Human Behavior Case Study 12

Module 12 -- Group 8

Read the materials and consider the following questions:

How would you describe the organizational culture at the Compañía Minera San Esteban Primera?

There is a sentence said by Javier Castillo, secretary of the trade union that represents miners and a former miner at the San José mine, can describe the routine ways of communicating at the Compañía Minera San Esteban Primera. He said CMSE's management operated "without listening to the voice of the workers when they say that there is danger or risk".

"Nobody listens to us. Then they say we're right. If they would have believed the workers, we would not be lamenting this now," said Gerardo Núñez, head of the union at a nearby Candelaria Norte mine. He was anger, but it was the rules of the game for getting along in the organization. The supervisors did not listen to them.

The dominant values held by the Compañía Minera San Esteban Primera is that the supervisors did not attach importance to the safety of mines. The San Jose Mine was shut down in 2007 when relatives of a miner who had died in an accident sued company executives, but was reopened in 2008 despite failing to comply with all regulations. The matter is still under investigation according to mining committee Senator Baldo Prokurica. Due to budget constraints, there were only three inspectors for the Atacama Region's 884 mines.

The climate of the Compañía Minera San Esteban Primera is terrible. It is notorious in the mineral-rich region and, according to an official with the Chilean Safety Association, eight workers have died the company's mines in the 12 years to 2010. Between 2004 and 2010, the company received 42 fines for breaching safety regulations.

What controls were obviously missing at the Compañía Minera San Esteban Primera?

Feed forward Control was obviously missing at the Compañía Minera San Esteban Primera. The supervisors did not focus on input. They did not discover the...