Search results

Students should be able to appreciate the exigencies of managing social enterprises in a largely profit-oriented economic domain; understand the interplay of choice and trade-offs in business management and be equipped to make optimal choices; and appraise new, creative and profit-making approaches for sustaining social enterprise.

Daniel Mensah and his team were to deliberate on options available for ensuring financial sustainability of HealthKeepers Network (HKN), a not-for-profit organization focused on community health and grassroots capacity development. As the economy of Ghana moved towards middle-income status, funding from global organizations had begun to decline. To ensure HKN’s continuity, Mensah needed to re-engineer HKN’s finances and consider options available for ensuring cash inflows to support the organization’s operations. Each of the available options involved specific setbacks or challenges for HKN to overcome to achieve financial sustainability. Mensah and his team were to engage in a brainstorming session analyse the available options and map the way forward for HKN.

This case is suitable for undergraduate and graduate-level programmes in business management.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

Poverty, business strategy and sustainable development. International development planning and poverty alleviation strategies have moved beyond centralised, top-down approaches and now emphasise decentralised, community-based approaches that incorporate actors from the community, government, non-governmental agencies and business. Collective action by Bottom of the Pyramid residents gives them greater control in self-managing environmental commons and addressing the problems of environmental degradation. Co-creation and engaging in deep dialogue with stakeholders offer significant potential for launching new businesses and generating mutual value. The case study rests on the tenets of corporate social responsibility. It serves as an example of corporate best practices towards ensuring environmental sustainability and community engagement for providing livelihood support and well-being. It illustrates the tool kit for building community-based adaptive capacities against climate change.

The field-based case study was prepared from inputs received from detailed interviews of company functionaries. Company documents were shared by the company and used with their permission. Secondary data was accessed from newspapers, journal articles available online and information from the company website.

The case study is about the coming together of several vital agencies working in forest and wildlife conservation, climate change adaptation planning for ecosystems and communities, social upliftment and corporate social responsibility in the Kanha Pench landscape of Madhya Pradesh in Central India. The case traces several challenges. First, the landscape is degrading rapidly; it requires urgent intervention to revive it. Second, the human inhabitants are strained with debilitating poverty. Third, the long-term sustainability of the species of tigers living in the protected tiger reserves of Kanha and Pench needs attention as human-animal conflicts rise.

The case would help undergraduate and postgraduate students studying sustainability and corporate social responsibility.

The learning outcome of this study is to bring to the table of a wider intellectual audience, a unique model of community-based entrepreneurship, which is working wonders with its unique selling points (USPs) in promoting sustainability and conserving the ethos of villages and, at the same time, generating livelihoods through traditional farming techniques adopted by the rural population residing in the Himalayan region of India.The proposed case study can be used as a replicable model in other parts of rural India and other emerging economies to start and scale up a similar “integrated rural development model” through effective policy advocacy and public–private partnerships and to develop sustainable farmlands and livelihoods for rural India. It has a definite potential to be used as a pedagogical tool in postgraduate programmes offering courses in microfinance, financial inclusion, social and community entrepreneurship, sustainability, entrepreneurship, community development finance and rural immersions and public policy.

This case study is set in the backdrop of 2023 having been declared by the UN as the International Year of Millets and India being the homeland for millet cultivation. The objective of the case study is to bring to the table of a wider intellectual audience, a unique model of community-based entrepreneurship operating in the Himalayan region of rural India. The community-based entrepreneurship model works on the USP of promoting sustainability and conserving the ethos of villages and generating livelihoods through traditional farming techniques. This case study traces the journey of Roopesh Rai (protagonist and the founder of Bakrichhap), the community-based entrepreneur and his challenges in setting up the enterprise. The narrative is built in the light of a series of interviews with Rai, the main protagonist and the founder of Bakrichhap, as well as the people of Goat village by Komal, a post-doctoral fellow in the area of community-based enterprises (CBEs). Through this narrative, the case writers’ endeavour was to understand how CBEs such as Bakrichhap were providing a means of integrated rural development in the hilly region of Uttarakhand, India. Also, how such enterprises were thereby curbing distress migration, unemployment and a large-scale erosion of the cultural heritage and traditional and indigenous farming techniques of the land. In the first seven years of the operations of this uniquely curated CBE, Rai endeavoured to iron out many bottlenecks. This case study also highlights the gamut of challenges faced by community-based entrepreneurs like Rai in designing strategy for growth and expansion. What strategy should Bakrichhap follow for expansion to the other regions of the country? Should all the three existing verticals of the enterprise be scaled up parallelly or should each individual vertical be expanded one after the other in a phased manner? Stemming out from the main dilemma of strategic expansion were the related issues of funding (finance) and the formation of an effective team (HR).

This case study can be used in undergraduate, graduate and executive programmes offering courses in microfinance, financial inclusion, social and community entrepreneurship, sustainability, entrepreneurship, community development finance and rural immersions and public policy.

This comprehensive case study is written by using the triangulation of data collected through a series of personal interviews, website information, news articles, personal observation and field visits. The research design used is single case (holistic; Yin, 2003, 3rd edition). The timeline of this case study is 2021 to 2022 and place is Nag Tibba, Uttarakhand, a Himalayan state in North India.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

Social Entrepreneurship/management of non-profit organizations (and non-government organizations).

Undergraduate/MBA/Executive MBA.

PUKAR is a niche non-government organization (NGO) working on a unique concept of “Right to Research”. It has several themes aimed at democratizing research and broadening access to knowledge among the disenfranchised or the weakly institutionalized groups. The resulting output is disseminated through media such as lectures, Web site, books and newsletters, thus initiating local, national and global debates about future of these groups. PUKAR conceptualizes all projects around this philosophy, which are supported by few specialized funding organizations. Funding organizations, on the other hand, are trying to support many causes aimed at improving the quality of life of citizens of various countries. Thus, PUKAR's growth is constrained by limited funds. Nevertheless, PUKAR has been able to create transformation in the lives of youth who carry out these projects. PUKAR, therefore, faces a continuous challenge of conceptualizing proposals that are meaningful and impactful for the society and to stay true to its core philosophy.

The expected learning outcomes include: to understand the nature of challenges (both strategic and operational) faced by a niche NGO; to analyze how the strategy of an NGO evolves with time; to analyze the impediments of growth for a niche NGO; and to analyze the strategic options for growth and sustenance of an NGO.

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

Public Sector Management.

MBA or postgraduate program courses in public policy and management. MBA or postgraduate program courses on social innovation, social entrepreneurship and public or collective entrepreneurship. Management development programs for public policy professionals, non-governmental organizations and social enterprises.

Despite several country-wide campaigns to improve sanitation levels, India continues to be the country with the highest number of people, over 600 million, practicing open defecation. This case outlines the Sabar Shouchagar Project (Toilets for Everyone) undertaken by the District Administration of Nadia District in West Bengal that transformed the region into the first open-defecation-free district in India. The case begins with providing the context of the problem of open defecation, why it has been hard to eliminate and how undertaking a project to eliminate open-defecation-free practices has myriad institutional and economic challenges. The case then details the conceptualization and execution of the complex Sabar Shouchagar Project which involved a loose coalition of various state programs and civil society organizations. The case ends with questions on the continuity of this project beyond the tenure of the current District Magistrate and on the replicability of such an ambitious project in other parts of the country. The setting of this case, a government agency, is different than most cases and provides an opportunity for students to talk about a state agency and its interstices with civil society. This case explores how to create change through large government machinery and allows the student to explore aspects of social mobilization, social change and social innovation. If taught within a postgraduate or MBA program, the case would serve well to dispel stereotypes and biases about government bureaucracies (such as slow timelines, limited efficacy of projects and so on).

After discussion and analysis of the case, students will be able to: appreciate how administrators within a large government bureaucracy address an ambitious and complex public health issue in a developing world context. Understand the on-the-ground challenges that arise when a change agent pursues a worthwhile goal. There are difficulties such as getting resources beyond what a government office has access to, getting alignments between different key actors within the local community and forging coalitions. Understand initiatives for social transformation within a developing country context. Specifically, the case unpacks the cultural, political, economic contexts that determine how social innovations may be pursued. Understand capacity-building and change management. Evaluate efforts required to sustain social change efforts and the challenges and pathways with respect to replication of successful social change projects in other geographies. Appreciate the design of civic engagement practices in public policy implementation.

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

CSS: 10: Public Sector management.

The case explores the growth of Dastkar Andhra Marketing Association (DAMA) and its relationship with its sister organizations, as it works to articulate an alternate model of production, distribution and retailing. The case attempts to highlight issues around appropriate interventions in a traditional sector providing livelihood to millions, but confronting the challenges of a modern economy and society. The case would be beneficial in emphasizing the role of market and state failures and the role played by social enterprises in addressing them.

The case documents the evolution of an eye care hospital promoted by a not-for profit organization located in Mandvi, Surat, close to the tribal community of Gujarat state, India. In a short span of five years (as of 2016), the trust has evolved as a community hospital. The value proposition of the trust is a portfolio of activities, which includes awareness by education, prevention of eye care diseases through eye screening camps, treatment, and rehabilitation on need basis and addressing direct and indirect healthcare needs of the community. The managerial challenge before the board of trustees is to carefully balance (a) The purpose for which the trust was created, (b) the gap between the ground realities and the need in the relevant tribal community (c) the accomplishments of the eye hospital so far.

International business/International marketing.

Courses: the case is directly related to courses on “International Business” and “International Marketing” in the Master of Business Administration programme.

Training programmes: management development programmes for working executives, on the topics “Business across borders”, “Business stabilization in foreign markets”.

In 1999, the liberalization of the insurance sector as per the recommendations of the Malhotra committee gave way for privatization and foreign firms entered this sector through joint ventures. The business growth, which was enjoyed by these firms from 1999 to 2008, was tremendous. The growth percentage started declining following the global economic downturn in the capital markets. This situation compelled the insurance firms to re-look into their business strategy. On one hand whatever growth they had, 80 percent of it was through unit linked insurance plans depending on the capital market. On the other, it was identified that in a country like India the untapped market potential was among the rural millions. Reaching those people who are at the bottom of the pyramid necessitated a completely new business model to be developed as the need of the hour. The take stock of the position at this vnjuncture is the crux of the present case study, which envisages finding out alternative delivery models to suit the Indian rural market taking into account the intrinsic nature of life insurance and the basic living styles and mentality of the rural folk.

After discussion and analysis of this case, students will be able to:

• understand how market culture in a target country differs from that in the home country;

• appreciate how challenges in a developing country market have their own unique features to be understood;

• identify various courses of action and evaluate them on the basis of the host country factors;

• understand the “international planning process”; and

• appreciate how important it is for a country manager of a multinational firm to plan and execute the marketing mix suited to the inherent qualities of the target market.

understand how market culture in a target country differs from that in the home country;

appreciate how challenges in a developing country market have their own unique features to be understood;

identify various courses of action and evaluate them on the basis of the host country factors;

understand the “international planning process”; and

appreciate how important it is for a country manager of a multinational firm to plan and execute the marketing mix suited to the inherent qualities of the target market.

Teaching notes.

Organisational behaviour; Leadership; Organisational development; Public–Private partnership; Health care management; Public health.

Masters students in Business Administration, Post Graduate Diploma, Clinical Training of Medical Professionals, Health Leadership Programme.

Prof Jannie Hugo, the protagonist in the case, was considering his dilemma of aligning the multiple partners involved in public health care. A high level of collaboration was required of a multitude of stakeholders in developing the Daspoort clinic into a pilot site for the Tshwane district’s implementation of the National Health Insurance system. In addition, the re-engineering of primary health care with the focus on the patient and community orientated approach were launched on this site.

Gaining insight into international and national landscapes and principles of health care systems. Critically analyse the role of technology in delivering innovative health and social services. Present judgment of Prof Jannie Hugo’s contextual leadership effectiveness in enhancing collaboration between the multiple stakeholders and recommend next steps.

2 × DVDs on Vimeo, Slides and teaching plan with discussion or exam questions with model answers.

CSS 7: Management Science.

The subject areas are organizational management, organizational behaviour and human resource management.

The study is applicable for courses in human resource management and organizational behaviour as part of masters-level programmes in business administration and management, executive development programmes on organization design and development for middle/senior management.

In 2003, Elizabeth and Sunil Mehta had founded a voluntary organization, “Muktangan”, focussed on child-centric education through innovative pedagogy for the community of the urban poor. Elizabeth, an educationist, and Sunil, a highly successful business person, joined hands to contribute to the well-being of urban poor to make a difference to their lives. Elizabeth and Sunil presented a proposal to impart education for “the children of the community, by the teachers drawn from the community” to the residents of the slums in central Mumbai. With a humble beginning of running a small pre-school, Muktangan now manages seven schools with 3,400 children and 500 teachers, and a teachers’ training centre with a capacity to train 100 teachers a year. Muktangan won acclaim for its unique pedagogy and a very effective child-to-teacher ratio. Over the years, Elizabeth and Sunil led Muktangan with a strong passion and a “hands-on” approach. Of late, Elizabeth and Sunil faced questions from their donors about the sustainability of Muktangan with respect to leadership and management succession. Elizabeth and Sunil had a vision for Muktangan for self-directed growth with an empowered team. Muktangan embarked on the journey to create a leadership for self-directed growth. Sunil, Elizabeth and team Muktangan conceptualized and implemented a change management intervention with help from an external consultant to build the desired organization.

Outcomes are understanding issues involved in the leadership, organization design and management of change, particularly of those organizations engaged in social change and development in developing societies.

The Muktangan Story: Part A – An Organizational Study; The Muktangan Story Part B – Winds of Change; Teaching Note; References: Bradach J. (1996), Organizational Alignment: The 7-S Model, Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston, MA 02,163. Cooperrider D. and Whitney D. (2005), “A Positive Revolution in Change: Appreciative Inquiry”, In The Change Handbook. The Definitive Resource on Today’s Best Methods for Engaging.Whole Systems, by Peggy Holman, Tom Devane, and Steven Cady. Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Cooperrider D., Whitney D., and Stavros J.M. (2008), Appreciative Inquiry Handbook for Leaders of Change (Second Edition), Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Greiner, L.E. (1998), “Evolution and Revolution as Organizations Grow”, Harvard Business Review, May-June, 3-11. www.muktanganedu.org/ accessed 12 April, 2018. Kessler, E. H., (2013) (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Management Theory, Sage Publications Kotter, J. P. (1996), Leading Change, Harvard Business School Press, Boston. Lewin K. (1951), Field Theory in social science, Harper & Row, New York. Waterman, R. H., Peters, T. J., and Phillips, J. R. (1980), Structure is not organization. Business Horizons, 23(3), 14-26.

CSS 6: Human Resource Management.