Pay Scales

1 Pages Posted: 3 Jul 2018

See all articles by James R. Detert

James R. Detert

University of Virginia - Darden School of Business

Christina Black

Independent

Abstract

The only female senior partner at a boutique management consulting firm has found out that she is paid less than half of what male partners were making who were younger, less experienced, and contributing less overall to the business. When she presented her case to the senior partners and explicitly asked if the pay discrepancy is become she was a woman, they would only respond to her through lawyers. The case is designed to bring students' instinctive decision-making tendencies to the surface. Thus, it is short enough to be read and responded to in class. Students are assigned readings and assignments related to the case after class discussion in which they are encouraged to reflect on their initial responses.The case is quite flexible and would work in any course that deals with leadership, ethics, difficult conversations, decision-making, organizational behavior, human resources, and related topics. It is appropriate for a range of levels and audiences, including undergraduate, MBA, and executive education.

Excerpt

UVA-OB-1215

Jun. 22, 2018

Pay Scales

Rebecca Hall joined the boutique management consulting firm LendLight Consulting as the only female senior partner three years ago. She had been heavily recruited by LendLight to leave one of the three largest global management consulting firms where she had built a successful ten-year career, becoming highly respected for her creative flexibility, sound judgment, and delivery of outstanding returns on a variety of projects. Now at LendLight, her primary responsibility was to help secure and serve new clients in the burgeoning area of healthcare systems and services. By all accounts, she had consistently exceeded agreed-upon targets.

However, after listening to some partners at LendLight brag about their compensation, she pieced together that she was being paid less than half of what others in a similar role were making—including ones who were younger, less experienced, and contributing less overall to the business.

The realization stunned her initially—she was not someone who looked for gender bias, and she believed that stance had served her well in the highly competitive environments in which she had thrived since high school. However, having served on her previous firm's women's leadership forum and mentoring committee, the unfairness of her unequal pay now clearly struck her as not only a personal but also a systemic problem. After stewing on the matter for months, she decided to set up a conversation with the firm's founding partners (all male) about her compensation.

. . .

Keywords: defining moments, leadership, ethics, organizational behavior, difficult conversations, decision-making, human resources, gender pay gap

Suggested Citation

Detert, James R. and Black, Christina, Pay Scales. Darden Case No. UVA-OB-1215, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3207043 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3207043

James R. Detert (Contact Author)

University of Virginia - Darden School of Business ( email )

P.O. Box 6550
Charlottesville, VA 22906-6550
United States

Christina Black

Independent

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