Search results

The Performance Management at IRD Corporation case series is designed to be an in-depth study of performance appraisal in the R&D context. The case series can be used as a platform for discussing the rationale of performance appraisal system, system design and implementation, the differences between R&D and other work contexts (manufacturing, services, etc.), and the challenges involved in R&D management. This case revolves around the Chairman of IRD Corp and his dilemmas, providing an insight to the participants into the challenges of performance management and also R&D management. The series highlights the complex dilemmas associated with managing performance and the necessity of having a new performance evaluation system.

Food service management, human resource management, hospitality strategic management and, international business and management.

Graduate students.

The purpose of this case study is to determine whether the practice of talent management serves to motivate fast food service employees. It aims to determine employees’ perceived level of awareness and importance of talent management practices; current practice of talent management within the fast food service sector; and to assess the level of motivation of employees from talent management practices. The survey method employing the use of questionnaires was used to ascertain data from a fast food service establishment in Jamaica, a developing island destination located in the Caribbean region (Sinclair-Maragh and Gursoy, 2015). Jamaica is chosen for the study, as there has been an increase in the number of both local and international fast food entities over the years (Collinder, 2014). The focus on fast food service is important, as they have been providing employment to a significant sector of the population. This type of business operation is classified as a tourism related hospitality area (Purcell, 1996) and as indicated by Christensen and Rog (2008), talent management presents an intriguing opportunity for hospitality organizations to attract employees with requisite skills and experience. The industry is also challenged in maintaining motivated employees (Baum, 2008). Talent management can assist organizations that have long-struggled with high turnover rates and the ability to attract and engage employees that are considered assets and not liabilities. Lockwood (2007) points out that engaged employees are loyal, hardworking and passionate about their work. Motivation theory is used to provide theoretical support for the findings of the study. This is because behavioral theorists such as Abraham Maslow suggested that survival, safety, belonging and self-esteem are factors that can be used to motivate employees and Sigmund Freud believes that people need to be rewarded to get work done (Nohria et al., 2008). This theory is plausible to the study, as it is postulated that talent management can enhance employee engagement, through highly motivated employees (Christensen and Rog, 2008). The study finds that majority of the employees understood the meaning of the term “talent management”. In terms of their personal and professional development, the employees believe that these are highly influenced by the organization’s culture. They pointed out that skills are usually developed through training, cross-training and succession planning. Financial assistance is given for further training and skill development. The performance evaluation process is used to identify employees’ specific skill. Although this is done, the majority has not been placed in other departments that would benefit more from their skills. Only 7.6 per cent reported that this was ever done. Employees’ emotional wellbeing is also important. Although majority of the employees (44.7 per cent) are happy about their work, they indicated that they could be motivated by coaching, mentorship and empowerment initiatives. Overall, the employees’ sense of belonging through their engagement and development, and self-esteem through their morale and competence are important to their motivation levels. They are also motivated when support is provided for training and skill development as explained by the motivation theory.

The learning outcomes are intended to guide the teaching-learning process and stimulate students’ understanding of the concepts of talent management specific to fast food service employees’ motivation. The case study is a useful resource for graduate students to enable and develop their critical thinking and solution-oriented skills. Students should be able to critically analyze the case and respond to the questions to garner and improve their understanding of talent management and its applicability in the fast food service sector. Further understanding of the concept can be derived from developing dimensions and measures of talent management that can be generalized to the food service sector.

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 6: Human Resource Management.

Marketing tactics such as pricing, promotion, placement, and product decisions all help business owners create a need for their products or services. What managers seldom realize, however, is that the marketing decisions they make primarily to increase sales and market share have a great impact on society at large and thus have significant ethical implications. These seven caselets, which cover a variety of topics (including “the article of the half-truth,” “creative interview tactics,” and “truthfully representing your company”), explore the ethical implications of decision making in the marketing arena.

The HR President of Lupin and the Head of Learning and Development, were looking with satisfaction at the latest attrition figures. The annualized attrition rate for managers had been showing a steady decline, and was pegged at 1% for the first quarter of 2010–11, much lower than the industry average of 35%¹. It had been a long, arduous journey and figures were looking decent for now. However, the HR President knew that this was just the beginning. With competition intensifying in the industry, the war for talent was going to heat up further. He wondered how they were going to manage talent in an industry which was fast-growing, insular and obsessed with domain knowledge.

The case fosters discussions on basic concepts of entrepreneurship that include building a minimum viable product before launching a finished product, the importance of doing market research for early-stage startups, challenges in understanding an unfamiliar domain or industry and understanding the dynamics of business to business market.

Team Arnetta’s founders were interviewed in relation to the case. After the initial round of interviews, a product demonstration was given by Arnetta. Follow up interviews were conducted to delve-deeper into the problem while secondary research was conducted to understand the market dynamics and competitive landscape at the point in time in the case.

The four founders of Arnetta Technologies debate go-to-market timing for Integrated Breeding and Research Management Software, a data handling software for the R&D process followed by seed enterprises in India. The founders had spent over US$75,000 on the product development on which they had been working for more than one year. Two of the founders had given up their full-time jobs to work dedicatedly on the venture. The product was being customized to the requirements of their only client. Product development was taking longer than anticipated. To add to the challenges, international competitors had started capturing the Indian market. The founders had two options. First, they could wait and finish the product development before reaching out to their prospective clients – leading to delays and losing out on the market. Second, they could reach out to prospective clients and convince them to use the work-in-progress version of the product – which could turn out to be a deal breaker. The founders had to come to a consensus soon.

The case is intended for students in undergraduate or graduate-level courses related to entrepreneurship, new venture creation, innovation management and business management.

Business strategy.

This case study is appropriate for MBA and EMBA courses, especially for courses oriented to emerging markets such as China. It can be used in Business Strategic Management or similar courses, combined with the methodology lectures of Managing Entry Modes and Competitive Strategy.

This case study provides material for understanding/studying the development of a large Chinese software enterprise.

As a result of Chinese ITO and BPO market in the face of re-structuring in 2012, Huawei invested in ChinaSoft in May and Vance info merged with HiSoft in August, both of which make ChinaSoft the third largest market-share owner. However, ChinaSoft has a dilemma in its strategic planning for the next three years. If it cannot break through the suppression from the first and the second placed companies, it may lag behind very soon. If it strives for the No. 2 position in market share, is organic growth or M&A strategy the right approach to adopt? Thus, ChinaSoft is now in need of strategic reform and restructuring. The case study analyzes the approaches that Chinese enterprises can adopt in order to sustain overall cost leadership strategies and avoid the related risks in the ITO and BPO industry.

This case study intends to encourage students to learn and use methodologies such as Porter's competitive strategy framework; Rugman and Collinson's theory, selecting and managing entry modes; four basic global strategies, by Hill and Jones.

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

On a fine afternoon in January 2015, Divakar Kaza, President, Human Resources, at Lupin Ltd., took a sip of coffee from his cup, and shared the good news he had just received, with Rituraj Sar, head of Learning & Development. Lupin had just won the ‘Outstanding Company of the Year’ Award at the CNBC-TV18 India Business Leadership Awards, 2014-15¹. The accomplishment was heartening, given that it reinforced similar recognitions in the recent past. Lupin had won the NDTV Business Leadership Award for the Indian Pharmaceutical Company of the year in 2012, backed up by the same acclaim in 2010 by Frost & Sullivan².

In early 2004, residents of Inglewood, California, a working-class community just outside Los Angeles composed primarily of African- and Hispanic-Americans, were preparing to vote on a referendum that would change the city charter to allow Wal-Mart to build a supercenter on a huge, undeveloped lot in the city. Walmart had put forward the measure after the city council refused to change the zoning of a sixty-acre plot on which it held an option to build. Numerous community and religious groups opposed Wal-Mart's entry and campaigned against the referendum. Walmart promised low-priced merchandise and jobs, but these groups were skeptical about the kinds of jobs and compensation that would be offered, the healthcare that would be provided to employees, and the broader impact Walmart would have on the community. Inglewood was a pro-union community, so there was also opposition based on Walmart's anti-union position. On April 6 Inglewood residents voted to reject the referendum by a margin of 60.6 percent to 39.9 percent. Though smaller, less organized, and with fewer resources than Walmart, this coalition of community and religious leaders had defeated the global retailing behemoth.

After students have analyzed the case they will be able to (a) appreciate the importance of nonmarket factors to execute growth and market entry strategies, (b) understand how the decisions of political institutions depend on the issue context and the alignments of coalitions of interest, (c) formulate and assess strategies to overcome nonmarket barriers to entry.

Wall Street hedge fund manager Kim Meyer is considering investing in an SFA (slate financing arrangement) in Hollywood. Dave Griffith, a Hollywood producer, is pitching for the investment and has conducted a broad analysis of recent movie data to determine the important drivers of a movie’s success. In order to convince Meyer to invest in an SFA, Griffith must anticipate possible questions to maximize his persuasiveness.

Students will analyze the factors driving a movie’s revenue using various statistical methods, including calculating point estimates, computing confidence intervals, conducting hypothesis tests, and developing regression models (in which they must both choose the relevant set of independent variables as well as determine an appropriate functional form for the regression equation). The case also requires the interpretation of the quantitative findings in the context of the application.

Pharmaceutical marketing, brand protection.

It could be used with the pharmaceutical marketing students and MBA students for analysing counterfeit medicines' menace in developing countries and positioning of a disruptive technology. The case could be used for marketing consultants, Brand managers and executive development programmes to explore issues such as protecting brands through technology, pharmaceutical packaging marketing, competitiveness of counterfeit drugs, global harmonisation.

Against the backdrop of rising menace of counterfeit drugs in developing countries, the case talks in particular about an innovative pharmaceutical packaging company. The company has developed a unique security technology called non-ClonableID™ which can enable products to be authenticated throughout the supply chain, thus protecting brands and preventing misuse. Despite a promising technology, it poses challenges regarding its adoption and commercial success.

Counterfeiting as an inevitable result of Globalization has become a global nuisance and has to be dealt at global level. Brand protection could be one of the lowest cost tools for pharmaceutical companies to restore public confidence in their products and themselves. While all methods for anti-counterfeiting are known to have short lives the menace still must be dealt with. For this, companies need to deploy anti-counterfeiting strategies that set up various layers of security.

Teaching note.