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Business ethics, sustainability and economic development.

This case is suitable for both advanced undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

The case presents a pioneering initiative run by the Egyptian General Authority for Investment (GAFI) to mitigate the implications of the 25th of January revolution on SMEs. The case describes the “Business Clinic” program that was designed to provide SMEs with world class consultancy services through the CSR programs of large local and multinational consultancy firms.

The case should help students in: defining corporate social responsibility and describing its importance; describing the role of SMEs in economic development; identifying the different growth obstacles that face SMEs; relating theories in different managerial fields that could be linked to CSR and development; investigating the Arab Spring and describing its repercussions on economic development and sustainability; and illustrating CSR role in solving SME problems.

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The data for this case were obtained primarily through a series of in-person interviews in Penang between the authors and Pete Browning (a pseudonym) from 2017 to early 2019. The authors also consulted secondary data sources, including publicly available material on BMax and “Company B”.

This case examines a key decision, or set of decisions, in the life of a small- to medium-sized management consultancy group, namely, whether they might expand their operations in Southeast Asia, and if so, where. These key decisions came in the wake of their having already established a very modest scale presence there, with an operating base on the island of Penang just off the north western coast of Peninsular Malaysia. The initial establishment of a Southeast Asian branch had been somewhat spontaneous in nature – a former colleague of one of the two managing partners in the USA was on the ground in Malaysia and available: he became the local partner in the firm. But the firm had now been eyeing expansion within the region, with three markets under particular consideration (Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand) and a further two (Vietnam and China) also seen as possible targets, though at a more peripheral level. The questions facing the decision makers were “was it time they expand beyond Malaysia?” and “if so, where?”

This case could be used effectively in undergraduate courses in international business. The key concepts on which the case focuses are the factors affecting market entry, particularly the choice of market and the assessment of potential attractiveness such markets offer.

This case is to familiarise students with the peculiarities of managing people by focussing on human capital development (HCD). Through the case, students are exposed to the critical recruitment and retention issues faced by METAL STAR Limited Company (METAL STAR), which have a detrimental impact on their business operations. Through the novel use of the transformer-transactor-performer (TTP) profiling tool, students are able to recognise the importance of matching the right candidate to the right job as a solution for recruitment and retention issues. At the end of the case analysis and discussion, students would have a clear idea of the TTP Profiling tool and how to identify core elements needed for an effective and holistic recruitment-retention-separation strategy for a company. The knowledge gained is most valuable for the students as it can be applied to other companies having similar HCD issues.

Carina Yew is the General Manager of METAL STAR, a sheet metal fabrication company in Penang, Malaysia. After more than 28 years of operations, METAL STAR has been adopting the same human resources (HR) processes and has failed to keep up with the current HR trends. Yew has to decide the best way to lead her company in transforming the HCD strategy to enable smooth and profitable business growth.

The case is relevant for undergraduate, postgraduate or even executive students taking courses pertaining to HCD or human resource management.

CSS 6: Human resource management.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

Narayana, the head of Market Dynamic's (MD) Telecom vertical was working on the data analysis plan for the research on the telecom project that they had done for CWP. CWP was a well known consultant and had conducted a research with MD to generate consumer insights in the telecom space. These would help bring credibility for CWP and help in business development. CWP had requested for an early delivery and Narayana was planning to work on the analysis plan himself as his chief analyst was on leave. This case highlights the importance of an analysis plan in research. Specifically, it illustrate the role of different tools in data analysis and familiarizes participants with various tools and their applications. This case would be useful for students in Business Research and Market Research courses.

Marketing.

The primary target for this case study is marketing and communications undergraduate students, especially those from emerging countries; the secondary target is MBA students studying principles of marketing, integrated marketing communications.

Turkey probably faced the most severe economic crisis after the Second World War in February 21, 2001, when the Turkish Lira was devalued by 94 percent against US dollar just overnight. Against this volatile business environment, Bank Z as one of the major banks in Turkey, was preparing for the launch of a major new marketing and communication plan. In April 2000 Bank Z had set itself the target of “changing the banking concept in Turkey, accomplishing no other bank was able to realize”. So Bank Z was ready to communicate its new consumer banking products when the country started to face rough times. Especially financial institutions and banks were encountering serious trust issues. Bank Z on the other hand, had grouped its products according to their line of financial expertise in five groups with the aim of having specialized personnel in these different areas, serving clients in the best possible way. Furthermore, the bank was aiming to realize 80 percent of its transactions via telephone and internet banking. Therefore, Bank Z had undertaken major technological investments in order to be able to deliver these services. But under these volatile economic conditions, should they go ahead with the campaign? Or should they postpone the campaign? Or should they realize it with a reduced frequency and budget? What if they postpone and one of the competitors start a new advertising campaign with similar propositions? The case tries to answer these critical questions with the help of market data, showing the likely course of business decisions can take in an emerging country just under 24 hours.

There are two main outcomes: first, to show the importance of consistent, continuous and sustainable communication for brand's marketing activities, especially during times of economic instability. The second outcome is to simulate difficulties of decision making under highly volatile market conditions and in high-risk environments, especially when the business environments can change abruptly.

Teaching notes are available.

After studying this case, students must be able to explain the rationale for going public; identify the type of markets available for listing a company on Bursa Malaysia and explain the listing process; and analyse pre-IPO financial performance using trend analysis, comparative analysis and common-size analysis.

Uniutama Education and Consultancy Sdn. Bhd. (UECSB) in Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) was a company with strong financial performance and growth opportunities. In 2020, UECSB was planning for an initial public offering (IPO), whereby the company could offer shares to the public. This would allow UECSB to raise capital from public investors, and increase UECSB’s credibility and exposure. Therefore, Halim, who was the General Manager of UECSB, needed to decide whether or not UECSB should go for an IPO.

This case is more appropriate for final-year undergraduate students, particularly those majoring in Finance. This case is also suitable for postgraduate students, especially those enrolling in Master of Business Administration (MBA), Master of Business Management (MBM) and Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) programmes, and Executive Education programmes in Management.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 1: Accounting and Finance.

The case is suitable for all post-graduate students and executives doing a course in human resource management (HRM). The case will enable these students to apply concepts such as inclusion, empowerment, glass ceiling, in business situations involving women. It will help them to trace the evolution path for women employees who have the traits to lead a department or organisation and assume entrepreneurial roles.

The case study is particularly beneficial for MBA students specialising in HRM focussed on leadership and training. It can be used in courses such as gender and entrepreneurship for students of MBA entrepreneurship and MBA family business management. As the case is written in India, it can explore the gender issues in emerging markets surreptitiously. Most importantly, the case addresses COVID-19 perspective adequately, to teach modules embedded in main courses of any MBA program.

PRISM World Pvt Ltd is a leading training and consultancy firm in Delhi, India. The firm is owned and managed by a young woman Dr Anubha Walia. She started her career as a human resource manager in leading Indian companies, but somewhere down the line, she felt the job was not allowing her to realise the fullest potential. The Indian corporate training industry was male dominated with self-serving men, supporting the “glass ceiling”. To break the barrier, Anubha opened her training firm founded on the basis of a new philosophy, which should serve the ideals of helping and promoting women in workplace. This new philosophy was called PRISM. Anubha provided an inclusive environment which allowed her trainers to grow and feel empowered in a gender-biased industry.Very recently, when COVID-19 pandemic happened, female trainers were under tremendous strain as training requirements completely dried up, and they were rendered jobless. Most of these educated young women had small kids and paid monthly installments for their home loans, sharing the financial burden with their husbands. Some mature trainers were single women who had to support themselves through savings in these difficult times. But Anubha’s sense of empowerment at PRISM helped these women to do things which made their livelihoods turnaround even in uncertain circumstances. PRISM philosophy made a turnaround too. While employees were thinking of abandoning their companies and vice-versa, trainers at PRISM went for free webinars to draw clients to their firms and changed the concept of training and delivery in corona times.PRISM acquired a new meaning of wellness and spirituality in these difficult times and soared ahead successfully.

The case study hopes to achieve the following pedagogical objectives: 1. To educate students on manners and traits of women entrepreneurs. Besides, the usual difficulties of financing and running a business, women face adversities at home in the form of lack of access to working capital, trust deficit amongst family and friends. Basically, lack of support system to propels women into the tougher role of an entrepreneur graduating from a regular employee. Gender becomes a disability, which women had to fight in the workplace. The case introduces the PRISM philosophy as a unique methodology to inculcate inclusivity in work environment leading to women empowerment. 2. To outline all issues related to ‘glass ceiling” – the barrier which existed in the corporate world for businesswomen. Students need to know about problems women faced in the business environment as well as shortcomings within themselves, which can make them unproductive. 3. To align students first hand with the challenges of COVID-19 pandemic, specific to women. The case talks about educated young and mature women in Anubha’s firm PRISM, fighting for lost livelihood owing to reduced levels of business. But women are known to be highly resilient and empowered in the right direction will turnaround the situation in their favour.

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

The case has tremendous social implication for educated working women in traditional patriarchal Indian societies. Though a sizeable percentage of women have achieved higher education and started working in a male-dominated corporate world, only a small number of them are visible as entrepreneurs and/or leaders. Every woman needs to trace her journey from an employee to an entrepreneur or a CEO to assume a position of leadership. This case can be an eye opener for many such ambitious women who can build small- to mid-size businesses in a short span of time. Digital intervention is very important in COVID times to stay afloat. The author has shared links for many videos which can disseminate ideas for digital transformation in businesses. The case tries to showcase an ideal inclusive environment which will propel women to achieve their latent goals and desires breaking the 'glass ceiling.'

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

Integrated marketing communication (IMC), communication strategy, media strategy, budgeting and usage of metrics in measuring communication performance.

Undergraduate and postgraduate marketing.

The choice of a well-planned IMC strategy becomes crucial for the successful launch of an event. This is a case study on how a brand management consultancy house, TMH, used IMC to launch a world music festival event in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, in 2009, registering a visitorship of five times their target, 89 percent satisfaction and a staggering 99 percent of the visitors planning to visit the festival also in 2010.

This case can be used to teach IMC, marketing communication strategy, media strategy and scheduling and budgeting.

A teaching note is available on request.

Marketing

Primary target: Marketing and communications undergraduate students, especially coming from emerging countries. Secondary target: MBA students studying Principles of Marketing, Integrated Marketing Communications (a similar version of this case, has been used for the MBA students at Yeditepe Univ. Istanbul, Turkey in the “Strategic Marketing and Management” course. The submitted case is an expanded version, with the 2008 crisis data added, as well as being tailor-made for the Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies).

Global brands are all around us but the true winners are global brands with a local touch in every market they operate. However, this is easily said than done. This case looks into a well-known global carbonated drinks brand in Turkey and what it has done to become a true global brand with a local touch, especially at hard times when the country was facing a major economic crisis in 2001, and then later in 2008 during the global crisis. In this case, we see how this international brand reacted under these harsh circumstances, what they have done to be able to move closer to the hearts of Turkish consumers. We also see the importance of continuation of marketing and communication efforts for brands when economic conditions are not so good. Consumers are quick to respond to brands which keep talking to them, keeping the dialogue channels open and give those brands credit long after the crisis is over. Brand M sets a good example in this regard, showing how research can be used for setting tangible measures. The questions posed: How could market research help an international brand to move closer to its local customers? How should international brands act when economic conditions are not that promising? How could a brand be built upon learned knowledge in one economic crisis to the other? The case tries to answer these questions based on an emerging country experience, showing ways of becoming a global brand with a local touch.

To show the importance of branding and market research findings for an international brand while operating in a local market. Although it is iterated that consistent, continuous and sustainable communication is important for brand's marketing, in general advertising budgets are the first to be cut when economic trouble sets in. This case will help in showing that brands which choose to continue advertising during economic crisis actually make long-term marketing investments and this will be exhibited with the help of market data obtained from an emerging country. The case also sets an example on how the message given should be adopted to the current economic conditions. To simulate difficulties of being an international brand with a local touch. Although it is common knowledge that decision-making in business life is crucial for the continuation of business, we do not come across many cases showing us volatile market conditions, coupled with drastic changes taking place in the economy overnight. This case sets out to do that, based on an emerging country example. On the other hand, 2008 global economic crisis showed us all that today's global managers should be better prepared for such sudden changes wherever they may be based.

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 case is appropriate for entrepreneurship courses where the topics are generation of business model, business model innovation and shared value. It can be used at undergraduate and graduate levels.

This case addresses the challenges that Mejor en Bici (in English: Best by Bike), a start-up that promotes mobility by bicycle, had to face from 2010 to 2015 at the level of its business model and generation of shared value. The case narrates the main achievements and obstacles in this path of entrepreneurship and how, through this process, a business model should be designed that allows strategic decisions to be taken to achieve sustained growth. In addition, this case examines how from early stages in entrepreneurship it is possible to generate shared value as a strategic component.

• Identify and present the value proposition of Mejor en Bici to understand where a business model starts.

• Design and evaluate the business model of Mejor en Bici from an innovation perspective.

• Apply the concept of shared value in the generation of a business proposal for Mejor en Bici based on their business model.

Identify and present the value proposition of Mejor en Bici to understand where a business model starts.

Design and evaluate the business model of Mejor en Bici from an innovation perspective.

Apply the concept of shared value in the generation of a business proposal for Mejor en Bici based on their business model.

• Osterwalder, A., & Pigneur, Y. (2010). Business model generation: a handbook for visionaries, game changers and challengers. John Wiley & Sons. Pages: 14-44; 56-108; 244-262.

• Porter, M. E. and Kramer, M. R. (2011). The big idea: Creating shared value. Harvard Business Review, 89, 1-18.

• Amit, R. and Zott, C. (2012). Creating value through business model innovation. MIT Sloan Management Review, 53, 40-59.

Osterwalder, A., & Pigneur, Y. (2010). Business model generation: a handbook for visionaries, game changers and challengers. John Wiley & Sons. Pages: 14-44; 56-108; 244-262.

Porter, M. E. and Kramer, M. R. (2011). The big idea: Creating shared value. Harvard Business Review, 89, 1-18.

Amit, R. and Zott, C. (2012). Creating value through business model innovation. MIT Sloan Management Review, 53, 40-59.

The social implication of this case lies in the motivation and guidance that potential entrepreneurs and students who analyze this case will receive. They can learn from a successful but complex experience how to start a business in a sustainable and responsible way.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship