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Existing models of decline and turnaround assume an automatic initiation of a turnaround strategy when decline occurs. However, extended decline over time suggests that the turnaround strategy did not match the causality and severity of the situation. Borrowing from the crisis management literature, this paper argues that a triggering event or events needs to shock incumbent management into realizing that different action is called for. Such triggering events, or triggers, also play a role in the turnaround process by influencing strategies and inducing management changes. Incorporating the need for, and role of, triggers in understanding the decline/turnaround sequence helps explain the iterative and non‐sequential nature of this process.

The case describes the evolution of Bangladesh's garment industry, the second largest garment exporter in the world, and its operational problems. The focus is on the fire that occurred on November 24, 2012 at Tazreen Fashions, a unit that is a part of a global supply chain for US and European retailers. The case explores the role of the government, western retailers, industry association and NGOs subsequent to the fire, and shows how increasing CSR expectations of corporations are making them take on responsibility for what should be that of the government or the garment unit.

Secondary sources; published materials.

International Business, Business and Society, Supply Chain Management, Doing Business in Emerging Markets.

Corporate social responsibility stakeholder theory market entry.

Looks at five cases of significant value destruction – when acquisition was followed by divestiture at a much lower price. Notes that closer examination reveals several fault lines that companies frequently encounter as they execute their corporate strategy.

The competitive landscape of the U.S. domestic airlines dramatically changed when the industry was deregulated in 1978. While airline traffic and revenues grew exponentially, aided by unfettered market competition and resulting efficiency, airline profitability had mostly stayed lackluster due to cost pressures, chronic oversupply of seats, and intense price-based rivalry to fill seats. Thirty-two years into deregulation, the major airlines were still searching for the Holy Grail that would defend them against industry threats and deliver sustained profitability. This case describes the evolution of the U.S. domestic airline industry over the years, the cost pressures and revenue uncertainties airlines faced at the beginning of 2010, and the strategic options they were contemplating to effectively deal with these issues. The options ranged from shaping the industry structure to achieving differentiation through service offerings. The exact choices they made would determine their survival and long-term success.

The case is a continuation of the series of articles, written in the form of a case, that focus upon various issues relating to case research, writing and teaching with cases. In this article Professor Moore and the other fictitious characters, confront the difficulties that he had experienced grading student case analyses. In discussing the situation with his department chair Gloria Gorham he learns much about the origins of grading and the various methods of evaluating student work. At a later date other colleagues, Chris Anderson and Dave Berger, are brought into the discussion expressing their views and providing rubrics for use in grading student case analyses.

In order to elaborate the concept of resources (a key component of the well-established resource-based theory of the firm) this paper concentrates on exploring and elaborating the associated concept of competences, in particular distinctive and core competences. This exploration includes an examination of the extant literature, alongside and in parallel with, an extensive body of action research undertaken over 15 years and with 44 top management teams engaged in strategy making. As such the concepts are scrutinized both in terms of their theoretical underpinnings as well as their impact on practice. The research reinforces the view that distinctiveness emerges most powerfully from the identification (or creation) of unique bundles or combinations of competences and that effective and meaningful core competences can be identified from understanding and refining the links between competences and organizational goals. The resultant conceptualization of the systemic competence/goals structure emerges from the interaction of theory and practice.

Experiential learning projects require students to go further than the typical theoretical and conceptual MBA coursework requiring them to draw on their previously acquired skills to solve actual business problems from a real-world client. The purpose of this paper is to offer a detailed overview of an experiential learning global consulting project and its potential benefits, along with practical classroom recommendations.

This paper describes a global consulting project embedded in an MBA international consulting course involving a German manufacturing company operating a single production facility in the USA.

Findings suggest that in post-class assessments students were quite supportive, touting is as one of the most beneficial to their MBA education and their job placement upon graduation.

This experiential project has largely been assessed through qualitative feedback from both the students and the client. Future research efforts should assess the project in a more robust fashion. Going forward, the use of survey assessments on the project as a whole would provide more objective feedback. Obtaining feedback from graduates 1 to 5 years post-graduation would provide a valuable perspective on the project’s overall effectiveness.

The global consulting project described in this manuscript provided students with a vehicle to mimic a consulting engagement with an actual client in a real-world context.

The global consulting project described in this manuscript provided students with an opportunity to develop further their global and cultural competence. In addition, it provides an opportunity for students to fully develop the critical thinking skills, business acumen and the soft skills required of them to be successful in their future careers.

The combination of an international context and high degree of client engagement on this project make it a unique learning opportunity. This project is different as it provides a comprehensive, step-by-step, integrated approach that begins with an extensive interview process to secure a spot on the team with limited openings, then client discussions to identify the problem and determine the scope of engagement, which includes a client contract that outlines the objective and the deliverable of the engagement, followed by personal skill assessment to draw upon meta-competences necessary for the project’s success. Immersing the students in the client engagement, wherever it may take them both intellectually as well as physically (i.e. domestic and international locations) creates a template from which they can draw upon periodically as they progress in their professional.

How employees react to layoffs after a divestiture depend on how they perceive the fairness of the deal.

The aim of this research is to study the implications of the human resources management practices on corruption in humanitarian aid as the phenomenon is under-researched (Akbar & Vujic, 2014; Melo & Quinn, 2015) and considered to be a hot topic since the determinants of corruption from an individual perspective have been scarcely discussed in the non-profit sector (Epperly & Lee, 2015; Mohiuddin & Dulay, 2015).

This research adopts grounded theory as a method and builds upon long experience in the humanitarian aid sector to generate theory from field observations and from 30 interviews conducted with respondents working in humanitarian organisations. The data collected from interviews was compared to observations data, leading the way to validating and expanding the findings.

The findings of this study are related to human resources administration weaknesses which appear to be directly linked to corruption in humanitarian aid. These weaknesses include issues in relation to Terms of Reference and organisational charts, irregularities in staff selection procedures, the short-termism of contracts, poor talent management, a lack of ethics awareness and mismanaged cultural diversity.

This study suffers from a few limitations pertaining to the sensitivity of the context, confidentiality issues, retrospection in some cases and possible bias resulting from staff frustration. These were dealt with through ensuring interviewees' utmost anonymity in publishing the results and through cross-checking answers of respondents from within the same organisation.

This research proposes a corruption preventive model which serves as a tool driving better human resources practices in humanitarian aid, and highlights the dangerous impact of corruption and raises awareness among humanitarian aid managers and workers about the importance of preventing it so that more vulnerable people are reached and that the donated money fulfils its intended target. The chapter brings value to research on humanitarian aid as it considers the corruption phenomenon with new lenses; focusing on individuals rather than on systems thus opening new horizons of study away from the traditional stream of research on service delivery.

Firms operate in a market for their corporate assets, wherein important assets being bought and sold are business units. This market is therefore a primary mechanism for firm reconfiguration, and offers the opportunity for firms to gain performance advantage as they prepare for and engage in their boundary-changing moves. This paper focuses on resource reconfiguration between firms, and examines internally and externally driven sources of performance heterogeneity in firms’ use of the market for firm reconfiguration. Viewing between-firm resource reconfiguration through three theoretical lenses surfaces several potential avenues for firm differentiation. For one, the necessity of firms’ possessing capabilities to execute both sides of the external resource reconfiguration transaction – acquisition and divestiture capabilities – is revealed. For another, the institutional prerequisites that are needed in the operating environment for a firm to build a sustainable resource reconfiguration strategy are brought to the fore, and are well illustrated by the private equity industry. Lastly, the potential benefits of using the transactional view of firm scope to animate the study of external resource reconfiguration are raised. Taken together, these elements lead to a research agenda around resource reconfiguration across firm boundaries.