Superior Slate

Thomas North, the owner of The Superior Slate Quarry, decided that he would construct a new mill that would change the process of slate milling and quarrying.(my suggestion is Superior Slate Company built a new mill). After this implementation he (Thomas North) was concerned about the decrease in productivity at Superior Slate Company.

The decreased productivity that North noticed after the new mill had been constructed and the new process had been applied could have been a result of several different issues. The first of which was that the new milling process had changed the behavior of the employees. According to the article, “Why People Behave the Way They Do”, there are seven distinct levels of similarity and dissimilarity, one of which is the distinction of national culture. This is very applicable to the issues that Superior Slate was having because they had two primary groups of employees, the Welsh and the Irish. The Welsh were the main focus of the case and they worked as the splitters and the trimmers of the quarry. They shared many values, assumptions, beliefs and expectations (VABEs) (which are developed over many years, forming from the family, friends and experiences and) that could be attributed to their national culture, such as being thrifty people who took great pride in working with their hands and seeing an end product that they could be proud of. They also valued cleanliness and looked down upon dirty working conditions, they were meticulous and lived and worked in groups with other Welsh people.

These ideas that stem from their national culture could also be classified as memes of the Welsh and one of the association memes that the Welsh had was that they did not like the Irish as a people. These ideas and beliefs played greatly into the Welsh’s work environment. Prior to building the new mill and changing the milling process the Welsh worked together in a manner that was more conducive to their VABEs. According to the case there were...