“She Grabbed Your What?” A Human Resources Management Case

Grant program: Teaching and Learning Development Grant (TLDG)

Grant recipient: David Hannah, Beedie School of Business

Project team: Leyland Pitt, Beedie School of Business, Shannon Bridson and Emily Treen, research assistants

Timeframe: April 2016 to January 2018

Funding: $5,000

Final report: View David Hannah's final report (PDF)

Description: I would like to design and test an engaging, unusual teaching case for undergraduate and graduate students in management courses, including human resources management, organizational behaviour, and managing people. I hope the case will help students learn about how to deal with sensitive workplace situations. This project will help with the design and refinement of the case.

The case will be designed to help students learn to take the following steps when approaching similar situations:

a.     Be thorough in gathering information before taking action

b.     Consider the context and how it is influencing behaviour

c.     Decide whether your involvement as a manager will help matters, or worsen them

Given these goals, in this project I will focus on developing the case, then on investigating its efficacy in helping students learn these key steps. I will judge its efficacy in the following ways:

1.     Would instructors be interested in adopting this case?

2.     Do students engage in the discussion of the case?  

3.     Do students deal appropriately with the sensitive nature of the material?

4.     After the case discussion, do students recognize key steps managers should take when dealing with similar real-world situations?

Questions addressed:

• What are the keys to writing a good case?
• What similar cases exist, and how will this case be different from them?
• How do case teaching experts believe the case can be improved?  Would they adopt the case?
• Do students engage in the case?
• Do students deal appropriately with the sensitive nature of the material?
• After the case discussion, do students recognize key steps managers should take when dealing with similar real-world situations?

Knowledge sharing: I plan to share the case with my colleagues who teach Human Resources Management and Organizational Behaviour courses in our undergraduate and masters programs. It is my intention to submit the case to the University of Western Ontario (Ivey) cases, with the hope that it will be published for national and international colleagues to use in their human resources management and organizational behaviour courses.

Hannah, D. R., Ferguson, S. T. L., & Pitt, L. (2018). She grabbed his what? A personnel management (A Case). Ivey ID: NAC3845A. London, Canada: Ivey Publishing.

Hannah, D. R., Ferguson, S. T. L., & Pitt, L. (2018). She grabbed his what? A personnel management (B Case). Ivey ID: NAC3845B. London, Canada: Ivey Publishing.

Hannah, D. R., & Pitt, L. (2017, March). "She grabbed your what?” A human resources management case. Presented at the Western Casewriters Association Annual Conference, Palm Springs, CA.

Keywords: sensitive workplace situations; sexual harassment; course management; case writing; Human Resources Management; Organizational Behavior