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The sustainability quotient: a trader’s trade-offs

Meghna Goel (Department of PDSE & FBM, NMIMS University, Mumbai, India.)

Publication date: 31 August 2021

Issue publication date: 31 August 2021

Abstract

Learning outcomes

The learning outcomes of this case will help the participants to assess values, motivations and interpersonal relations that exist and evolve in a family firm; analyze individual-level strategies in absence of business growth strategy and succession plan; expose trade-offs associated with natural inheritance or merit-based succession; reveal alternate strategies of coping with conflicts in multi-generation multi-family firms.

Case overview/synopsis

This case focuses on leadership, succession and conflicts at Dalal Group, a 50 years old textile yarn trading family-run business. The trading business has 10 members across three generations working in it. The business is making profits but the growth of the business is not synchronous to the number of family members working in it. As revenues are stable and buyers’ network is not growing, an internal tussle has begun among the members to preserve business resources available to them. The founder, who is also the Managing Director of the Group, is about to retire in a couple of years but there is no clear successor to his position. In the absence of a business growth plan and uncertainty about the next leader, members are clueless about their own future and that is affecting their interpersonal relations at work. This has triggered the need for decision and action by the founder, failing which the business might disintegrate. The case author has used personal interview methods and secondary sources like annual reports and manuals of the company to collect data and information.

Complexity academic level

Senior Undergraduates, MBA (Entrepreneurship and Family Business), MBA.

Supplementary materials

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

Subject code

CSS 6: Human resource management.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

Disclaimer. This case is written solely for educational purposes and is not intended to represent successful or unsuccessful managerial decision-making. The authors may have disguised names; financial and other recognizable information to protect confidentiality.

Citation

Goel, M. (2021), "The sustainability quotient: a trader’s trade-offs", , Vol. 11 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/EEMCS-05-2020-0178

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited Bingley, United Kingdom

Copyright © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited

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