The SpeedServe exercise presents a brief scenario which puts the student in the role of a human resources team member who needs to respond to their boss, Maria Martinez, the number two executive in a rapidly growing firm of 500 employees. The boss is looking for the employee's thoughts on how to prioritize spending for the human resources budget, particularly given emerging talent trends since the global pandemic and the desire to create high employee engagement. Martinez has a list of possible areas for focus and wants the employee to rank order them prior to a taskforce meeting later in the day. This exercise is designed to have individual students put themselves in the role of the human resources team member, to rank order the potential areas of focus. Following that individual prioritization, students are put into groups which serve as the taskforce. Each student group needs to discuss and compare individual thinking and develop a final consensus ranking for their taskforce group. Taskforce results can then be discussed across the student teams. The instructor can use the exercise to discuss team dynamics as well as the employee engagement topics of the exercise. This exercise can be conducted in a physical or virtual classroom environment. While similarly structured to popular "survival" experiential learning activities, this exercise is different because the content of the ranking process is relevant to organizational issues and worthy of discussion in addition to the topic of team process.
This is a case organized around the theme of preserving an entrepreneurial culture in the face of rapid growth, including over 800 employees and several offices. Founded by four friends, all still under age 30, the company has reached over $124 million in annual sales. As of January 23, 2015, when the company went public, its market valuation was over $1.5 billion. The company is particularly conscious of wanting to preserve the open, action-centered, fun culture that has been created. In some ways it is a highly representative Silicon Valley technology company, and the case tries to capture the flavor of such an organization. There is an excellent video available that was made for Inc. magazine when it named Box CEO Aaron Levie as entrepreneur of the year in 2013,[1] as well as several video interview clips done for the case with Dan Levin, COO.
Talk of cost cutting and layoffs was already in the air in the New York offices of international beverage company Legrand SA. But now everyone is imagining the worst after the sudden and mysterious resignation of Lucien Beaumont, the company's president of U.S. operations. The rumors are flying fast and furious about what prompted his departure and, just as important, who will get Lucien's job. Michael Feldstein is confident that he's a top contender for Lucien's job. Michael, the global category director for rums, believes his stellar brand results and strong track record might earn him the position. Then, with a slight sense of paranoia, he notices Danielle Harcourt--the global category director for vodka and liqueurs and Michael's chief competitor for Lucien's job--networking with some of the Paris executives at a launch party for one of Michael's brands. She has also reached out to at least one of his direct reports. Before he can confront her, Michael gets a call from CEO Pierre Hoffman and a proposition--but not the one he's looking for. In this fictional case study, Michael must weigh the advantages of taking an unexpected post in China against holding his ground in the politically charged New York offices of Legrand. Commenting on this fictional case study in R0501A and R0501Z are Nancy Clifford Widmann, an executive coach, and Amy Dorn Kopelan, the CEO of Bedlam Entertainment, a conference management company; Fred Hassan, the chairman and CEO of Schering-Plough; Allan Cohen, the Edward A. Madden Distinguished Professor in Global Leadership at Babson College; and Gary B. Rhodes, a senior fellow at the Center for Creative Leadership.
Talk of cost cutting and layoffs was already in the air in the New York offices of international beverage company Legrand SA. But now everyone is imagining the worst after the sudden and mysterious resignation of Lucien Beaumont, the company's president of U.S. operations. The rumors are flying fast and furious about what prompted his departure and, just as important, who will get Lucien's job. Michael Feldstein is confident that he's a top contender for Lucien's job. Michael, the global category director for rums, believes his stellar brand results and strong track record might earn him the position. Then, with a slight sense of paranoia, he notices Danielle Harcourt--the global category director for vodka and liqueurs and Michael's chief competitor for Lucien's job--networking with some of the Paris executives at a launch party for one of Michael's brands. She has also reached out to at least one of his direct reports. Before he can confront her, Michael gets a call from CEO Pierre Hoffman and a proposition--but not the one he's looking for. In this fictional case study, Michael must weigh the advantages of taking an unexpected post in China against holding his ground in the politically charged New York offices of Legrand. Commenting on this fictional case study are Nancy Clifford Widmann, an executive coach, and Amy Dorn Kopelan, the CEO of Bedlam Entertainment, a conference management company; Fred Hassan, the chairman and CEO of Schering-Plough; Allan Cohen, the Edward A. Madden Distinguished Professor in Global Leadership at Babson College; and Gary B. Rhodes, a senior fellow at the Center for Creative Leadership.
An interpersonal and systems case in which Jim Davis, who holds a staff position, is responsible for results that can be achieved only through influencing line (branch) managers over whom he has no direct authority. Lends itself to role plays of different kinds, yielding useful insights into the process of influence without direct authority.
The department manager at Consumer Material Enterprises, Inc. wants to improve employee satisfaction in his department and starts with his own immediate subordinates. Satisfied that earlier production problems are under control, he wants to create an atmosphere of "one big, happy family." However, a visit from a summer intern reveals more tension among his staff than the department manager had realized, and he wonders how to proceed. This case emphasizes data that reflect differences in perceptions, attitudes, and assumptions between new supervisors with college degrees and old-timers who are high school graduates.
This case deals primarily with ethics and the individual's personal system and the way it affects his or her perceptions and actions. It also looks at rewards and punishments and their influence on behavior. Susan is a student employee at a campus snack bar who is caught between a wish to do what she thinks is right--take steps to stop food being taken off the premises that hasn't been paid for--and fear of negative consequences if she takes such action. She would also like to see students work harder, finish what is assigned to them on the night shift, and be punished for stealing from the cash register. Almost all students have faced peer pressure to do things that violate their value systems. The case helps students to understand why they feel so much ambivalence, sometimes going along and sometimes setting limits. Some issues are ethical; others involve criminal behavior. Issues include sexual permissiveness and experimentation, drug use and dealing, cheating, trespassing, and stealing. The case also raises questions of a company's ethics and responsibility for creating, or allowing, a climate that tolerates at best, and encourages at worst, illegal, criminal, or unethical behavior.
The protagonist of this case, Paula, is the captain of her school's basketball team. It chronicles the arrival of a new coach, Shirley, and the interpersonal conflict and impasse that emerges as the game plan and coaching style changes.
Smokestack Village, a tourist attraction located near the Continental Divide in central Colorado, offers visitors a large railroad museum and daily excursion rides on old railroad lines. Describes a small work group, allowing students to look at the characteristics of a social system. Can trace the evolution of the emergent system and its consequences for productivity, satisfaction, personal growth, learning, and development. Also provides an opportunity to look at leadership in different ways, using concepts related to contingency, functions, style, influence, and power.
This case chronicles the events that prompt the recruits of one computer company's training program to aid one another on assignments and projects despite rules explicitly prohibiting such behavior. It emphasizes personal values and the choices made in different circumstances. It also raises questions about the responsibility of companies to design organizations that induce ethical behavior. Bill Flynn is a 23-year-old newcomer to the Brady Co. Information Systems Department. After having worked for one year in sales for a different computer manufacturer, Flynn joined the Brady Co. to develop his understanding of hardware and programming. Upon learning that the Brady training program is intensely rigorous and competitive--usually less than one-third of the recruits complete it--Flynn and other recruits begin to help one another, despite being forbidden at the outset from doing so. Flynn forms a study group with two classmates; catches two recruits photocopying former students' completed assignments and takes a copy to share with his own group; and reads the supervisors' secret files evaluating recruits' progress. After seeing comments in his own file that question his commitment to become part of the Information Systems Department, Flynn cultivates disingenuous friendships with his supervisors. When he survives the 12-month training program, Flynn is offered a formal position in the company; however, he already has secured two other job offers from competing companies. Upon hearing this news, the Brady management immediately makes a superior offer and encourages him to join the firm.