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On May 27, 2020, a blowout occurred in Well No. 5 at Baghjan (Assam); the well, owned by Oil India Ltd., caught fire on June 9, 2020. For almost five and a half months, the company tried to douse the 200-foot high flame but failed to do so. Finally, on Day 173, Oil India Ltd succeeded in capping the well. Biswajit Roy, Director (Human Resources and Business Development), was tasked with investigating the nature and cause of the crisis. Roy pondered on the nature of the crisis: Had it been purely technical or stakeholder-induced? What had led to the chaotic condition? Could things have been done differently?

This case has multiple theoretical linkages at the micro-organizational behavior level (e.g. job enrichment), but it is best analyzed and understood when examined at the organizational level. Students will learn about shared entrepreneurship, high performance work systems, shared leadership and virtuous organizations, and how they can develop a sustainable competitive advantage.

The case was prepared using a qualitative approach. Data were collected via the following ways: literature search; organizational documents and published historical accounts; direct observations by a research team; and on-site audio recorded and transcribed individual and group interviews conducted by a research team (the authors) with organization members at multiple levels of the firm.

John Lewis Company has been in business since 1864. In 1929, it became the John Lewis Partnership (JLP) when the son of the founder sold a portion of the firm to the employees. In 1955, he sold his remaining interest to the employee/partners. JLP has a constitution and has a representative democracy governance structure. As the firm approaches the 100th anniversary of the trust, it is faced with multiple challenges. The partners are faced with the question – How to respond to the environmental turmoil?

This case has environmental issues – How to respond to competition, technological changes and environmental uncertainty and an internal issue – How can high performance work practices provide a sustainable competitive advantage? Both issues can be examined in strategic management courses after the students have studied traditionally managed companies. This case could also be used in human resource management courses.

This case is based on primary and secondary sources of information. These sources include interviews with senior executives as well as documents provided by Mondragon and Eroski. The interviews were conducted on-site. In addition, the authors researched the literature on both organizations.

Eroski is the largest of Mondragon Corporation’s coops. Since its founding, Eroski has faced numerous challenges. It has responded to each challenge with out-of-the-box thinking. In response to the pandemic, Eroski become an e-commerce supermarket as well as selectively continuing bricks and mortar stores. As the pandemic is winding down, Eroski is considering how to respond to the “new normal,” which is largely undefined. The question posited at the end of the case is, “Will Eroski be able to hold to its social principles, maintain its unusual governance model and other unusual practices, and survive this latest challenge?”

Eroski of Mondragon is a complex and unusual organization. To appreciate the challenges and how they were overcome by its unique business model, a student must have a minimum background in management, corporate finance and marketing. Thus, this case would fit well into a senior or graduate class on strategic human resource management. It is also recommended for the strategy capstone course usually offered during the last year of a business bachelor’s degree (senior level) to ensure that students are introduced to what Paul Adler refers to as an alternative business model. It can also be targeted for an advanced management course or a strategy course at the MBA and executive levels.

A 2010 MBA graduate explored her options for full-time employment. She found Ethical Business Company (EBC) and was instantly intrigued. Not only did the company consult on many of the ethical issues that were important to her, but it also had a flat organizational structure. Although it was a riskier choice than going with a larger and more established firm, she was excited about being able to use her skills in direct interaction with clients and senior executives, rather than having them hidden beneath multiple layers of hierarchy. But after three weeks at EBC, she wonders if a flat structure is right for all companies and all employees or if there are certain companies and people who fit better in the hierarchy more than others.

Management.

Undergraduate and Post Graduate.

Communication is a critical function of management, as it allows all stakeholders in an organization effectively and appropriately express their views in turn enabling the organization accurately execute its mandate and meet its objectives and those of its stakeholders.

The student should be able to describe communication as a function of management, evaluate the process of communication, differentiate forms of communication, identify the networks of communication, examine the barriers of communication and role of managers in using communication to achieve organizational change.

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.

This case gives readers the opportunity to think about strategies employed in the postal sector amid sector, technological, national and global challenges. It highlights the importance of thinking about real options, and real solutions to counter the failures of the past and the uncertainties of the future.

The case will be particularly useful for master's degrees, Master of Business Administration, doctorate students or undergraduate specialized courses of strategy, public sector management and privatization.

This case study aims to analyze the manner in which LibanPost transformed itself from a government bureaucracy to a commercial company and how, through diversification, it was transformed from a traditional postal operator to a high-end service provider. In addition, it attempts to examine the stages that have led to LibanPost's success, shedding the light on the major barriers and enablers for its reform.

The students will be able to examine how a privately owned postal company succeeded in transforming a courier company from a bureaucratic public administration incurring substantial losses to a profitable commercial company, through privatization, and grasp the major success barriers and enablers for LibanPost, while exploring the reasons behind the failure of the foreign–national partnership.

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

Marketing.

This case can be used in an international marketing course or module, at executive or MBA level, and is particularly suitable as a case on global branding.

MTN was launched in 1994 as a leading provider of communication services, offering cellular network access and business solutions. After building up a successful operation in South Africa, achieving a market share of some 38 per cent (second only to Vodacom, the dominant mobile telecommunications provider), the group began its expansion into the rest of Africa in 1998. It was the first South African cell phone network operator to do so. The objective of this expansion was, despite the uncertain political and regulatory environment, to take advantage of the market opportunities in Africa, given its underdeveloped telecommunications infrastructure and the transferability of MTN's skills into other African countries. At the time of the case (June 2005), MTN had established itself in eight different African countries, with a subscriber base of 14.3 million in South Africa and 2.9 million in the rest of Africa, with plans for further growth in the territory and elsewhere. As a result of this international expansion, a major challenge was to ensure consistent branding in the different countries.

The expected learning outcomes are: to explore the challenges of international expansion into new markets; to understand global brand building strategies, how to create a consistent identity and how to build a services brand; to understand the challenges of implementing a marketing change strategy across different countries with different cultures and with employees with different agendas and to highlight the importance of people in providing a service and in delivering the brand promise.

Teaching note.

The case describes the fall of Eskom, which in 2001 was named the Financial Times’ Power Company of the Year, but by 2019 was suffering from “systemic corruption, malfeasance, fraud and state capture” that had “compromised the credibility of the organisation and eroded investor confidence”. Eskom’s incompetent management lays the ground for reasonable doubt as to whether the force majeure notice was indeed irresistible. The case suggests several methods available in financial markets to hedge risk – but to what extent are these relevant and appropriate? The main objective of the case, however, is to examine and assess the criteria required to claim force majeure. Two aspects are questionable: Was the virus unforeseeable and was it irresistible? Eskom is “bleeding” R².5m per month because of significantly reduced electricity demand, and while it clearly benefits Eskom to break their supply contract, the consequences for Exxaro are far more dire. And, if carried to conclusion, how would such actions impact the entire economy?

In April 2020 South Africa’s stated-owned electricity utility Eskom sent a pre-cautionary force-majeure notification to Exxaro Limited’s Grootegeluk Coal Mine. The notification, citing COVID-19 as an unforeseeable, external and irresistible event, would have disastrous consequences for the mine’s 25 m tonnes pa coal contract to supply Eskom’s Medupi power station. Not only was the legality of the force-majeure questionable, it was unethical, and not in the spirit of President Ramaposa’s call to businesses to continue paying contractors. The case briefly describes Eskom’s troubled history following South Africa’s 1994 democratic election. It examines the force majeure clause common in contracts, and questions whether COVID-19 meets the criteria of an “unforeseeable, external and irresistible” event.

MBA and Executive Education

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 7: Management Science.

Entrepreneurship.

The case could be taught in the core marketing course at the post graduate level while discussing the notion of positioning. The case could also be taken up in marketing strategy courses, where the linkage of the positioning to past and future customers and implementation challenges within the organization could be highlighted.

The case shows how the CEO of an entrepreneurial venture, Team Computers, was coping with the problem of creating a unique identity in the market. It tracks the evolution of an embryonic organization to an Indian rupees (INR) 2.3 billion organization with 1,500 employees and its competitive landscape. It also highlights that an organization could become quite big without a very well defined positioning in the mind of its consumers and even its employees, however such growth could not be sustainable. It highlights the key challenges for Team Computers with respect to defining its positioning platform. The biggest challenge for Team Computers was to arrive at an appropriate positioning within an increasingly competitive market place, a distinct image of the company was almost a pre-requisite to the vision of sustainable, profitable growth for the company. The problem was inherent in the condition prevailing in the industry, which had intense competition among the incumbent firms and a high degree of employee turnover which plagued the industry. The case focuses on the challenge of deciding on a positioning platform for the company, considering its checkered evolution and somewhat difficult to predict and plan future trajectory. The case provides enough evidence to evaluate the positioning options of the company, the criteria to finalize the positioning options. It also opens up the possibility to discuss changes in organizational structure required to implement the positioning. The case also opens up the debate about conditions under which democratic process might not be the best way to decide on positioning.

The following insights could be elucidated by the case: criteria for evaluating the positioning options for an organization; the need for a clear positioning platform to grow beyond a threshold level for a service based organization in a competitive landscape; and the possible need for organizational restructuring to be able to implement positioning in the market.

Teaching notes are available for faculty. Please consult your librarian for access.

The media consultant for the Reagan-Bush '84 campaign identifies his goal as stopping and reversing a strong decline in support for President Reagan. The case describes the results of some of the motivational research used, and introduces a framework for evaluating advertising strategies. The case also introduces the MECCAS framework for evaluating advertising copy and discusses theory-driven communication strategies.