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The dilemma falls within the Change Management, Leadership, Organizational Development subject areas. In addition, the case highlights typical issues in “green” or sustainable supply chain, corporate social responsibility and sustainability courses.

The target audience is includes post-graduate diploma-level or master’s level students, such as in Masters in Business Administration.

The case focuses on the dilemma that Phiwokuhle Mhlangu in Mpumalanga, South Africa, faced when his company’s board had not signed off on capital expenditure to improve his colliery’s clean coal technology initiatives. He had to influence his colleagues’ mindsets to adapt to changes in the environment. The case highlights the global coal landscape and South African mining industry’s challenges in terms of infrastructure and strained labour relations, as well as the focus of the South African Government to enhance alternative energy resources. Although a clear business case for investment in clean coal technologies was evident, Mhlangu could still not persuade his colleagues to support these initiatives. A different approach was required […]

The learning objectives in this case are: gaining insight into the dilemmas of sustainability in coal mining by exploring various interest groups in difficult sustainability situations and enhancing understanding of getting a buy-in from various stakeholders when leading change in the coal-mining sector.

A teaching plan and particular teaching methodologies is included. The two learning outcomes are posed as questions for groups to discuss and model answers are provided and to relevant literature.

CSS 7: Management Science

By the end of the case and class discussion, students will be able to estimate project costs and benefits, both tangible and intangible, analyse enterprise environmental factors that may impact a project, identify the complexities of managing a multinational project and evaluate a project status and determine if continuation or cessation is the best option.

This case narrates the story to connect landlocked Botswana’s rich coalfields with the Namibian coast. In 2005, the Governments of Botswana and Namibia started discussions to bring forth a 1,500-km railway that traverses the two countries to the Port of Walvis Bay. In total, 10 years and many lengthy negotiations later, the Trans-Kalahari Railway (TKR) Project Management Office finally opened in Windhoek in April 2015. The project is expected to cost US$14.2bn and will be developed via a public-private partnership approach based on a DBOOT contractual arrangement, whereby a developer undertakes the financing, design, construction, operation and maintenance of the project. This case illustrates the complexities of managing a multinational project. After much slower than expected progress, the viability of the project is questioned.

This case is intended for post-graduate business students and MBA students who are studying in a management curriculum. It is primarily written for students in a project management course but may also be used for other courses, such as a negotiation class. The case can be used with undergraduate students by modifying the case questions.

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.

By the end of the case study discussion, it is expected that students will have learned to assess what makes it likely that firms will respond to episodes of stakeholder activism; establish the interplay between nonmarket strategies and corporate governance mechanisms in assessing shareholder activism; explain about the board of directors as a corporate governance mechanism; evaluate the threats of nonmarket dimensions as a strategic response from the board; and understand the impact and increasing power of shareholders over board decisions.

In April 2019, to pressure Rumo S.A. regarding the duplication of the Itirapina–Cubatão railroad, indigenous peoples from 12 São Paulo villages bought six Rumo shares, which were quoted on Tuesday, April 23, 2019, at around BRL17 each. Duplication of the railroad started in 2011 and affected the lives of the Indians. The company promised to implement more than 100 improvements to the villages, but as of 2019, half of the improvements were at a standstill. After buying enough shares to entitle them to participate in the annual general meeting (AGM) of shareholders, the Indians went to Rumo’s AGM to voice their concerns and show how the villages had been affected. It was the audit committee that needed to discuss and solve the case of the indigenous peoples. What steps would Rumo take next? What was the best thing to do with regard to the claims of the Indians? This case shows the start of corporate activism in Brazil. This case reports the dilemma that Rumo faced with the indigenous activism at the beginning of 2019 because of the expansion of their railroad network across indigenous lands.

This case is suited for a class in which the students are exposed to a corporate governance framework and internal and external governance mechanisms. The case can be applied at the graduate and executive levels in relevant courses such as corporate governance, corporate responsibility, strategic management, and the stock market.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

Financial management, corporate finance, strategic management, managerial accounting and project management.

The case is suitable for courses such as MBA, Bachelor level business courses (in finance, business strategy) and training programs for working executives.

The case study deals with financial and strategic appraisal of a unique coal-to-liquid project. India imported about two thirds of its crude oil requirements resulting in huge outflow of precious foreign exchange. As a result, it became necessary for the country to look for alternative sources of energy. The coal-to-liquid (CTL) technology of coal gasification offers a credible alternative source of fuels as proved by Sasol of South Africa. The Government of India short-listed Global Synfuels Company (name changed) as one of the selected few companies to build a CTL project. While the project is strategically important to the company and highly desirable for the country, there are serious doubts about the commercial viability of the project because of which the company is in dilemma whether to go ahead with the project. The case study presents this decision dilemma in a very interesting way and will be useful for teaching courses in corporate finance and strategic management.

The case can be used to engage participants to make a SWOT analysis for a new business opportunity, discuss environmental and financial issues facing a company, use DCF techniques to evaluate the project viability, carry out scenario analysis of the project to the changes in variables as well as challenge the participants to generate strategies for the success of a new project. Participants would also develop a better understanding of: environmental issues involved in CTL projects and new technologies to deal with such issues; and the employment impact of large projects such as the CTL.

Teaching notes are available; please consult your librarian for access.

Marketing - value proposition and value delivery, switching cost, customer acquisition and retention, positioning, pricing, distribution and retailing, role of trust and transparency to build sustainable relationship in B2B context, and efficient service delivery.

Undergraduate and graduate students in marketing, business administration, strategy, retailing, B2B marketing, services marketing and general management courses. Also, it can be used for executive management/training programmes.

The case focuses on an existing scenario of a natural gas business in Gujarat, India, in order to provide understanding of marketing challenges, especially in the B2B context, faced by organisations in this evolving business environment. The case examines the strategies and policies implemented by the company and their impact on the customer. The case presents reactions and responses from the concerned customers. The case illustrates the criticalness of understanding customer expectations and designing and delivering customer centric strategies to sustain market leadership in an evolving and competitive market.

The case study enables the students to understand and analyse: the current business environment; the important factors impacting natural gas business; economic analysis of energy; opportunity and challenges for doing cleaner and greener business; role of cleaner fuel to reduce carbon footprint; and carbon credit impacting top line and bottom line of a customer. The case provides students the opportunity to understand and analyse the importance of switching costs to acquire a new customer; and devising and implementing marketing strategies to expand customer base and enter into new territories.

Teaching notes.

With the establishment of Competition Commission of India (CCI), Competition law-class actions, especially with regards to abuse of dominance by monopolists, are slowly becoming unhappy realities with both government-owned as well as private companies. This case used Coal India Limited (CIL), a public monolith which was penalized recently by CCI, as a subject of analysis to delve deeper into various conceptual understandings related to public sector functioning, such as public versus private provisioning, natural versus designed monopoly, dominance versus abuse of dominance, corporate governance versus government mandated governance, and finally natural resource allocation.

Undergraduate/Masters/MBA.

Anamika Enterprise Limited (AEL) is an export-import company founded in 1988. Today, AEL primarily imports coal from India which it then sells to customers in Bangladesh. However, a recent ban on coal mining in the Indian state of Meghalaya has created a huge problem for AEL. It is now considering opening trade routes to China and Indonesia. For that, it will need to consider both the short- and long-term factors related to its decision. It will need to take into consideration the cultural, economic and social factors in all three countries and trade accordingly. Tariff barriers and transportation costs will be a problem for AEL in the short run but in the long run, that may be overcome because of the experience effect arising from international business. Information and communication technology is also expected to have a huge impact.

Students are expected to learn the challenges of running international business in the real world and ways to overcome these challenges.

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.

This is a case of a crisis project management which showcases the unpredictable nature of the project and the role of management in handling the crisis. It is the case of a very severe cyclonic storm hitting the city of Visakhapatnam plant during October, 2014. The whole city was devastated and so was the situation in the Steel plant as it was under zero power conditions for around 10 days. This case gives need for managing an integrated steel plant in case of very severe cyclonic storm and documents the sequence of events and managing unforeseen uncertainty using NTCP concepts.

In December 2015, 196 countries will meet in Paris to reach a new global climate change agreement. This case looks at the climate negotiation process from the eyes of India's environment minister Mr Prakash Javadekar. In India's context, the energy sector has a big role to play in emission reduction as it is the largest emitter of the GHGs. When compared to US and China, India's per-capita emissions are miniscule but they are expected to rise substantially as the GoI is investing heavily in the infrastructure sector which has a substantial carbon footprint. The case discusses the mandatory emission cuts that India will announce considering the fulfillment of sustainable development goals. The case also points out, the government's promise of providing 24*7 electricity by 2019 which it feels can be an impediment in setting an aggressive emission cut target. The case questions if changes in the portfolio mix can be a part of the solution.