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Judy was a high-performing professional manager who was with her company for 15 years and was a manager for six. She was a confident, positive, and happy person but recently lost her confidence in herself and her abilities. She dreaded going to work because she never knew what she would face from her boss, Dennis. Dennis was a brilliant man who was recently promoted to Senior V.P. He was condescending, and he humiliated people in public. Complaints to the CEO and a harassment claim produced no results. Dennis did the CEO's dirty work and served a role needed in a fast-paced and profit-driven corporate culture. Judy enrolled in an MBA program to build her resume and her self-confidence. She faced a critical juncture in her career. Should she quit, transfer, complain to HR, or confront Dennis?

This case is based on an in-depth interview with Sean Ansett on March 6, 2020 in San Francisco. For a good reference book on the interview method in social science, please see Seidman (2019). Ansett is an alumnus of the Lam Family College of Business at San Francisco State University. A follow-up interview was conducted on December 13, 2021, via Zoom. The case situations are factual, but the names of the luxury brand, the factory and the Tunisian social auditing firm were disguised. Selected video clips of the interviews are available upon request.

In 2010, Sean Ansett, a social auditor with more than 25 years of experience in promoting workers’ rights in the global supply chain, faced a momentous decision. He was hired by a luxury brand company to conduct a social audit of a Tunisian leather goods factory. During his visit to the factory, he observed the troubling signs of child labor and alarming health and safety concerns in the work environment. Should he report the factory’s situation to the local authority? What should he advise his client, the luxury brand company, to do? Ansett realized that this was not a cut-and-dried decision as reporting to the local authority may affect workers adversely if the factory was closed. This case highlights the ethical dilemmas of human rights in the global supply chain. It also raises critical questions for multinational firms regarding what constitutes an ethical brand and how to ensure effective code of conduct implementation.

This case can be used in undergraduate or graduate business courses or curated sessions and seminars related to corporate social responsibility, ethics and social auditing in supply chain management.

This case provides an account of an informal round table organized by the dean of a Regional Management Institute to identify issues relating to the management of Regional Management Institutes. It raises questions relating to pedagogy, placement, roles of leaders, local innovations, programme portfolio and sustenance of these institutes. The participants are required to review the outcome of the first round table and take the discussion forward.