New Cases: A Rationale

C200 members display diverse opinions on the relation of gender and business.

Some committee members emphasized that it is impossible to generalize about how men and women behave in business environments. But they admitted that there are some differences between the way men and women handle certain office situations.

"I think women tend to be very thoughtful, and are perhaps a little more reluctant to make decisions without consensus, but I think it's very difficult to generalize," Alfus said.

Lloyd agreed that women tend to be more committed to team play.

"I think women generally--not specifically and not uniquely--have an interest in having the entire team be a winner, not just the team leader," she said.

But other C200 members felt more comfortable generalizing about their observations.

Nancy Peterson, president of the Peterson Tool Company, said that men and women approach business problems in totally different ways.

"I think men and women face problems differently no matter what they are--personal problems, social problems, or anything else," Peterson said. "The male and the female are definitely different animals."

Valerie B. Salembier, publisher of Esquire, agreed.

"Let's face it: men and women approach [business] problems differently," she said.

But Marles Casto, who founded Casto Travel after immigrating from the Phillippines 30 years ago, said that she did not think there was any real difference between the way men and women deal with business concerns.

"[Business] is just business," she said. "You make business decisions based on that."

Members of the committee said that changing the names of male protagonists in existing case studies instead of rewriting the cases to include more women would be simply inadequate.

"If you simply change the names, all you're really doing is trying to promote, in a very obvious way, a female leader and director," said Anna Lloyd, the president of C200.