Case studies

Case explains how female leaders are more concerned about social issues the industry in which they operate could resolve. Obo-Nia, CEO of Vodafone Ghana, showed concern for resolving the digital divide in Africa and offered a collaborative solution. The case also suggests how female CEOs invest in strategic corporate social responsibility (CSR) that could create a competitive advantage for firms. The case also discusses gender diversity issues in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) field and how Vodafone Ghana’s CEO tried to enhance gender diversity in the telecommunication sector and Vodafone. Obo-Nai did not emphasize gender diversity from a CSR perspective but believed in a business case for gender diversity, as an increase in participation of women in the STEM workforce could help the telecommunication sector innovate faster and resolve the digital divide challenge while also empowering women working from the informal sector.

What is the significance of a digital divide and the societal role of the telecommunication sector; Why female CEOs are more concerned about CSR and how CSR makes not charity but business case; Why female CEOs are more inclined toward collaborative strategies and how stakeholders are involved in collaborative strategies for reducing the digital divide; Exploring various strategies for enhancing gender diversity in the STEM field and the significance of gender diversity in the STEM field.

The case is about the challenges faced by Patricia Obo-Nai, the first female CEO of Vodafone Ghana, to bridge the digital divide in Africa while doing so in a profitable manner. Obo-Nai was an engineer by profession and won several awards as she rose to the post of CEO in Vodafone Ghana in 2019. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she took several corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, such as making internet service freely available in certain schools and universities so that education could continue. Obo-Nai also emphasized gender diversity within Vodafone and urged other telecommunication players to focus on gender diversity from a social responsibility perspective because it was essential for innovation. Under Obo-Nai’s leadership, Vodafone itself launched several new products. She called for a multistakeholder collaborative approach to bridge the digital divide and to make 4G internet affordable in Africa. Obo-Nai collaborated with competitors like MTN Ghana to enhance Vodafone Ghana’s roaming services.

This case is intended for undergraduate or graduate-level business and management courses, especially international business and society, CSR and leadership courses. Graduate students in public policy may also find the case compelling.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CCS5: International Business; CCS10: Public Sector Management

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.

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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.

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CSS 6: Human resources.

Transformational leadership, Organizational change, Gender and leadership effectiveness

Students from undergraduate and graduate levels.

Leadership, implicit leadership theories, decision-making, gender stereotypes and discrimination.

Defne was working as a sales manager in Diel Turkey, an international technology company. Diel focuses on software, hardware, network and business consultancy services. Defne had worked as a computer engineer before starting to work in the sales department. In her leadership, she gave importance to long-term relationships and justice. Defne had two meetings this week. The first one was with T&X, a big scale fast moving consumer goods company; and the other one was with Q-Coding, a medium-scale technology company. Defne had negotiated with T&X two years ago, and the project got canceled. Defne worked on T&X new contract very cautiously, as this time she wanted to finish the project and make the deal. Defne had to deal with prejudices during the T&X meeting. Implicit beliefs are grounded in the cultural background of the country, which determines the perceptual framework for the society. Male-dominated countries have implicit beliefs that women’s priorities should be their families, thus being successful at work is not expected. Defne faced male-oriented stereotypes, which challenged her in doing business. Even though she was a successful manager, these subjective beliefs made her perform poorly. During the meeting with Q-Coding, Defne discussed the prejudice for women leaders with a women entrepreneur Suzan.

This case is trying to achieve two main objectives: first, to make all students be aware of implicit leadership theories and beliefs, which are rooted in the countries’ cultural background; second, to make female students be aware of these dysfunctional coping behaviors and increase their self-efficacy without thinking about their gender roles.

CSS 7: Management science

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.

This case concerns the troubles that Euro Disney experienced from the start. Euro Disney claimed that the major cause of its poor financial performance was the European recession and the strong French franc. The timing of the park's opening could not have been more inopportune. If the recession had been the only cause of Euro Disney's problems, the financial restructuring would only need to carry the park forward to better economic times. Only when Europeans began spending freely again would investors learn the answers to some uncomfortable questions: Was the whole idea of Euro Disney misconceived? Were there other fundamental cultural problems that could inhibit the park's success? Would Euro Disney fail to recover even though other European companies did? And, if so, why was the Disney theme-park concept successful in Japan and not in France?