Case Study 1- Jenson Shoes
The story begins with an African-American man named Lyndon Brooks, an employee at Jensen Shoes. Recent trends have identified a shortcoming in the company’s casual wear department. Brooks is therefore reassigned under the leadership of Jane Kravitz, much to his dismay. Several strategic objectives are formed to handle this shortcoming. Of these, two of the strategic objectives were assigned to Brooks, the Latino and African American markets. He was given a four month period to complete both objectives. According to a report pertaining to Brooks’ thoughts and impressions, he felt as if both the time allotted and the quality of manpower assigned to these two tasks were unreasonably lacking. Therefore the completion of both strategic objectives within the given timeframe to Brooks was infeasible. After several heated discussions between Brooks and Kravitz, Jane agreed to reassign the African-American strategic objective leaving only the Latino vertical markets to Brooks. Identifying the problem: Brooks vs. Jensen Shoes

An important aspect to remember is that this case may contain a slight bias due to the fact that it is represented through merely Brooks’ perspective. Lyndon Brooks, a well educated Sociology graduate, is assigned to work under Jane Kravitz, manager of casual wear at Jenson Shoes. We see from analyzing the given report that Brooks had expressed disdain from the beginning. Initially assigned as a “Product Promotions Manager,” Brooks had already taken on the task of appealing to the Latino and African American vertical markets. According to Brooks’ report, he had raised concerns to the head of the Product Promotions campaign, Chuck Taylor, regarding the “severity of budget cuts and the inexperience of the staff” (Gentile and Maus 3). However, these concerns were brushed aside and after a critical point in the project’s