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The learning outcomes are follows: critically assess the impact of disruptive technologies, such as automation, on the organisation, its processes and employees; evaluate the structural changes required within the organisation to prepare for digital transformation; apply change models to the unique challenges associated with disruptive technologies; and recommend solutions for the organisation to proceed with the implementation of disruptive technologies, while keeping employees central to the change.

The Dimension Data automation case provides students and executives with a glimpse of the future that organisations and employees must prepare for. The case starts out with the protagonist and product owner of digital at Dimension Data, Andrew Harmse, reflecting on his three-year automation journey within the Automation Centre of Excellence. The world of automation is growing exponentially, and Andrew’s team will have to support the organisation as they scale up their automation journey and navigate the uncertain future of an increased, blended human-robot workforce. Individual employee reactions, positive and negative, will have to be balanced with the opportunities that ever-changing technology enables. The case focusses on the themes of digital transformation, digital disruption, change management and the very real factors to consider when faced with decision-making on automation as the world is constantly changing. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced organisations to relook processes and increase investment in technologies that enable digital client engagement and servicing, considering social distancing requirements. Automation at dimension data has been largely internally focussed, but there is a drive to increase delivery for clients. Andrew’s team will have to guide organisations through the journey and continuum of changes and uncertainties, such as large- scale unemployment and robot ethics.

The target audience for this teaching case are postgraduate and Master level students, specifically Master of Business Administration (MBA) students as well as Executive Education courses. Students who are responsible for making strategic decisions that impact the future of their organisations as well as students with an interest in the role of technology in the future will benefit from the case.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human Resource Management.

The case was developed from secondary sources. This descriptive case was classroom tested in undergraduate organizational behavior courses.

The 94th Academy Awards ceremony, which honored movies released in 2021, was held on March 27, 2022, at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood. Prior to Chris Rock announcing the winner in the category of best documentary film, Rock was assaulted on stage by Will Smith. On April 8, 2022, the Academy’s board of governors met to discuss disciplinary actions for Smith’s behavior. The Academy’s board decided to ban Smith from all Academy events for the next 10 years. Theories of individual behaviors and social processes can provide explanations for behaviors of Chris Rock, Will Smith, the producers and the Academy.

This descriptive case is most appropriate for undergraduate-level organizational behavior courses. The primary topics in this case align well with individual behaviors relative to emotional intelligence (EI) and motivation. The secondary topics in this case align well with social processes relative to decision-making, conflict and culture.

Sustainable development; business, government, and society.

The case is designed to be taught to students at MBA and MA level.

In February 2009, Justin Smith, manager of the good business journey at Woolworths, a leading South African department store, was a worried man. Woolworths had launched its five-year sustainability strategy just under two years before. After undertaking an impact assessment, Smith was concerned that the original targets – which covered transformation, social development, the environment and climate change – had been set without a clear understanding of exactly what it would take to achieve them. Woolworths had recently identified ten key risk areas that impacted on the achievement of its original goals. If the sustainability goals were not reached, Woolworths could lose credibility among its shareholders, staff, and consumers. What did Woolworths need to do to ensure that it achieved its sustainability goals? And had the company been too ambitious in the targets it had set initially, he wondered?

To examine the differences, if any, between sustainable development in South Africa and other developing nations and sustainable development in developed nations; to impart an understanding of sustainability in its broadest sense; to investigate the challenges in implementing sustainability strategies in business; to look at ways of measuring the success of sustainability strategies; and to explore whether and how sustainability strategies should differ across industry sectors and across companies.

Teaching notes.

This case presents the leadership challenges that Chief Petty Officer Amanda Smith navigated as the first woman assigned to lead a Flight Line work center at NAS Ionian, an organization that was characterized by a culture of “hegemonic masculinity.” Failure to effectively lead the work center could have catastrophic consequences, including death of service personnel. Flight Line work centers, located in naval air stations throughout the world, serviced the air operations of aircraft carriers of the US Navy and provided allied air support. The assignment was a test of Smith’s leadership because the NAS Ionian Flight Line had experienced a spate of misconduct by personnel and had failed important maintenance inspections. Chief Smith was tasked to improve the morale and performance of the work center’s sailors who had diverse personal and professional backgrounds. She was also directed to ensure that the work center passed important maintenance inspections despite the challenges of dealing with subordinates, rank peers, and senior officers who had never previously worked with a woman in her role.

The case study is based on primary data collected from the protagonist, a.k.a. Amanda Smith. The primary data are supplemented with secondary data from published sources. The names of the air station and the protagonist have been altered to protect the identity of individuals in the case.

The case is applicable to senior undergraduate courses in HRM performance or talent management, training and development as well as in MBA or other Master’s level courses in management, industrial-organizational psychology, organizational behavior and leadership.

The case deals with leadership style (e.g. Initiating structure – organizing work, giving structure to the work context, defining role responsibility, scheduling work activities; consideration – building camaraderie, respect, trust, and liking between leaders and followers); organizational culture; diversity management; power and influence; and performance management.

This case is the first of a three-part series that follows the managerial, strategic, and communications decisions of the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) or Clean India Mission, the flagship programme of the Government of India to eliminate the practice of open defecation (i.e., not using a toilet) from 2014 to 2019. As of 2014, 550 million people in India practiced open defecation. This problem posed a massive public health hazard and economic drag for the country as well as a threat to global health. Written from an insider's perspective, the cases centre on the decisions made by a new Secretary of the India's Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, who was hired to manage SBM, and the team he assembled. Case A sets the stage for addressing open defecation in rural India and discusses the human resources and strategic challenges to implementing SBM from the vantage point of the new Secretary. It ends with strategic dilemmas related to what the new SBM team should do once they had sized up the challenges to eliminating open defecation by 2019. The case provides an opportunity to deliberate the managerial and strategic decisions of a globally relevant public behaviour change and rural infrastructure development program as well as different forms of public sector implementation in the Indian context.

This case is the second of a three-part series that follows the managerial, strategic, and communications decisions of the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) or Clean India Mission, the flagship programme of the Government of India to eliminate the practice of open defecation (i.e., not using a toilet) from 2014 to 2019. As of 2014, 550 million people in India practiced open defecation. This problem posed a massive public health hazard and economic drag for the country as well as a threat to global health. Written from an insider's perspective, the cases centre on the decisions made by a new Secretary of India's Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, who was hired to manage SBM, and the team he assembled. Case B discusses the start-up challenges for SBM, including implementation in India's complex federal system, workplace culture, and the deep-rooted behaviour of open defecation in rural India and the managerial and communication strategies formulated to address them. The case concludes by framing the difficulties with slow-moving states and monitoring rigour that the leadership SBM, with a new team, strategic focus, and early momentum, faced as the mission entered its final two years.

This case is the second of a three-part series that follows the managerial, strategic, and communications decisions of the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) or Clean India Mission, the flagship programme of the Government of India to eliminate the practice of open defecation (i.e., not using a toilet) from 2014 to 2019. As of 2014, 550 million people in India practiced open defecation. This problem posed a massive public health hazard and economic drag for the country as well as a threat to global health. Written from an insider's perspective, the cases centre on the decisions made by a new Secretary of India's Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, who was hired to manage SBM, and the team he assembled. Case B discusses the start-up challenges for SBM, including implementation in India's complex federal system, workplace culture, and the deep-rooted behaviour of open defecation in rural India and the managerial and communication strategies formulated to address them. The case concludes by framing the difficulties with slow-moving states and monitoring rigour that the leadership SBM, with a new team, strategic focus, and early momentum, faced as the mission entered its final two years.

Josh Williams is a Student at the NAU who has driven buses on campus and wants to improve the transportation on campus. He is convinced that purchasing a new type of bus that is more fuel efficient, has larger capacity, better designed for boarding, and has a longer life is worth the higher purchase cost. He sets out to prove it by creating a discounted cash flow (DCF) analysis. Since many of the estimates for the DCF analysis are uncertain, he decides to perform a Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) analysis. Students are asked to step into Josh’s role and perform the analysis.

Josh Williams was a Student in the authors’ MBA program. Both authors teach in this program and one author was the Advisor for Net Impact and worked with Josh to present his idea to the university administration. The authors have changed a name or two but otherwise, the case describes a real situation in a real organization without disguise.

The authors have used this case in a first semester MBA-Applied Management course, Decision Modeling and Simulation. Students already have experience with DCF analysis and have been introduced to MCS. With this case, students apply MCS at the conclusion of a three-week module on predictive analytics. Students have run at least two MCS models and have become comfortable with the software. The case would also be appropriate for a senior-level undergraduate course such as business analytics or management science. It might also be useful for other courses that include the MCS modeling technique learning objectives such as project management.

This case provides an opportunity for students to perform an MCS analysis. MCS is useful when many of the inputs to a DCF analysis (or any model) have been estimated and the modeler is concerned that the estimates are uncertain and could perhaps be a range of values. MCS can be used to understand the effect of this uncertainty on NPV which in turn may affect the decision. The case could also be used without MCS focusing just on the DCF analysis with deterministic sensitivity analysis.

In early 2006, the anticipated expansion of package delivery services in China provided a great opportunity for the two package delivery giants FedEx and UPS. It was unclear which of these firms would make the most of this opportunity. An analysis of financial performance suggests that UPS is the better performer. On the other hand, the FedEx stock price performance has been far stronger. This apparent conflict highlights the fact that stock prices reflect anticipated future performance and new information. A teaching note and instructor and student spreadsheets are available.

The case is designed to be used with the digital business model framework developed by Peter Weill and Stephanie Woerner of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (Weill and Woerner, 2015) and is referred to as the W & W framework. This approach provides a useful structure for thinking through the strategic options facing environments ripe for digital transformation.

Research for this case was conducted through face-to-face interviews with the protagonist, as well as through a review of their business planning documents and other data and documentation provided by the founder. Some of the market and industry data were obtained using secondary research and industry reports. Interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed to ensure accuracy.

The case follows the story of Kurt Waltenbaugh, a Minnesota entrepreneur who shared the dream of using data analytics to reduce costs within the US health-care system. In early 2014, Waltenbaugh and a physician colleague founded Carrot Health to bring together their personal experience and expertise in both consumer data analytics and health care. From the beginning, they focused on how to use data analytics to help identify high-risk/high-cost patients who had not yet sought medical treatment. They believed that they could use these insights to encourage early medical interventions and, as a result, lower the long-term cost of care.

Carrot’s initial success found them in a consultative role, working on behalf of insurance companies. Through this work, they honed their capabilities by helping their clients combine existing claims data with external consumer behavioral data to identify new potential customers. These initial consulting contracts gave Carrot the opportunity to develop its analytic tools, business model and, importantly, to earn some much-needed cash flow during the start-up phase. However, they also learned that, while insurance companies were willing to purchase data insights for one-off market expansion projects, it was much more difficult to motivate them to use data proactively to eliminate costs on an ongoing basis. Waltenbaugh believed that Carrot’s greatest potential lay in their ability to develop predictive models of health outcomes, and this case explores Carrot’s journey through strategic decisions and company transformation.

This case is intended for either an undergraduate or graduate course on entrepreneurial strategy. It provides an effective introduction to the unique structure and constraints which apply to an innovative start-up within the health-care industry. The case also serves as a platform to explore the critical criteria to be considered when developing a digital transformation strategy and exposing students to the digital business model developed by Weill and Woerner (2015) at MIT (referred to in this instructor’s manual as the W&W framework). The case was written to be used in an advanced strategy Master of Business Administration (MBA) class, an undergraduate specialty health-care course or as part of a health-care concentration in a regular MBA, Master of Health Care Administration (MHA) or Master of Public Health (MPH). It may be taught toward the end of a course on business strategy when students are building on generic strategy frameworks and adapting their strategic thinking to the characteristics of specific industries or sectors. However, the case can also be taught as part of a course on health-care innovation in which case it also serves well as an introduction to the health-care payments and insurance system in the USA. Finally, the case can be used in a specialized course on digital transformation strategy in which case it serves as an introduction to the MIT W&W framework.

The case is particularly well-suited to students who are familiar with traditional frameworks for business strategy and business models. The analysis builds on this knowledge and introduces students interested in learning about the opportunities and challenges of digital strategy. Equally, the case works well for students with clinical backgrounds, who are interested in how business strategy can influence changes within the health-care sphere. Finally, an important aspect of the case design was to develop students’ analytical confidence by encouraging them to “get their hands dirty” and to carry out some basic exploratory data analytics themselves. As such, the case requires students to combine and correlate data and to experience the potentially powerful combination of clinical and consumer data. Instructors should find that the insights from these activities give students unique insights into the potential for of data analytics to move health care from a reactive/treatment ethos to a proactive/intervention ethos. This experience can be particularly revealing for students with clinical backgrounds who may initially be resistant to the use of clinical data by commercial organizations.