Lisa Benton Case Summary
In my opinion, the Lisa Benton case study is really not that important (sorry). The major point is boss-subordinate relationships and, by extensions, interpersonal relationships period. Regardless, the story is kind of interesting (and not because it was the only case study in which major characters were more than likely getting it on). The summary is as follows: while Lisa Benton she attended Harvard Business School, worked as the first female manager for Right-Away stores, a company where she won accolades for her “roll-up-your sleeves” approach and charmed the president, Scott Kingston, so much that he offered her a full-time job at Right-Away stores after she graduated. However, she was also offered a job at Houseworld’s Care Division, appealing because of its classical and famous excellent marketing training. She chose to turn down the higher salary and a bigger position partly because of her worries of taking on too much responsibility and partly because of Right-Away’s rundown warehouse and lack of other female manager and, instead, joined Houseworld. At Houseworld, she was charmed by the friendly and professional people she met initially but ended up under Deborah Linton, who immediately made it clear she was biased against Harvard MBAs. The friendly people she had met didn’t remember her name, she felt the reception from her boss was “cool and disinterested,” and, to make matters worse, her Associate Product Manager, Ron Scoville, was condescending. She was also working on a product, Pure & Fresh, she felt was unnecessary. What follows in the case study is a series of run-ins and experiences with Scoville and Linton, where pretty much each time Benton feels overshadowed, overwhelmed, and unwanted. This leads to the end of the case study, where she considers calling back Right-Away Stores President Kingston and telling she made a mistake.
The point of the whole case is, ultimately, the personalities. Linton,...