Your Role and the Organization

You are the Vice President of Human Resources for a professional baseball team that competes in a league with 30 franchises across 25 cities in the United States, Canada and Mexico. Each team operates as an independent business but is governed by a central league office. The league is highly competitive and teams battle over many of the same resources including personnel, media attention, some marketing revenues, and, at times, a shared customer base. While franchises compete against one another, there is centralized cooperation to ensure competitive balance. The average annual revenue per franchise has risen consistently for each of the past 15 years and now averages $150 million per franchise per year. The competitive season runs from April through September, culminating with a championship in October for those teams reaching the playoffs. While the franchises are extremely busy during the competitive season, there is also plenty of work to be done between November and March. Thus, the industry operates on a 12-month cycle.

The organizational structure for on-field personnel is consistent across franchises, but it varies by team in the staff functions. Only 10 franchises have HR strategist positions, and only recently has that position featured vice president–level work. Generally, franchises employ between 125–300 staff, excluding on-field personnel.

The Request On August 2

Your team’s board chair calls you to a confidential meeting and informs you that the president will be retiring at the end of the season. This is the first time you have heard about a change at the presidential level. Approximately six franchises (20%) replace their president each year, so while this is not an uncommon occurrence it is a critical change within the organization.

Understanding the Team President Job

It is essential to define a job before recruiting or selecting for it. This helps HR professionals to establish criteria to evaluate candidates applying for the job (SIOP, 2003). Job definition should be linked to organizational success. So, job definition centers around an analysis of the organizational work provided through the job. By defining the job through an analysis of the core work, you can measure success based on the criteria that are deemed relevant to success in that job. A good process to follow for gaining an understanding of a job is to collect information from multiple sources and integrate that information. When possible, the sources should represent both quantitative and qualitative information. In fact, there are usually many sources available to help in understanding a particular job. The Occupational Information Network (O*Net), http://online.onetcenter.org, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor, is an example of a job information classification system based on surveys of workers currently in the occupation. By collecting information from many organizations, O*Net job information is generic—which can be an advantage or a disadvantage, depending on what you are trying to accomplish. O*Net information includes experience, worker and occupation requirements, worker and occupation characteristics, and occupation specific information. As an example of O*Net information that might be helpful in understanding the franchise president job, O*Net summarizes the franchise president’s role as follows: “Determine and formulate policies and provide the overall direction of companies or private and public sector organizations within the guidelines set up by a board of directors or similar governing body. Plan, direct or coordinate operational activities at the highest level of management with the help of subordinate executives and staff managers.” Existing job descriptions can demonstrate the complexity associated with a job. Job descriptions describe the critical features of a job, including the major functions or duties (Pritchard, 2002). Thus, job descriptions are a great source to understand a job. While some organizations have job descriptions for all levels, it should be noted that other organizations do not have formal job descriptions for president or CEO positions.

Competitive Advantage

Selecting a top executive can be crucial to an organization’s competitive advantage. Over time, top leadership can influence an organization in a number of ways. Some of the outcomes heavily influenced by a president might include how a budget is spent, profit margins and/or stock prices (Day & Lord, 1988; Lieberson & O’Connor, 1972; Weiner & Mahoney, 1977; Smith, Carson & Alexander, 1984). It is not solely the selection of a president that influences these outcomes, but rather the selection of a president who possesses the needed leadership abilities. Additionally, the president has to fit with your organization—the president should either be qualified for your organizational culture or be hired to change the culture. In the baseball industry, typical outcome variables might include profit, winning championships, winning percentage, attendance and marketing success. Other outcome variables may also be appropriate to the industry or to a specific organization.

Question:

1.

a) Describe possible courses of action for resolving the issues in the case, and the pros and cons of each.

b) What creative approaches could be used to help understand the franchise president job? Which resources do you think would be perceived by the client as most credible in understanding the job?

c) Think about other industries. How do presidents and CEOs in those industries help their organizations achieve a competitive advantage? What outcomes are different in those industries?

d) As an internal consultant, what secondary issues might you be concerned with as you become involved in this project?