Case studies

Addresses the issue of Gender Equality – UN Sustainable Development Goal No.5. Discusses the topic of diversity, equity and inclusion. Presents the challenges faced by women of color in workplace and shows the capabilities needed to overcome these challenges.

Analyze the capabilities that women of color need to become successful leaders. Explore the importance of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in organizations and the role played by leaders in promoting DEI. Understand what inclusive leadership is. Examine the strategic leadership skills that leaders need to possess.

In March 2021, one of the largest drugstore chains in the USA, Walgreens Boots Alliance, a US$140bn company, announced that Rosalind Brewer (Brewer) (she) would be its new CEO. With the announcement, Brewer became the third black woman in history to lead a Fortune 500 company. After graduating in organic chemistry, Brewer joined Kimberly Clark and went on to lead the Nonwovens business. She then joined Walmart as Vice President. Brewer then moved to Starbucks as Head of Operations. Being an inclusive leader, Brewer brought in several changes to smoothen the operations and make the organizations employee-friendly. At the same time, as a black woman in a leadership position, she faced several challenges, which she overcame. As an advocate of DEI, Brewer strove to take diversity beyond just numbers. After becoming the CEO Boots Walgreens, Brewer was looking at taking medicines to masses and making healthcare affordable and available.

MBA/MS/Executive Education.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CCS 6: Human Resources.

Professors of undergraduate, graduate, doctoral or certificate programs can use this case study.

Human resource management, employee relations, women in business

Historically, only men have worked as tourist porters in Peru. The owner of a tour company in Peru wants to hire female porters in their company. Currently, all the porters in the company are male, and they are hesitant to work with women. The entrepreneur wants to build an inclusive organization to improve their company’s branding but is afraid of workplace harassment issues. This case examines the challenges of employee safety and business continuity while building an inclusive workforce. What should the owner do?

• Evaluate the factors that lead to the bias or discrimination of women or other minority groups in business; •discuss what reasonable accommodations an organization can undertake to become inclusive; and •explore business opportunities and challenges while being inclusive.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human Resources

This case was designed not only for MBA and executive education but also undergraduate courses in human resources (HR), leadership development, HR metrics and change management. It is ideal for introducing the concepts of diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I), the balanced scorecard and talent retention.

The case deals with initiating and integrating DE&I programs into a company. It highlights how and when to start, change management issues during roll-out and convincing senior leadership why a program such as the one the protagonist started adds value to an organization.

In early 2018, Kate McKinnon, AVP of HR for CareerStaff Unlimited (CSU), a temporary staffing company and division of Genesis HealthCare, reflected on the late 2016 decision to develop women for leadership roles at the company. With a rather unconventional implementation of the Women’s Leadership Group (WLG), Kate successfully developed fifteen female individual contributors, many of whom were promoted to leadership roles by early 2018. Kate was concerned about maintaining the momentum necessary to continue (and expand) the program of identifying, developing, promoting, and retaining women and other diverse employees across the company. She also wanted to measure a clear correlation between the WLG and CSU’s financial and customer outcomes. It was time to plan phase two of the program, including further improvement of the DE&I efforts at CSU.

The learning outcome of this paper are as follows: focused programs, led by courageous and committed leaders, improve gender equity. DE&I is a business imperative, as much as a legal/risk challenge. To be understood, approved and communicated, HR Initiatives must add value and be aligned with the company strategy along with financial and customer outcomes. People development and growth contribute to top talent retention.

Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

Given the issues the USA is encountering after the George Floyd death and protests, this is a good way to demonstrate how courageous leadership can start to facilitate change in organizations.

CSS 6: Human Resources.

This case is appropriate for use in undergraduate and MBA courses.

This case can be used in courses in business ethics, leading teams and organizations or business strategy. The focus of the case aligns well with discussions of managing up, navigating changes in top leadership and conflicts between executive vision and future company growth. Instructors that choose to emphasize the ethical approach could assign this case to explore tradeoffs between loyalty to current and future bosses.

Associate Director of Forecasting Cindy March faces a multi-faceted dilemma as biotech firm Veracity’s acquisition date by pharmaceutical giant Makhola approaches. After a new competitor enters the market, March expects Veracity drug Sangren’s future revenue to drop to $600m in 2019, but the outgoing Veracity CEO refuses to accept a forecast of less than $700m. March suspects that the CEO is intent on handing over a financially successful company and is overly optimistic about Sangren’s ability to maintain market share. In two weeks, March is due to present a 2019 Sangren forecast to incoming Makhola leadership, who she anticipates becoming her direct boss after the acquisition. Should March present the inflated forecasts and accept the poor reflection on her professional abilities or should she refuse to present numbers she does not believe in?

By analyzing and discussing the case, students should be able to:Evaluate the potential business and ethical conflicts arising from decision-making based on both data and intuition. Synthesize an appropriate strategy for navigating tradeoffs between current and future leadership.Analyze the gender dynamics of male-dominated executive leadership structures and strategies for female employees to combat gender biases.

The Behavioral Science Guys, 2015. One Simple Skill to Curb Unconscious Gender Bias. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEHi4yauhu8&ab_channel=VitalSmartsVideoTeaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

CSS 6: Human resources.

This case aims to assist students to learn about leadership theory and leadership effectiveness in terms of organizational change. It is best suited for undergraduate courses in leadership development, organizational behavior and specific teaching modules in Master in Business Administration courses.

Leadership and leadership effectiveness; organizational change.

This case is about a decade (2010–2020) of a transformation journey of the School of Business at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU). Dr Durnin has been the first female Dean of School of Business in Connecticut State Colleges and Universities (CSCU) who made this transformation possible and continuing on. With listening ears and a supportive heart, Dr Durnin first moved faculty and staff members out of a “sick” office building and then created a supportive and collaborative culture to build the consensus among faculty and staff members to change for good. It has been her personalized influence, charisma and extraordinary upward negotiation that lead the School to shape its collective effort toward a multi-year Association to Advance Collegiate School of Business accreditation process since 2014. When dealing the uncertainty caused by the 2020 global pandemic, her autonomy-supportive approach once again connected people meaningfully together to excel the challenges brought by COVID-19 pandemic.

This case provides an example of female leader in higher education to illustrate a successful transformational leadership (TFL) example in the USA, as well as its implications on gender issues and leadership effectiveness. Upon completing the analysis of this case, students should be able to: – understand the TFL concepts, theory and its behavioral implications on gender and leadership effectiveness; and – assess and evaluate effectiveness of TFL styles in organizations.

Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or e-mail support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

CSS 6: Human resources.

Transformational leadership, Organizational change, Gender and leadership effectiveness

This case present the dilemma of an employee who, having been terminated in a manner he deems is unfair, has to decide whether to cash or return a $2,500 check wrongfully sent him by his former employer.

The owner/editor of the small Davis Press encounters a dilemma when she is given the opportunity to publish a novel set in the Islamic holy city of Mecca. Given the events of the last 16 years—the angry fallout after Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses, the continuing Iraq War, and the recent controversy of Koran desecration at the U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay—publishing the novel presents a host of various ethical dilemmas, including whether she should put her staff at risk. This case discusses the ethics of a free press and challenges the profit motive in the face of jeopardizing political and religious world affairs.

Richard Alpert, senior partner at Evergreen Investments, must decide which of his two best employees to promote to the position of managing VP. He had initially preferred Charlie Pace over Daniel Faraday, but that decision had become less clear-cut when Alpert inadvertently overheard an office conversation and learned that Pace was taking Adderall, a stimulant primarily prescribed for people suffering from attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Pace did not have ADHD and apparently obtained the medication by deceiving a physician. Alpert is faced with a number of questions, including whether it was fair to Faraday—or any other high-performing employee—to be passed over for promotion in favor of someone who illicitly boosted his performance with a substance he did not medically need.

Gender in the workplace. Is it still an issue? While it is increasingly easier in the early 21st century for women to work, manage, and take positions of high responsibility in American business, some issues and difficulties still remain. This series of vignettes touches on some difficult situations—for both women and men—involving sexual and romantic relationships in the workplace, decisions on whether to start a family, dress codes, family obligations, and sexual harassment.

The Greenland case describes the experience of four young Norwegian men determined to set a world record for unsupported crossing of Greenland. The case describes the team, their preparations, and their experiences as they crossed in “good” weather that was often whiteout blizzard conditions with temperatures dropping as low as −78 degrees F. Throughout the case, one of the team members reflects on things he learned about himself, about the team, and about leadership from the experience (recorded in italics). The teaching note (available to registered faculty) is supplemented by a PowerPoint presentation that helps introduce the expedition to Greenland, other “risky recreation,” and the concepts related to resonance or flow. A video supplement is also available. The case lends itself to a profound discussion of leadership on its own and leads in nicely to a discussion of world-class performance and the purpose of life, which both startles and pleasantly surprises most students and participants.

With so many team-driven activities for students in the fast-paced, high-pressure environment of a business school, students need to have an opportunity to discuss the issues and dilemmas that may arise. Harry's difficulties in mastering finance cause some members of the team to feel frustrated, because they have to spend so much time helping him. When the members pressure the others to spend less time with Harry, other problems arise in the team dynamics, involving such issues as trust, participation, team performance, and quality of learning. Students need to explore alternative ways to improve the situation.

Marissa Mayer has been asked to think about factors that were impacting Google's ability to innovate and adjust its strategy so that the organization could remain one of the world's foremost leaders in technology. In an industry (and at a company) that was changing and growing exponentially, it would be difficult to pinpoint specific variables and trends. But Mayer knew that one element crucial to Google's ongoing success would be its ability to recruit the best talent available and foster an environment that would encourage that talent to generate the best ideas. As Mayer contemplated how to ensure this, she considered that women currently represented only a small fraction of Google's engineers, suggesting a missed opportunity.

“Hey that was my idea!” How often have your students had that exact thought? Were they on a team when they felt most able to identify with that statement? This case is about a recent MBA graduate who faces challenges within her consulting team on her first post-graduation job. She is frustrated with one teammate in particular who she believes practices self-interest politics–he takes her ideas. The case allows for a healthy discussion on team dynamics and strategies to help students when the team mix is wrong. The case may also be used to discuss issues regarding women in business.

Whoosh, is that all there is? On the eve of becoming a partner at a well-known consulting firm (“the stuff MBA dreams are made of”), a senior executive starts to question what he is doing with his life. Walt Shill had graduated eight years earlier from the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia and had worked his way up at McKinsey Consulting to become the first American partner in the Japanese office. Shill and his family move back to the United States, where he starts to question his goals. For the first time, it seems that Shill has no target to aim for. Having had reached his goals, Shill sets out on an adventure to seek his own meaning of life. He gets into good-enough shape to take a cross-country bicycle ride, which he completes. This undisguised case tells Shill's story and what he learned along the way. It ends with Shill's promise to himself to be less judgmental and to start walking through life with eyes wide open. A teaching note is available to registered faculty.

What happens when personal values and beliefs conflict with business decisions? This case, suitable for MBA, undergraduate, and executive learners, prompts engaging discussion of this issue. Oliver Sparling was a highly successful senior analyst at AFI International, a top consulting firm in Chicago with an open and tolerant workplace. He was also a gay man who had lived happily with his partner for over 10 years. Sparling encounters trouble, however, when one of the firm's clients, Bible Books, Inc., takes exception to his “inappropriate” openness about his sexuality (including wearing his commitment band). Sparling's boss calls him into the office and asks him to tone it down when he's at Bible Books, Inc. “These are not easy economic times,” said the boss. “And this project is a big one for us. Basically, you're doing the company a favor if you lay low, and once the project is finished, it will be like it never happened. Besides, you know that you don't have anything to hide while you're at home here in Chicago. This is just for when you are in Birmingham.” Sparling must decide what course of action to take.

This case was designed to build expertise in conflict management and assertiveness by allowing students to practice saying what needs to be said in challenging situations. Grounded in the pedagogy of experiential learning, the case consists of three role-play scenarios that exemplify three challenging business situations. In each scenario, two individuals are faced with a possible difference in perspective or goals. The role-play requires students to assume the role of one of the individuals, and each scenario requires another student to initiate the discussion.

Can the return of its founding CEO turn a lagging Starbucks around? Howard Shultz must map a strategy that addresses the company's decreasing sales and perhaps too rapid growth. Had the previous CEO's efforts to streamline operations compromised the Starbucks experience or was a changing economy to blame? Schultz considers whether to close existing stores, slow U.S. growth while expanding overseas, and improve the customer experience, which he believed had eroded the company's value proposition.

This case outlines the history of JetBlue Airways from its inception in 2000 until 2004. The case provides details of JetBlue's business model and reasons for success. It can be used in a course on service operations or strategy.

The manager of a meatpacking factory allows his 100-plus Muslim workers to take breaks believing that it is an appropriate response to the religious needs of this large part of his employee base. But the breaks have begun to interfere with the overall operation of the plant, resulting in a loss of productivity. Other employees have become irritated resenting what they see as preferential treatment. Because of the productivity issues, other employees' complaints, and concerns about the credibility of his management, the manager considers reneging on his agreement.

“What kind of culture does Walt Disney Company (WDC) want to create? This case uses the experiences of a young visitor to one of WDC's resort hotels to set the stage for an analysis of selecting, hiring, training, and retaining and how those practices are governed by the culture of a large American company. The situation provides an opportunity to explore human resource policies, organizational design as well as how all those elements reinforce the culture.

The case opens with an interaction between a young Animal Kingdom Lodge guest and an employee (or cast member as the company refers to employees). There were many different ways the exchange could have unfolded yet the experience was magical for the youngster. What made this exchange a memorable experience for this young guest? Would Walt Disney have been surprised?”