Letter from the Editor

Gratitude and future directions

This is my first issue as Editor-in-Chief of The CASE Journal and I would like to express my gratitude to the members of The CASE Association and to Emerald Group Publishing for this tremendous opportunity.

I published my first case in 1997. Case writing was a revelation for me – an academic form of writing that could have a significant impact on student learning. Students develop critical and creative thinking skills through reading our cases and this seemed more important and worthwhile to me than the number of citations an article received. After attending case writing conferences such as NACRA and CASE, I knew I had found a home in the community of case writing scholars.

I hope to build and strengthen that community through my role as an Editor. It is the best way to honor and express gratitude to my many case writing mentors. Many of these “giants” of case writing are no longer academically active. Demand for good quality cases is higher than ever and we need to develop new case writers and carefully nurture them to become the next leaders of the case writing community.

One of the primary reasons I agreed to accept the Editor post was the nurturing and developmental aspect of the job – I had received so much help developing my case writing skills from others that I wanted the chance to pay it forward. Look for me to spend time providing feedback to help you improve your cases for publication. Expect me to treat your work fairly and expediently. Know that I will uphold the standards of quality long presented in TCJ. Also know that I am open to new forms and concepts for cases and will welcome your innovative attempts to create cases that resonate with today’s students. I also hope that you will find me to be accessible – responsive to your questions or comments via e-mail or phone. In short, I want to be successful in this position and to produce a journal worthy of the respect and appreciation of the broader academic community.

If I am to achieve my goals for TCJ, I am going to need your help and support. We are in great need for more reviewers as submissions to TCJ continue to surpass those of the past. Our reviewer needs are especially acute in newer areas such as supply chain management, corporate governance, sustainability and social entrepreneurship. We are also looking to expand the international reach of the journal – in terms of submissions outside North America and in reviewers and editorial board members. Please consider this as an invitation to become a contributing member of the case writing community by serving as a reviewer. Please help me in mentoring the next generation of case writers!

Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to our past journal Editor, Dr Gina Vega. I have inherited a strong and well-respected journal that has thrived under her leadership for the past years. As I have become familiar with the operations of the journal, I am continuously reminded of all the heavy lifting Gina has done for TCJ and for The CASE Association. She has long been my valued friend, mentor and co-presenter. At the last CASE Association meeting in New Haven, Connecticut, I presented Gina with a pair of life-sized chocolate high heels – an appropriate parting gift because Gina has left such big shoes to fill. Thanks, Gina for all your hard work!

Now for the cases in this issue – all of which were initially submitted to the journal under Gina’s leadership. Although this is not a special issue focused on a specific theme, the cases in this issue are linked through their shared focus on values, ethics and responsible decision making:

• Leading from the whole: values-based integrated leadership at EILEEN FISHER Inc. (Susan Sampson, Bonita Betters-Reed, and Tessa Misjaszek). Susan Schor, Chief Culture Officer, at EILEEN FISHER Inc. is meeting with members of the Facilitating Leader Team and the founder, Eileen Fisher. Faced with significant projected financial loss in 2009, Susan reflected on the evolution of the company as influenced by her perspective with her organizational behavior expertise and collaborative leadership that embraced a values-based culture. Stories, voices and structures are examined in this retrospective view as Dr Schor sets the stage for how this example of best practice leadership will tackle the challenge at hand.

  Graduate or Undergraduate: Organizational Behavior, Leadership, Retail Management, Ethics

• Green Cross and the Gonzalo Co Story (Andrea Santiago and Roxas Fernando). Gonzalo Co, the eldest of five siblings, claimed to be the founder of Gonzalo Laboratories. According to his version of the story, he invited his siblings to work in the business that he established. His contributions to the company were wiped out when he acceded to change the form of ownership from single proprietorship into a corporation. The case examines fairness issues in family member compensation and the role of public media in the conflict situation.

  Graduate or Undergraduate: Family Business Management

• Selling All Good: how small new entrants can compete (Eva Collins, Kate Kearins, Helen Tregidga, and Stephen Bowden). This case illustrates how a small, resource-constrained startup can compete against much, much larger players through a niche Fairtrade product focus and the use of alternative marketing strategies such as guerilla marketing and social media. Corporate level strategy issues are also explored as the company considers whether to expand beyond bananas to diversify into soft drinks.

  Graduate or Undergraduate: Entrepreneurship, Strategic Management, Sustainability

• A tisket a tasket what happened to Market Basket? (Susan Bosco and Diane Harvey). Family turmoil in a privately owned long-successful business is resolved by non-unionized workers and managers engineering a change in the top management of the company, demonstrating the impact that can be made by a single, authentic, leader.

  Undergraduate: Management Principles, Organization Behavior

• Comparing family and non-family candidates for promotion: manager selection at Acme Lumber (John Perry and Nancy Bereman). In a privately owned family business, who should be promoted to the store manager position – a family member or the candidate who is not a family member? This case raises questions about how or if human resources practices should differ between family and non-family businesses.

  Undergraduate: Human Resource Management

• A new hire’s dilemma: reporting corruption (Laurie Zouharis). Bill Edwards, a newly hired Accounts Payable Manager at Nicalmic Ltd, has noticed that his boss, the company Controller, changed data in the vendor master record, while he was a contractor in the interim role, to prevent his income from being reported to the IRS. How should Bill handle this knowledge?

  Undergraduate: Introduction to Business, Business Ethics, Business Law

• Booster Juice – big shoes to fill (Andrew Fergus and Tony Bell). Ian Hensen was aware that he was replacing a popular leader: Natalie Peace. Compounding the challenge were two major hurdles, the first was demographic in nature: Booster Juice’s employee group was young and many adored Peace. The second challenge was managing change: Hensen needed to cut costs and Peace had several generous policies that Hensen needed to consider altering or removing, a potentially unpopular task. How should he handle the specific aspects of this leadership transition?

  Undergraduate: Management, Organization Behavior, Change Management, Leadership