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Management
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English (U.S.)
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Topic:

Effectiveness of West Chester Private School as an Open System

Essay Instructions:

The purpose of this assignment is to analyze how businesses interact with their internal and external environments. Students will also apply their knowledge of decision-making models, technology and innovation challenges, management theories, and goal setting.

Write a paper (1,600-1,800 words) in which you address the following based on the information provided in the "West Chester Private School Case Study" resource.

Review how organizations interact with their external environment (as open systems). Evaluate the effectiveness West Chester Private School (WCPS) as an open system at the time of the closure.

Review the readings provided for this topic on the internal environment of organizations. Evaluate the organizational culture at the time the decision to close two campuses was made.

Evaluate the decision made by Dr. Murphy and Educations Management Services (EMS) in terms of the process of going about the closure. Explain how the behavioral decision-making model was applied in the WCPS's decision to shut down its campuses.

Analyze one major technology and innovation challenge that WCPS faced and propose a solution that would make WCPS more competitive in meeting the needs of the three primary stakeholders affected.

Provide an explanation, using appropriate management theories, for how the administration could have handled the closure effectively with stakeholders. Include one theory from each of the following: the classical approach, the human relations approach, and the modern management approach.

Provide a suggestion of two goals: one long-term and one short-term goal for the future direction of WCPS. Include a justified rationale of the suggestions.

Concluding statement: Integrate the four functions of management as a means to revamp management at WCPS and meet the recommended goals.

You are required to use at least two external scholarly sources in addition to the textbook and the case study resource.

resources:

Using WileyPLUS, read Chapters 5-8 in MGT-420 Organizational Behavior and Management.

Read "National Culture," located on the Hofstede Insights website.

https://www(dot)hofstede-insights(dot)com/models/national-culture/



Essay Sample Content Preview:

Benchmark – West Chester Private School Case Study
Student Full Name
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Benchmark – West Chester Private School Case Study
The effectiveness of West Chester Private School (WCPS) as an open system at the time of the closure will be evaluated on the five basic elements of social systems. WCPS was using several kinds of inputs from the environment including human resources, physical resources, information resources, and financial resources. The use of these resources had started dwindling at the time of the closure. Similarly, the school’s transformation process was negatively impacted: the quality of the learning process and the interactions between teachers and students had declined. The effectiveness of WCPS as an open system at the time of the closure was also deteriorated by negative outputs. Some of these negative outputs included poor student growth and achievement levels, lower staff performance and high turnover, worsened school-community relations, high student dropout rates, and declined job satisfaction levels. Moreover, the feedback was largely negative: parents were annoyed, students were confused, and both faculty as well as administration were surprised.
The parents complained that they should have been informed earlier as this would have provided them with enough time to secure a spot for their children at one of the nearby schools. On the other hand, the staff protested that the decision to close the school at the end of the semester should have been made earlier to allow them to find placement in neighboring schools. The late notice had prevented parents from securing places for their children in surrounding schools early enough, and left WCPS faculty together with staff with few employment options. At the same time, the decision to close the school resulted in various negative effects that may have worsened students’ achievement gaps as well as reduced the school’s academic competitiveness in relation to other neighboring schools.
The organizational culture at the time the decision to close the two campuses was made was broken. Rather than capitalizing on the opportunity to expand its business virtually through online learning, WCPS’s leadership was focused on expanding its campuses into Southern California and launching an international baccalaureate program. Moreover, instead of directing their efforts at attracting a higher student enrollment at the two Phoenix locations that eventually had to close, WCPS’s leadership ended up with a failed attempt at expanding into a different state. The new management violated the core values and guiding principles of the two founding families, which had owned the school for 70 years and helped it earn the reputation as a premier K-12 academic institution with an advanced curriculum. Under the administration of the Chandler and Gilbert families, WCPS was known as having a competitive, in-person academic environment that allowed for a demanding curriculum, all while encouraging “a safe, family-oriented atmosphere in a place where community was valued.”
The two families had managed to expand the student population to include five campuses in the Phoenix metropolitan area. An organization culture falls into disorder when the new leaders behave in ways that are contrary to the core values and guiding principles of the institution as a whole. The new management’s decision to expand to another state and include a different curriculum may not have been well received by some parents, and this could have led to the fall in student enrollment. This culture class disorder may also have contributed to the leadership’s inactions: the school’s management failed to take advantage of the opportunity to expand its business virtually through online learning, as well as take corrective actions immediately student enrollment at the two Phoenix locations started declining.
The behavioral decision-making model that was applied in the WCPS’s decision to shut down its campuses was the bounded rationality type. This type of decision-making is a modification of the pure rationality form where the limitations of human knowledge as well as the imperfect nature of human capabilities result in poor or biased choices. In the bounded rationality type of decision-making, the person in charge of governance either lacks complete access to all possible information pertaining to the decision, or the information they possess is flawed and imperfect (Petracca, 2021). The decision-maker may also have insufficient analytical and computational abilities: this inability to judge alternative perfectly results in misjudgments during the assessment process. Moreover, the urgency of the situation may impose time-constraints on the decision-making process and contribute to miscalculations. The decision by Dr. Murphy and the Educations Management Services (EMS) to close two of WCPS’s Phoenix locations as well as the north Phoenix campus was made in an incompetent manner. For instance, the closing of the first two Phoenix locations was spurred by low student enrollment rates, something the Educations Management Services (EMS) should have noticed in time and even corrected.
Besides, WCPS faced increasingly intense competition from other charter schools (in the fall of 2019, two of the best rated independently operated public schools started their campuses within 5 miles of each WCPS closing). Both EMS executives and WCPS administrators knew that these competitor schools would open as early as 2017. The fact that they did not act on this information to increase student enrollment and develop an edge over competing charter schools suggests poor analytical and computational abilities on their part. Another proof that WCPS’s leadership lacked the needed ability to judge oc...
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