CTV Newsnet Case Analysis

Chapter 3 CTV Newsnet pic 1. hoist In January 2000, the CTV Newsnet was confronted with a threat to its reputation and growth. A put down with vile remarks made by the News b passagecaster Ain truth Haines were aired erroneously, and it aro gived peachy state-supported indignation. By means of OB analysis, we found that Haines dispositional characteristics such as low emotional stability and lack of conscientiousness, heavy excogitate rest home stress, and divers(prenominal) attribution processes conducted by the anchor, her coworkers and the reference may all be causes of that crisis.Therefore, we purpose that CTV Newsnet could great deal with its reputation crisis and prevent the similar technical foul and behavioural mistakes in the future as the following 1) communicating effectively with the viewers astir(predicate) the companys survey and attitude toward this incident, 2) set upting up verificatory reinforcers and penalization rules to encourage wanted behavio ur and eliminate undesirable behaviour, 3) prop periodical seminar to strengthen employees awareness of work ethics, 4) doing business concern re send off to depose argumentation tasks and go down running(a) pressure, and 5) providing proper training political platforms to advance employees cognitive abilities and pro skills. Table of Contents 1. Abstract 2 2. Introduction 4 3. Case psychoanalysis 4 3. 1 Personality 4 3. 2 Stress 5 3. 3 Actor- commentator Effect7 4. Solutions8 4. 1 Operant Learning Theory8 4. 2 Coping with Stress 9 4. 3 Attribution Theory 10 5. Conclusion 11 6. Bibliography12 7. Appendices13 2. Introduction The news channel, CTV Newsnet, had been playing important power in practicing the CTV Inc. s philosophy which emphasizes the social commitment, such as condole with virtually farming issues. However, in January, 2000, CTV Newsnet had seed a severe repugn to master(prenominal)tain its reputation.This incident started with the CTV Newsnet anchor Ave ry Haines, who had stuttered and flubbed while recording a idea introduction on farmer issues. In launch to cover her induce embarrassment and ease the tension for former(a) co-workers in the studio, she made a private self-deprecating jocundity which included in stamp down remarks nearly unlike minorities. Of course, they retaped this part, but later that day, a CTV technician mistakenly aired the incorrectly tape which included the error and the offensive comment to the public. Soon after, mountains of criticism and suspicions ab disclose CTVs professionalism and integrity flooded into the company. The happening of this fatal mistake thence had adverse carry ons on the companys reputation as hale as its further expansion plan.Thus, the purpose of our report is to decrease the hatchway of reservation small but fatal mistakes among employees and to improve their sense of responsibility. 3. Casa Analysis 3. 1 Personality and the Big Five Personality can be described as th e individuals psycheal style to deal with the world. For Haines, there is a whole mixture of features that describe her individualizedity. When hiring Haines as a Hostess for CTV, Kowalski, the CTV News senior vice-president and general manager was applying one of the primordial concepts of OB the fit concept (textbook P41). Indeed, Kowalski matt-up immediately that Haines is the right person to fit in the fast-paced and demanding milieu of TV. Kowalski was impressed by her own(prenominal) and professional qualifications.At the professional direct, Haines had won many awards, shown a high train of performance, and earned wide popularity. At the personal level, and according to the five-factor model of personality, Haines showed her desolation (she was creative and eager to move forward from radio to television), agreeableness (she scurvily accepted criticism and advice, and completely committed to the job) and extraversion (she was interested in everything and had quickly ga ined the support and affection from her co-workers) (Ng, et al. , 2005). However, her lack of emotional stability (self-confidence) and consciousness (responsibility) didnt appear to Kowalski until the fatal errors occurred.In fact, Haines self-depreciating joke to cover her embarrassment and encompass her vulnerability and awkwardness is a display of the lack of confidence and affection of the consequences. According to the intereactionist approach, organizational behaviour is a function of both dispositions and the spatial relation (George, 1992). Indeed, Haines was facing a weak situation where there are by and large defined roles and few rules, so its tricky to define appropriate behaviour (Adler & Weiss, 1988). As a result, personality tends to have most impact in weak situations, which was the case of Haines behaviour. 3. 2 Stress It was a very long day in CTV, they were preparing for a show talking well-nigh the farmers story which attracted growing attention all over C anada, and Haines due(p) to universe distressed made her famous mistake.Stress can be defined as a psychological reaction to the demands inherent in a stressor that has the voltage to make a person feel tense or dying(p) (McGrath, 1970). In our case, the viewers of the broadcasting on the farmers issue were the potential stressors to Haines, whereas Haines was in like manner the potential stressor to her co-workers. Haines personality which was discussed earlier can mainly take in the completion to which the potential stressor becomes a real stressor, and it overly determines how she reacted to stress behaviourally, psychologically, and physiologically. This can formulate why Haines can be a potential stressor who exerted in lift stress on the work environment in which employees actions were affected and the pervert tape mistake was made.In terms of Locus of control (which is a set of beliefs about whether ones behaviour is control take by mainly indwelling or external forces), Haines reacted in this way since she was an external person. This type of community are to a greater extent likely to feel anxious in the face of potential stressors (Ng, et al. , 2006), and thats the case of Haines when she made her famous mistake she was stressed and started making jokes to overcome her mistake, unlike if she was an intrinsic person (which internal factors determine her personality) she would have confronted her stressors. Further much, Haines suffered from managerial and executive stress, since she had a work overload on the day of the incident.Also, Haines has a heavy responsibility and her work carried considerate significance to CTVs philosophy which addresses social commitment thus, not only she was beneath great pressure but also her co-workers, which increased the possibility of the fact of the tape mistake. Finally, other general stress factors such as work-family conflict, stage business insecurity, and role ambiguity might affect the level of stress among CTV employees and led to the problem in the workplace. 3. 3 Actor-observer Effect According to Attribution theory, large numbers demeanor can be attributed to dispositional and situational causes though they are not always accurate. When people are forming attribution to explain others behavior, biases and errors are hard to avoid.Thus, in the CTV Newsnet case, Haines and her colleagues in the studio did not perceive her joking as a big problem on the other hand, viewers were much likely to attribute her comments to her real disposition. The fact that viewers and her co-workers had different perceptions of Hainess joking reflected the actor-observe effect in attributing process (Watson, 1982).. In this case, Haines tended to attribute her making joke to close to external factors. They may include her extreme weariness with the heavy workload, the attempt to ease the embarrassment, and the certainty of a second recording. This is because Haines as an actor is mo re sensitive than observers (the audience) of the pros and cons that the environment offered (Textbook, p83).Moreover, she knew exactly her own thoughts and intentions which is to drum herself and her co-workers relaxed. In general, people crawl in break in anout how and why their behavior varies by situations, while the observers tend to guess. In terms of the perspectives of Haines co-workers, they would also attribute Haines behavior to the external causes because they understood Haines motivation and thoughts in that specific situation, and they also know her personality well. They usually saw Haines as a talented, reliable and honest person. Thus, coworkers might perceive her making improper joke as an shot due to the low consistency and high distinctiveness of her this behaviour (Medcof, 1990).As the observer of Hainess behaviour, CTV viewers had high possibility to commit the fundamental attribution error through overemphasizing dispositional causes and ignoring the poss ible environmental factors that may incur her joke making (Jones, 1979). Because viewers lacked the knowledge about the constraints, private thoughts, feelings, and intentions regarding Hainess behaviour, they intuitively assumed that the anchors making discriminatory remarks reflected her real thoughts. Hence, they inevitablly felt horrified and annoyed. 4. Solutions 4. 1 Operant Learning theory What happened to the CTV Newsnet indicated two main problems that threatened the maintenance of its reputation and integrity, less professional broadcasting and middle-level technical error. Both behavioural mistakes should be eliminated for the sake of the entire company.According to the operant learning theory, two approaches could help CTV newsnet to improve their operationing effectiveness. One approach is to use appropriate positive and negative reinforcement to stimulate desired behaviour. The other is to use extinction and punishment to stop undesired behaviour (Textbook P49-55). In order to avoid such basic technical misconduct on the short-term basis, the CTV managers could adopt positive reinforcement by establishing periodical employee intelligence programs. They include offerring pecuniary rewards quarterly or annually to error-free employees and employees who made probatory progress in their work.Moreover, a long-term training and development program can be conducted for technicians to learn how to operate the broadcasting equipment properly and efficiently as well as to adopt new technologies and upgrade their professional knowledge. To minimize the similar mishap made by Haines, CTV should create distinctly communication channel betwixt company and employees to encourage a more direct feedback. It will give help the organization find out their employees personal or work-related difficulties so that their performance can be deepen (Peterson & Luthans, 2006). If employees problems were incurred by too much workload, managers should consider hiring extra staff or enhancing the efficiency of management to cut the workload for employees.If making mistake was due to the lack of job interest and enthusiasm, the company could offer employees the opportunity to circulate among different positions or grand employees more controling power over their tasks to promote their sense of involvement. Meanwhile, through the negative reinforcement, the upper management may also monitor employees job performance and behaviour. Building up a more strict set of operational rules helps prohibit undesirable behaviours in the studio. any breach of the rules could lead to disciplinary actions such as a vocal example, a written warning or an ultimate dismissal. Employees attemppt to eliminate these sharp outcomes (warning and dismissal) can motivate them to obey the rules (textbook, p50).Although punishment might cause outcaste impacts on employees working enthusiasm, it is a effective way to prohibit sternly adverse behaviour sometimes. It a lso serves as a sound warning for other potential mistake-makers and a necessary compromise for easing the public anger. In CTV case, Haines should be fired for her unprofessional behaviour though unknowledgeable since it already incurred a huge wave of public irritation. The technician who played the wrong tape should also be punished for his or her carelessness. However, using punishment should always be careful. 4. 2 Coping with stress In order to reduce and overcome the stress which could occur in the work place now and in future, CTV should start implementing concrete actions.For example, doing job redesign that changes the job depth and breadth can rebuild the job tasks with more variety and authority. CTV could socially support its employees by planning events and activities which can improve the employees social life. The human resource department could establish a family cordial policy for the employees, which will allow the staff to balance better between their job duti es and family responsibilities (Grant & Parker, 2009). Finally CTV could also introduce stress management programs and work balance programs to allow its employees to arrange their time and tasks effectively with a sagely designed working schedule. . 3 Attribution theory Concerning the above analysis, some work-related attitudes among employees in CTV Inc. should be change or reinforced. Since attitudes can be modified through persuasively changing peoples beliefs and values (Textbook, p120), prop seminars and developing training programs can indeed help improve the work-related attitudes of CTV workers. First, employees should improve their awareness of the limitation of viewers knowledge about the journalists or broadcasters personal conditions. Interactive activities involving CTV employees and CTV viewers can be conducted to help them establish better mutual understanding.Then, mangers can hold discussion panels to reinforce the belief that working in CTV requires rigorous wo rk ethics and extensive sense of responsibility, especially as journalists and broadcasters. And through these trainings, the employees will be encouraged to ponder internal factors for their own behavior and be more aware that their self-perceived minor mistakes could be fatal to the further growth of their company. Besides, CTV Newsnet should enhancee its employees personal skills to maintain its professionalism and reliability. According to the concepts of job performance, individual job performance is heavily affected by his or her general cognitive ability, which refers to intelligence (Textbook, P149).Training programs can be conducted to refine oral presentation skills of the anchors so that they can be more careful and thoughtful about wording when broadcasting the public information. Moreover, periodical seminars can be held to prevail employees proper consciousness of political, religious and ethnic issues and to enrich their storage of the relevant knowledge. 5. Conclusi on About decade ago, CTV Newsnet anchor Avery Haines offensive remarks were aired mistakenly and caused great controversies in the public. The management was facing a severe altercate the news stations reputation and growth were threatened. Through OB analysis we have found that certain traits of Haines personality, i. e. low level of emotional stableness and ack of conscientiousness, workplace stress from too much workload and pressure, as well as different attribution processes conducted by the anchor, her coworkers and the audience may all causes contributing to the problem. CTV Newsnet could deal with its reputation crisis and avoid these technical and behavioural errors in the future by taking the right travel communicating effectively with the audience about the companys value and attitude toward this incident, setting up positive reinforcers and punishment rules to encourage desirable behaviour and eliminate undesirable behaviour, doing job redesign to clarify roles and redu ce workload, and providing proper training programs to improve employees cognitive abilities and awareness of work ethics. Bibliography 1. Adler, S. , & Weiss, H. M. 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