Sonoco Products Company (A): Building a World- Class HR Organization (Abridged).
Case Study
Management
***The Case Study is:
Sonoco Products Company (A): Building a World- Class HR Organization (Abridged).
***Assessment Brief/ Task:
– Critically reflect on your own personal learning by drawing upon the themes and concepts covered on Managing Human Resources to offer/propose interventions on the given case study.
You should refer to the case study in considering the following:
– Evaluation and analysis of the organisational contextual issues identified in the case study.
– Draw upon relevant HRM and organisational behaviour (OB) academic literatures and tools in undertaking your analysis and evaluation of the issues evident in the case study.
– A justification of how the issues identified from the case study are relevant to the contemporary workplace.
– Highlight the concrete skills-sets your have developed on this module and how they have helped your self-awareness in relation to solving the issues related to the case study.
***Please read the case questions very carefully before attempting the solutions. I have also provided you with a guide on how to structure my task. These can be found on the last page of the document (Sonoco Products Case Study – Task Two).
You must make reference to Task Two assessment briefing before attempting this task.
As specified in the assessment briefing, you must make reference to academic articles and conventions in attempting and justifying your solutions to the HRM issues evident in the case.
***Task Questions
You must make reference to Task Two Assessment Briefing:
1. What was happening to the packaging industry at the time of the case? How will these changes impact Sonoco’s strategy?
2. What were Cindy Hartley’s objectives for changes at Sonoco?
3. How successful were the HR changes at Sonoco? Was the sequence of changes the right one?
4. What is the right HR structure for Sonoco – centralization or hybrid? Why? Evaluate different options (pros and cons).
5. Will changes be sustained? What should Cindy Hartley attend to next?
***CASE STUDY – Solution Structure
In general, you are to provide a simple description of the situation. Next, diagnose what HR problems exist in the situation. Then analyse the case. Apply HR/OB theories, concepts and frameworks covered on the module to evaluate the effectiveness of HRM issues evident in the case. Finally, make recommendations for improving the HR practices and addressing the problems you have identified.
1. Diagnosis – entails reading with a view to critically analysing the nature of the case in terms of relevance to the frame of reference in the Task Two Assessment briefing.
2. Analysis – entails appraising the environmental (e.g. industry, i.e., if provided within the case) and the organisational context of the case. Identify strengths and weaknesses of the HR policies, practices, and systems mentioned/reflected in the case.
3. Evaluation – entails specifying the nature of state-of-the-art HR policies, practices, and systems. What would best HR practices entail as highlighted within and relevant to the case? How does the existing organisational situation (highlighted within case) compare to state-of-the-art or best practices you have come across in the academic literature? Tease out their strengths and weaknesses.
4. Design – entails identifying ways of improving the existing HR policies, practices, and systems obvious in the case. Identify what changes are necessary for them to become state-of-the-art or best practices in line with theoretical/empirical perspectives suggested in the academic literature?
5. Implementation – entails suggesting/specifying the person(s) responsible for the changes. Indicate the schedule and resources (i.e. HR practices etc) required in order to effectively bring about the suggested changes. How will you know that the changes are effective? Justify your position both with materials from the case and the academic literature.
a) Describe the case situation in a complete but concise flow. Brevity is key;
b) Identify the major HRM problem(s) in the case;
c) Use HRM/OB theoretical frameworks and/or concepts in your analysis of the case;
d) Make a clear link between theoretical frameworks/concepts, your analysis/evaluation and the recommendations presented in critical synthesis and coherent flow.
– All these should be typed double-spaced and must not exceed 3000 words in total including the reference list.
***The client has attached “Case Study Sample” (Not To Be Copied) Please Follow the structure in that file.
*** Should be used the Harvard Referencing 2009, regarding to the referencing in the text, could you please if it is possible to ask the researcher when they summarise, refer to, or quote to do this by ( putting the author’s name, publication year, and page number in round brackets). Example: (Ayra, 2003, p.41).
Please read the case questions very carefully before attempting the solutions so that you must answer to all these five questions.
1. What was happening to the packaging industry at the time of the case? How will these changes impact Sonoco’s strategy?
2. What were Cindy Hartley’s objectives for changes at Sonoco?
3. How successful were the HR changes at Sonoco? Was the sequence of changes the right one?
4. What is the right HR structure for Sonoco – centralization or hybrid? Why? Evaluate different options (pros and cons).
5. Will changes be sustained? What should Cindy Hartley attend to next?
