【案例分析】行政管理学案例库.doc

MID-STATES COMMUNITY SERVICES (A)

On Sunday, March 30 a fight occurred in the Club Room, the employees' cafeteria of Mid-States Community Services' Housing Department, between a housing administrator-intern and a building technician. The two men grappled for several seconds, rolling on the floor and throwing punches, until they were pulled apart by two interns and another technician who were standing by when the fight broke out. Aside from a bloody nose and a puffed left eye, the intern who had been fighting emerged unscathed. The technician had a torn shirt and a badly bruised right hand. Both were very angry and were ready to resume the fight if the peacemaking bystanders would only let them go.

A series of incidents over the past several weeks had given rise to this outburst, and the events which followed it threatened to throw the entire Department into turmoil, perhaps even to shut it down.

Two days after the fight, on Tuesday, April 1, the Associate Director for Administration for Mid-States Community Services, Frank Garrow, reflected on all that had happened the last two days and wondered what might have been done differently. He wondered, as well, what he should do next. The situation was boiling.

Before you go on, jot down answers to the following: As Frank Garrow, what more do you want to know before you take action?

Background

Mid-States Community Services is a large, multi-site, multi-service public agency with central offices in a major U.S. Great Lakes port city. The Housing Department, located on the outskirts of the city, was created under special stock for the homeless. It also served as an internship training site for students in a public Administration program at a University nearby who had a special interest in public management. The Departme nt's employees are largely young and divided between the “professional" administrators and the "non・professional" technicians and support staff.

This case has been adapted (June 1985) by Dr. Scott Cook, Research Associate, Harvard Business School, and Dr. Dvora Yanow, Lecturer, Harvard Graduate School of Education, by permission of Professor David kuechle, Harvard Graduate School of Education, from a case originally prepared for use in Harvard?s Institute for Educational Management (IEM 9-680-517, Revised 10/80). It is a fictionalized account of actual events. Names, titles, and locations have been disguised.

The Club Room was a popular gathering spot for the junior professional staff and interns but was also used on occasion by senior management and the technical and support staff. It consisted of a large, attractive hall in which various hot dishes and snacks were served and a bar area where one could buy soft drinks, beer and wine. The Club Room served hot food from 7 a.m. until 2 p.m. and was generally crowded around the noon hour. It was not as crowded as usual on March 30 when the fight took place.

The pugilists were Douglas Jones, an intern, and George Madison, a mid-grade building technician who had been employed by MCS for six years. Jones, an African-American, had recently been a defense halfback on the University of Michigan Big-10 championship football team. He was 6 feet tall and weighed 195 pounds. Madison, a 6'2", 220 pound Caucasian, age 27, was himself an accomplished amateur boxer. Madison often came to the Club Room for a snack at noontime and, on occasion, for a beer before going home at night. He was well-known among the professional staff and sometimes socialized with them. Known as a generous spender, Madison frequently bought rounds of drinks for everyone sitting around the Club Room's semi-circular bar or at a table when he was invited to join a group of housing administrators. He owned a