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The learning outcomes are as follows: identify how tools and frameworks of strategic management can be applied to understand the evolution of the timeline of a firm; analyse the core competencies and weaknesses of a firm and understand their relevance in strengthening the competitive advantage of a firm; and design appropriate business models that are grounded in an integrated strategic analysis.

The case series traces the attempts of Nisrine Khalifeh to save her family’s ailing Lebanese artisan micro-enterprise that produces handmade glass blown jars, jugs and cups. Despite their unique traditional know-how in glassblowing, The Khalifeh struggle to survive since the early 2000s until today in a context of a growing concurrence by more competitive glass products. After each triggering event faced by the Khalifeh firm, Nisrine’s exploits opportunities offered to her in an archaic business model approach that provides short business solutions. Nisrine seems not to realize that her business approach is just keeping her family business from dying today instead of tomorrow while keeping it on the verge of going under. Facing an additional dilemma, she is challenged to realize how competitive and sustainable the Khalifeh business model is, and which actions she should take to withstand the competitive threats. More sustainable business options exist to this traditional micro-enterprise which carries a strong growth rate potential if sustainable business models are developed and deployed using key tools and frameworks of strategic management analysis.

Undergraduate Business Students,

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CSS 11: Strategy.

This chapter uses Islamic finance to question the universality of contemporary finance leading principles. It establishes the existence of different financial paradigms and attempts to determine the form that might take operations in a non-profit maximising context.

This chapter uses Thomas Kuhn’s notion of paradigm to demonstrate that Islamic finance has its own dominant logic and, hence, cannot be reduced to a subset of contemporary finance. It describes how the former has been infused by the leading principles of the latter following the adoption by the Islamic financial field of an accounting system using a conventional referential as a point of reference. Finally, the chapter elaborates on the form that might take financing if profit maximisation is not the operation’s main purpose.

If the condition of profit maximisation is relaxed, the utilisation of Islamic finance instruments might lead to the creation of economical microcycles able to enlarge the socio-economic reach of financing operation.

The notion of economic intermediation is introduced to describe the operations of Islamic banks using their instruments in a non-maximising context. This approach should not be restricted to Islamic finance but viewed as the result of a case study advocating for an alternative view of finance favouring socio-economic development.