List of top Decision Making Questions on Caselets asked in XAT

Indian Institute of Research is a Government-established body to promote research. In addition to helping in policy making, it also provides free online access to all the articles to the public. It has a mission of publishing high quality research articles. Till 2010, the publication of articles was very slow because there was no incentive for researchers to publish. Researchers stuck to the mandatory one article a year. Most of the researchers engaged in offering consultancy and earned extra income. Since its inception, the institute was considered the best place for cutting edge research. The new director of the institute was not happy with the work done by researchers in silo and came out with a new research policy in 2013 to increase research output and improve collaboration among researchers. It was decided that extra benefitts would be offered to researchers with new publications. As a result, the number of research articles increased fourfold in 2014. At the 2015 annual audit, an objection was raised against increased expenses towards remuneration for researchers. Further, the Government opined that the publication was itself a reward and hence researchers need be paid nothing extra. The director tried to defend his policy but the response from the government was not encouraging.
l. Note: Auditors role is to verify accounts.

Analyse the following caselet and answer the questions that follow: 
Kamal Chinnappa, Vimal Rao, Ganesh Krishnan and Dinesh Kumar own a saloon each on the Barbil street. They are the only hairdressers on that street. Each of them offered three services viz. haircut, shaving and hair-dye. One evening, all four of them met in a nearby tea-stall and agreed to charge Rs. 100 for any of the three services (haircut, shave and hair-dye) on weekdays. They also agreed to increase this rate to Rs. 115 on weekends and holidays. All verbally decided to implement the agreement. 

Analyse the following caselet and answer the questions that follow:
The City of Yashmund is served by licensed taxis operating on o cially sanctioned metered rates and driven by licensed drivers who do not own the taxis but pay a monthly rent to the taxi-owners. Shailesh Nair, the mayor of Yashmund, perceived that most of these taxis do not offer su cient comfort and safety to passengers 

Teknik Group of industries had businesses in different sectors ranging from manufacturing, construction, fish farming and hotels. These different businesses operated as semi-independent units managed by the unit level managers. Teknik’s management had an internal consultancy group called the Business Advisory Group (known internally as BAG). The 15 experts in BAG were hired personally by Mr. Teknikwala, the owner of Teknik, who wanted this core group of experts to help his organization grow fast without facing the typical growth hurdles. Most of them were specialists in fields like law, information technology, human resource management, and operations management. Almost all of them had experience spanning decades in the in dustry. Whenever any of the units faced any significant issues, it represented an extra workload for those who were involved. This coordination was required to understand the different work processes and the users’ requirements. This coordination activity was being extensively man aged by the old timers as they were familiar with internal processes and people in the different units. An external consultant was also hired for customization and implementation. 
After two months, BAG teams had to fortnightly present their progress to Ms. Teknikwala’s team. In the last meeting Ms. Teknikwala was dissatisfied. She explained her thinking that since ERP impacted every aspect of the business, the roll out had to be done faster. She wanted Mr. Shiv to get the implementation completed ahead of schedule. In the meeting she asked Mr. Shiv to get the people in IT team to be more productive. Not willing to disagree, Mr. Shiv committed to a roll-out schedule of complete ERP system in 6 months instead of earlier decided 14 months. Next day, Mr. Shiv presented the revised project milestone to BAG members. He told them that in order to meet the deadline, the members were expected to work on week-ends till the completion of the project. Along with that, they were also expected to maintain their earlier standards of delivery time and quality for the normal trouble-shooting and internal advisory work. Mr. Shiv also pointed out that anyone whose performance did not meet the expectations would be subjected to formal disciplinary action. The meeting ended without any member commenting on Shiv’s ideas, although Mr. Shiv heard a lot of mumbling in the corridor. Over the week, Shiv noticed that the members seemed to avoid him and he had to make extra effort to get ideas from them.
After a fortnight Shiv reviewed the attendance register and found that Mr. Lal, an old time member, had not come during the week-ends and certain decisions were held up due to lack of inputs from Mr. Lal. Mr. Shiv issued a written reprimand to Mr. Lal. He was speechless on receiving the reprimand but kept silent. It has been three days since that incident. Some of the senior members had put in request for transfer to other business units. It was rumoured that four problems, the unit level managers would put up a request for help to BAG. The prob lems ranged from installation of internal MIS systems, to financial advice related to leasing of equipment, to handling of employee grievances.
Over a period of 20 years, Teknik’s revenues grew from 100 crore to 10,000 crore with guid ance of BAG and due to Mr. Tekinkwala’s vision. Given its reputation in the industry, many people wanted to start their careers in BAG. Often young MBAs fresh out of business schools would apply. However their applications used to be rejected by Mr. Tekinkwala, who had a preference for people with extensive industry experience. Things changed after the unfortunate demise of Mr. Tekinkwala. His daughter Ms. Teknikwali took up the family business. She was an MBA from one of the premier business schools, and was working in a different company when Mr. Tekinkwala passed away. She preferred that BAG developed new ideas and therefore inducted freshly graduated MBAs from premier business schools. She personally supervised the recruitment and selection process. Now the entire group constituted of 50 specialists, out of which 35 were the old time members. She also changed the reporting relationships in the BAG group with some of the older members being made to report to the new members. In IT team, Mr. Shiv, a newly recruited MBA, was made in-charge. For the older members it was a shock. However, as most of them were on the verge of retirement, and it would be challenging to search for new jobs while competing with younger professionals, they decided to play along. After one month, all business units were caught up in the ERP fever. This was an idea pushed by Ms. Teknikwali who felt the need to replace the old legacy systems with latest ERP system integrating all the units of Teknik. This was heavily influenced by her experience in the previ ous company where an ERP system was already up and running. Therefore she was not aware of the difference between installing an ERP system and working on an already installed one.
The ERP implementation in Teknik Group required extensive coordination with senior level managers of senior legal experts had agreed on an offer from a law firm. Other senior members would sporadically come in late to work, citing health reasons. Almost all senior members now wanted a weekly work-routine to be prepared and given to them in advance so that they could deliver as per the schedule. This insistence on written communication was a problem as urgent problems or ad-hoc requests could not be foreseen and included. Also normal services to other business units were being unattended to, and there were complaints coming from the unit heads.

Vivekananda Memorial Elocution Competition (VMEC) in Viswavijay Public School (VPS) has a history of forty years. Apart from the founder’s day and annual day celebrations, it is the most important event of the school. 
In recent times, due to the increased popularity of reality shows on television channels, and for various other reasons, the elocution competition lost its appeal. Interest of both students and parents has been eroding over a period of time. To ensure sufficient audience, Mr. Ivan, Head of English Department, introduced choral recitation for junior section as a part of elocution competition. Three classes, each consisting of forty students, get short-listed for the final performance of choral singing on the day of VMEC. Most of the parents and family members of these students attend the function to encourage them. This initiative increased the number of people attending the elocution competition.
Some teachers are unhappy with the emphasis given on the elocution competition, since they are expected to be present at the school on the day of competition, which normally happens on a weekend to accommodate the working parents. The teachers were not granted leave on the day of VMEC and they used to be unhappy regarding this aspect.

Ethical– a person is called unethical, when he deviates from principles. The principles and their use is often guided by two definitions:
Moral: society’s code for individual survival.
Ethics: an individual’s code for society survival. 
Naresh was a small-time civil contractor in a small city. His major clients were the residents who wanted ad-hoc work like painting, building extensions to be done. His just prices had made him a preferred contractor for most of the clients who preferred him over other civil contractors. Always he followed the principle that client had to be kept happy– only by doing so it would be a win-win situation for both. However due to the unpredictability of such orders from residents, Naresh used to be idle for substantial part of the year. As a consequence, he could not expand his business. His two children were growing up and his existing business could not support their expenses. The medical expense of his elderly parents was another drain on his resources. The constant rise of prices in medical care and medicines was another issue.
For Naresh, family’s concern was predominant. Naresh was, therefore, under pressure to expand his business. He was the sole earning member of his family, and he had to ensure their well-being. He thought that by expanding his business, not only would he be able to care for his family in a better way, as well as offer employment to more number of masons and labourers. That would benefit their families as well. Naresh drew the boundary of his society to include himself, his family members, his employees and their family members.
For expansion, the only option in the city was to enlist as a contractor for government work. Before deciding, he sought advice from another contractor, Srikumar, who had been working on government projects for a long period of time. Srikumar followed the principle of always helping others, because he believed that he would be helped back in return some day. Srikumar had just one advice: “The work is given to those who will win the bidding process and at the same time will give the maximum bribe. Prices quoted for work have to include bribes, else the bills will not get cleared and the supervisors will find multiple faults with the execution of work. This ensures survival and prosperity for contractors.”
When asked about other contractors, Srikumar said: “The government contractors are like a micro-society in themselves, almost like a brotherhood. Within that, they are highly compet itive; however towards any external threat they are united to ensure no harm happens to any of their members.”

Saral Co. is operating in seven north-eastern states of the country. The organization has a history of participative decision making, wherein people deliberate openly about pros and cons of every important decision, and a broad consensus is taken before taking the final decision. In Saral Co. every employee gets a salary proportional to the sales achieved. 
A new General Manager (GM) joined during the beginning of this month and challenged the or ganization’s sole focus on sales to determine salaries. He urged the top management to include two more additional parameters in determining the salaries of the employees, viz. collection of information about competitors and the quality of relationship with the retailers.