Reference no: EM132945763
Peter is a manager working in a small boutique hotel located in a historical site in Hong Kong. Since the beginning of COVID-19, sales have decreased dramatically. As travel restriction is still in place and the number of tourists remains limited, Peter has been under great pressure to attract local customers to improve sales of the hotel. Based on his own intuition and what he has observed from other hotels, Peter quickly decided to roll out the following promotions in the hotel: ? Staycation packages are offered to let customers enjoy a unique experience by combining room stay, meals, and a historical tour. Customers can take out a loan to pay for the staycation packages if their loan applications are approved. ? Monthly rental is available at a competitive rate. Peter emailed the IT department to request the hotel website and other related sites to be updated with staycation packages and monthly rentals. Peter also emailed the accounting department. He would like the accounting software program to incorporate staycation packages and monthly rentals. As customers can now apply for a loan to enjoy staycation packages, the accounting staff needs to be trained to approve loans and incorporate the new payment structure in the financial statements. In addition to the promotions, Peter would like to further eliminate unnecessary expenditures. In his email to the accounting department, he also asked David, the accounting manager, to approve any expenses above $1,000. In the past, only expenses above $5,000 would require David's approval. Shortly after the emails were sent, David came to speak with Peter to express his resistance to the requested changes due to high expected workload to his team and himself. Peter also learned that the customer service team is not motivated to promote the loan option when they answer customer enquiries online. Under the current compensation package, customer service team receives a fixed monthly salary. If customers get approved and can take out a loan, workload will be increased to all departments, especially the accounting department.
a. Describe the decision making model that was used and comment whether it is appropriate.
b. Suggest two tactics to overcome the resistance of the accounting staff so that the requested changes can be implemented. Explain why those tactics can be effective.
c. Suggest two ways to motivate customer service team to promote the loan option based on the relevant motivation theories.
d. Comment whether email was an appropriate channel to request changes to the IT department and accounting department.
e. Comment whether Peter demonstrated task-oriented or people-oriented leadership behavior. What approach do you think is appropriate for this situation? Explain.
f. Peter found out that current sales need to increase by 50% to break-even. Design the management-by-objectives (MBO) process to achieve such based on what you have learned from the case.