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This case depicts the history of an unusual brand in the “super premium” segment of the vodka market. The top-of-line positioning is supported with creative advertising, narrow distribution, point-of-purchase advertising, and expensive advertising production. Absolut has used very expensive inserts as advertisements in print vehicles during the Christmas season. The last inserts described in the case cost approximately $1 each to manufacture and distribute via the media vehicle (The New Yorker). The case asks students to decide whether such expensive advertising should be continued and, if so, how. The societal effects of advertising alcoholic beverages and the implications of pursuing such exclusive positioning strategies may also be explored.

Financial Management.

Masters, Bachelors.

In 2011, Real Sound Lab (RSL), an innovative audio technology company headquartered in Latvia, issued a bond to finance its needs. The face value of the issue was much smaller than what was typically encountered in the local market. The case describes how Viesturs Sosars, Chief Executive Officer of RSL, made this financing decision and how the difficulties at maturity were overcome.

Learn about financing options available for an small- or medium-sized enterprise in the case of inability to issue additional equity combined with an already high debt ratio. Learn about important considerations that should be made when deciding on the details of the bond issue and how these might impact the possible actions of the issuing company in case of being unable to repay the principal at maturity.

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

Sondologics, a manufacturer of video, audio, and gaming accessories products, was experiencing pricing and distribution problems in its channels. Numerous retailers were complaining about unfair price competition from unauthorized retailers, i.e., gray marketers, on standalone websites or Amazon's Marketplace, offering discounts of up to 30% off list price.

The company estimated that about 10% of its retail volume in the United States was being generated by unauthorized retailers. Compounding the problem, gray marketers and authorized retailers alike were selling at below-list prices, which violated the Sondologics MAP (minimum advertised pricing) policy.

Sondologics was considering numerous initiatives to address the MAP and gray-market problems, including retaining a third-party service to monitor pricing and distribution in the channel. Students are asked to develop recommendations that would promote sales while protecting the name-brand image and price points of Sondologics' products.

The learning outcomes are as follows: to understand the internal processes that take place in social media influencers operations; to evaluate the role communication and planning in the social media marketing process; to discover the importance of social media as a pinnacle of new communication mix tool; to make strategic decisions in managing a social media account; and to highlight how the team internal interactions could determine the success and profitability of the social media influencer.

Case deals with the growth and managing issues faced by the social media influencers in Kazakhstan. The case shows the other side of social media marketing, where the main focus is shifted from the corporate clients, who use social media influencer, toward the influencers themselves and challenges faced by them. Hence, the case reveals the story of Jokeasses team, who are based in Kazakhstan with significant following both on Instagram and YouTube platforms. The decision-making dilemmas in the case focused upon not only the issues of brand formation but also how online brand could be transferred into profitable enterprise.

Bachelor

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CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

Management scholars and researchers have long been concerned about the impact and relevance of their work. Here we chronicle the teaching, research, management, and personal leadership development lessons that have arisen from a collaborative, decade-long relationship between three management faculty members and the senior management team of a major Norwegian-based global shipping and logistics company. This relationship grew from the creation of a teaching case in 1997 to many years of productive and meaningful work together, including the development and delivery of the all-conference Plenary Session at the 2006 Eastern Academy of Management Meeting, held concurrently with the annual CASE Association Conference. At the 2006 Plenary Session, each of the authors expressed powerful personal and professional development through their collaboration over the years, which is summarized in this article. Reflections, lessons and future research directions are provided.

After the case discussion in class, the audience is expected to:▪ Apply the use of management tools in identifying core competencies in the sustenance and growth of a venture.▪ Evaluate the sustainability of the core competencies using relevant tools and frameworks.▪ Assess using relevant criteria whether firms should diversify or not?

The case highlights the experience and obstacles encountered by a Kazakh entrepreneur, Moldakhmetova, who is exploring her long-term business continuity choices. Moldakhmetova ran her own tailoring business, which focused mostly on designing and creating national costumes worn at weddings and concerts. However, she was confronted with a number of obstacles pertaining to the long-term viability of her enterprise, especially with the commencement of the Covid pandemic. The volume of national costume sales was affected by the declaration of the lockdown and restrictions on concerts and celebrations. As the lockdown lifted and orders started to pour in, Moldakhmetova pondered the long-term viability of her business venture. In addition, the availability of inexpensive ready-made Moldakhemetova costumes in Almaty (one of the major cities) made her question whether or not they were her competitors. Thus, Atlas contemplated many choices as potential answers to the question of the enterprise's long-term viability. She was currently faced with the dilemma of selecting the most feasible solution from the possibilities she had identified.

BBA and MBA programs.

Teaching notes are available for educators only. Students are recommended to watch the video about the Kazakh folk style of clothing at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddVzrUeSn64 (25 minutes). Students can watch the following video about specific embroidery styles applied in Kazakh national clothing at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wB0XJE09N9w (first 10 minutes of video). The case could be used in online teaching via the Padlet platform.

CSS: 11: Strategy.

The author employed a five-step approach: Data (e.g., qualitative primary and secondary data) collection (about a major project at the examined organisation), Critical thinking (in order to determine the dilemma), Setting learning objectives (e.g., with respect to the Bloom's taxonomy), Testing (in order to confirm the teaching plan) (e.g., with research assistants and doctoral candidates), and Ensuring clarity (e.g., especially for the case narrative).

The site manager at a UNESCO World Heritage Site by the name Ephesus in Türkiye (Turkey) was considering who would update the site management plan. UNESCO was regularly asking for updates. Would site management outsource the management plan from a firm? For example, the site management had had an outside firm develop the management plan and Ephesus had become a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Otherwise, would the site management rely on their own experience this time? Was there another way?

The educators could use the case study to introduce graduate students to “the value conception” in “marketing management” courses and to “the social exchange school of thought” in “marketing theory” courses. The learning objectives develop over the tension between owning and outsourcing main responsibilities of a scientific field as well as the tension between claims and objective evaluations. “The value conception” in “the social exchange school of thought” could improve planning in favour of humanity in a way that the United Nations could recognise (e.g., “value-based planning”). Corresponding discussions motivate a main question about the future: What is marketing for?

Entrepreneurship.

The case can be used to teach behavioural perspective of the entrepreneurship theory for the students of Master of Business Administration (MBA) level. The case may be equally important to teach the marketing and operational context to discuss the perspectives of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

A young Indian professional had left his lucrative job in the pharma industry to start his own business of a small training centre that trained and placed young graduates with various pharmaceutical companies as medical sales representatives (MSRs). Without borrowing anything from the financial institutions, he plunged into the business in a rented room of a school in Kolkata, India. With every sincerity and path-breaking strategy, his vocational centre, named Carreograph Institute of Management Studies (CIMS) became number one in eastern India in training and placing MSRs and managers. With a number of hand-picked professionals from the industry, this young entrepreneur changed the concept of training by introducing short-term courses like Diploma in Pharmaceutical Management to technically prepare pharmacy undergraduates with professional skills and industry overview, Post Graduate Diploma in Pharmaceutical Management to cater to the contemporary management needs of the pharma industry. For the first time in India, Carreograph launched MBA in Pharmaceutical Management in the distance learning mode, and this strategy revolutionised the concept of management teaching in India. With a huge success in MBA, Carreograph was on the verge of launching another path-breaking course, i.e. Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) in pharma in the distance learning mode.

To analyse Tamal Chatterjee's entrepreneurial characteristics, motivations and expertise in the field and how these parameters support his proposed new venture, to consider the effectiveness of his entrepreneurial methods for finding out more about the proposed business area in which he is interested and to evaluate his idea of newly developed MBA and BBA programmes in terms of its expected acceptance among the student communities and consider if and when he should go ahead with expanding his current venture.

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In June 2001, the owners of this small rapidly growing sports promotion firm are assessing the financing implications of their growth plans. Threshold Sports organizes professional cycling races, and holds major race franchises for several large U.S. cities. It seeks to expand quickly the number of events that it manages, eventually to build professional cycling in the United States to a level consistent with Europe. The growth outlook creates a financing need of $500,000. The case presents three financing alternatives: debt, common equity, and convertible preferred stock. The task for the student is to assess the alternatives and make a recommendation. The choice hinges importantly on the estimated value of the firm.

The focus is on a performance management system and its strategic alignment using a Balanced scorecard in a Public Private Partnership framework. This case study analyses the situation for Tata Power Delhi Distribution (TPDD) which needs to realign its strategy to meet the emerging sustainability challenges of inclusive growth and combating the climate change. The case covers the field of strategic management, strategy formulation and performance management system deployment using the balanced scorecard. It touches upon the emerging need for corporates to look beyond economic signals and take social and environmental impacts into strategy planning process.

The case can be used in the following courses; post graduate program in public administration; MBA/Post graduate program in management in strategic management; executive training program for Government executives in public sector organizations to highlight the concept of performance management system in PPP companies.

After the initial tumultuous years, TPDD emerged as one of the efficient power distribution companies in Delhi region. One of the major management tools that was helpful to achieve this was the balanced scorecard. TPDD's general manager for corporate strategy & planning reviewed the process and the due diligence that went into designing and implementing the balanced scorecard. Now, after the balanced scorecard success story, he along with Dr Ganesh Das, Head of Group – Strategy wants to take it to a next level and integrate their strategies related to inclusive growth of community and combating the ill effects of climate change. They believe that the balanced scorecard method that had helped them to achieve their strategic goals will help them to achieve future objectives too. But whether the existing four perspectives: financial, customer, internal process and learning and growth would adequately address the emerging challenges or whether there was a need to introduce a new perspective – “The Social Perspective” – is what they contemplate in the case.

The case can be used to teach the following: the importance of strategy in an organization and how it helps the firms to realize their stated vision; to highlight the process of strategy formulation and its deployment; to help students realize the difficulties in realizing a strategic goal through performance management system; use the balanced scorecard as an effective tool for strategy deployment and organizational alignment; to introduce students the concept of sustainability in the organization and emerging global challenges; and to illustrate the complexities involved in a strategic planning process

Teaching notes.