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The case would be specifically useful in courses related to Corporate Governance, Board Dynamics, Leadership, Organizational Behaviour, Corporate Ethics and Strategic Management.

For Post-graduate/Doctoral and Executive Programme/Management Development Programme level courses in Corporate Governance, Board Dynamics, Leadership, Organizational Behaviour, Corporate Ethics and relevant areas of Strategic Management.

The case relates to the imminent departure of Raamit Pell, the founding CEO of Xcelent Services, an educational service provider, to his parental organization at Kozerton after completing his current five-year term. Raamit had moved from Kozerton to become CEO of Xcelent Services. Many of Raamit’s senior executives at Xcelent were not happy about his decision to return. They felt that his departure at this moment might, on the one hand, slow down the ongoing major expansion plans and on the other aggravate a mutiny, under covert Board patronage involving a powerful clique of certain senior executives. The parental agency finally agreed to release him. On the day of Raamit’s farewell, where surprisingly even the clique members were present, many executives appeared sad. Observing the mood, Raamit wondered whether his decision to return to Kozerton was the right one.

To understand the internal governance, leadership and behavioural environment of a company. To understand the impact of internal power equations of a company on the morale of its people. To analyze both the inconsistency between the stated goals of the organization and the revealed actions of its top decision-makers; and the lack of restraint on the power struggle among the top actors of the organization. To identify effective strategies for addressing such issues in future so that their fallouts would be minimized. To relate the behaviour in an organization to the organizational behavioural theories related to leadership, corporate governance, corporate ethics, managerial behaviour and agency problems.

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CSS 11: Strategy.

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.

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CSS 5: International Business.

Human Resources and Organizational Behavior – dealing with the HR issues in mergers and acquisitions (M&As).

MBA and other similar programs at the post-graduation level.

The current case deals with human resource (HR) issues in the merger of Kotak Mahindra Bank (KMB) and ING Vysya Bank (IVB). The case discusses various aspects of the merger process and focuses on the key challenges that firms face while integrating the employees of the merged entities. The case also highlights the steps taken by KMB to ensure that the merger process is smooth and employees are adequately motivated. The case also discusses the process adopted by the merged entity to efficiently integrate the employees.

The case can be a part of an organizational behavior course and a banking course. The current case allows students to make decisions while dealing with situations pertaining to employees’ integration in an M&A deal. The major expected learning outcomes of the current case include being able to: understand industry structure using the Indian banking industry as a case in point; identify the major challenges in any M&A deal; list down key HR issues in any merger activity; analyse strategies that can be adopted to deal with HR challenges; and construct a plan of action for integrating employees in a merged entity.

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CSS: 6: Human Resource Management.

Corporate social responsibility, specifically nonprofit business collaborations from a nonprofit’s perspective.

Graduate level programs in nonprofit management, corporate social responsibility and development management; it can also be used for executive education.

Social enterprises and nonprofits at present increasingly look to corporate firms for grant funds to finance their activities and assets. This case features the experiences of one of the largest nonprofit eye care providers in India, LV Prasad Eye Institute based in Hyderabad in accessing corporate financial support in the form of corporate social responsibility funding. The case deals with the organization challenges, stresses and strains that arise in a nonprofit–corporate partnership. Specifically, it focuses on the strategic and operational challenges that emerge from the partnerships. The partnerships reviewed in the case pertain to rehabilitation.

After solving the case, the participants will be able to understand the stages in developing collaborations between nonprofits and businesses for corporate social responsibility. They will also be able to understand the internal implications for nonprofits operations and strategy from such collaborations.

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CSS11: Strategy.

The case is aimed at providing students with an opportunity to understand various aspects of corporate governance and the consequences of poor corporate governance. The case addresses the following objectives: The students need to assess the role of the board in implementing corporate governance. The students should be able to explain the conflicts experienced by various stakeholders in an organization. The students need to evaluate the balancing act of growth and governance in a startup. The students should be able to determine the current state of business sustainability of the high-growth startups in India.

The case presents the challenges faced by the CEO of BharatPe, Suhail Sameer. Beginning in 2022, Bharatpe was in deep trouble as there were allegations of financial mismanagement, toxic work culture and widening losses. Co-founder Ashneer Grover and his wife Madhuri had to leave the company following charges against them. As Grover was the face of the company, Sameer would have to quickly act on filling the void and reassuring investors. Because of the uncertainty, scores of employees had already quit or were looking for other jobs. Questions were also raised about the board’s inaction and lack of proactive measures. After a meteoric rise for three years, BharatPe was struggling to survive the whole episode and put its focus back on business.

The case is intended for MBA students in corporate governance, organizational behaviour, business ethics and strategic management areas. As the case reveals the impact of poor corporate governance, it can also be used for executive training purposes on corporate sustainability, governance and leadership with a special focus on Indian startups.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

After completion of the case study, the students will be able to understand the importance of being culturally savvy when working in a culturally diverse environment and managing people from different cultures; critically reflect on the risks resulting from the absence of a clear direction from the company’s top management regarding unifying corporate values and a diversity policy for cooperation across cultures; be aware of best practices in implementing diversity management (DM) initiatives in the company; and learn that changes in the strategic orientation (i.e. focus on automation projects) must be cascaded down to hard elements of structures, processes and systems, as well as to soft elements of skills, staff and management style.

The Kuwaiti branch of a Japanese corporation specialising in control systems and instruments, Rising Sun IT, hired a German professional, Alex, to handle the increasing demand for automation from customers. This recruitment followed several unsuccessful attempts by the company to deliver more advanced automation solutions. Recognising the need to adapt to Kuwaiti customer requirements or risk losing market share, Japanese management understood the importance of transforming their engineering staff. Failure to achieve this next automation step would result in a steady decline in market share and ultimately impact the company’s survival. However, Alex, who was supposed to lead automation projects, was confronted with opposition from the Indian engineering staff and managers. He was not able to find common ground with the staff and perceived issues such as lack of communication, delays in work schedules, missed deadlines and high levels of absenteeism, as a sign of low work morale. Although he tried to increase the awareness of his supervisor and other managers by informing them repeatedly about the problems regarding employee behaviours, his interventions went unheard. He felt ousted by his fellow colleagues and the other employees. Besides, from Alex’s point of view, the Japanese top management did not provide clear directions to the staff and explicit support to Alex in his efforts. This case study highlights three dimensions of Alex’s problem with establishing and maintaining working relationships with other people in the company:▪ Alex’s cultural “blindness” and ignorance of differences in work behaviours that ultimately led to his inability to build solid and trustful relationships with other employees. The case study demonstrates Germany’s performance-oriented and individual-centric culture versus India’s family- and community-oriented culture and the Japanese employees’ strongly hierarchical and company loyalty-oriented culture.▪ Lack of support from the Japanese top management to Alex, which is connected with a wider problem of the lack of a systematic strategic approach to managing a culturally diverse workforce. The case study pinpoints the rhetoric–reality gap in DM in the company, where the diversity, equity and inclusion programme and corporate values were applied only formally and had little attention from the leaders as well as non-managerial employees.▪ Employee resistance to change: The lack of positive communication from the top management level in the company regarding automation projects and the lack of support for Alex’s mission in the company resulted in steady resistance to executing projects, which endangered the company’s survival in the market. Also, one part of Alex’s problem with building a working relationship with the Indian engineering staff was based on the fact that others perceived him as the automation “change agent” – an advocate and catalyst of an undesirable change connected with adverse consequences on employment in the Indian community.

This case is intended for discussion in undergraduate management and business study programmes.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human resource management.

Corporate entrepreneurship; Intrapreneurship; Human Resources.

MBA students in Human Resource, entrepreneurship and/or PhD students in the areas of Human Resource, Corporate Entrepreneurship and/or on Intrapreneurship studies.

This case reveals that progressive change originated from individual’s positive deviance approaches, opportunistic sensitivity, ability to learn, evaluate and the ability to develop ideas on how to exploit or pursue identified opportunities (intrapreneurial behaviour).

The student will learn to deal with the complex nature of organisations and the tendencies of institutional processes to be uncertain, unpredictable, and uncontrollable; appreciate the internal workings of an organisation, the external environment; and understand the role of generative leadership, positive deviance, novelty ecosystems and intrapreneurial behaviour and the fact that connections and interactions in a social network are non-linear or non-proportional. This means that complex system predictions can be much more than simple regression predictions. They will be able to apply both bottom-up and top-down influences from proactive leadership or generative leadership events and benefit from positive results and the emergence of innovation.

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CSS: 3 Entrepreneurship.

The theoretical basis for the case is information asymmetry and signaling theory, with buybacks providing a mechanism for reducing information asymmetry between management and investors. The controversy surrounding buybacks has led to political and regulatory scrutiny, which, consistent with evidence from academic research, may affect corporate behavior.

The compact case is based on secondary, public information about stock buybacks. All sources used are cited in-text, with full citations included in the references section at the end of the teaching note.

Stock buybacks, a means of providing returns to shareholders, have recently received increased scrutiny by politicians, media and shareholder activists. Proponents have argued that buybacks result in efficient allocation of capital by returning funds to shareholders, whereas opponents have criticized buybacks for enriching executives, providing tax advantages to shareholders and contributing to income inequality. Corporations did not curtail their use of buybacks after the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 imposed an excise tax. The case frames the buyback debate in current events and focuses on the buyback activity of Apple. The case provides students the opportunity to analyze alternative ways that companies can provide returns to shareholders, evaluate impacts of buybacks on corporate stakeholders and appraise the reasons for, and implications of, current controversy regarding buybacks.

This compact case is appropriate for upper-level undergraduate or graduate courses in financial accounting, tax and finance. This case provides an opportunity to analyze and evaluate stock buyback decisions in the context of the current controversy related to buybacks.

This case study may be used in the following academic courses: Theories of Leadership; Leadership and Leaders Organizational Leaders Roles; Management Skills Ethics and Governance; and Ethics and Management Entrepreneurial Management.

This case study may be used in the following academic programs: Bachelor's in Business Administration; Master of Science in Business Administration; and MBA Programs.

There is little doubt, if any, that values shape the decisions, behaviors and corporate moves that business managers and leaders make in their day-to-day operations. The following case study sheds light on the influence of personal values on individuals in leadership positions. To do so, concrete examples of observed behaviors, in cases where values have been honored and positive outcomes have been attained, will be reported. From hiring practices, contract bidding, compensation policies and/or customer service, the Ynna conglomerate group, a Moroccan holding corporation, has been led by a visionary who patiently started his life journey as a shepherd tending ewes, and decades later has emerged as an extraordinary business legend to emulate. Virtually all the decisions taken within his companies are influenced by his moral convictions and his values. Miloud Chaabi, listed in Forbes Magazine as one of the top 40 richest billionaires in Africa, is a principled and revered individual who has been spiritually leading his businesses in various sectors since 1948.

In general, the objective of the case study is to further enhance the understanding of leadership in general and values-based leadership in particular. The case study will assist students in developing their leadership-related skills through the discussion of a real-life situation and experience, and proposing solutions to a challenge face by the company in the area of leadership approaches. The case is designed to provoke and stimulate students' personal reflections about a particular approach of management, especially in a transition period.

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The case was developed from both primary and secondary sources. The secondary data was sourced from annual reports, industry reports, company websites and news articles. Primary sources included visiting the Club Mahindra Resorts located at different places, interacting with staff and local people, visiting their corporate office to interact with the CEO. The case has also been tested in a classroom.

This case deals with challenges faced by a vacation ownership (VO) company, Mahindra Holidays Resorts India Ltd in articulating the organizational culture of its flagship brand “Club Mahindra.” Club Mahindra had emerged as the major VO company in India in the past two decades on the back of its core product – a 25-year membership plan. The company was growing its offerings to its customers in an environment of changing customer preferences.

This case provides the students an opportunity to learn the organizational culture model. The students are expected to use the information provided in the case and exhibits to support their analysis with the primary objective to extract lessons about organization culture to leverage it as a tool to enhance customer satisfaction. Other objectives include understanding the changing business environment and modeling employee behavior during a crisis. Furthermore, the students are expected to validate the model using the artifacts from the crisis management at the Club Mahindra Resorts at Madikeri and Ashtamudi to understand the dynamics of change and the role of culture in organizational success.

At the MBA level, the case can be used to teach the topic of Organization Culture in the core course, Organization Behavior in the first-year curriculum, which is at the macro-level, with “organization” as the unit of analysis. It can also be used to teach the same topic with a stronger application orientation in the One Year Executive Education Program for middle-to-senior managers or short-term Executive Education Modules designed for a similar cohort.