Question

(Questions 115 to 117): The year 2004 was a great year for Top-Cloth cotton mill. Manufacturing towels for the export market and employing more than 2000 workers, the company had an impressive growth in sales and profits. The Chairman felt that employees were entitled to a share in the profits, and it was proposed that the employee mess be air-conditioned. The proposal was discussed in a meeting attended by, among other senior officials, the marketing director, the personnel director and the finance director. The proposal was based on the fact that the shop floor of the mill often had temperatures in excess of 40 degrees C with a relative humidity of 99%. The air-conditioned mess would represent management's appreciation of the employees' hard work.

At the end of 2005, management reviewed the mill's performance. Profits were higher, and employee attrition was negligible. The Chairman decided that employees deserved additional recognition for their fine work. Since the mess had already been air-conditioned, the Chairman wanted to know if the employees appreciated this sort of action. In the course of discussion, the Chairman asked the personnel director to send a questionnaire to a sample of fifty employees and obtain their reaction to the air-conditioned mess. The management agreed to decide only after obtaining the feedback from the employees.

The personnel director mailed a simple form to fifty employees, asking them for the following information: "Please state your reaction to the air-conditioned mess." Of the fifty forms mailed, forty-six were returned. The answers received were as follows:

Reaction	Frequency
"I did not know it was air-conditioned."	16
"I never eat there"	8
"If management can spend money like that, they should pay us more"	6
"I wish the entire mill was air-conditioned."	8
"The mess is for management employees."	4
"It is OK."	2
Miscellaneous comments	2

117. This decision-making situation best highlights:

• A. managerial short-sightedness in decision making
• B. managerial benevolence in sharing profits among the workers
• C. managerial incompetence in handling a negative feedback in employee survey
• D. inefficient infrastructure management

Hint:

Look at the case as a whole, not just the flawed survey step: the Chairman's repeated motive is to reward employees for good results.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is B

Step 1: Understanding the Question.
We need to name the single theme that best captures the whole Top-Cloth case: a Chairman who wanted to share the mill's success with employees, air-conditioned the mess as a gesture of appreciation, and then checked back a year later to see if employees valued it.

Step 2: Key Formula or Approach.
Match the overall thrust of the story, not just one weak detail in it, such as the flawed one-line survey, to the option that best summarises management's underlying intent and action across the whole case.

Step 3: Detailed Explanation.
The story opens with the Chairman feeling employees were "entitled to a share in the profits" and, following good results, wanting to give them "additional recognition for their fine work." Both the air-conditioning gesture and the later profit-sharing review are driven by management voluntarily choosing to pass benefits to workers because the company was doing well, not because it was legally required to. That is the definition of benevolence, generosity from a position of goodwill, so option 2 fits the overall story best.
Option 1, short-sightedness, does not fit, since the mill's core business decisions, exports and growth, were going well; the case is not about a decision made without regard for the future.
Option 3, incompetence in handling negative feedback, describes only the flawed survey step, a smaller detail, not the situation as a whole, and the survey responses were not overwhelmingly negative either, many were neutral or simply unaware.
Option 4, inefficient infrastructure, is not supported; the case never claims the mill's infrastructure was run poorly.
So the case, taken as a whole, is best summed up as management choosing to share its gains with workers out of goodwill.

Step 4: Final Answer.
The situation best highlights managerial benevolence in sharing profits among the workers.\[ \boxed{\text{Managerial benevolence in sharing profits among the workers}} \]