Search results

For the design of this case study, the authors used primary sources of information from the shops visited by them in preparation of the case and website of Fred Perry and secondary sources of information from both academic and journalistic publications.

Fred Perry is a premium clothing brand, well-known for its polo shirts. It was created by Mr Fred Perry, a British tennis player. The brand’s stated values are integrity, personality and individuality. Throughout its history, the brand has been adopted by different British subcultures but recently it has faced a challenge because of the brand appropriation by the Proud Boys, a US far-right white supremacy group and other extremist groups as Antifa and hooligans. The nature and actions of the group mean that Fred Perry runs the risk of losing control over its brand equity. This brand hijack means that Fred Perry risks alienating some of its customers by openly opposing the group but also by embracing this subculture’s appropriation. Practically, the brand opposed the appropriation in a press release and by putting an end to the sale of the black and yellow polo shirts in the USA and Canada. Fred Perry has also made a lot of efforts to reposition the brand away from extremist groups while maintaining its strong historical and cultural roots. Through this case study, students will have the opportunity to discuss this topic and explore solutions for brands that face this type of dilemma.

This case is designed to be used in a marketing management, brand strategy or consumer behavior/culture course, especially in the subfield of market segmentation in the telecommunications sector. Specifically, this case is designed for college seniors or master students with basic strategic marketing training. This case will help students understand the difference between the brand identity that the brand owners intend and the brand image that consumers actually perceive. It provides the basis of discussions on the topics of brand management, consumer culture, consumers-brands relationships, brand architecture, brand equity, brand appropriation and repositioning strategy.

Integrated advertising, promotion and marketing communications.

The case has been developed for use in marketing communication as well as strategic brand management courses of MBA and/or PGDM programmes. It high/ights the fact that generating interest amongst customers is not the only task of marketing strategists but conversion of such interest into an effective purchase is what the marketing department should be looking for.

The case takes the students through the journey of Vodafone's marketing communication since its introduction in the Indian market. It gives the reader a briefing as to how Vodafone has grown in the past few years - the changes in communication strategies involved to propagate the product; the integrated marketing communications that have he/ped Vodafone increase its customer base considerably. As mentioned by Marten Pieters, CEO of Vodafone Essar, India is an emerging market and it is necessary for Vodafone not on/y to increase its customer base but a/so to generate revenues. Therefore, his di/emma is how to bring about the perceptual connect with customers which induces them into product usage.

The area of integrated advertising, promotion and marketing communications is an integral part of marketing. It forms the foundation of creating effective marketing programmes that in turn helps develop positive product perception in the minds of the customers. It also helps the student understand the role of customizing the marketing communication according to the target audience and the importance of integrating advertising with not only the promotional activities but also other newer forms of marketing communications. The case has been structured to achieve the following learning objectives: the role of marketing communications in creating and building brand Vodafone; understanding the importance and key elements of Vodafone's Zoozoo ad campaign relating it to Vodafone's communication strategies; and the effect of marketing communication on the customers' perception about the brand.

Teaching notes are available. Please consult your librarian for access.

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.

At the end of the case discussion, students should be able to:▪ analyse and discuss networks as a form of social capital;▪ identify and discuss alternative growth strategies for an small, medium, micro enterprise (SMME) in the context of prevailing challenges;▪ use the six domains of the entrepreneurship ecosystem to identify and discuss factors that enhance and challenge a business with particular reference to an SMME; and▪ analyse and understand the key dimensions of entrepreneurial behaviour using the case protagonist as an example.

Nhlanhla Dlamini, the managing director of Maneli Pets based in Johannesburg, South Africa had opened an office in Cincinnati in the USA in July 2019 to take over the distribution and marketing of the company’s high-quality protein pet treats. Just over eight months later, the COVID-19 pandemic exploded across the world resulting in unprecedented disruption to people’s lives, world trade and the global economy.Now, in June 2022, Dlamini contemplated the successes and challenges he had experienced since starting Maneli Pets in 2016, not least of which was parting company with US-based Novel Dog LLC, which had previously marketed and distributed the pet treats. He had built an internationally accredited factory from scratch, produced pet products and a brand that was appealing to the competitive international market, and exported to 12 countries around the world. However, Dlamini had also faced the retrenchment of a large number of staff, the breakdown of the relationship with Novel Dog, the difficulties of setting up a distribution business in the USA along with overseeing the South African factory, and in September 2019, his co-founder, Sipha Ndawonde, had left Maneli Pets.Maneli Pets had served Dlamini’s philanthropic purpose of creating jobs and contributing to the growth of the South African economy. Despite the setback of parting ways with Novel Dog, he hoped to continue to create jobs and return to and exceed the staff numbers he had achieved by 2018, regardless of the hard work involved.In his dual position of managing director of Maneli Pets, based in Johannesburg, and sales director of the distribution and marketing arm, Nandi Pets Inc. in Cincinnati, Dlamini had a global view of the companies’ financials that he realised had been missing initially. Would the new structure of Maneli Pets he had created in 2019 in a pre-pandemic world see the company profitable by the end of 2022? What else could he do to take the company to the next level?

MBA, Masters in Management, Postgraduate Diploma in Business, Executive Education short courses.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

Data for the case came from public sources, including legal proceedings, court filings and Securities and Exchange Commission filings. The authors perused hundreds of court documents and identified 28 that were most relevant to this case. The authors also used press interviews with the women highlighted in the case. The authors have no relationship with the company and no one from the company has reviewed the information presented in this case. As the case is drawn from sworn legal testimonies, interviews and related documents in the public domain, the authors did not have to seek approval for publication.

Pinterest touted itself as “the nicest place on the Internet.” It had an almost 80% female user base and purported to have an inclusive culture that embraced diversity. However, in June 2020, in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests, two former female employees of color violated their non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) to publicly accuse Pinterest of racial and gender discrimination. In August 2020, Pinterest’s former Chief Operating Officer, Francoise Brougher, filed a lawsuit charging the company with gender discrimination, retaliation and wrongful termination, and authored a public blog post titled, The Pinterest Paradox: Cupcakes and Toxicity, detailing her own experience with the company’s discriminatory culture. Three days later 236 of Pinterest’s 2,545 employees staged a virtual walkout and 445 employees signed a petition in an attempt to change Pinterest’s policies and culture. The case provides a brief overview of Pinterest, including its mission, values and organizational culture, and details several incidents and complaints by female and minority employees. The case questions whether employee complaints are a relatively narrow issue involving disgruntled former employees who did not fit at the organization or a much broader issue involving discrimination and managerial neglect in creating and maintaining a nondiscriminatory, inclusive culture. Students are encouraged to evaluate the situation in which Co-Founder, Board Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Ben Silbermann finds himself, evaluate the actions taken and decide if Silbermann should take any additional actions to address the discrimination claims and ensure a positive culture for all employees.

This case is appropriate for graduate and advanced undergraduate level courses in organizational behavior, human resource management and business law or any course where discrimination and workplace culture are discussed.

This case study aims to ensure that, students should be able to recognise the behaviours that influence the in-member out-member categorisation that transpires in the workplace, both from the leader’s perspective and that of the followers; determine and understand the relevance of forming interpersonal relationships in the workplace and that interpersonal relationships create fundamentally positive or negative work experiences and impact on career opportunities in the workplace; gain an understanding of the internal bias and subjective comfort that leaders must actively overcome to establish an environment in which the entire team becomes in-group members; and be able to assess the contextual variables that contribute to the negative or positive aggravation of the leader–member exchange.

It was 16 October 2014, and Nonkululeko Gobodo, Executive Chair of accounting firm SizweNtsalubaGobodo, was looking to her younger sister, Notemba Dlova, for emotional support, as she sought to address an important issue that was on the agenda of the firm’s board of directors’ meeting the following day. Tensions between her and Victor Sekese, Chief Executive Officer of the firm, were mounting, and a number of the directors were unhappy with the status quo. “How do you think I should address the issue?” she asked Dlova. Both sisters knew that at stake was Gobodo’s future at the firm she had battled so hard to build up in the face of racial and gender stereotypes.

The case study is appropriate for use in a range of postgraduate courses aimed at Master’s in Management and Master of Business Administration (MBA)-level students. It is also suitable for use in postgraduate diplomas in business and executive education short courses.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human Resource Management.

Josh Brochhausen and Adam Podrat, as partners in The Resource, wrote commercial music for the ads of several companies. They were innovators in the recording studio, and their music appealed to young consumers.

Josh and Adam also had become involved in producing records for hip hop artists. They undertook a project called Deaf in the Family, which was a full length album featuring artists from the hip hop underground. The record was well received among music critics from the underground press, but the project made no money because Josh and Adam did not have the financing to secure the appropriate clearances for the right to use samples from existing songs.

Their problem centered on the uncertainty of financial success in producing hip hop records, which was their passion, and deciding whether to devote energy and resources toward it, and away from making commercial music, which was their livelihood.

The teaching objectives of the case study are to provide students with an understanding of how strategic marketing tools are applied in an international marketing context and how brands, especially brands that come from emerging markets, are introduced and managed within modern versus traditional trade (e.g. ethnic shops).

This case illustrates the challenges and opportunities related to the introduction of a brand to a new market wherein the product (traditional coffee), although part of a very well-developed product category (coffee), may have been new to consumers in the new market. The brand itself, Zlatna džezva, is a flagship brand in its home country (Bosnia and Herzegovina) within a developing market. However, both the brand and the traditional coffee experience are relatively unknown to other markets. The case study focuses on Vispak’s CEO and CMO who are contemplating their next business move in the new market. Finally, the Dutch market and consumers are presented to facilitate the process of segmentation, targeting and positioning for students. The case study concludes with a task and dilemma for managers of the company.

This case could be used in a variety of undergraduate level classes, depending on what the instructor wishes to emphasize. The authors use the case for following courses: principles of marketing, marketing management and international marketing. In all courses, the case is allowing students to obtain the greater overview of the scope of the strategic marketing decision-making. Before starting with case analysis, students should have some familiarity with central marketing issues and concepts, specifically related to analysis of environment, segmentation-targeting-positioning, product and brand management.

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: 8: Marketing.

Andreas Stihl AG is the world's leading manufacturer of chain saws and other outdoor handheld power equipment. Based on marketing challenges in its high-volume retail channel—mass merchants such as The Home Depot and Lowe's—Stihl's U.S. unit has narrowed its distribution system to a single channel: independent retail dealers specializing in yard maintenance equipment. This risky and highly publicized decision has proved extremely successful, raising profits, attracting more dealers into exclusive relationships with Stihl, and strengthening the brand's top-quality positioning. But Stihl management are concerned that this channel system may not fit tomorrow's demographics, dominated by homeowners from the so-called Generation X and Generation Y. The case outlines Stihl's business and channel systems and customer needs, then poses a series of questions that management believes must be answered to determine whether to maintain or move away from reliance on its specialty retailers and how to adapt its system.

To understand issues related to retail channel strategy development in fast-changing consumer markets, as well as the challenges of adapting legacy routes-to-market systems to changing consumer service output demands.

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.