This case study describes the culture change process and positive outcomes at one of Genentech's largest divisions, Immunology and Opthamology (GIO). Senior Vice President Jennifer Cook worked with her team to develop a culture that would tie together four brands that previously were not in the same division. Despite various challenges along the way, Cook pursued a culture change approach with definitive and relatively rapid outcomes. This is a story of the role that leaders have in undertaking and inspiring major culture change.

Differences in behavior and associated gender stereotypes derive from the different norms and expectations associated with the social roles that men and women typically hold. The stereotypes are all-too familiar: men are better at math, women at communicating; men make better military officers, women better caregivers. As a result, occupations, jobs and tasks become gender-typed as 'male' or 'female' according to the gender of the typical incumbent. The authors report their findings, which suggest that the additional scrutiny of being a solo member of one's gender -- whether self-imposed or imposed by others -- can be either beneficial or detrimental to performance, depending on the typicality of the task relative to one's gender.

Like many technology organizations in the late 1990s, Cisco was booming. It grew so quickly, in fact, that it was bringing in up to 1,000 new employees each month. Cisco's solution was to acquire talent by buying small firms, topping out in one year with 24 separate acquisitions. However, in 2000, the dot-com bubble burst and Cisco quickly realized that it had another human capital challenge on its hands: how to develop, rather than hire, the strategic thinkers and leaders needed for the future. Explores the challenges facing Mary Eckenrod, Cisco's vice-president of worldwide talent, in developing a new human capital strategy to identify and develop leaders from within the company--and to do this in a company with no tradition of developing people internally. How can Cisco move from a "buy" to a "make" human capital strategy?

Organizational culture can be a powerful force that clarifies what's important and coordinates the work of employees without the costs and inefficiencies of close supervision. Culture also identifies an organization's distinctive competence to external constituencies. To employ culture effectively as a leadership tool, managers must recruit and select employees who fit the firm's culture, socialize and train employees to share the firm's values, and reward employees whose efforts reflect and reinforce the firm's culture. In addition, managers must both act and be perceived as acting in ways that are consistent with the values they want employees to share.

In June 1998, the senior management team at Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream faced a number of internal and external difficulties that were some of the most challenging problems the company had ever faced. Problems included profitability issues, record-high butterfat prices, aggressive discounting by competitors, higher margin better-for-you segment collapse, severance of Ben & Jerry's distribution contract, and management health issues. Given a mandatory and necessary financial restructuring of the company, the senior management team faced some tough employee issues and needed to make very significant decisions to overcome their difficult times.