and why does it make sense to you?

6. What are your viewpoints about the organized anarchical-cybernetics theory? How and why does it make sense to you?

Requirements: Minimum length requirement (275 words) Must add vocabulary words and theories covered in the module and textbook and integrate them into the post. Use chapter Chapter 14th and 15th from the Textbook and Module 7 (see attached) Highlight or bold vocabulary words/theories and state where you got your information form by adding the exact page number where you found the vocabulary word. Example: “According to the video lecture on contemporary theories of motivation in Module 4, transformational leaders can inspire their teams by creating a vision …” (Chambers, 2025, p.250) – I dont need a reference page. Read the attached case study Chris Peterson at DSS Consulting and provide answers to the questions below: Discussion Questions: Was Chris an effective leader? Why or why not? Be specific about the criteria you are using to assess her effectiveness as a leader. Consider the DSS’ strategic decision to implement cross-functional teams, and determine whether Chris decisions supported or undermined DSS’ strategy. Be specific. What led Meg to reject the scheduling and budgeting project and to change the direction of the SW Region team? Was the decision fair? Why or why not?

Question 1: Define diversity and examine the various types of workplace diversity concerns. What are the current prominent strategies for promoting workplace diversity? Identify and examine managerial issues related to diversity.

Question 2: Examine the nature of decision making and the type of decision. Identify and define the rational decision-making process. Identify the various specific steps in the process.

Question 3: Define the facets of organizational communication and explain the communication flow in organizations.

Question 4: Define and examine organizational culture. Identify thoroughly explain the four levels of organizational culture. What is the value of organizational culture? Examine how it is created and maintained?

Each question has to be a 800-1000 words. paper. It should include an introduction, summary and conclusion. Please include two sources.

he purpose of this assignment is to demonstrate your understanding of Organizational Communication and Theory X & Theory Y by applying them to real-life encounters. You must use actual experiences rather than hypothetical situations and clearly defend your reasoning. Assignment Overview You will analyze a real-life interaction that occurred in an organization such as: A workplace A classroom or campus office A student organization A church or community group A volunteer setting An online organizational meeting or team project Your example must be authentic and recent (within the past month if possible). Written Response Requirements (700900 words) Your submission must include the following sections: 1. Description of the Real-Life Encounter Where did it occur? What type of organization or group was involved? Who participated? (Use roles only no real names.) What communication situation took place? 2. Organizational Communication Application Explain how the encounter demonstrates organizational communication concepts, such as: Formal vs. informal communication Leadership communication Team coordination Channels of communication (email, meetings, texts, etc.) Communication barriers or successes Provide specific examples, not general statements. 3. Theory X & Theory Y Application Briefly define Theory X and Theory Y in your own words. Identify which theory best fits the leadership or group behavior you observed. Provide clear evidence from your real-life example that supports your choice. 4. Defense of Your Reasoning This section is critical. You must: Justify why your interpretation is accurate. Explain why the other theory is less appropriate for this situation. Use logical reasoning and course terminology to support your claims. 5. Personal Insight What did this experience teach you about communication in organizations? How might this influence how you communicate in teams or leadership roles in the future? Documentation Requirement Upload one form of proof that the encounter occurred. Acceptable examples: Screenshot of an email, meeting invite, or online meeting confirmation Photo of the setting (no faces required) Timestamped personal journal entry describing the date and location Event flyer or agenda

Storytelling that Drives Bold Change by Frei and Morriss (2023) highlights the power of storytelling in leading organizational transformation. Reflect on how storytelling can be used to inspire bold changes within an organization that is facing significant challenges. Consider how a well-crafted narrative can bring stakeholders together around a common vision and motivate them to embrace change, even when resistance is strong.

In your initial post, identify one key principle from the reading and explain how you would apply it to shape a compelling narrative for an organization undergoing major transformation. Show how this narrative could be used to engage stakeholders and encourage them to support the change initiative.

For this assignment, imagine you have been assigned by your supervisor to prepare a presentation to the manager’s of your organization on methods to increase productivity, performance, and behaviors. Your presentation should include at least 10-12 slides with speaker notes of at least 150-200 or more words per slide (title and citation slides do not need speaker notes). Slide content should be brief and with photos. You must have at least 3-5 citations on a citation slide in proper APA format. Presentation must include title, introduction, conclusion, and citation slide (the title and citation slide do not count in the slide count). The presentation must be original and use elements from the text, classroom, and any outside references. In addition, your presentation must include the following prompts:

• Develop a name and mission/vision statement for your company.
• What products does your company sell?
• How can your company promote corporate social responsibility and benefit from it?
• How can you motivate employees to do their best in their jobs?
• What kinds of rewards does your company offer to reward employees and why is this important?
• How often are employees evaluated and why is periodic employee reviews important for positive behaviors?
• How and why is it important to ensure employees works in groups and how do you ensure they are productive and everyone gets along?
• How do you address improper behaviors in your workplace?
• How does your company ensure ethics and workplace technologies are properly enforced and to promote a happy workplace?

Please submit as a PowerPoint file. Please remember the usage of AI programs are not allowed for use in this course other than for grammar/spelling or idea generation. Your work needs to be original and detailed. DO 10-12 SLIDES PLEASE