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Does This Milkshake Taste Funny?

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Håkon Olaisen
Case Study – “Does This Milkshake Taste Funny?”
BUS 565-02 – Organizational Theory and Development
Dr. Nanette Metz

George Stein is a college student who is working at Eastern Diary during the summer to satisfy his immediate need for dating and car money. He chose to work for Eastern Diary because it was unionized and the wages paid were more than twice the minimum wage George had been paid on previous jobs. George, after a brief visit with the HR director, was assigned to work the night shift. The night shift was from 11:00 PM to 7:00 AM six nights a week (Sunday through Friday); the regular wages were paid, supplemented by 8 hours of guaranteed overtime each week. This implied that George would be able to save up a tidy sum of money during the summer. Eastern Diary manufactured milkshake and ice cream mix for a number of customers in the metropolitan area. The ice cream mix was sold in 5- and 10-gallon containers to other firms, which then added the flavoring ingredients, packaged and sold the ice cream under their own brand names. Their milkshake mix was sold in 5-gallon cardboard cartons, which contained plastic liner. Eastern Diary delivered these packages to various restaurants in the area. The design of the packaging enabled it to fit into automatic milkshake machines, used in many types of restaurants and drive-ins. The night shift consisted of a six-person crew of operators. Paul Burnham, a member of this crew, received each night`s production orders from the day shift superintendent as the superintendent left for the day. Paul`s status was no different from that of his five colleauges, but the other crew members looked to him for direction. Paul passed the production orders to the mixer and kept the production records for the shift. The production process at Eastern Diary was fairly simple. Mixes moved between various pieces of

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