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The focus is on a performance management system and its strategic alignment using a Balanced scorecard in a Public Private Partnership framework. This case study analyses the situation for Tata Power Delhi Distribution (TPDD) which needs to realign its strategy to meet the emerging sustainability challenges of inclusive growth and combating the climate change. The case covers the field of strategic management, strategy formulation and performance management system deployment using the balanced scorecard. It touches upon the emerging need for corporates to look beyond economic signals and take social and environmental impacts into strategy planning process.

The case can be used in the following courses; post graduate program in public administration; MBA/Post graduate program in management in strategic management; executive training program for Government executives in public sector organizations to highlight the concept of performance management system in PPP companies.

After the initial tumultuous years, TPDD emerged as one of the efficient power distribution companies in Delhi region. One of the major management tools that was helpful to achieve this was the balanced scorecard. TPDD's general manager for corporate strategy & planning reviewed the process and the due diligence that went into designing and implementing the balanced scorecard. Now, after the balanced scorecard success story, he along with Dr Ganesh Das, Head of Group – Strategy wants to take it to a next level and integrate their strategies related to inclusive growth of community and combating the ill effects of climate change. They believe that the balanced scorecard method that had helped them to achieve their strategic goals will help them to achieve future objectives too. But whether the existing four perspectives: financial, customer, internal process and learning and growth would adequately address the emerging challenges or whether there was a need to introduce a new perspective – “The Social Perspective” – is what they contemplate in the case.

The case can be used to teach the following: the importance of strategy in an organization and how it helps the firms to realize their stated vision; to highlight the process of strategy formulation and its deployment; to help students realize the difficulties in realizing a strategic goal through performance management system; use the balanced scorecard as an effective tool for strategy deployment and organizational alignment; to introduce students the concept of sustainability in the organization and emerging global challenges; and to illustrate the complexities involved in a strategic planning process

Teaching notes.

HR, strategic alignment, organizational culture and change and organizational theory and design.

Suitable for undergraduate and graduate students taking up advanced courses in HR, Change Management, Organizational Theory and Design.

This case spotlights Production Services Network (PSN) Emirates JV and the strengths of its global network. The case raises many important issues related to building a unified culture across a global organization. The case specifically focuses on the significance of sourcing the right talent and training them for the success of PSN's global network.

This case may be used to teach topics such as leading cultural changes, steps to build a strong organizational culture and the significance of systemic alignment for successful strategy execution.

A teaching note is available on request.

After completing the case, students will be able to understand the reasons for the lack of successful strategy implementation in companies, especially engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) and general contractors in Iran’s oil, gas and petrochemical industry; understand the importance of alignment as an organization capital in successful strategy implementation and familiarize themselves with assessing the alignment readiness of companies; understand the importance of leadership as an organization capital in successful strategy implementation, comprehend one of the most essential theories of leadership in the world of management and familiarize themselves with assessing leadership readiness using this theory; and understand the importance of leadership as an organization capital in successful strategy implementation, comprehend one of the most essential models of organizational culture in the world of management and understand how to assess the readiness of organizational culture in companies.

This case discusses the reasons for strategy implementation failure at PetroSahand International Group, one of the most prominent EPC and general contractors in the oil, gas and petrochemical industry in Iran. This case also examines organization capitals such as alignment, leadership and organizational culture, the three most important factors for the successful implementation of strategies, at this company. PetroSahand is an international, project-oriented company that has been able to successfully complete more than 100 large domestic and international projects during its four decades of activity. However, the company is currently facing many difficulties such as overdue debts and projects.

The target audience of this case are graduates and undergraduates in the courses of Strategic Planning, Strategic Management, Strategy Implementation, Strategy in Action and Change Management. Additionally, this case study can be useful for senior managers of companies and can help in the successful implementation of strategies as well as improving their company’s alignment, leadership and organizational culture.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

Information management, IS alignment.

Undergraduate.

The case examines the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in one of Egypt’s top mobile service providers, through closely analyzing their systems, the way they work and how technology could be optimized to provide greater benefit and value to support an organization’s business goals. The main objective of the case was to identify business problems that information systems have managed to solve as well as grab a potential opportunity that the organization can or have captured. The main contribution of this case is to emphasize and provide real case application on information management concepts and theories related to Information Systems Alignment (IS Alignment), business value from IS adoption, IS implementation issues and information and process integration.

This case was written to present a practical example about the strategic use of ICT within a specific organizational context. It enables students to apply some theoretical concepts studied in information management courses (such as IS alignment – or strategic alignment –, IS assessment and IS implementation) on a real-case study. In particular, teaching this case aims to realize a number of learning objectives: understand telecom industry and acquire an overview about its environment and the challenges it faces in general and within a developing context in particular; identify the different technologies used by telecom companies; develop a business strategy based on a thorough analysis of an organization’s internal business operations as well as its external environment; and learn how to align IT use with organizational strategies and analyze critically both its tangible and intangible added values.

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

CSS 11: Strategy.

The subject areas are organizational management, organizational behaviour and human resource management.

The study is applicable for courses in human resource management and organizational behaviour as part of masters-level programmes in business administration and management, executive development programmes on organization design and development for middle/senior management.

In 2003, Elizabeth and Sunil Mehta had founded a voluntary organization, “Muktangan”, focussed on child-centric education through innovative pedagogy for the community of the urban poor. Elizabeth, an educationist, and Sunil, a highly successful business person, joined hands to contribute to the well-being of urban poor to make a difference to their lives. Elizabeth and Sunil presented a proposal to impart education for “the children of the community, by the teachers drawn from the community” to the residents of the slums in central Mumbai. With a humble beginning of running a small pre-school, Muktangan now manages seven schools with 3,400 children and 500 teachers, and a teachers’ training centre with a capacity to train 100 teachers a year. Muktangan won acclaim for its unique pedagogy and a very effective child-to-teacher ratio. Over the years, Elizabeth and Sunil led Muktangan with a strong passion and a “hands-on” approach. Of late, Elizabeth and Sunil faced questions from their donors about the sustainability of Muktangan with respect to leadership and management succession. Elizabeth and Sunil had a vision for Muktangan for self-directed growth with an empowered team. Muktangan embarked on the journey to create a leadership for self-directed growth. Sunil, Elizabeth and team Muktangan conceptualized and implemented a change management intervention with help from an external consultant to build the desired organization.

Outcomes are understanding issues involved in the leadership, organization design and management of change, particularly of those organizations engaged in social change and development in developing societies.

The Muktangan Story: Part A – An Organizational Study; The Muktangan Story Part B – Winds of Change; Teaching Note; References: Bradach J. (1996), Organizational Alignment: The 7-S Model, Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston, MA 02,163. Cooperrider D. and Whitney D. (2005), “A Positive Revolution in Change: Appreciative Inquiry”, In The Change Handbook. The Definitive Resource on Today’s Best Methods for Engaging.Whole Systems, by Peggy Holman, Tom Devane, and Steven Cady. Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Cooperrider D., Whitney D., and Stavros J.M. (2008), Appreciative Inquiry Handbook for Leaders of Change (Second Edition), Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Greiner, L.E. (1998), “Evolution and Revolution as Organizations Grow”, Harvard Business Review, May-June, 3-11. www.muktanganedu.org/ accessed 12 April, 2018. Kessler, E. H., (2013) (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Management Theory, Sage Publications Kotter, J. P. (1996), Leading Change, Harvard Business School Press, Boston. Lewin K. (1951), Field Theory in social science, Harper & Row, New York. Waterman, R. H., Peters, T. J., and Phillips, J. R. (1980), Structure is not organization. Business Horizons, 23(3), 14-26.

CSS 6: Human Resource Management.

After reading and discussing the case study, students should be able to identify the reasons why the company needed to digitise and how this links to the company’s strategy around technology and innovation, analyse the digitalisation implementation process followed in the case study by using an organisational change management model and make recommendations and propose a solution for the protagonist to consider for the successful roll-out of the digitalisation project.

DRA Projects is part of the DRA Global business based in South Africa. The company is known locally in the mining and engineering industry for its project development, delivery, execution and operations capabilities. Digital transformation is a key strategic focus in the industry, as clients seek digitised integrated systems. For this client offering, J.C. Heslinga, managing director of DRA Projects, was tasked with leading the digitalisation of the project delivery system. From July 2020 until July 2022, Heslinga led the implementation team through different organisational change stages. As the next phase included rolling out digitalisation to pilot projects and engaging employees and clients in the new process, Heslinga wondered if enough was done to ready the business for this change. The end users would be executing the changes, so their adoption will be imperative for successfully rolling out digitalisation. The case study concludes with Heslinga pondering the approach needed for the next phase. The case study focuses on the digitalisation implementation process through the lens of organisational change. The case study presents an opportunity to analyse and identify the theories and models used in organisational change within a real-life business context. The organisational change learnings can be adapted to help students with any transformation changes in similar business scenarios.

Postgraduate- and master’s-level students and business executives attending short courses will benefit from the learnings. The learnings can be applied to improve decision-making, organisational behaviour and strategic implementation using the fundamental principles of organisational change.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human resource management

Strategy, Emiratisation (national policy); human resources (recruitment, training and development, organizational culture and values) and marketing (branding, communication), tourism (destination image).

Undergraduate and Postgraduate Business and Management.

This case highlights the strategy and initiatives taken by Etihad to attract Emirati employees (local nationals) to join the organization. Etihad Airways is the national airline of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), based in Abu Dhabi, the national capital. Since its inception in 2003, the airline has grown faster than any other in commercial aviation history; it currently flies to more than 60 destinations in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, the Middle East and North America. In the UAE, nationals or Emiratis comprise only 20 per cent of the overall population. According to the UAE 2021 Vision, the government's focus is on building the human capabilities on knowledge and innovation for Emiratis. This vision is reinforced in the Abu Dhabi Economic Vision 2030, which aims to boost national participation, encourage women (national women are on average more highly educated than the men) and decrease the education – market demand gap through training.

This case can be used to teach strategy from the point of view of government, human resources and marketing. From the government point of view parallels can be drawn to other nations whose government have focused on policies to create opportunities for and to encourage local employability. An example of a similar programme that was very successful is the “Bumiputra” programme created for indigenous Malaysians in 1971. In the area of human resource strategy, recruitment, training, inculcation of corporate values are some areas that can be reinforced. Form the point of view of marketing; the case can be used to discuss branding from the point of view of people, loyalty building (internal) and communication (internal and external). Destination branding and the role airlines play can also be a discussion point from the strategic point of view with some opportunity for macro-environmental analysis using the PESTLE model.

A teaching note available upon request.

Organisational Development, Organisational Behaviour, Leadership Change.

Master of Business Administration, postgraduate studies, middle or senior managers on open programmes.

The case focuses on the dilemma that Douglas Lines, Nedbank’s Divisional Executive for Strategic Business Unit, South Africa, faced when a new sense of urgency was required to cultivate a culture of collaboration in Nedbank to overcome their silo-mentality.

Examine the current and recommend the preferred culture of Nedbank to enable collaboration; critically analyse and evaluate the suitability of the current structure recommend restructuring; insight into how contextual leadership contributes to collaboration in organisations; present judgement of strategies in initiating and enhancing collaboration to overcome silo-mentality.

A DVD is available with link and password. Teaching Plan and slides are available. The four learning outcomes are posed as questions for groups to discuss and model answers are provided as well as linking them to relevant literature.

CSS 7: Management Science.

Upon completion of the case discussion, students will be able to: identify the enablers of a mental skills coaching process and the broad outcomes as a result of a coaching intervention; understand the contributing factors towards creating greater psychological safety in a team and the impact this has on team performance; and identify positive leadership strategies to create an environment in which meaningful work and goal achievement increase engagement.

Leanne Redding was the mental skills coach for Maccabi, a professional league soccer club in Johannesburg, South Africa. Redding had worked with the club’s players using mental techniques, the ultimate aim being to improve performance. Redding’s work was based on the premise of trust, lived values, self-respect and reflection. She believed that a strengths-based approach grounded in sports psychology and aligned with mental contrasting enabled resilience. Her process of holding individual and team sessions helped with sustaining motivation, overcoming limiting fears and encouraging focus on the greater good of the team. The result was Maccabi’s promotion to the professional league of soccer. However, not all of her broad stakeholder group had bought into the value of sports psychology coaching. The case explores Redding’s process and her belief of the importance and buy-in from all players of the team values which should inform behaviour. The case concludes with Redding contemplating what she should do to gain greater acceptance from the rest of the coaching staff for her work.

This case can be used in graduate and postgraduate level courses such as an MBA, in management development programmes or in short executive education courses focusing on organisational behaviour, leadership and human capital development and sports management.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 7: Management Science.

Organizational Behavior and Strategic Management.

MBA, Management/Executive development programs.

This case study can be used effectively for understanding the nuances of employee loyalty, especially if there is a cost of employee loyalty. While Anand Finance is happy that its workforce has largely been loyal, the volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous times force it to chart new course of action. The newly appointed Business Head, Ashok Singh's challenges compound when he finds that there was not’t a single innovation or best practice adopted over the past three years. Given his mandate to make Anand Finance as the Walmart of financial services, can he aspire to rally the forces behind the new mission? This case study facilitates an interesting discussion on the significance of operational and strategic alignment at organizations in the backdrop of an interesting story of Anand Finance, one of the leading non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) in India. The non-alignment was noticed by Ashok Singh (Singh) who took over as the Business Head of Anand Finance. While the company boasted of long-standing employees, Singh was quick to notice that the company had been paying a cost for employee loyalty. What was the cost of employee loyalty? Singh could also sense that the company was in a state of active inertia. Expected to make Anand Finance Walmart for financial services by 2025, Singh had a big task at hand given the lack of strategic orientation of the employees. What would be the likely course of Singh's actions? As the case study deals with strategic dilemmas related to the organizational culture, it can be suitably used for organizational behavior and strategic management courses. This case study is meant highlight that even if an organization is operationally sound and successful, it cannot afford to be strategically disoriented, as its strengths may prove to be its weaknesses with changing business conditions.

At the end of this case discussion, the participants are expected to know the merits and demerits of employee loyalty and the implications of the same for organizational change; whether employees’ relatively longer stints at companies would contribute to active inertia (as defined by Donald N. Sull in Harvard Business Review article, “Why Good Companies Go Bad”); and the ways to align operational orientation with strategic mindset, especially in the case of employees who rose through the ranks and had been serving the company for relatively longer period.

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