Caso Who's In Charge?

Who’s in Charge?
The Jim Davis Case
James Davis began his employment with Hereford National Bank in October. He had
been hired away from an investment firm on the recommendation of Eric Johnson, vice president
in charge of marketing. Mr. Johnson had heard through a friend at IDS, the company that Davis
was employed by, that Jim was unhappy in his position there and thought of lookingfor
employment elsewhere. Mr. Johnson felt that because of his experience in the investment world
and in sales techniques (Davis had been a sales representative for IDS, helping people plan for
their financial future and at the same time selling them the company’s services), Davis could
prove to be a valuable asset to his division. Since Jim was only 23 years old and had been out of
schoolfor two years, Johnson felt that he could offer him less of a salary than the job was worth
and save some money. Davis was contacted and seemed interested. An initial interview was
arranged, and both decided that Jim was suited to the job. He began working the following
month.
Because he was not familiar with the bank and its operations, Jim was put through a fiveweek training session. Itwas very informal and consisted of exposure and practice in different areas of banking services. On November 2, Jim began in his new position. He was placed in charge of the Retirement Division. See Exhibit 1 for partial organization chart.
This division was a relatively new area for the bank. It dealt basically with IRA and
Keogh retirement accounts. As acting head and sole employee of thisdivision, Jim’s job was to
sell these services to the public as well as handle the administrative work. He was given a desk on
the first floor, which he had to share with the coordinator for the branch managers, Allen Jones.
One of the first tasks to be performed was to transfer balances of certain savings accounts
into IRAs (individual retirement accounts). Jim prepared all thecalculations and got them
entered. Two weeks later, calls started coming in from the people whose accounts had been
transferred. They had all received notices that their accounts had a zero balance and wanted to
know what was going on. Jim answered them that it was a clerical error and that their money was
intact. Upon investigating the incident, he found that it was bank policy to issue statementswhenever an account reached a zero balance. When all the money was transferred from savings to
IRA, the savings accounts were left with a balance of zero. Jim tried to find out why this policy

Danny J. Mainolfi prepared this case under the supervision of Professor Allan Cohen, Babson College, as a basis for class discussion rather than to illustrate either effective or ineffective handlingof an administrative situation.

Copyright © by Babson College 2000 and licensed for publication to Harvard Business School Publishing. To order copies or
request permission to reproduce materials, call (800) 545-7685 or write Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston, MA
02163. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, ortransmitted in any
form or by any means - electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise - without the permission of copyright
holders.

This document is authorized for use only by Luis Manuel Martinez until May 2011. Copying or posting is an
infringement of copyright. Permissions@hbsp.harvard.edu or 617.783.7860.


Who’s In Charge BAB086

had not been explained to him;however, he could not get a straight answer. The problem was not a major one, though, and it had been cured rather easily, so he let it pass. The last thing he wanted was to start any bad relationships.
Over the next two months Davis accomplished a lot. The people he worked with on the
first floor seemed to be more than friendly once they got to know him. They were always willing
to help...