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The present case study would help readers to understand paternalistic leadership behavior with its underlying theory. Readers would be able to appreciate the nature of experiences employees may have while working with a paternalistic leader high on authoritarianism. This case study would motivate readers to work out appropriate strategies for working under paternalistic bosses. The teaching note sensitizes readers about the complicated relationship between paternalistic leadership and culture.

Pyramid Globe Management Institute (PGMI) is struggling to generate revenue. PGMI founder, Tugmanshu Lakhani, has to find out new sources of revenue to keep the institute functioning. He constitutes a team of three professors for starting a new academic program with a foreign university. The initial success of the team brings favor from the founder but jealousy from the colleagues reeling under job threat. High authoritarianism and interference of the founder create a problematic situation for the three professors. When the new program starts showing promising results, the founder gets apprehensive about whether the new course may hurt the enrolment in the flagship program of the institute. The authoritarian and erratic behavior of the founder had a demotivating effect on the team working for the new program. Some team members resign under pressure while three professors stay to ensure the launch of the program. The professors have to resolve the conflict between their commitment toward PGMI in a troubled time and a career uncertainty if they continue working for it. Anticipating no change in the behavior of the founder and an uncertain future with PGMI, three professors quit after the start of the new program. The founder may continue losing committed employees if he is unable to balance his authoritarianism with benevolence and moral behavior. It will create more problems for PGMI in the future.

This case can be used in organizational behavior, leadership and team-building courses in the regular Master of Business Administration (MBA) programs. The case can further be used in the executive development program, especially for analyzing the leadership problem in higher education organizations.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 7: Management science.

Corporate governance; General management; Strategy

Post Graduate/MBA

Tata Group is a conglomerate having 29 listed companies with consolidated revenues of $103bn in FY2016. On October 24, 2016, Cyrus Mistry, chairman of the group has been replaced in an unceremonious way from this job, in a boardroom coup, without being given any opportunity to explain his case. This news arrived in the media between October 2016 and December 2016 and wide and public debates took place on the corporate governance practices of Tata Group. Mistry’s ouster was attributed to non-performance, unethical practices and non-compliance to Tata culture. This case presents the Tata Group performance before Mistry, at the ouster of Mistry, the major trouble points and the corporate governance activities that took place in this saga at Tata Group. The real losers in this battle were the investors who lost $12bn between October 2016 and December 2016. Many of Tata Group companies’ stocks plunged.

The students will learn corporate governance, know how a non-listed company control and govern listed entities, know the way performance of a chairman of a company has been evaluated and learn how ethical and cultural issues impact the performance of chairman of a listed company.

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 case would be specifically useful in courses related to Corporate Governance, Board Dynamics, Leadership, Organizational Behaviour, Corporate Ethics and Strategic Management.

For Post-graduate/Doctoral and Executive Programme/Management Development Programme level courses in Corporate Governance, Board Dynamics, Leadership, Organizational Behaviour, Corporate Ethics and relevant areas of Strategic Management.

The case relates to the imminent departure of Raamit Pell, the founding CEO of Xcelent Services, an educational service provider, to his parental organization at Kozerton after completing his current five-year term. Raamit had moved from Kozerton to become CEO of Xcelent Services. Many of Raamit’s senior executives at Xcelent were not happy about his decision to return. They felt that his departure at this moment might, on the one hand, slow down the ongoing major expansion plans and on the other aggravate a mutiny, under covert Board patronage involving a powerful clique of certain senior executives. The parental agency finally agreed to release him. On the day of Raamit’s farewell, where surprisingly even the clique members were present, many executives appeared sad. Observing the mood, Raamit wondered whether his decision to return to Kozerton was the right one.

To understand the internal governance, leadership and behavioural environment of a company. To understand the impact of internal power equations of a company on the morale of its people. To analyze both the inconsistency between the stated goals of the organization and the revealed actions of its top decision-makers; and the lack of restraint on the power struggle among the top actors of the organization. To identify effective strategies for addressing such issues in future so that their fallouts would be minimized. To relate the behaviour in an organization to the organizational behavioural theories related to leadership, corporate governance, corporate ethics, managerial behaviour and agency problems.

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.

Abelha et al. (2018). “Transformational Leadership and Job Satisfaction: Assessing the influence of Organizational Contextual factors and Individual Characteristics” Review of Business Management, Volume 20 No 4, pp. 516–532. Avolio, B. J., Zhu, W., Koh, W. and Bhatia, P. (2004). Transformational leadership and organizational commitment: Mediating role of psychological empowerment and moderating role of structural distance. Journal of Organizational Behavior: The International Journal of Industrial, Occupational and Organizational Psychology and Behavior, 25(8), pp. 951–968. John M Alexander and Jane Buckingham, “Common good leadership in Business Management: an ethical model from Indian tradition”, Blackwell Publishing, 2011, UK and USA. Angus Corbett (2016). A systems approach to regulatory excellence (pp. 255–270), Achieving Regulatory Excellence, Brookings Institution Press, retrieved from http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/PBRLit/Corbett.pdf. Cary Coglianese (2015), Listening, Learning, Leading- a framework for regulatory excellence, Penn Program on Regulation, sourced from https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Listening-Learning-Leading_Coglianese-1.pdf

First, skills: to help students to apply their knowledge in transformational leadership; to help students to apply their understanding of impact of transformational leadership on organizational excellence in not-for-profit organizations. Second, knowledge enhancement: to understand the various components of transformational leadership; to enable the students to understand the different components of organizational excellence with a special focus on not-for-profit organizations and government regulators; to enable the students to understand the process of impact of transformational leadership on organizational excellence and its relevance in emerging markets context. Third, attitude development: students should understand the importance of leadership and its impact in emerging markets.

The case elucidates the transformational leadership style of AICTE Chairman and his key attributes of humility, high ethical standards, openness to ideas and suggestions and problem-solving attitude. The case also highlights how the transformational leadership style of AICTE Chairman heralded the journey of Organizational Excellence of AICTE – an Indian Technical Education regulator. The case maps the change of AICTE from an inward-looking, controlling, opaque organization to a forward-looking, enabling, transparent organization.

This case can be used in leadership classes for Management in Business Administration (MBA) students and participants in executive development programs. The case focuses on transformational leadership and its impact on organizational excellence in context of emerging markets The case also outlines the various components of organizational excellence in not-for-profit organizations and government regulators and hence provides a fresh perspective for measuring organizational excellence.

CSS: 10: Public Sector Management.

The Chairman of the 60-year old company Texica, Ashutosh Verma approached Dr. Asim Vakil who had wide experience in consulting turnaround activities in declining organizations. The organization had undergone a few rounds of downsizing and was also reporting about 15–20% attrition in the organization. Vakil was requested to redesign the job description and the appraisal system of the employees. He found several gaps in the existing process. The human resource processes were not well-structured and the key performance indicators of the employees were not communicated to them properly. So, the team decided to deep-dive into the activity based job allocation to different employees and found interesting results. They decided to discuss their results with the Chairman. The Chairman asked the team to discuss the results with the top management of the organization. The meeting was aimed at identifying not only the operational issues in the organization but also the attitudinal problems in the organization.

The learning outcomes of this paper are as follows: to understand the characteristics of a natural monopoly such as telecommunications sector and impact of “network externality”; to understand the role of a regulator in maintaining a balance between competition and consolidation of telecom sector; to understand the importance of first-mover advantage in telecom sector and coping mechanism of late entrants; to understand different pricing mechanisms of “natural monopolies” that can be adopted to remain profitable; to understand social cost of price floor in telecommunications sector.

Indian telecom sector is going through a downturn where most of the private sector telecom service providers have reported huge losses, failed to pay adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues and reported decline in average revenue per user over a period of 3–4 years. Fierce competition in the sector leads to rock bottom calling and data charges. Bharti Airtel benefitted for being the first mover in terms of market share but with entry of JIO in 2016, the service providers have entered a price war. As a result, service providers have requested Mr. R.S. Sharma, Chairman of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to come up with a floor on calling charges and requested the government for a bailout package. Currently, Mr. R.S. Sharma, Chairman TRAI is facing a dilemma whether to regulate and come up with a floor on calling and data charges or leave the sector for market correction. Mr. Sharma can also recommend to amend the definition of AGR. Telecommunications sector exhibit the characteristics of a natural monopoly where there is a need of a regulator to introduce “competition for the sector” and “competition in the sector.” In India, TRAI is the regulatory body responsible for introducing “competition for the sector” by auction and “competition in the sector” by deregulating calling and data charges, maintaining at least three private and one public service provider, decreasing “switching cost” of the customers, etc. The case deals with the issues of why there is a need of a regulator in natural monopolies, how different chairmen of TRAI have successfully introduced competition “for” and “in” the sector, and how Indian telecom sector went through a downturn? What should TRAI do to maintain competition in the sector?

The case deals with the issue of managing telecommunications sector (a natural monopoly) by a regulator in the context of India. The regulator had successfully introduced “competition in the sector” and “competition for the sector.” This led to sharp increase in subscriber base and decrease in calling and data charges. Presently, fierce competition in the sector has left the service providers cash crunched. The case deals with the dilemma faced by the chairman of the regulatory body in India on whether the regulator should come up with a price floor or market correction. Study level: MBA, Executive MBA.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 10: Public sector management.

On March 7, 2013, ThyssenKrupp Group CEO Heinrich Hiesinger was shocked to receive a resignation letter from Gerhard Cromme, chairman of the company's supervisory board.

Hiesinger had been CEO since 2010. Early in his tenure, ThyssenKrupp incurred massive losses from disastrous steel investments and faced allegations of colluding with other companies to fix prices in its railway steel operations. As a result, Hiesinger had been forced to dismiss three executive board members, one for violating company policy. After a supervisory board member also was dismissed for violating company policy, the company's offices were raided in an investigation of price-fixing in steel contracts to the automotive industry.

Cromme had been sharply criticized by shareholders and analysts as an impediment to the cultural, strategic, and governance changes Hiesinger was trying to make to address the scandals at ThyssenKrupp, but for months he defiantly had resisted calls for his removal. With no warning, he resigned without naming a successor or creating a plan to select one.

Now that he no longer needed to deal with the distractions created by Cromme's presence, Hiesinger was free to finalize a plan to address the defects in ThyssenKrupp's governance.

The case describes the internal growth workshop initiative at Vedanta Group. Anil Agarwal in 1976 founded Vedanta as a scrap-metal dealership in Mumbai (then Bombay). Over the years, Anil pursued a very aggressive growth journey with a vision to create a leading global natural resource company. The principal objective of discussing this case is to understand how Vedanta introduced this initiative and how it fits within the strategic human resource management at the group.

The non-executive Chairman, Chaturvedi, must lead the Board of Directors of ICICI Bank as it deals with the adverse findings by a former Supreme Court judge against Ms. Chanda Kochhar, the former Chief Executive of the Bank. She had not disclosed a conflict of interest regarding a loan to a corporate group that had business dealings with her husband. Months earlier, the Board had exonerated her and also allowed her to retire from the Bank. Could and should the Board now reclassify Kochhar's retirement as ‘Termination for Cause’ and claw back her past bonuses?

This paper aims to first, identify the external and internal factors that a company needs to analyze when formulating its digital platform strategy. Based on the framework of PESTNPG (political economic social and culture technological population and globalization) and internal analysis a company should analyze both internal and external factors to formulate its digital platform strategy. For companies from emerging markets the institutional-based market created by national or local governments is important for digital platform strategy. Second dynamic capability theory and its linkages to digital platform strategy. The dynamic capabilities view is considered as a primary theoretical lens in the strategy literature to analyze a company’s strategies to achieve sustainable competitive advantages. To carry out a successful digital platform strategy companies need to build strong dynamic capabilities to capture or create opportunities and reconfigure their resources simultaneously. Third the advantages and disadvantages of different digital platform strategies (i.e. an independent digital platform and online–offline integration platform) and the possible consequences and risks of different strategies. It is important to evaluate different types of digital platform strategies that require different capabilities in terms of business structure product structure revenue structure organizational structure and technology architecture. A company needs to link these capabilities to a digital platform strategy to enable the integration (or separation) of online business with offline business. It also increases the accuracy and efficiency of online business. Fourth key points of digital platform strategy implementation. Companies need to identify key profit models for their digital platform to promote business growth and financial returns. It is equally important to increase customer value by leveraging its digital exhibition platform and to learn to use digital technology to foster organizational dematerialization.

Zhejiang Meorient Commerce & Exhibition Inc. (hereinafter referred to as “Meorient”) was a leading company in the exhibition industry in China. The unexpected outbreak of COVID-19 plunged Meorient into a state of emergency that forced it to fight for survival. Further, China had launched a national strategy of Digital China, which created new market opportunities for Meorient. As a result, Meorient gradually developed and launched its digital exhibition services in 2015. Meorient suffered significant losses in 2020 due to COVID-19 and had to formulate a new strategy based on a digital exhibition platform in 2021. Chairman Pan Jianjun had two options. One was a purely digital platform strategy without the original offline exhibition business. The other one was an online and offline integration strategy. Which option was the best way forward for Meorient? Pan had to make a choice. Some of the top management team members believed Meorient should completely transform into a digital platform company and provide comprehensive online digital exhibition services. Over the previous 20 years, Meorient had accumulated a large amount of data from domestic and foreign exhibitors and professional buyers and had gradually developed a digital exhibition platform. It was one of the companies that pioneered digital transformation within China’s exhibition industry. More conservative thinking held that Meorient's strategy should focus more narrowly on the integration of online and offline exhibition businesses. Toward the post-pandemic era, China’s national strategy of “Digital China” accelerated the development of digital infrastructures. During such critical transitional period, Meorient had to choose wisely if it was to sustain its profits or even survive.

The case is aimed at students in undergraduate, MBA, short course executive, EMBA or other executive education programs, especially where digital transformation is featured subject matter.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy