12/31/2011 I have uploaded brief analyses for all case studies I had in my Human Resource Management course at my MBA program at GWSB: Nordstrom: Dissension in the Ranks? SG Cowen:New Recruits, Citibank: Performance Evaluation Case Analysis, Harrah’s Entertainment: Rewarding Our People Case Study.
Have not had enough time to post lately as I have been doing a lot or writing for my classes. I finished and submitted to the group my part of the research on the Nordstrom: Dissension in the Ranks case for Human Capital Management class. So far, my write up is the first for our group.
Most of the cases I have had in my classes since the start of the MBA program have been from Harvard Business Publishing (HBP) cases. So I would assume that the names of the cases are familiar to many MBA students in all MBA programs accross the country. Interestingly, the same Nordstrom case was also a part of my Managerial Accounting course. From the case it’s obvious that at the end of the eighties Nordstrom screwed up big time in managment of their Sales Per Hours (SPH) performance evaluation system. Not only did they lose millions of dollars in settling labor disputes and suffered partial loss of business reputation at the time, but they also became the fodder for the MBA textbook case which is probably going to be studied in business schools for years to come.
Another interesting point is that our professor in Managerial Accounting gave quite different appraisal of the Nordstrom situation than what we are leaning to in Human Capital Management class. Whereas in Human Capital class we are mostly going to bash Nordstrom management for all the failings of the SPH performance evaluation system, the professor in Managerial Accounting offered an argument in defence of that system, because it allowed to weed out all low-performing, low-motivated sales clerks, and reward handsomely the driven high-performers. Admittedly, there were some shortcomings in the implementation of that system anyways.
I also had to do personal write up on another case: SG Cowen:New Recruits. There was another group that did formal presentation of the whole case in class. But everyone else in the class had to prepare a written answer to one of the four questions in the case. We had to identify two candidates from the pool of four to make a job offer on behalf of the company if we were on the recruiting committe. During the presentation the group conducted a mini-poll to see how many votes each candidate received from the students in class. The most striking result was that Martin, one of the candidates in the case, was dinged almost unanimously by our class of about 50. To me it was obvious that he was not a good fit for the company, even though he had some very strong background, and was the only Wharton student in the pool (the rest were from Cornell). But I was still surprized by such an overwhelming consensus on his candidacy in our class. The rest of the candidates received some overlapping support from the class, probably with some slight lead of Natalya – another candidate in the case.
From now to the end of the module it is going to be very tough. Many deadlines for write ups in Entrepreneurship are coming up, as well as a mid-term exam in Data Analysis next Monday, our group presentation of the Nordstrom case is due next week too, and finals being just half way of the module now. I have to prepare a lot of midnight oil to burn 
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