Search results

In May 2009 the Office of the Chief Actuary for the U.S. Social Security Administration projected that by 2016 the Social Security Trust Fund would begin to spend more money than it took in through tax revenue. Further, by 2037 the balance in the Trust Fund would be down to zero, necessitating cuts in benefits to retirees. The U.S. Social Security system thus faced a long-term financial problem that needed to be addressed sooner rather than later. The experience of other countries in reforming their own systems of old-age insurance might provide some guidance for U.S. policymakers as they attempt to deal with the long-run fiscal challenges facing the U.S. Social Security system. This case focuses on reforms of old-age insurance systems in three countries: Australia, Mexico, and Sweden.

This case gives students the opportunity to debate the variety of approaches that could be used to reform the U.S. Social Security system. It also gives insight into how countries around the world have structured their old-age insurance systems.

This case will lead students to a discussion of the causes and effects of hyperinflation. The link with fiscal deficits is explored, and so is the link with societal changes. The particular focus is on the hyperinflation in Zimbabwe under President Robert Mugabe whose government implemented a controversial land redistribution program. The case can be taught with a class experiment—see teaching note.

This case is underpinned by multiple motivational theories, including Maslow’s Hierarchy, Alderfer’s existence relatedness growth, equity theory, expectancy theory and Herzberg’s two-factor theory.

This data was gleaned from the protagonist and corporate documents. Names have been changed to conceal the identity of the firm and its employees.

Vivienne consistently earned high-performance ratings at her firm. She designed the internal firm university, a permanent learning program. She then noticed other employees being promoted based on her work. She was not offered a promotion, so she conducted a job analysis. Based on those findings, Vivienne decided to develop and present a retitling proposal for her promotion to a title better aligned with the level of work she performed. This case analyzes Vivienne’s organization, the firm university program, and her retitling proposal using management theories, human resources laws, and concepts, and it leads to an important career crossroads.

Undergraduate courses: organizational behavior and human resource management.

For discussion of social entrepreneurship in middle-income economies, emerging markets generally and Africa, specifically, Quali Health presents interesting questions about entrepreneurial funding, scaling and the interplay between social entrepreneurial activities and the informal sector.

South Africa’s primary health outcomes do not correspond to the country’s spending on public health, with South Africa ranking among the worst globally in the incidence of tuberculosis, HIV prevalence, infant mortality and life expectancy. In part, this poor outcome can be explained by high inequality in access to healthcare, which reflects South Africa’s grossly skewed income and wealth distributions, with the bulk of the country’s population reliant upon an underfunded, inefficient and poorly managed public health system. This substandard service for the working poor in South Africa’s townships with high population densities offered a profitable entrepreneurial opportunity to provide affordable and effective primary care with vast gains in quality and outcomes improved dignity for patients. After receiving her MBA, physician and entrepreneur Dr Nthabiseng Legoete self-funded the launch of Quali Health in 2017. The business model set out to disrupt healthcare delivery for South Africa’s poorest citizens. Drawing patients from the working poor in Diepsloot, Quali Health’s inaugural site was cash flow positive within five months when the facility hit only 30% of installed service capacity. With quick success, Dr Legoete faced the strategic question of how fast to scale and finance the expansion. She also considered a new micro-insurance product for her clientele.

For discussion of social entrepreneurship in middle-income economies, emerging markets generally and Africa, specifically, Quali Health presents interesting questions about entrepreneurial funding, scaling and the interplay between social entrepreneurial activities and the informal sector.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS: 3 Entrepreneurship.

Public Health; Leadership; Organisational Development; Organisational Behaviour; Public Administration Management.

Postgraduate level for honours or masters programmes in courses on public health; executive leadership and management programmes; MBA level.

The case unpacks decentralisation as a means to promote and improve local decision-making and accountability through community participation and engagements. Ayanda Nkele was a programme manager in a health district in South Africa. He was faced with many challenges when trying to implement his programme, most of which were related to local authority, responsibilities and decision-making abilities at his level. This case describes briefly the South African health system. and how it functions. It describes the proposed changes to the health system and its transformation towards Universal Health Coverage. The decision space analysis as discussed in the case illustrates the types of decentralisation in the country and how this also applies to Nkele’s level.

Understanding the concepts and principles of decentralisation within the context of strengthening district health services, the re-engineering of primary health care (PHC) and rolling out a National Health Insurance in South Africa. Applying the “decision space” approach to analyse the extent of decentralisation. Grasping the requirement of leaders to be “contextually intelligent” and identify the important contextual variables to take into account when analysing public health care.

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 7: Management Science.

This case is appropriate for use in undergraduate and MBA courses.

This case can be used in courses in business ethics, leading teams and organizations or business strategy. The focus of the case aligns well with discussions of managing up, navigating changes in top leadership and conflicts between executive vision and future company growth. Instructors that choose to emphasize the ethical approach could assign this case to explore tradeoffs between loyalty to current and future bosses.

Associate Director of Forecasting Cindy March faces a multi-faceted dilemma as biotech firm Veracity’s acquisition date by pharmaceutical giant Makhola approaches. After a new competitor enters the market, March expects Veracity drug Sangren’s future revenue to drop to $600m in 2019, but the outgoing Veracity CEO refuses to accept a forecast of less than $700m. March suspects that the CEO is intent on handing over a financially successful company and is overly optimistic about Sangren’s ability to maintain market share. In two weeks, March is due to present a 2019 Sangren forecast to incoming Makhola leadership, who she anticipates becoming her direct boss after the acquisition. Should March present the inflated forecasts and accept the poor reflection on her professional abilities or should she refuse to present numbers she does not believe in?

By analyzing and discussing the case, students should be able to:Evaluate the potential business and ethical conflicts arising from decision-making based on both data and intuition. Synthesize an appropriate strategy for navigating tradeoffs between current and future leadership.Analyze the gender dynamics of male-dominated executive leadership structures and strategies for female employees to combat gender biases.

The Behavioral Science Guys, 2015. One Simple Skill to Curb Unconscious Gender Bias. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEHi4yauhu8&ab_channel=VitalSmartsVideoTeaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

CSS 6: Human resources.

It is January 2017, and Nikki Tyler, market access advisor at the U.S. Agency for International Development's Center for Accelerating Innovation and Impact, must recommend an actionable strategy for how to use the $10 million contributed by global donors and foundations to scale up the use of chlorhexidine in Nigeria. It was clear that chlorhexidine, a substance applied to newborns' umbilical cord stumps to prevent infection, could reduce infant mortality significantly. However, changing behavior would be an enormous challenge. This case gives students an appreciation for the importance and complexity of global health issues, along with an understanding of key analytic techniques for approaching a complex market situation. Students quickly learn that there are no easy answers to encouraging chlorhexidine's greater use. To develop a plan, it is essential to complete detailed analyses, study insights and motivations, and ultimately compare different possible solutions, considering efficiency and efficacy.

This case replaces UVA-M-0837. It can be used in a variety of marketing and strategy classes to understand how (1) at a macro level, a shift in consumer and environmental factors can impact firm strategy and (2) at a micro level, an e-mail-based marketing campaign designed to address these changes can impact firm-level performance.

The case puts the students in the position of CEO Robert Huth as he is preparing for a board meeting. He had taken David's Bridal from a loss in 1996 to sales of over $1 billion by 2011, but he was concerned about future growth. People were waiting longer and longer to get married and, once they decided to, were spending much less than in the past, so the industry had seen year-over-year declines since 2007. How would David's Bridal establish its brand in the minds of a new generation of brides who shopped, purchased, and decided differently than had brides in past generations?

Information was obtained in interviews with Richard Nagel in Winter/Spring 2022. This information was supplemented by material from secondary sources. The only information that was disguised were the real names for Bob Crater, Tim Landy, Jane Tolley and Mary Nagel.

The case was classroom tested in Summer 2022. The responses from students helped to shape the writing of the case.

Richard Nagel, the owner of the RE/MAX Elite real estate agency in Monmouth Beach, New Jersey, has just learned that one of his agents, Tim Landy, quit and left the industry. Tim was a young real estate agent and Richard had spent considerable time training him. Tim was motivated and he worked hard to prospect for business, but he showed that he was experiencing difficulty closing on his sales. Richard decided to recommend that Tim work with another agent, Bob Crater, as Bob was an experienced salesman but was not doing the up-front prospecting that Tim was doing. Richard suggested two different strategies to the two agents – a pairing up arrangement and peer-to-peer learning. The outcome that Richard envisioned was that both of the struggling salesmen would benefit from either of these strategies, but Bob refused to collaborate.

Tim’s quitting was characteristic of an ongoing problem with employee retention that Richard had been experiencing as a manager in recent years. This problem caused Richard to think about how he recruited his real estate agents, how he developed them through coaching and how he motivated them so that they would stay happy in their job and not leave. He recognized the importance of thoroughly examining his retention strategy within the next 12 months so that he could better manage the problem and strengthen the productivity of his real estate agency.

The case is intended for an undergraduate course in human resources management, as it deals directly with recruiting, coaching and retaining employees.

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.