Price Waterhouse was a professional partnership firm providing consulting and services in the specialty areas of auditing, tax and management for both the private and public sector. A partnership structure utilizes a participative style of management, allowing employees to participate in the decisions of the company. Strong, company oriented performance could be rewarded with partnership status, which elevated selected employees to higher leadership status, additional responsibility and increased compensation.

While working for Price Waterhouse, Hopkins gained the reputation for being a tough minded and very disciplined manager and demonst

rated success in the organization and completion of high profile projects that made a significant revenue contribution to Price Waterhouse. Her demonstrated successes resulted in OGS nominating her for partnership status in 1982. Her candidacy went through a standardized approval process that allowed other partners in the firm to comment on their experience with the candidate. After a policy board review as to the qualifications of the candidates, those selected as worthy would be placed on a company-wide ballot where all partners had the opportunity to vote on the candidates. Partners could choose to accept the individual as a partner, reject the nominee, or place them on hold for an additional year in order for the candidate to improve upon the skills proving deficient, thus preventing acceptance.

A manager has an obligation and moral responsibility to obey the employer in the course of pursuing the organization’s goals. However, is the employee forced to adapt actions to conform to stereotypical demands? Is it not good enough that the employee has strong business acumen, but perhaps has a different method by which to accomplish the interpersonal goals? Is it still possible that a male, employing the same tactics as Hopkins, would have been acclaimed for being strong, forceful and successful in accomplishing the ends by any means necessary?

In the case of Ann Hopkins, her candidacy for partnership in the firm was placed on hold after the first year. Although she proved successful in the completion of projects, she was criticized for her lack of interpersonal skills, deemed an extremely important characteristic for the firm. At the conclusion of the first vote, she was counseled on how best to improve her performance in the deficient areas, but was ultimately refused for partnership in the second year’s ballot. Further, she was told that she most likely would never acquire partnership status.

Hopkins felt she had been unfairly discriminated against because she was a woman. She was criticized by her associates for not acting in a feminine manner, but as having a macho persona. By not acting as a woman, according to the expectations of her peers, she was not perceived as fitting the requirements of a partner in the firm. She stated that, although she felt she was the only candidate not awarded partnership status due to a lack of interpersonal skills, similarly positioned men were admitted as partners, therefore treating her differently because of her gender.

Price Waterhouse placed a great deal of independent responsibility for performance upon their partners. The election to partnership status brought with it more prestige, additional salary and compensation and increased job security or tenure. The firm not only considered the candidate’s business skills, but also the interpersonal skills, as it was felt that a candidate must be able to interact successfully with subordinates in order to achieve success. Such a protected position could present a problem to the firm, if practices of abuse of power or lack of performance occurred. In order to drop a partner, a 75% vote of the entire partnership could be required to force a partner to resign. Therefore, in order to make a balanced decision, Price Waterhouse subjected its potential partners to scrutiny in the form of soliciting written comments from partners regarding their experiences with the candidate. This practice enabled the firm to build their “paper fortress” , required to protect itself against unjustified lawsuits, by substantiating any decis

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