Marlow Construction (a): Dan Marlow, Founder and President

Abstract

This case represents an amalgam of commonly reported experiences people have when interacting with others from different social class backgrounds and positions of power. The A case takes the perspective of Dan Marlow, who grew up with access to financial and cultural resources and has built his own construction company. He has just fired Robby Gomez, an otherwise great worker, for chronic lateness, and he wonders why he is having trouble motivating and keeping employees. The B case takes the viewpoint of Gomez, who works hard but has trouble getting to work on time because of practical difficulties like car trouble and obligations to family and others in his community. By comparing the perspectives and experiences of these two protagonists, students learn to see how our own experiences and cultural knowledge can inform our decisions and the employee programs that we design. Because we are not aware of cultural norms that we have not personally experienced, we need to include a diversity of viewpoints in the decision-making and design processes in order to design effective systems and have effective interactions across differences. Excerpt UVA-OB-1282 Rev. Aug. 5, 2020 Marlow Construction (A): Dan Marlow, Founder and President Dan Marlow was the founder and president of Marlow Construction, a midsized construction company in New England. He had started his company right out of college, while working part-time for his father's law office. He had borrowed some money from his family and had taken a small bank loan to buy a truck and some equipment, and soon began doing small projects. His first clients were friends and family who lived in nice neighborhoods, other lawyers his father knew, and some of his more well-to-do family friends. As his business grew, Marlow hired more people and took on bigger projects. Now, his company employed about 35 full-time workers. However, recurring personnel issues were driving him crazy, and at the moment, he was feeling bad about a recent conversation. Earlier that day, Marlow had fired Robby Gomez, an employee who had worked for Marlow Construction for several months. Marlow liked Gomez. From what he could tell, Gomez was a very capable worker and spent a lot of time helping other people on his work crew. Marlow thought Gomez had a lot of potential, if he buckled down and committed himself to his work. He could probably even learn to run his own crew of workers. Instead, Gomez had a history of showing up late, if at all, and demonstrated very little desire to go above and beyond for clients. Marlow thought about his relationship with Gomez over the past couple of months. He had made several attempts to connect, explaining that it was important to the company, to Gomez's future employment, and to the clients of Marlow Construction that workers showed up on time and did excellent work. But it seemed that no matter how many times Marlow brought it up, Gomez continued to have problems showing up and often seemed distracted. Marlow had tried to motivate Gomez once by recognizing some good work he had done: he'd even given him a gift card to a nice restaurant in town as a way of saying thanks. The issues with Gomez bothered Marlow because the situation wasn't unique. A number of employees had problems with timeliness, effort, and turnover. Sometimes an employee would just disappear one day and never come back! . . .