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This case depicts a managerial problem faced by Tradition and Trust, a traditional sweet and snack manufacturer, which is 100-year old family business manufacturing, retailing and exporting sweets, snacks and other confectionery products. Like other traditional sweet and snack manufactures, the company is facing the challenge of consumers' shift towards ‘healthy snacking’. Moreover, brands like Haldiram's and Bikanerwala are posing a tough competition to the traditional sweet manufacturing brands. In recent years, the brand has witnessed a decline in sales. In view of the challenges posed to brand, the Chief Marketing Officer, wants to understand the various factors influencing decline of sales and find ways to redesign the strategy for sustaining its current position in the market. The case is written to illustrate how six fundamental steps of conducting a marketing research can be used to address a given managerial problem.

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.

Students comprehend the importance of the transformational idea and apply it in their leadership. Students can analyze how to spread the transformational idea across the team and the organization. Students understand the value of working with different stakeholders (partners, headquarters). Students can analyze the role of focusing on a client and apply client-centric way of thinking. Students can apply the concept of the transformational idea to create (synthesize) possible solutions for the presented dilemma.

This case tells the transformation story of the logistics company Ekol Ukraine, which began in 2013. This company was the most successful branch of Ekol Logistics, an international corporation operating in 13 countries. From 2013 till 2021, Ekol Ukraine experienced a crisis related to the start of a conflict between Ukraine and Russian militants. It proved its ability to cope with challenges, gained almost complete autonomy from the head office, transformed the business model and culture and achieved considerable success in building an ecosystem.

Having this stage of transformation completed by 2021, the company reached a plateau and had to decide what the following changes would be. In 2021, only 14% of Ukrainian businesses used outsourcing logistics services (like the ones Ekol Ukraine provided). The remaining 86% had in-house logistics and were not ready to change the model. So, Ekol Ukraine faced a problem: how could a logistics provider grow in a market that was not mentally ready to outsource?

MBA programs.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 7: Management science.

This case aims to assist students to learn about leadership theory and leadership effectiveness in terms of organizational change. It is best suited for undergraduate courses in leadership development, organizational behavior and specific teaching modules in Master in Business Administration courses.

Leadership and leadership effectiveness; organizational change.

This case is about a decade (2010–2020) of a transformation journey of the School of Business at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU). Dr Durnin has been the first female Dean of School of Business in Connecticut State Colleges and Universities (CSCU) who made this transformation possible and continuing on. With listening ears and a supportive heart, Dr Durnin first moved faculty and staff members out of a “sick” office building and then created a supportive and collaborative culture to build the consensus among faculty and staff members to change for good. It has been her personalized influence, charisma and extraordinary upward negotiation that lead the School to shape its collective effort toward a multi-year Association to Advance Collegiate School of Business accreditation process since 2014. When dealing the uncertainty caused by the 2020 global pandemic, her autonomy-supportive approach once again connected people meaningfully together to excel the challenges brought by COVID-19 pandemic.

This case provides an example of female leader in higher education to illustrate a successful transformational leadership (TFL) example in the USA, as well as its implications on gender issues and leadership effectiveness. Upon completing the analysis of this case, students should be able to: – understand the TFL concepts, theory and its behavioral implications on gender and leadership effectiveness; and – assess and evaluate effectiveness of TFL styles in organizations.

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

CSS 6: Human resources.

Transformational leadership, Organizational change, Gender and leadership effectiveness

Murrah Dairy Company Limited (Murrah Dairy) is a strategy and management case related to entrepreneurship, with a focus on marketing, expansion, strategy and management of a family-run small and medium enterprise (SME).

The case is suitable for senior undergraduate and/or graduate MBA strategic management, entrepreneurship and marketing courses.

The case is about Murrah Dairy, Thailand's first and only buffalo dairy producer. The company combines the concepts of regular SMEs together with community enterprises to build a business that can be used to achieve community benefits as well as private gains. With 11 years of experience, Murrah Dairy remains the first and only extensive dairy buffalo farm in Thailand. The market is growing, the brand is catching on and the company keeps expanding. Beginning with Murrah Farm in 2003, now Murrah Dairy now operates Murrah Farm, Murrah House and Mini Murrah Farm. The question now is where to go from here and what will it take to grow?

The expected learning outcomes are the increases in understanding on environment assessment (such as SWOT analysis, Porter's Five Forces, success factors), marketing strategy (product portfolio analysis, market-product analysis) and SME management, as well as abilities to propose growth strategies and marketing strategies for the firm.

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

Marketing management, consumer behaviour, rural marketing and integrated marketing communications.

The case is for the use of undergraduate and also postgraduate students of management in courses of marketing management, consumer behaviour, rural marketing and integrated marketing communications. This case may also be used in human resources’ management course lectures which focus on social capital.

This case on the Centre of Science for Villages (CSV), Wardha, attempts to identify how value can be co-created through innovative technology and how social capital can be developed for rural markets through the use of integrated marketing communications tools, particularly word-of-mouth and the influence of opinion leaders. Effective campaigns can be designed for the target audience based on the 3A framework (Awareness, Adoption and Addition of Value) and McGuire’s Model of Persuasion. The CSV has been typically chosen for the study because its products are unique, innovative and eco-friendly and blend well with the rural lives. It has been able to enrich the lives of rural population by generating employment and in creating entrepreneurial opportunities. The biggest challenge, however, lies in educating rural consumers to accept and adopt its innovative technology in their daily lives.

The case study has been written to enable students to understand the concepts of value co-creation and social capital in the context of Indian rural markets. The students will learn the dynamics of rural markets by pondering over these points: understand the concept of value co-creation for rural markets; comprehend the creation of social ecology for managing knowledge in an organisation; identify the development and role of social capital and use it as a promotional tool, particularly word-of-mouth and opinion leaders(reference groups); recommend the use of different marketing mix variables for an organisation, operating in rural markets; and connote designing of effective campaigns for the target audience, based on the 3A framework and the Persuasion Model (6 steps) suggested by McGuire.

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

Entrepreneurship, Strategic Management, Organizational Change Management.

Postgraduate and undergraduate students.

Restoran Minang Plus is a self-styled family-owned and managed restaurant featuring a gamut of Malaysian Negeri Sembilan and Indonesian Padang dishes. The eatery establishment has sailed the food industry waters successfully since 2004 and currently has five branches. However, there are certain imperatives they have to institute to integrate their entrepreneurial challenges with organizational change management. The nature of the forces in the competitive restaurant landscape requires a continuous rethinking of current strategic actions, organizational change, communication systems, motivation, asset deployment and strategic flexibility to respond quickly to changing conditions and thereby develop and maintain a competitive advantage. The question is how do they integrate this organizational change management to their entrepreneurial challenges with a view to achieve and maintain competitive advantage?

The expected learning outcomes are as follows: understanding managing diversity by looking at the different categories of diversity, that is, generic characteristics and learned characteristics that influence work attitudes; explaining how fostering learning and reinforcement can help in increasing job satisfaction; describing the basic motivational needs of the employees and how it can help in increasing job performance; understanding how an entrepreneurial firm can maximize its firm performance through effective change management; and understanding the importance of strategic management in an entrepreneurial firm.

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

Change in culture brought about by effective leadership is at the core of this case. Therefore, two broad topics can be discussed using this case: organizational culture change and Change Leadership OR Role of leaders in organzational change.

The case was prepared using primary data collected through a series of interviews conducted with participants of the change process. The participants included R. Sivanesan, Senior Vice President (Quality, Sourcing and Supply Chain) of Ashok Leyland, many members of the quality team, production department, HR executives and members of the marketing team. Secondary data in the form of an interview of Mr Vinod Dasari published in a popular magazine Autocar Professionals and organizational documents/presentations used during the change process were also used to build the case.

In 2011, when Vinod Dasari took over as the Managing Director and CEO of Ashok Leyland (AL), he hired R. Sivanesan. The quality standards of the vehicles produced in the AL plants in 2011 was far from satisfactory. He decided to change this. Part A of the case discusses the challenges faced by Sivanesan and Vinod Dasari in bringing about a change in the quality management practices at AL. Part B discusses the steps they actually took and the change that resulted from it.

At the end of the case discussion, the participants will be able to develop an understanding of the various aspects of organizational culture and how it manifests itself; become aware of the underlying causes of resistance to change; critically evaluate and apply various theories of change management; create an action plan for changing the culture of any organization; and appreciate the role of leaders as change agents.

The central theme in this case is managing culture change within organizations through effective leadership. Instructors teaching courses in organizational theory, organization structure/culture and leadership will find this case relevant. It is primarily intended for use in MBA and Executive Education programs in Management.

Marketing.

MBA students.

Titan Industries Limited is the world's fifth-largest wristwatch manufacturer and India's leading producer of watches under the Titan, Fastrack, Sonata, Nebula, Raga, Regalia, Octane and Xylys brand names. When a joint venture with Timex came to an end, Titan found themselves without a range of watches for the youth, a growing segment with significant disposable incomes. To serve that segment, they launched a range of “cool” casual watches under the Fastrack from Titan sub-brand in 1998. Sunglasses were also launched but under the Accessories division of the company. In 2003, a decision was taken to combine the watches and sunglasses and spin it off under a new group called “Fastrack and New Brands”. Post this spin-off, Fastrack was launched as a standalone brand with the vision of becoming the most iconic and exciting fashion brand for youth. The overarching strategy was to bring affordable fashion to the youth and bridging the gap between the unorganized market and international brands. The product strategy was to extend the brand rapidly into other accessories such as belts, wallets, bags and wristbands. The brand personality was to be irreverent and comfortable with impropriety. Their communications reflected the brand attitude with edgy advertising. The distribution model adopted was to have their own branded stores. The brand grew from a mere INR30 crores in 2003 to INR770 crores in 2013. As the brand grew largely from moving into adjacent product categories, Fastrack managers were always looking for the next product category to enter and dominate. In 2013-2014, the product category seriously being looked at was two-wheeler helmets – a category dominated largely by the unorganized sector with low quality. The challenge was to take a product category that existed mainly due to safety regulations and turn it into a personal, fashion accessory. Was it a large enough market to penetrate and dominate? Would they be able to change consumer perception of helmets being a necessary evil to being a fashion accessory proudly displayed? Can they change consumer purchase behavior to go shopping for helmets instead ofjust buying the cheapest, comfortable helmet? Would the brand extension into helmets strengthen or dilute brand equity? These were the questions that faced Ronnie Talati, the Chief Marketing Officer.

Understand how to go about creating a brand strategy when re-launching it as a standalone brand without the support of the corporate umbrella brand; analyze different product markets to enter and how to arrive at a go/no-go decision; comprehend the challenges of extending the brand into different and sometimes unrelated product categories.

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

This telecommunications international business case study is the second in a series (A, B and C) of Vodafone cases.

This case is intended to be used in MBA graduate and undergraduate business courses in strategy, cross-cultural management and human resources.

This case examined organizational structures and human resource operating strategies of Vodafone Egypt from 2002 until 2007. Vodafone’s business model, how Vodafone addressed the differences in national culture between Britain and Egypt and how Vodafone fostered adoption of the Vodafone corporate culture are the main themes of this case. Further, this case examined business issues, products, processes and people systems that challenged Vodafone to grow quickly from zero local operations in 1998 to 4,000 employees and national mobile coverage in 2007.

The students who have used this case in the author’s classes have gained a clearer understanding of how international managers often have to develop a change culture and structure as a catalyst for firm growth in emerging markets. Adaptation to the local culture may not be an option for fast growth technology firms and may be ill-suited to meet corporate objectives.

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 5: International Business.