Case Study: Hy Dairies, Inc.€

Case Study Hy Dairies, INC.”

The case study, “Hy Dairies, Inc.”, highlights an individual, Rochelle Beauport, whose career with the company seemed promising after a successful two quarters of increased sales of Hy’s gourmet ice cream. Syd Gilman, the vice president of marketing, was so impressed with Beauport’s effort and hard work that he decided to positively reinforce her achievement by offering her a position where he believed she would gain experience from higher profile work (Human Behavior in Organizations 377). During their meeting where Gilman presented the position to Beauport, she immediately drew false conclusions about the position as well as Gilman’s character without complete knowledge of the circumstance. In the following essay, we examine what occurred, what perceptual errors took place, and how these errors could have been prevented (Human Behavior in Organizations 372).
When Syd Gilman approached Rochelle Beauport with the offer, Rochelle immediately jumped to the conclusion that she was being demoted from her current position as an “assistant brand manager” to a “technical support position” which Beauport thought would leave her stranded with little to no room for growth (“Hy Dairies, INC.”). Rochelle utilized the recency effect to distort her perception by basing her conclusion on her recent experience with an employer who “made it quite clear that women ‘couldn’t take the heat’ in marketing management” and who “tended to place women in technical support positions” as a result (“Hy Dairies, INC.”). This perceptual error only blinded Rochelle to the fact that the position, although a lateral move, was a step in the right direction toward growth within Hy Dairies, a step that even “few people were aware” Gilman had made to advance his own career (“Hy Dairies, INC.”).
Rochelle also relied on her past experience to assume that Gilman, like her previous employer, “didn’t want women or