TOP 3 // Women-led Cases
The best cases featuring women leaders from the UCT GSB Case Writing Centre
As South Africans prepare to celebrate Women’s Day on August 9th, we at the UCT GSB Case Writing Centre are remembering the women leaders we have had the privilege of collaborating with and profiling in our cases over the last eight years. They are executives, entrepreneurs, investors, activists, managers, professors, researchers, political leaders, and key decision-makers in their organisations. And through their work and their challenges, they tell us a story about the ever-growing role of women in leading African businesses and organisations.
Though we are hard-pressed to pick just three, here are our top cases spotlighting women leaders:
1. On purpose: Leading manufacturing at Shonaquip Social Enterprise
by Dr Maureen Dennehy, Professor Hamieda Parker, Sarah Boyd, Claire Barnardo
Em Dennehy is the new Factory Lead at Shonaquip, a South African manufacturing company that creates customised wheelchairs and equipment for people with disabilities. Just six months after joining the company, she is preparing for the social enterprise’s first ISO 9001 certification audit, and production backlogs are the least of her concern. While Em has significant experience in managing quality management systems, she must adjust to the needs of a job-shop production line with a high degree of product variability, and to a company with a strong commitment to social value creation and an aversion to structure. This operations management case explores the balancing act involved in managing a factory with a strong culture, a central social purpose, and limited resources. As readers review the change actions and systems she has instituted in her first six months – including a range of lean management practices – they are guided to consider how Em can put the company on a path toward continuous improvement and social value creation.
GET THE CASE from Emerald Emerging Market Case Studies
2. Recovering from Tongaat’s sugar crash: A South African asset manager’s duty of investment stewardship
by Professor Stephanie Giamporcaro & Necessity Ngorima
This case takes us to the world of investing with portfolio manager Andani Lekota of the small South African investment firm Long Investments Limited (LIL). On Andani’s recommendation, LIL invested in the sugar manufacturer Tongaat Hulett, only for the company to be rocked by a corporate fraud scandal six months later. With their investment held captive by Tongaat’s decision to suspend trading of shares, Andani and her team must interrogate and respond to Tongaat’s corporate governance practices, while also re-assessing their own of stewardship practices. LIL is committed to sustainable and ethical investing, but as a small firm, they do not have the resources to manage the kind of extensive environmental, social, and governance (ESG) due diligence framework prescribed by the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI). As Andani explores the advantages of different stewardship strategies with her team, as well as the resolutions for rectifying Tongaat’s governance issues, she must decide which approach is best for LIL to promote responsible investing.
GET THE CASE from Harvard Business Impact
3. The road less travelled: A Zimbabwean leadership dilemma
by Patrick Cairns, Professor Kurt April, Sarah Boyd
This profile in leadership centres on the lawyer-turned-political candidate Fadzayi Mahere in Zimbabwe. As an international human rights lawyer with experience serving at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the Hague, she is well acquainted with the extreme challenges facing post-conflict societies in other parts of Africa. She also sees the hopeful efforts of aspiring leaders in those countries to create a better future through accountability and systems. Faced with her own country’s economic crisis, social instability, and political corruption, Fadzayi decides to run as an independent for a position in the 2018 national election. At just 33 years old, she embodies the desire for change shared by so many of her fellow countrymen. Despite running a strong grassroots campaign, she loses the election, leaving her with a difficult decision: join the dominant opposition party, or maintain her independence. Fadzayi’s dilemma offers students an ideal case for a values-based leadership (VBL) analysis, a central pillar of research at the UCT GSB.
GET THE CASE from Emerald Publishing
Read the cases
You can find these and more cases on leadership from the GSB Case Writing Centre at Harvard Business Impact, Emerald, and The Case Centre.
