The case utilizes a conflict about employee benefit reduction between the giant retailer Sears, Roebuck & Company and its retirees to illustrate important concepts and issues in contemporary human resource management. The primary objectives of the case are to: (1) highlight the changing nature of the employee-employer relationship, (2) demonstrate the significance of effective benefits communication, (3) illustrate the distinction between legal and ethical actions, and (4) emphasize the importance of self-reliance in personal career management.

The case is primarily intended for use in undergraduate courses in human resource management, compensation, business ethics, legal environment, business and society, or organizational behavior. The case could also be used in other courses which deal with employer-employee relationships, business ethics, employee benefits, benefits communication, employee loyalty, or career management.

In September 1997, Sears announced a forthcoming cost-cutting action that would reduce life insurance benefits for its retirees. Sears contended not only that the benefit reduction was necessary to cut costs and become more competitive in the retail industry, but also that the company benefit plan permitted Sears to alter benefits as it sees fit. This case examines the controversy surrounding the decision, considering both the issues facing Sears corporate management and the impact of this action on Sears retirees.

In response, many retirees felt they had been deceived and were outraged with the news that their life insurance would be cut. Retiree groups took aggressive action including picketing, demonstrations, and lawsuits to try to halt the benefit reduction. Although the traditional image of Sears reflects a reputation for valuing employee loyalty and taking care of its workers, the controversial benefit reduction has jeopardized this image, especially in the wake of other public relations nightmares at Sears which are discussed in the case.

At the end of the case (late 1997), Sears was holding firm to its decision to reduce retiree benefits, and the retirees were continuing to fight the decision on multiple fronts.
 

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Contact Person: Thomas R. Miller, Fogelman College of Business & Economics, The University of Memphis, Memphis, TN 38152-6460
Voice: (901) 678-4563 Fax: (901) 678-2685 E-mail: thmiller@memphis.edu

"Project Sunshine" is used in Managing Multifunctional Teams, a first-year course in the Masters of Science in Technology Management program. It is positioned as the capstone case for Module 5, "Leading Multifunctional Teams". By this point in the course students are familiar with intra-team processes (e.g. motivating team members, decision making and conflict management in teams, common process losses in teams, etc.) and have discussed the roles of the process facilitator and the team leader in each these domains.

"Project Sunshine" builds on this foundation and introduces issues of team management related to managing the team task and the team’s boundary, (i.e. managing the team’s relationship with relevant stakeholders). Intra-team processes are clearly one domain that must be actively managed for teams to succeed, but leaders of multifunctional teams are also confronted with issues related to managing complex team tasks and the many political issues that working cross-functionally implies. Accordingly, the primary teaching objective of the case is to illustrate for students the multiple arenas which team leaders must manage for multifunctional teams to succeed.
 

The case describes the challenges of managing a large multifunctional team tasked with reengineering a large telecommunications company’s new product and technology development and deployment processes. The team is comprised of 30 members, representing seven strategic business units. Barbara MacArthur, a mid-level manager in the Strategic Business Unit Process organization, has been asked to lead the team.

After a brief introduction explaining the corporate initiative that led to the creation of this multifunctional team the case focuses on the task, people, and process issues that must be managed to assist the team in successfully carrying out its mission. We learn from MacArthur as she grapples with issues of how to comprise the team, how to develop the team, how to motivate the team, and how to gain acceptance for the team’s recommendations from the larger organization.
 

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Contact Person: Patricia J. Holahan, Stevens Institute of Technology, Castle Point, Hoboken, NJ 07030. E-mail pholahan@stevens-tech.edu. Phone: (201)216-8991 Fax: (201) 216-5385

This case requires students to apply knowledge of organizational theory concepts in the context of analyzing the environment, technology and organizational design of an organization. This case also requires that students apply basic organizational theory concepts to improve the organizational design and functioning of this organization.

The teaching note was written for introductory courses in organizational theory at the undergraduate level.
 

Dr. Sara Stone, Director of the State Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station, is faced with many daily decisions that span from day-to-day operations to strategic planning. Sara’s day is inundated with meetings with almost every individual in the organization. Sara has so much responsibility that she is forced to work until late in the evenings and on weekends. She is faced with situations, daily, that could be resolved by her many assistant and associate directors. Although she has many assistant and associate directors, their responsibilities are minimal. Overall, Sara has too much responsibility – too many individuals report to her, she’s involved in too many low priority activities, she attends too many meetings, and she is involved with too many decisions. It is recommended in the case that Sara give more responsibility to her Assistant and Associate Directors, delegate low priority activities, establish policies to handle routine decisions, and create a matrix design with project managers and oversight committees.

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Contact Person: Leisa L. Marshall, Valdosta State University, Valdosta, GA 31698.
Mail: Valdosta State University, College of Business Administration, 313 Thaxton Hall
Phone: (912) 245-3815 Fax: (912) 245-6498 E-mail: lmarshal@valdosta.edu

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This case describes problems that Charlie Jones, ConnChem’s recently Vice President of R & D, is experiencing with John Ramos, the company’s most senior scientist. The case reflects only Charlie’s perspective, so students must deal with a real and quite common situation – the need to act without having the other side of the story.

This organizational behavior case is appropriate for both undergraduate and graduate students. The case and the instructor’s manual encourage students to understand causes and consequences of people’s behavior and to identify steps that Charlie Jones should take to begin to deal with the relationship problems he is having. The case fits best into an OB course when topics like social perception, attribution theory, motivation, and power and influence are covered.
 

Charlie Jones is the Vice President of R & D of ConnChem (a small startup biotechnology company engaged in scientific discovery and drug development). He has a difficult relationship with John Ramos, one of the company’s most important scientists. The case begins and ends with Charlie’s wondering about his relationships with John Ramos and with Sebastian Green, the scientific founder of the company and its current Chief Scientific Officer.

The case describes Charlie’s history with John, beginning with what he learned while he was being interviewed for the VP position. The President had described John as difficult. He also shared with Charlie that John believed he should have been promoted to the VP job. The case describes Charlie’s first impressions of John and what working with him over time was like.

Charlie had plans to redefine and clarify John’s role in the company. He expected support from Sebastian Green, but he got the opposite. Sebastian is vehement that he should talk privately with John before Charlie does. The next Monday, before John was told of any possible changes, there was a big blow up, and John stormed out of Charlie’s office. Charlie was left with a pit in his stomach and thinking that he’d made a mess of things. He wonders what he should do to work things out with John and Sebastian.

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Contact Person: Diana Stork, UMass Dartmouth, North Dartmouth, MA 02747
Mail: 120 Kendall Road, Lexington, MA 02421, USA
Voice: (781) 863-5387 Fax: (781) 863-1456 E-mail: DianaStork@aol.com

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This case describes the first several months of a merger of several insurance companies into one. The objective of the case is to illustrate the impact on the employees of the merger. Although each of the merged companies included a fairly small number of employees, combining all the different people and systems was very challenging. The focus in the case is on how the employees were treated and what their reactions were. In addition to the topic of merger/reorganization, analysis could also focus on communication, organizational culture, motivation, teamwork, and organizational change.

The case would be useful to illustrate concepts in undergraduate or graduate courses such as Principles of Management, Organizational Behavior, International Management, International Organizational Behavior, International Business, Business Policy, Human Resource Management, or International Human Resource Management.
 

This case describes the Aon Singapore merger process and reactions of the people working there. It is based on field research done by the author. The Aon Group, an American insurance services holding company ranked number two in size worldwide, included insurance brokerage, consulting, and consumer insurance companies. The case is presented from the point of view of Richard Tan, who had the major responsibility for bringing the merged organizations together. The history of the Singapore merger is given, followed by comments from a management researcher (the author) who interviewed a wide range of employees. The researcher felt that Aon needed to address issues such as communication, motivation, corporate culture, and teamwork. Although Richard is not surprised at the feedback from the researcher, he is left at the end of the case wondering what he should do next.

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Contact person: Anne Marie Francesco, Department of Management, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon Tong, HONG KONG
Phone: (852) 2339 5215 Fax: (852) 2339 5583 E-mail: mnamf@hkbu.edu.hk

This case focuses on the strategy-versus-structure debate in organization theory. It demonstrates the ambiguity and contending forces at work that often drive executives to opt for restructuring before, rather than after, engaging in bona-fide strategic planning. Ancillary concepts illuminated by the case are empowerment, leadership style, bounded rationality, and systems/complexity theory’s principle of emergent structure.

This case is appropriate for both undergraduate- and graduate-level courses. It would be appropriate to locate this case in a section of the text that stresses the manager/owner as chief strategist or strategy-implementer. Alternatively, it could be placed in a section dealing with non-profit organizations, as the organization at issue happens to be non-profit. Given that this case serves to illustrate the strategy-versus-structure debate in organization theory, it lends itself to any text or section of a text devoted to that particular issue.
 

Decision 1996 is a single-focus case that examines the strategy-versus-structure debate in organization theory. It profiles the Center for Communication and Education Technology (CCET), a non-profit organization specializing in distance learning programs for junior high and high school students in science and the Japanese language. Officially established in 1991 with six full-time employees, CCET grew to over forty full-time employees by 1996. During that time, it was not subject to any notable restructuring or strategic planning efforts.

In 1995, CCET Director Dr. Larry Rainey determined that the virtual absence of an organizational structure and strategic direction could no longer be tolerated. As a remedy, he hired an independent consultant to assist him in restructuring the organization and developing a strategic plan to enable CCET to operate more efficiently. The primary decision that lay before Dr. Rainey at the beginning of the consulting project was whether first to restructure, which would produce a tangible result for his financial constituents, or to proceed with strategic planning, which was likely to produce longer-range results that would, however, be much less perceptible in the short term.

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Contact Person: Barbara J. Allison Voss, Texas Woman’s University, Denton, Texas 76204
Mail: School of Business and Economics, Texas Woman’s University, P.O. Box 425738, Denton, Texas, 76204-5738 Fax: (940) 898-2120.

In an effort to stem declining service department revenues and low Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) ratings, Bob Deshane, the Service Director of Sharpe BMW, a West Michigan automobile dealership, had devised a new plan that changed the way service technicians were compensated.

The plan basically called for a bonus to be paid to service technicians when they performed a repair job that was covered by manufacturer’s warranty. Because warranty jobs paid a technician less than those repair jobs paid for by the customer, Deshane hoped that the bonus plan would motivate technicians to perform warranty jobs well so that the dealership’s CSI ratings would go up. The task of implementing the bonus plan as well as keeping the four technicians gainfully employed throughout the year (the first three months of the year were slow ones) fell on Tom Dunn, the newly appointed Service Manager. Dunn had to come up with a detailed plan to implement this organizational change.

This is a field researched case that centers around implementing an organizational change. Students are asked to play the role of Tom Dunn and suggest a detailed and specific course of action for him. The brief length of the case allows the instructor to use it as an in-class exercise.
 
 

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Contact Person: Ram Subramanian, Department of Management, Seidman School of Business, Grand Valley State University, Allendale, MI 49401; Phone: 616-895-3533 fax: 616-895-3286 E-mail: subramar@gvsu.edu

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Organizations and the judicial system have not yet determined how to deal fairly and successfully with unfounded threats and/or allegations of sexual harassment. The objective of this case, derived from primary sources, is to show the difficulty of getting rid of female employees who use threats of discrimination and sexual harassment as employment insurance against termination for just cause.

The case is appropriate for use at the undergraduate and graduate levels in courses that address the topic of sexual harassment, namely, Business Ethics and Social Responsibility and Human Resource Management.

Ms. Sharon Lloyd, RN, MSN, attractive, middle-aged, divorced, and with an overactive libido had wreaked havoc in a mental hospital for the criminally insane. In her six years at the facility, she had been observed in sexual encounters with a number of male employees including one of her immediate supervisors. Although administrators knew of her sexual escapades, they were unable to persuade employees who had observed or participated in these encounters to come forward with formal complaints. This was in no small part due to Sharon’s male followers who threatened physical harm to those who indicated they might file a complaint against her. In addition, Sharon would threaten legal action claiming sexual harassment and discrimination whenever she suspected administrators of attempting to push for her removal from the hospital staff. When things got too bad, the hospital administration attempted to solve the problem by transferring Sharon with a "clean slate" to another unit for yet another chance. Unlike her previous transfers, this time administrators had a plan to insure this would be her last move. Sharon was moved from Maximum Security to Medium Security and placed under the direction of Brenda Shelton, a strong, intelligent "straight" female supervisor who had successfully molded her unit into a highly cohesive effective group.

Although Brenda knew some of the details of Sharon’s past, she was not aware that she was part of a grand plan to rid the hospital of Sharon. In the following months, in spite of Brenda’s counseling and efforts to have Sharon become part of the group, Sharon soon reverted to her old ways. Unlike her previous supervisors, Brenda was careful to document behaviors that were not approved by the administration. When it became apparent that Sharon would not change her attitudes or behaviors, Brenda and her superiors initiated a corrective action proceeding. Sharon once again threatened legal action; however, this time the evidence against her was so overwhelming she had no alternative but to resign.

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Contact Person: H. Richard Eisenbeis, Hasan School of Business, University of Southern Colorado, Pueblo, Colorado 81001-4901. Phone: 719-543-1431 E-mail: eisenbei@uscolo.edu

This case highlights management problems that can occur when an organization implements changes to its base salary plan. The case describes problems and issues relating to compensation planning and management, performance appraisal, motivation, organizational communication, and organizational commitment for a group of professional employees in the health care industry. Based on field research, the case is appropriate for undergraduate and graduate courses in principles of management, human resources management, compensation management, organizational behavior, and health care management. The names of the organization and the individuals have been changed. The case could be taught in either a 50 minute class or a one hour and twenty minute class.
 

Maryanne Walker, Director of Pharmacy Services at Chicago Hospital in suburban Chicago, is caught by surprise one evening when several of her staff pharmacists called her expressing their anger regarding salary adjustment letters. The next morning Maryanne sent an e-mail to her boss concerning the salary letters. Maryanne’s boss called a directors meeting to discuss the salary adjustment issue. Maryanne learned the following: (1) All most all hospital employees had received a letter, (2) none of the line managers at the hospital had advance knowledge of the salary adjustment letters, (3) that the adjustments were not related to performance appraisals, (4) the adjustments were made without any input from employees immediate supervisors, and (5) the size and form of the salary adjustments varied substantially within and across departments. The following week, the hospital’s Vice-President of Human Resources distributed a memorandum to all hospital employees that explained the rationale for the salary adjustments.

Seven weeks after the salary adjustment letters were distributed to employees, Maryanne and her pharmacy management team met with the Vice-President of Human Resources to discuss the salary adjustments for staff pharmacists. While apologetic about the notification process, the Vice-President defended the overall base pay plan that his department had developed with the assistance of an outside consulting firm. The Vice-President of Human Resources stated that the basis for salary adjustments was "Chicago’s aim for salary to be in the mid range in terms of the Chicago regional labor market." At the end of the meeting with the Vice-President, Maryanne as well as her staff were still dissatisfied, and salary related issues continue to be significant points of contention for professional staff in the pharmacy and throughout the hospital.

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Contact Person: I. E. Jernigan, University of North Carolina Charlotte, Charlotte, NC 28223.
Phone (704) 547-4302 Fax: (704) 547-3123 E-mail: ejernign@email.uncc.edu
 

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This case can be used to: (1) illustrate to students that universities are organizations, similar to many industries. Some students do not realize that academic settings are not immune from the organizational realities about which they study or see in their own places of business; (2) illustrate what happens when a new executive comes on the scene and attempts to infuse the organization with "new blood" he or she selected; (3) examine organizational power and politics apart from the oft-sterile descriptions in textbooks. The application of concepts to the same institutions students attend to acquire higher learning offers a meaningful experience in an organizational reality even the most unsophisticated organizations experience. The students must decide whose interests are prevailing, and what actions are in the best interest of the organization.
 

This case is about a professor, Dr. Lucia Moniro, who was "displaced" by the new dean in her college. Despite excellent student evaluations and a combination of professional and academic credentials, the Dean advised Dr. Moniro that her contract would not be renewed at the end of the academic year because her Ph.D. was not in Business Administration. The dean believed that the school's endeavor toward AACSB accreditation necessitated faculty who were terminally qualified in Business Administration; despite a document to the contrary, his interpretation of "terminally qualified" was that doctorates in fields other than business were excluded, regardless of other credentials and precedents set by other AACSB accredited institutions.

Dr. Moniro completed an entire academic year, agreed to teach a one-week intensive course at the closing of that academic year, completed several papers for publication and undertook additional university committee responsibilities, knowing the entire time that her efforts would not be recognized in the College's search for someone to assume the job she had held for over a year. Her commitment to her students superseded any motivation to "slack off" as many do when they know their jobs will end soon. This commitment was reflected in students' acclaim of her while she was there and their remorse and anger over her displacement.
 

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Contact Person: L.A. Montuori, Eckerd College, 416 Manor Blvd., Palm Harbor, FL 34683.
Voice: (727) 942-1744 Fax: (727) 943-9341 E-mail: montuori@gte.net