Reference no: EM132867174
Case study - Wisconsin Art and Greeting Case
At first Tammy Reinhold didn't believe the rumors. Now that the rumors were confirmed, she was in denial. "I can't believe it", she said. "I've worked as a greeting-card artist here for 17 years. I love what I do. Now they tell me I'm going to have to do all mu work on a computer." Tammy was not alone in her fear. The company's other two artists, Mike Tomaski and Maggie Lyall, were just as concerned. Each had graduated from art school near the top of their class.
They came to work for Wisconsin Art & Greetings right out of school - Mike in 1976, Tammy in 1983, and Maggie in 1988. They chose the company, which had been around for more than 50 years, because of its reputation as a good place to work. The company also had never had a layoff. Wisconsin Art & Greetings is a small maker of greeting cards and speciality wrapping paper. It has modest resources and modest ambitions. Management has always pursued progress slowly. Maybe that's why it was so late in introducing more digital technology to its production operations. And why now it decided it no longer wanted its artists to-do hand-rendered work. Management had bought three high-powered Mac computers and equipped them with the latest graphics and photo-manipulation software.
Courtland Gray, the company's owner, called Tammy, Mike and Maggie into his office this morning. He told them about the changes that were going to be made. Gray acknowledged that the three were going to have a lot to learn to be able to do all their work using new software. He stressed that the changes would dramatically speed up the art-production and photo-layout processes and eventually result in significant cost savings. He offered to send the three to a one-week course in Dallas specifically designed to train artists in the new technology. He also said he expected all of the company's art and photo operations to be completely digitalized within three months.
Tammy was not stupid. She had been following the trends in graphic art. More and more work was being done using specialized software. She just thought, as did Mike and Maggie, that she might escape having to learn these programs. After all, Wisconsin Art is not Hallmark. But Tammy was wrong. Technology was coming to Wisconsin Art & Greetings and there wasn't much she could do about it - other than complain or look for another job.
Questions
a) Explain Tammy's resistance.
b) Evaluate the way Courtland Gray handled this change.
c) What, if anything would you have done differently if you had been Gray?
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Case study-wisconsin art and greeting
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