Educational Resources

The EIF produces educational resources for use in business education and industry learning and development courses. These products are a collaborative effort between leading academics and industry professionals, aimed at strengthening ethical standards—and encouraging behavior that is worthy of public trust— in the financial services industry by aligning classroom learning and firm training.

Case Studies

Each EIF case study has two authors: a professor and a senior industry professional. This arrangement aims to combine effective pedagogy with real world dilemmas and detail. Cases are designed to be short enough to facilitate productive discussions appropriate in both classroom and workplace settings, while still providing detail sufficient to reflect the complexity of business choices.

Teaching notes for each case are available for instructors upon written request to the EIF.

DISCLAIMER: These case studies are works of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental and unintentional. The actions and decisions represented in these case studies are presented for discussion, not necessarily for emulation.

The views expressed in the case studies are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or the Federal Reserve System.

Introducing the Case Studies

Bidding in an Auction

Ingrid Keating, Head of Conduct Risk and Governance
HSBC Global Banking and Markets, Americas

Jeremy Kress, Assistant Professor of Business Law
Ross School of Business, University of Michigan

This ethical dilemma takes place against a backdrop of Dillon & DeLong’s recent disappointing financial performance, and Erin’s personal dissatisfaction with her junior analyst job. Students should consider whether a firm like Dillon & DeLong might be more prone to taking ethical risks when the company is performing poorly—i.e., to “gamble for resurrection.” Students should also evaluate what effect Erin’s apathy toward her job has on her ethical decision making.

As a further complication, this case draws on readers’ views about sustainable energy. In the case, Denise’s trading strategy results in more “green” energy production and less fossil fuels. Is environmental sustainability relevant to Erin’s decision about whether to adopt Denise’s strategy? What if the facts were reversed (i.e., Dillon & DeLong owned a coal-burning power plant) and Denise’s strategy resulted in more fossil fuel production?

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Get It Done

Kerryann Benjamin, Managing Director, Human Capital Management
Goldman Sachs

Christina Parajon Skinner, Assistant Professor
The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

In this case, a junior analyst, Mark, has been pegged as the go-to support for rising firm superstar, Taylor, at the investment bank, BigNat. Both are vying for promotion this year, and an interesting (and potentially high-profile) deal has fallen to them. An existing corporate client, Hydrangea Group, wants to acquire a foreign shipping company via a foreign subsidiary. They want BigNat to finance the deal. The sticking point is that the Hydrangea subsidiary is a new client for the bank, and so must be onboarded according to the bank’s know-your-customer procedures. This process can be time-consuming and require a hefty paperwork lift for Hydrangea—yet the pressure is on to complete the deal within the next few weeks. Taylor has made aggressive promises on time-line that might not be able to be met if Taylor follows the procedure that compliance requires.

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A Judgment Call

Joanne Ciulla, Professor and Director of the Institute for Ethical Leadership
Rutgers Business School

David Kirshenbaum, Chief Operating Officer
Citi Banking, Capital Markets, and Advisory

Scott Stimpfel, Global Head of Learning & Development
Citi Banking, Capital Markets, and Advisory

You are an associate in an investment bank and the newest member of a fifty-person group that covers the health care industry. You heard from your friend that the team works well together, and you must stay on the good side of seniors. You have been staffed on a deal to advise on a sale of a client’s subsidiary company. You will work with an analyst, vice president, and managing director. The vice president, Maria, is well-respected and is very influential with senior bankers when it comes to deciding compensation for juniors at the end of year. Maria asks you to review the model’s financial projections and you notice a hardcoded number in the spreadsheet inflates future cash flows by an additional 2.5%. You contemplate whether you should prepare the financial projections as requested. You raise your concern to Maria and she essentially tells you not to worry about it. Given the importance of the transaction, you don’t want to create a problem if there isn’t one. Nonetheless, since you joined the bank, training and other bank communications have repeatedly reminded you of how important honesty and accuracy are to the business.

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Conduct After Hours

Emanuelle Bury, Chief Compliance Officer
BNP Paribas Americas

Danielle Warren, Professor of Management & Global Business
Rutgers Business School

The case opens at a celebration in a cocktail lounge for strong team performance. Alex, a senior member of the team, is intoxicated and buying drinks for a junior advisor, Francis. Rory, the main character of the case, records Alex swaying and leaning closely to Francis. The next day, Rory revisits the video clip and notices Francis flinched and pulled away when Alex moved too close. Rory asks Francis about the situation and Francis asks Rory to drop it. Rory remains concerned that the situation should be reported, especially given the firm’s zero-tolerance harassment policy.

Rory ponders sharing the clip but is also concerned by the firm’s policy regarding electronic recordings. It is not clear that Rory should have recorded colleagues, even at a social event off company property. Rory considers deleting the video to avoid negative repercussions for potentially breaking a firm policy. Two days later, Rory finds out that another colleague not only recorded the interaction between Alex and Francis but also Rory filming the incident. The colleague’s video clip is circulating on social media and it is only a short time before Human Resources will obtain the video.

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Tech and Research

William Boulding, Dean and J.B. Fuqua Professor of Business
Administration, Fuqua School of Business, Duke University

Peg Sullivan, Global Head of Talent Management
Morgan Stanley

Trevor, a recently promoted vice president of a global, regulated financial institution, is eager to demonstrate initiative in support of a potential client, Dr. Lee, the founder of I-Scream. A client such as Dr. Lee could be very profitable for the Bank and securing the client would demonstrate Trevor’s value to his team.

In the course of the project, Trevor receives a WeChat message from Dr. Lee, saying she wishes to obtain as much market information regarding competitors as possible by “scraping” data from the web to get the insights they need. Trevor briefly contemplates the use of WeChat in client communications and using “data scraping” given internal policies but forges ahead with engaging Ronnie, another employee in a different jurisdiction, to create tools to extract the information by scraping the internet. Later, Trevor finds out that an I-Scream competitor, whose web site was “scraped,” is determined to find out the identity of the web scraper. Trevor and Ronnie are very concerned, and each must make decisions quickly.

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Grabbing Coffee

Christina Parajon Skinner, Assistant Professor
The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Jacqueline Welch, Chief Human Resources Officer and Chief Diversity Officer
Freddie Mac

In this case, Trish, a still relatively junior financier, struggles with competing demands from Jake, a senior leader in her new firm and her direct boss, Helen. While Helen has her staffed on a new deal – underwriting a loan to some airline borrowers – Jake swoops in with an exciting opportunity. Trish is ambitious and wants to do both, and do both well. But Helen is a demanding boss, and it is difficult for Trish to satisfy her work obligations to Helen while picking up a new M&A pitch for Jake. At one point, Helen seems to sour toward Trish – she stops giving her work on the airline deals, and seems to be socially snubbing her by excluding Trish from everyday interactions, like coffee runs. Trish isn’t sure whether there is a “problem” with Helen – and if so, whether the problem is related to her work, her gender, and/or her race. She second-guesses herself, thinking, could this really be?

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Acknowledgements

The EIF would like to thank all who volunteered their time, gave advice, and provided feedback on earlier drafts of the case studies, including Mark Adams, William Bousquette, James Brown, Steve Cohen,
Alison Cottrell, Kate Cullen, Scott DeRue, Mikael Down, Jonathan Haidt, Claire Hill, Yoon Hi Greene, Maxwell Hawley, Michael Held,
Bonnie Jonas, Daniel Kahn, Jacquelyn Kasulis, Robert Khuzami,
Phil Klay, Raphael Landesmann, Katherine Landy, Brian Manning,
Joe McGrath, Denis McInerney, Lev Menand, Parvin Moyne,
Maria Patterson, Mary O’Dea, Ken O’Sullivan, Lindsay Ray,
Stephen Scott, Joseph Sommer, Angela Sun, Niel Willardson, members of the McInerney Inn of Court, staff at the Irish Banking Culture Board and the Banking Standards Board (U.K.), participants in University College Dublin’s “Regulating Banking Culture” conference, and participants in Seattle University School of Law’s Berle XI Symposium.