OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Choosing an Organization Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Identify an organization and situation you want to study over the remainder of the course.
2. Describe the organization and the situation

Complete the following making sure to support your ideas and cite from the textbook and other
course materials per APA guidelines. After the peer review, you have a chance to update this and
format for your Electronic Portfolio due in Module 6.

1) Name and describe your organization.

The organization that I would like to study is my previous organization, View. View is a
dynamic glass manufacturer. Dynamic glass is a self-tinting insulated glass unit which
requires a small amount of electrical current to tint the glass from clear to dark, or vice-
versa. View has been in the market for over 10 years, and is considered the market leader.
Their main customer base consists of airports, hospitals, offices, and muli-family homes,
with the occasional private home, depending on the occupant (big name players in the
preferred customer sectors).

2) Describe your role in the organization (it can be an internal or external role).

When I was hired at View, I started as a Field Service Engineer (FSE), responsible for the
commissioning, service, and repair of the product and its applicable hardware. I spent 3
years as an FSE before a promotion to Project Engineer. As a Project Engineer, I was
now responsible for the installation, commissioning, service, and repair of the product,
but I had more responsibility for the project management side of things. I commonly
worked alongside a project manager and was the technical subject matter expert on
installation practices and service/repair tasks.

3) Describe the situation, including information you think the will help the reader
understand the most important elements of the situation. (This will require
selectivity: part of the art of case writing is separating the essential facts from the
mass of information that might be included).

View has had recent trouble regarding the quality of their products. In 2017 to 2019,
there was a series of products manufactured with a sealant issue, causing massive
degredation and corrosion to the metal-oxide film coated inside the glass. View was
footing the bill to remove each individual unit and replace with a newer product, but the

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 sealant issue was not understood fully at the time, and therefore the new products were
defective as well, causing a cascading event of sorts. Repeated replacements ate into the
already razor thin margins View was balancing. As a result, View was attempting to hold
the customers liable for shipping and installation costs while View maintained the
production costs, but failed ultimately because of its weak position within the market
compared to its customer base and its illequipped warranty contract. View was also
attempting to hide its warranty accrual costs in budgeting reports and an investigation
was conducted by the Security and Exchange Committee. It was discovered that View
was only including the production costs in the warranty accruals, totaling $22 to $25
million dollars, when in fact, the production, shipping, and installation costs were closer
to $48 to $53 million dollars. View materially misstated its warranty liability for fiscal
years 2019, 2020, and the first quarter of 2021, a direct violation of multiple Sections
within the Securities Act and the Exchange Act.

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 References

Countryman, V. A. (n.d.). United States of America before Securities and Exchange Committee. SEC.gov.
https://www.sec.gov/files/litigation/admin/2023/33-11208.pdf