個案總覽

In October 2022, Priyanka Bhat, the project manager leading a project for Fintech Solutions, was contemplating her options to handle issues plaguing the project. Foremost among them was to find an effective solution to the many conflicts between the team’s business analyst, Jada Goodwin, and the other team members. Although Goodwin was a competent employee and liked by the client, she had been accused by several team members of creating a hostile work environment. Bhat needed to quickly devise a plan that restored a collegial team environment and ensured on-time delivery of the project to the client.

In October 2022, Priyanka Bhat, the project manager leading a project for Fintech Solutions, was contemplating her options to handle issues plaguing the project. Foremost among them was to find an effective solution to the many conflicts between the team's business analyst, Jada Goodwin, and the other team members. Although Goodwin was a competent employee and liked by the client, she had been accused by several team members of creating a hostile work environment. Bhat needed to quickly devise a plan that restored a collegial team environment and ensured on-time delivery of the project to the client.

By early November 2022, Elon Musk, the new owner of the social media platform Twitter, had fired approximately 75 per cent of the company's workforce. The decision regarding which employees to dismiss was based both on low performance criteria and unwillingness to commit to a new demanding corporate culture. Twitter had mainly incurred losses since its launch in 2006. Musk acquired the company after several glitches in the purchase agreement regarding the accuracy of verified versus fake (spam) Twitter accounts. Musk's new corporate vision, which he termed "Twitter 2.0," would require employees to work long hours at Twitter's offices. This plan was in stark contrast to the work-from-home policy that had been established by the company's previous leaders. Musk also fired large numbers of employees without appropriate notice. Understandably, these actions generated negative responses from fired employees. But there were also concerns from observers regarding the damaged brand image of Twitter under Musk's leadership. Could Musk lead a positive change in Twitter's culture? Could he improve the company's employer brand value? What traits and strategies should he consider to become a more responsible leader?

This case introduces Schneider Electric's 15-year-long exploration of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), aimed at providing "equal opportunities to everyone everywhere and to ensure all employees feel uniquely valued and safe to contribute their best." Through various approaches to initiate DEI, Schneider Electric has seen a shift from employees questioning DEI to accepting it and asking how to implement it. This case ends with a tough decision for Charise Le, Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) at Schneider Electric. As a Chinese woman leader, Charise appreciated the Group's DEI strategy and culture, allowing her to assume a global role in mainland China. Early in 2022, she had to make her own choice and lead the recruiting panel on a final decision between two candidates (John Carney and Lucy Chiang) for a country president position at Schneider Electric. Both John and Lucy were outstanding from a business perspective. Lucy's expertise seemed to meet the business strategy needs better, but she had issues with managing people. Comparatively, John had a weaker impact on leading newly formed decarbonization initiatives but acted as a more inclusive leader who enjoyed wide acceptance among all his prior subordinates. This decision kept Charise up at night. Appointing Lucy will make the Group's country presidents more diversified but Charise worries whether it is a "fair play" to John. That is, does focusing on diversity lead to sacrificing "equity" in this case? How should Charise and the recruiting panel practice the Group's DEI principles in this decision?

Many companies realize the value of diversity, equity, and inclusion. But most focus on gender and ethnicity, paying less attention to people with disabilities. Employing people with disabilities is usually seen as a social cause-one best suited to nonprofits or the public sector. That is a mistake-and more important, a missed opportunity. In many industries innovative companies are demonstrating that including people with disabilities can lead to real competitive advantage, in four ways: (1) Disabilities often confer unique talents that make people better at particular jobs. (2) The presence of employees with disabilities elevates the culture of the entire organization, making it more collaborative and boosting productivity. (3) A reputation for inclusiveness enhances a firm's value proposition with customers, who become more willing to build long-term relationships with the company. And (4) being recognized as socially responsible gives a firm an edge in the competition for capital and talent. There is nothing wrong with wanting to do good in the world, but there is also nothing wrong with wanting to do well, and the latter is enough reason to employ people with disabilities.

Nominated for 10 Tony Awards, the Broadway star began her career as a chorus girl. She went on to play the original Anita in West Side Story and the original Velma in Chicago. Despite her success, she describes herself as "obedient" and says, "You get so much by being humble."

The case illustrates Zhu Jing's entrepreneurial story from three stages: aspiration, action, and determination. The case presents the challenges that Zhu Jing faces as a female entrepreneur in the real estate industry and how she addressed them. At the beginning of 2022, Zhu convened key executives to recap on business operations of the past year. They needed to discuss and decide the rewards and punishment for executives. Zhu gave up a comfortable life out of a love for architecture and art and founded Sunkwan Group in Shanghai in 2010. The real estate industry is male-dominated. Resource acquisition is a huge challenge for female entrepreneurs as the sector is typically resource-driven. Enthusiasm and passion are the genuine motivation for Zhu to persist in the industry. With her keen business sense, she quickly identified business opportunities and made Yueshan project a successful case. The case laid an essential foundation for the expansion of the company nationwide. She always focuses on improving product capabilities to win fair returns from the market and simultaneously makes up for weak resources and capabilities with cooperation. Empathy, trust, empowerment, and other features of Zhu's leadership and the company's business philosophy give birth to a united executive team. China's real estate industry has experienced dramatic changes since June 2021. With shrinking market demand, increasingly stringent regulatory policies, blocked financing channels and sluggish property sales, and frequent outbreaks of epidemics across the country, many real estate companies spiraled into a crisis. In June 2021, Sunkwan re-designed a reward and punishment system for all executive members to overcome these challenges and motivate the team for better performance. The 2021 performance, however, fell short of expectations and Zhu hesitated on whether to punish executives according to the rules or administer a light punishment. The decision mirrors Zhu's traits and leadership

Fama Technologies is an online screening company that uses AI to analyze job applicants' publicly available online content for signs of risk and culture fit. The case opens with Ben Mones, founder and CEO, looking to secure funding from venture firms. He is running into resistance: public opinion of the product, and social media screening in general, is mixed, and HR technology in general is considered a tough sell to VCs. Could he prove the value of the tool on his next pitch?

Fama Technologies is an online screening company that uses AI to analyze job applicants' publicly available online content for signs of risk and culture fit. The case opens with Ben Mones, founder and CEO, looking to secure funding from venture firms. He is running into resistance: public opinion of the product, and social media screening in general, is mixed, and HR technology in general is a considered a tough sell to VCs. Could he prove the value of the tool on his next pitch?

PowerPoint Presentation for Ivey product W26414.

In July 2022, upon his return from vacation, Lamar Gilbert, the head of the French subsidiary of successful Swedish unicorn Virtual AB (Virtual), found himself abruptly grappling with an unsettling reality. Leo Svennson, his closest direct report, had been accused of sexually harassing two female colleagues. As he pursued an investigation into the allegations, Gilbert also realized Svennson had blatantly disparaged his authority behind his back. The French unit was in disarray and Svennson’s conduct was not the only cause. Despite Gilbert’s flattering track record, his influence had waned. In addition to removing Svennson, it was urgent for him to demonstrate more effective leadership behaviours and new influence tactics to put the French subsidiary back on track, before it was too late.

By early November 2022, Elon Musk, the new owner of the social media platform Twitter, had fired approximately 75 per cent of the company’s workforce. The decision regarding which employees to dismiss was based both on low performance criteria and unwillingness to commit to a new demanding corporate culture. Twitter had mainly incurred losses since its launch in 2006. Musk acquired the company after several glitches in the purchase agreement regarding the accuracy of verified versus fake (spam) Twitter accounts. Musk’s new corporate vision, which he termed “Twitter 2.0,” would require employees to work long hours at Twitter’s offices. This plan was in stark contrast to the work-from-home policy that had been established by the company’s previous leaders. Musk also fired large numbers of employees without appropriate notice. Understandably, these actions generated negative responses from fired employees. But there were also concerns from observers regarding the damaged brand image of Twitter under Musk’s leadership. Could Musk lead a positive change in Twitter’s culture? Could he improve the company’s employer brand value? What traits and strategies should he consider to become a more responsible leader?

The turnaround coordinator at Chem-ARC Industries (Chem-ARC) had to solve a dispute involving multiple stakeholders within the Turnaround Scheduling and Planning Department. Chem-ARC had been only two days into a company-wide shutdown when a delay on the plant floor sent the outage schedule into disarray. Members of the department started to blame one another for the issues Chem-ARC was facing. With a group of disgruntled employees, a costly problem that urgently needed fixing, and a senior management team pressing for answers, the coordinator had to find a way to improve teamwork within her department while conveying to upper management that she was capable of her position as leader.

Public service union Local 892 was the union representing faculty at North City College (NCC) in Kingston, a mid-sized city in Canada's Ontario province. NCC had approached Local 892 to request a local agreement exempting the college from following the collective agreement's clause forcing it to hire someone permanently if they were on contract for over twelve months. The union had to decide whether to allow NCC to hire librarian Sharrod Alasa for an additional twelve-month contract or force the college to decide to either end Alasa's contract or hire him to a permanent position.

Sexual Harassment in Virtual Workplaces is a collection of eight vignettes set in India that describe various sexual harassment incidents perpetrated by supervisors, colleagues, and clients at virtual workplaces involving video calls, social media groups, and online chats. The harassment occurred both as one incident and as a series of incidents and consisted of behaviours such as requesting video meetings, comments about appearance, sharing pictures without permission, verbal put-downs, offensive comments, and sexual propositions, all of which led to adverse impacts on their targets.

Sexual Harassment in Virtual Workplaces is a collection of eight vignettes set in India that describe various sexual harassment incidents perpetrated by supervisors, colleagues, and clients at virtual workplaces involving video calls, social media groups, and online chats. The harassment occurred both as one incident and as a series of incidents and consisted of behaviours such as requesting video meetings, comments about appearance, sharing pictures without permission, verbal put-downs, offensive comments, and sexual propositions, all of which led to adverse impacts on their targets.

As the parents of two children with Down syndrome, the authors learned that 80% of people with disabilities in the United States are unemployed. They were determined that their children Bitty and Beau would not become part of that statistic. They decided to open a small coffee shop in their hometown of Wilmington, North Carolina, and employed mostly people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Today they have 17 owned and franchised locations across 11 states and the District of Columbia-with four more slated to open in 2023-which collectively staff 400 people with disabilities. They believe that any organization can open its doors to such workers, and they've learned through experience how to get the best from these team members, how to overcome challenges, and how to capitalize on all the value they provide.

The case features Ina Botha, executive director for South Africa-based Commercial Cold Storage and Logistics (CCS Logistics), critically reflecting on the lessons learned during her tenure leading the organization. Botha initiated and led a three-and-a-half-year culture change journey, which helped improve accountability and results. Now that she was considering a larger role within the organization’s parent company, Oceana Group, she reflected on whether the new culture had been embedded within CCS Logistics and if it would be sustainable in a new era under different leadership. What should she recommend the incoming joint executive directors of the business continue to do or do differently to ensure the new culture supported the business in achieving its strategic objectives?

Leaders of hybrid teams where employees alternate between working in the office and working remotely face the challenge of providing flexibility while maintaining group effectiveness and cohesion. The author describes the CAARE framework, a new approach to leading hybrid work that combines the elements of configuration, autonomy-alignment, relationships, and equity to help leaders balance individual flexibility with group effectiveness.

The case features Ina Botha, executive director for South Africa-based Commercial Cold Storage and Logistics (CCS Logistics), critically reflecting on the lessons learned during her tenure leading the organization. Botha initiated and led a three-and-a-half-year culture change journey, which helped improve accountability and results. Now that she was considering a larger role within the organization's parent company, Oceana Group, she reflected on whether the new culture had been embedded within CCS Logistics and if it would be sustainable in a new era under different leadership. What should she recommend the incoming joint executive directors of the business continue to do or do differently to ensure the new culture supported the business in achieving its strategic objectives?