Tanglewood Case Study

TANGLEWOOD CASEBOOK

To accompany Staffing Organizations, fifth edition, 2006.

Prepared by John Kammeyer-Mueller

Warrington College of Business

University of Florida

Gainesville, Florida

Telephone: 352-392-0108

E-mail: john.kammeyer-mueller@cba.ufl.edu

Copyright ©2006

Mendota House, Inc.

Herbert G. Heneman III

President

Telephone: 608-233-4417

E-mail: hheneman@bus.wisc.edu

Rationale for the Tanglewood Case

Many of the most important lessons in business education involve learning how to place academic concepts in a work setting. For applied topics, like staffing, learning how concepts are applied in the world of work also allow us see how the course is relevant to our own lives. The use of these cases will serve as a bridge between the major themes in the textbook Staffing Organizations and the problems faced by managers on a daily basis.

The Tanglewood case is closely intertwined with textbook concepts. Most assignments in the case require reference to specific tables and examples in the book. After completing these cases, you will be much more able to understand and apply the material in the textbook.

With this in mind, it should be noted that the cases are designed to correspond with the types of information found in work environments. This means that for many important decisions, the right answers will not always be easy to detect, there will be more than one correct solution, and often the very information that would make decisions easy is missing. Remember that ambiguity in any case corresponds to reality; although it may be frustrating at first, you should remember that business problems are themselves often confusing and require important judgment calls that don’t have any single “right” answer.

Successful Case Performance

Successful case performance involves several key concepts. Each case should be prepared in the form of a report to be given to the top management team at Tanglewood department stores. The following guidelines for successful case performance are useful for checking your work:

1. Is the report easy to read?

1. Correct grammatical errors and eliminate confusing sentences.
2. Break the text into subheadings so it is easy for the reader to find relevant information.
3. Explain your statistics in a way that an intelligent reader who is not familiar with them could understand what is being reported.
4. Present tables cleanly with relevant data highlighted for the reader and with minimal extraneous information.
5. Explain why you chose to use information and data in the way that you did.

1. Are your final recommendations and answers sensible?

1. The final recommendations should be presented in a clear, succinct manner.
2. The recommendations should be feasible and directly related to the information provided to the information provided in the case.
3. Recommendation should take potential problems into account.

Case one requirements:

1. Assess the current operating environment for Tanglewood in terms of it competitors, structure, employees, culture, values, and human resources function.

1. Develop recommendations for how the organization should staff its operations, focusing on strategic decisions pertaining to staffing levels and quality.

Section Objectives

The goal of this section is to help you learn more about the basic environmental concerns the Tanglewood Department Store chain is facing. This information will help you to understand how competition, strategy, and culture jointly inform the effective development of a selection plan.

Organization Overview and Mission

Tanglewood is a chain of general retail stores featuring items such as clothing, appliances, electronics, and home decor. The company operates in the moderate price niche, targeting middle- and upper-income customers. Tanglewood’s strategic distinction is an “outdoors” theme, with a large camping and outdoor living section in every store. The store also distinguishes itself by its simple, elegant, and uncluttered design concepts for the store and their in-house products. The company’s mission statement is:

Tanglewood was originally founded in 1975 by best friends Tanner Emerson and Thurston Wood. The initial concept was a single store in Spokane Washington, named TannerWood, which sold a combination of outdoor clothing and equipment that the pair had designed themselves. The employee handbook notes that, “Tanner and Thurston financed their early store plans with credit cards and personal loans from friends and family. They had so little money that they slept in sleeping bags in the back room and put every penny they made back into the stores.” The first store’s unique merchandise offering and personable sales staff made them successful quite rapidly, allowing Emerson and Wood to move out of the back room and add several more stores during the late 1970’s. The merchandise offerings expanded over time to incorporate more conventional retail items, while still retaining the elegant, yet outdoors look for the stores overall.