Abstract

Organizations were increasingly becoming intolerant of errors and even top-level employees were expected to hit the ground running. With there being no “honeymoon period”, even top level executives had to perform or perish. Catherine West, a highflier in the banking and financial services sector, found out the hard way when she joined department store chain JC Penney. However, West was just one of the many high-fliers who could not spend even one year in a company in 2006.

Learning Objectives

The case is structured to achieve the following Learning Objectives:

• Hiring/Firing
• Skill distribution at various management levels
• Hiring from other industries
• and Switching industries.

Keywords

Hiring, Firing, severance pay, executive development, JC Penney, Capital One, retail, Unilever, Gucci, Robert Polet