THE PATTERSON OPERATION

I. POINT OF VIEW

II. SYNOPSIS

Carrington Inc., a company that employs over 15,000 people, produces and distributes pharmaceuticals, proprietary drugs, cosmetics and toiletries worldwide. The employees at its manufacturing and assembly operations are unionized and the company uses the time-saved bonus plan (Halsey 50-50) as its’ incentive system.

At Section 10, a section at its midsouth plant, where packages containing assortment of different products (called prepaks) were assembled, the management faced problems of low productivity, low employee morale and high unit costs.

Section 10 is situated in a large building where working conditions were outstanding --- very clean, well lighted and air conditioned …show more content…

Due to space concerns brought about by expansion in operation, the PATTERSON OPERATION was established. Despite the condition at the new facility, the transfer of operations surprisingly made the company better in terms of productivity and employee morale. However, violation of work standards and poor work records existed.

Patterson Operation has been successful in terms of productivity and employee morale. Factors that contributed to this is Fred Hammond’s management style (and consequently, May Allison) and decisions, which were tolerated by the top management. These include the new process set up, participation of workers in decision making and permission to violate some policies.

The leadership styles of Fred and May can be related to the situational contingency (as described in Fielder’s Contingency Model) and to the Hershey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Theory. Matching up their leadership styles to the latter, it can be compared to S2 (selling) and S3 (participating). At first, the group has M1