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The study enables students to critique the internationalisation strategy of an African business including elements of macroeconomic analysis, company fit with jurisdictions, non-market strategies and mode of entry.

Roland van Wijnen was the chief executive officer of Pretoria Portland Cement Company Limited (PPC), a 130-year-old cement maker based in South Africa. He joined after the business had embarked on an international expansion strategy that had taken the business to countries of Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia in a matter of years. This expansion caused the deflation of the Johannesburg-listed company’s share price. The company failed to appreciate a number of success factors in each jurisdiction. The challenges included cultural misalignments, macroeconomic analysis and mode of market entry. The case dilemma involved the choices that van Wijnen faced in re-evaluating the international footprint of the business.

Undergraduate or postgraduate level.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 5: International business.

Poverty, business strategy and sustainable development. International development planning and poverty alleviation strategies have moved beyond centralised, top-down approaches and now emphasise decentralised, community-based approaches that incorporate actors from the community, government, non-governmental agencies and business. Collective action by Bottom of the Pyramid residents gives them greater control in self-managing environmental commons and addressing the problems of environmental degradation. Co-creation and engaging in deep dialogue with stakeholders offer significant potential for launching new businesses and generating mutual value. The case study rests on the tenets of corporate social responsibility. It serves as an example of corporate best practices towards ensuring environmental sustainability and community engagement for providing livelihood support and well-being. It illustrates the tool kit for building community-based adaptive capacities against climate change.

The field-based case study was prepared from inputs received from detailed interviews of company functionaries. Company documents were shared by the company and used with their permission. Secondary data was accessed from newspapers, journal articles available online and information from the company website.

The case study is about the coming together of several vital agencies working in forest and wildlife conservation, climate change adaptation planning for ecosystems and communities, social upliftment and corporate social responsibility in the Kanha Pench landscape of Madhya Pradesh in Central India. The case traces several challenges. First, the landscape is degrading rapidly; it requires urgent intervention to revive it. Second, the human inhabitants are strained with debilitating poverty. Third, the long-term sustainability of the species of tigers living in the protected tiger reserves of Kanha and Pench needs attention as human-animal conflicts rise.

The case would help undergraduate and postgraduate students studying sustainability and corporate social responsibility.

Through this case, students will not only learn about the latest development of this emerging industry, IoT, but also gain a systematic understanding of “ecosystem strategy” and get to know a new corporate growth model called “co-creation”.

This case describes why and how Advantech Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Advantech) has transformed in the age of the Internet of Things. Aware of the ecosystem attributes of the IoT industry and committed to the company’s principle of “altruism”, Advantech strategically positioned itself as an “IoT platform provider” and an “enabler” for IoT applications. After carrying out a reform in terms of internal management, external cooperation, and development model, Advantech has evolved from an industrial computer maker to an IoT solution provider. Since the launch of the “co-creation model” at the end of 2016, Advantech has drawn attention from many excellent companies in traditional industries. With the Internet of Everything close at hand, Chairman KC Liu is well aware there are many challenges to overcome as Advantech strives to build an industrial IoT ecosystem, the “evolution” continues.

MBAs, EMBAs and senior executives.

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CSS 11: Strategy

This teaching case covers aspects of leadership development, strategy, change management, organisational behaviour, and people management. The case explores the following themes:

• Workplace transformation and culture: the challenges and opportunities of remote/hybrid work in large government enterprises and maintaining the culture when moving remote

• Leadership and change: the different perspectives that a leader can take into consideration when leading the business during turbulent and uncertain times and managing the change process in large organisations

• Strategic decision-making: the application of analytical skills by senior management when making strategic decisions in a business

Workplace transformation and culture: the challenges and opportunities of remote/hybrid work in large government enterprises and maintaining the culture when moving remote

Leadership and change: the different perspectives that a leader can take into consideration when leading the business during turbulent and uncertain times and managing the change process in large organisations

Strategic decision-making: the application of analytical skills by senior management when making strategic decisions in a business

The primary audience for this teaching case is management education programmes including: Master of Business Administration (MBA), Postgraduate Diploma (PGDip), specialist Masters in Management, and certain Executive Education programmes.

This case deals with a public-sector entity that collects taxation revenue for the South African government. In 2020, the operations of this public entity are severely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. The mandatory shift of the workforce from in-office to a remote work-from-home set-up, results in the entity switching to a hybrid work model in order to achieve its goals as an essential service. Protagonist Dr Zanele Twazi, executive head of the public entity's research department, is tasked by the commissioner to conduct a review on the hybrid work model. As the commissioner is also in the process of reviving the organisational culture to regain public trust following multiple corruption scandals, the pandemic adds to this pressure. Dr Twazi must share employee feedback on the remote work option. Meanwhile, the leadership team has to decide if the work model will serve this public entity in achieving its strategy, and from an organisational culture viewpoint, if it is the best fit for the future.

The key learnings from this case include the following:

• Organisational work model: A suitable work model is dependent on the organisational mandate as well as its culture.

• Culture and organisational goals: An organisational work model additionally impacts the future sustainability of the organisation and its ability to achieve its short- and long-term goals.

• Change management framework: For teams to effectively adapt to a hybrid work model, managers have to be empowered to lead and be able to facilitate the change.

Organisational work model: A suitable work model is dependent on the organisational mandate as well as its culture.

Culture and organisational goals: An organisational work model additionally impacts the future sustainability of the organisation and its ability to achieve its short- and long-term goals.

Change management framework: For teams to effectively adapt to a hybrid work model, managers have to be empowered to lead and be able to facilitate the change.

“Driving Strategic Change at the Junior League (A)” describes a troubled organizational environment. Challenges included a dissatisfied membership, declining membership numbers, a large diversity among local leagues, and limited resources to meet the organization's overall objectives. The case describes a “participatory roadmap” approach, drawing on the insights of comprehensive research, and highlights a strategic-change approach that focuses on participation and local-level flexibility.

The (B) case examines how the Association of Junior Leagues International (AJLI) took initial steps to implement the participatory roadmap. Through a purposeful messaging strategy that involved many targets and various modes of communication, AJLI leaders sought to influence and inform active members, sustainers, and their local leaders. Further, through the use of design teams, AJLI gained deep insight into the ways that implementation might vary across local leagues. Finally, these design teams enabled AJLI to make initial gains in membership and develop a cross-league learning community.

After reading and analyzing the (B) case, students should be able to:

• Identify successful communication strategies for change

• Appraise the level of readiness for organizational change and design strategies to address that level of readiness

• Describe the three implementation strategies (i.e., normative-reeducative, power-coercive, empirical-rational) and the circumstances under which each would be appropriate

• Develop an interactive process for encouraging feedback on the change process

Identify successful communication strategies for change

Appraise the level of readiness for organizational change and design strategies to address that level of readiness

Describe the three implementation strategies (i.e., normative-reeducative, power-coercive, empirical-rational) and the circumstances under which each would be appropriate

Develop an interactive process for encouraging feedback on the change process

The case was developed from secondary sources and interviews with a security analyst. The secondary sources include company annual reports, news reports, analyst reports, industry reports, company websites, stock exchange websites and databases such as Bloomberg and CMIE Prowess.

Increasing competition in product and capital markets has put tremendous pressure on managers to become more cost competitive. To address their firms' uncompetitive cost structures, managers may have to consider dramatic restructuring of their businesses. During 2014–2017, Tata Steel Ltd (TSL) UK considered a series of divestitures and a merger plan to nurse the company back to health. The case considers the economics of the restructuring plan. The case is designed to help students analyze a corporate downsizing program undertaken by a large Indian company in the UK and to highlight the dynamic role of the CFO and governance issues in family firms. It introduces students to issues surrounding a typical restructuring and provides students a platform to practice the estimation of value creation in a restructuring exercise. While some cases on corporate restructuring in the context of developed economies are available, there are very few cases written in an emerging market context. This case bridges that gap. TSL presents a unique opportunity to study corporate restructuring necessitated by a failed cross-border acquisition. It illustrates the potential for value loss in large, cross-border acquisitions. It shows how managerial hubris can prompt family firm owners to overbid in acquisitions and create legacy hot spots. In addition, the case can be used to discuss the causes of governance failures such as weak institutional monitoring and poor legal enforcement in emerging markets that could potentially harm minority shareholders.

The case was developed from secondary sources and interviews with a security analyst. The secondary sources include company annual reports, news reports, analyst reports, industry reports, company websites, stock exchange websites and databases such as Bloomberg and CMIE Prowess.

Development of business models, base of the pyramid (BoP) markets.

This study can be used at Bachelor as well as on Master's level courses to reflect activities and practices within corporate sustainability, base of the pyramid and international expansion of MNEs.

This is a case study of Grundfos LIFELINK's development process, relating to the successful development of a business model for serving base of the pyramid (BoP) markets for potable water. Grundfos LIFELINK is a turnkey water solution that encompasses a solar-driven pump facility, a GPS-based monitoring system, and charges based on digital payments of water credits. Together, they represent the business model of Grundfos LIFELINK. At the same time the modules represent a business architecture that can be mixed and matched to match the skills and ensure the adaptive involvement of local partners in BoP markets. Since its cautious start in 2009, Grundfos has successfully expanded its operations to 30 villages in Kenya and LIFELINK systems will operate in 70 villages in Kenya within the next two years.

In an international business/international management context, especially the first and the last part of the case could be used as a showcase of the current transformation efforts multinational companies (MNCs) in the developed world are pursuing. Pressured by the cost advantages of Dragon multinationals from Asia, India and Brazil, MNCs search for new ways to provide value and at the same time utilize their existing knowledge. The Grundfos LIFELINK case shows some of the important consequences and challenges that multinational organizations are facing, once such business models needs to be integrated in the current MNC activities.

Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

This case is based on primary and secondary sources of information. These sources include interviews with senior executives as well as documents provided by Mondragon and Eroski. The interviews were conducted on-site. In addition, the authors researched the literature on both organizations.

Eroski is the largest of Mondragon Corporation’s coops. Since its founding, Eroski has faced numerous challenges. It has responded to each challenge with out-of-the-box thinking. In response to the pandemic, Eroski become an e-commerce supermarket as well as selectively continuing bricks and mortar stores. As the pandemic is winding down, Eroski is considering how to respond to the “new normal,” which is largely undefined. The question posited at the end of the case is, “Will Eroski be able to hold to its social principles, maintain its unusual governance model and other unusual practices, and survive this latest challenge?”

Eroski of Mondragon is a complex and unusual organization. To appreciate the challenges and how they were overcome by its unique business model, a student must have a minimum background in management, corporate finance and marketing. Thus, this case would fit well into a senior or graduate class on strategic human resource management. It is also recommended for the strategy capstone course usually offered during the last year of a business bachelor’s degree (senior level) to ensure that students are introduced to what Paul Adler refers to as an alternative business model. It can also be targeted for an advanced management course or a strategy course at the MBA and executive levels.

The case study uses a strategic foresight method, scenario-planning, to examine the strategic options for a financial services firm. As such, it covers the fields of strategy, environment of business, innovation, digital disruption and organizational change as they relate to the firm’s ability to adapt to changes in the environment of business in an emerging market context.

The case was developed with master's-level students in mind, particularly those seeking a master of business administration, masters in strategic foresight or related management degrees.

The case of NEDBANK, a longstanding and successful financial services firm based in South Africa is confronted with major challenges from competitors because of technological change in the industry as well as having to expand their market penetration across Africa. A rising regulatory burden, tough economic conditions and the need to access low income markets, provide a significant organizational development challenge as a decades-old bank, known for a relational approach to banking, has to navigate the new domains of “fintech”, micro-lending and public sector banking.

Students will gain comprehensive insight into the industry environment in emerging markets, understand the strategic management challenge before financial services firms in this environment and be able to consider the alternative strategic interventions that may be used to ensure corporate sustainability amid these challenges. Simultaneously, the case provides a comprehensive view into the use and application of scenario-planning for strategic management.

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CSS: 11: Strategy

The case includes theoretical references to family business, organizational culture, resource-based value and leadership.

The case combines primary and secondary data. There is ample public information about Martin Guitar including histories of the company and its instruments. These were used for background. Primary data were provided by the company in the form of customized data and interviews.. The case writer has served Martin Guitar as a consultant and also plays Martin instruments. The case writer had numerous opportunities to interview Chris and his key lieutenants.

In 2019, C.F. Martin IV (Chris) was in his fourth decade leading one of the America’s oldest family-owned companies, C.F. Martin & Co., Inc. Martin Guitar is a globally known maker of fine guitars that are prized by collectors, working musicians and amateur musicians. Chris was raised in the family business and took on the CEO’s position at the age of 30. The case describes the company’s management practices and the culture that has emerged from them. In 2019, at age 64, Chris confronted issues faced by his predecessors over multiple generations: how to prepare the company for succession, and maintain its strong performance as a family-owned company in a dynamic industry environment.

The case is designed for a management course for upper-level undergraduates.