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To analyze and personally relate to an individual having faced a quarter-life crisis; to define how environmental factors influence the person’s career priorities; to analyze the causes of career-family conflicts; to comprehend another gender’s position and concerns; and to originate ideas for prospective career development.

The case study presents a career management dilemma of a PhD candidate, senior lecturer at the Almaty Management University, Kazakhstan and a married mother of two small children. Having faced a kind of quarter-life crisis and the pressures of a traditional society with gendered career trajectories, the protagonist (33) is challenging her initial plan of an academic career that sees gradual promotion and progress and has to make a difficult decision about her professional and personal identity amidst the realities of a newly emerging and transitional economy.

Master’s level

Teaching notes, company’s organizational charts, protagonist’s curriculum vitae, PowerPoint slides with the protagonist and her classmates’ pictures.

CSS 6: Human Resource Management.

At the end of the case study discussion, students will able to state the importance of outsourcing with comparing pros and cons in business decision-making; review the value bestowed to the community in using sustainable raw material while at the same time conserving the ancient style of artwork particular to the area; discuss the utility of the products manufactured by “Flying Colours,” especially for the lockdown period which was because of the pandemic; and demonstrate and interpret the use of shark and mosquito bite matrix.

Arun Kumar Patni, 47, and his wife Neelima Patni, 43, are co-founders of Flying Colours, a start-up company based in Jaipur, in the state of Rajasthan, India. Their enterprise was engaged in the manufacturing and marketing of bird products and accessories, including bird feeders, bird houses, earthen water bowls, etc. In July 2020, post-lockdown, they were desperate to hire carpenters to restart their factory. However, COVID-19 posed a serious challenge, making it very difficult to replace their skilled carpenters, who had returned to their native places and had not come back. This disrupted production and order fulfilment. Keeping this situation in perspective in anticipation of the continuing pandemic crisis, Neelima was in favour of outsourcing basic production and designing the birdfeed decoration and artwork in-house. Meanwhile, Arun instead favoured continuing full in-house production as before, by hiring replacement carpenters. Yet for an in-house full-scale production, procuring raw material was a difficult task because of the lockdown. The situation had earlier taken a turn for the worse when Arun had advertised an exchange marketing policy to let customers return their old bird feeders for a 20% discount on a new one. This campaign was a huge success and resulted in a sales spike but unfortunately it caused a huge stock of returned products in their warehouse. Arun initially planned to repair and resell them as refurbished products. It now seemed impossible, because local carpenters demanded higher labour charges than the regular carpenters did. Flying Colours had provided skills workshops and hired external trainers to train unskilled carpenters prior to lockdown, so now all the training investment was in vain. Cash liquidity, sales, marketing, etc. were almost at a standstill.

This case particularly focuses on undergraduate-level students pursuing business or commerce programs, especially those studying core course: Entrepreneurial Strategic Management.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

After completion of the case study, the students would be able to comprehend the crisis at hand for Milkbasket, why did it resist Reliance’s takeover in the first place, then to evaluate the pros-cons and future prospects for the organization post-acquisition; to evaluate from an ethical standpoint the process of mergers and acquisitions using ethical frameworks to understand how, when, to whom and through what processes do mergers and acquisitions qualify the test of being ethical; and to analyse different hostile takeovers, especially through tender offers, proxy contests and toehold bidding strategy in this case.

Founded in 2015, Milkbasket was a micro-delivery start-up based in Gurugram (near New Delhi), India. Milkbasket would let its subscribers order till midnight and deliver groceries, milk and other everyday essentials to its subscribers before 7 a.m. next day. It had burnt a lot of cash and was facing difficulty in getting investors; as such they were engaged in discussions with many companies. Two of them – Reliance Retail Venture Limited and BigBasket – were not accepting the proposed valuation, but Milkbasket got term sheets from other two companies.

This case study can be used for graduate courses on strategic management, business ethics and corporate governance. This case study can also be used in corporate finance course to highlight the importance of making ethical/responsible judgements to protect stakeholder interests.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

International business

Undergraduate/graduate/executive education.

China has become the world's largest producer of automobiles, surpassing the USA and Japan. The Chinese auto industry differs quite significantly from those countries though. While the industry exhibits a substantial degree of concentration in the USA and Japan in early 2011, it remained highly fragmented in China. The Chinese Central Government had announced a desire for consolidation, yet it remained unclear whether a significant shakeout would occur in the near term.

Like many Chinese automakers, Chang'an partnered with well-known global auto makers to develop, produce, and distribute its products. In the coming years, Chang'an hoped to develop more independence from its foreign partners, including the production and distribution of self-branded cars. However, the company grappled with how it could strive for independence while managing its existing joint ventures. Executives worried too about how to compete with foreign automakers who had achieved global economies of scale.

The case provides a rich description of the evolution of the Chinese auto industry, and it documents how the Chinese industry differs from other global markets. Readers can analyze the extent to which they believe scale economies provide foreign firms an advantage over smaller Chinese rivals, and they can evaluate the conventional wisdom regarding the industry's minimum efficient scale. The case also provides a detailed account of Chang'an's rise to prominence. The case concludes by offering an in-depth description of the firm's key rivals, and it presents the key questions being considered by Chang'an executives in 2011.

Enables students to examine how and why an industry's structure can differ substantially across geographic markets.

Enables students to examine whether the need to achieve economies of scale may cause substantial consolidation in the Chinese auto industry.

Provides an opportunity to evaluate the pros and cons of the joint venture strategies employed in China.

Provides an opportunity to examine how a relatively small firm can position itself against large multinationals in a high-growth emerging market.

Teaching notes.

This case is designed to achieve the following learning objectives: recognize the impact of personality traits on leadership style; identify the key elements in a turnaround strategy; examine leadership best practices from a gender perspective; and assess the role of strategic decision-making on company growth.

The case study describes how Lisa Su (Su), the first woman CEO of Advanced Micro Devices, helped turn around the debt-laden semiconductor firm within a decade through her transformational leadership, vision and values. The case first touches upon Su’s early life and education and the influence of her parents in shaping her personality. It then focuses on the first half of Su’s career, during which she was working on semiconductor projects and was involved in research and product development, and how she made the gradual shift to a people management role in her stint of over a decade at IBM followed by a leadership opportunity at Freescale Semiconductor Inc. The case then describes Su’s move to AMD in 2012 as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the company’s global business divisions at a time when AMD was nearly US$2.5bn in debt and revenues had increased only once in the previous five years. There were also rumors of bankruptcy and spin-offs after the company lost more than US$1bn in the year 2012. The cas

This case is meant for MBA students as part of their Organizational Behavior, Leadership, and Strategic Management curriculum.

Teaching notes Student feedback details.

CCS 11: Strategy.

The learning outcomes after reading and analysing this case study are dealing with the challenges of family business; learning the importance of succession planning; accepting the next generation and the role of the first generation; and understanding the decision-making skills and roles of the generations in family business.

Khushboo Pouch and Packaging was the first-generation initiative of Mr Bhavesh Udeshi. Mitesh Udeshi, son of Bhavesh Udeshi and the business’s sole successor, joined the firm in 2019 after graduating with a Master of Business Administration degree. Mitesh had desired to join his family firm since he was a teenager and aid the business with emerging business ideas. As a fresher, he applied his newly acquired theories to the company’s operations. He initiated several changes in the company; however, his actions were ineffective. He introduced modifications to the business premises, production units, marketing tactics, accounting department and product line extension for two years. Mitesh had intended to restructure his traditional firm in rational and innovative ways, but none of his plans had come to fruition. He failed because the firm’s change management was confronted with denial, rage, bargaining and melancholy from both his father and the employees. Amidst non-acceptance and inconsistency, he found himself in a quandary. He had two options: remain in the family firm and persevere in making his ambitions a reality or resign, find a job and embark on a new path. Unfortunately, leaving would indicate surrendering defeat after a two-year struggle.

Programmes: Master of Business Administration (MBA), Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) programmes, MBA in Entrepreneurship and small businesses, and Post graduate diploma in management (PGDM).

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship

Human Resource Management and Public Sector Management.

The target audiences for the case study are BSc, MSc and MBA students and management trainees and executives who are interested in learning the human resource (HR) practices, policies and strategies adopted by the world’s largest commercial employer to ensure complete satisfaction and contentment of their employees and their employee’s family which, in turn, motivates them to contribute more efficiently and effectively for the organisation. Even senior management teams could be targeted in executive education programmes as this case discusses time-tested HR practices, policies and strategies which have been sparsely discussed so far and hence can be expected to provide insights to senior corporate managers.

India has and is undergoing sweeping economic changes lately. There are several organisations that have supported this positive change. Of these, one such organisation, which shouldered the infrastructural burden of the transportation sector in India’s growth story, was the 160-year-old Indian Railways (IR), the world’s largest commercial employer. IR’s profit over the past few years was a far cry from its loss-making days, which tempted the government of India to consider privatisation in 2001. The transformational turnaround would not have been possible but for IR’s employees. After celebrating IR’s 160th anniversary in 2013, the case organisation wished to revisit its HR practices to understand its recent economic transformations and to strategise how they can improve and sustain maximum efficiency in future. The objective of this case study is to understand the “people side” of IR by explaining its current HR practices and to investigate and identify changes over the years so that changes then can be implemented in the context of HR practices for the future. Hence, the case attempts to explain the role of HR management in IR’s turnaround strategies. Resistance exhibited by IR staff towards its recent initiative of enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation across India due to fear of job losses and insecurity is also discussed in the case. Teaching note for this case study explains existing people management frameworks published in the research literature to class participants by applying it to the case company. In addition, the teaching note also discusses how chief personnel officers (CPOs) of IR can pursue the change initiatives among the employees with least resistance. Changes/initiatives that can be imbibed by the CPOs in the existing HR practices to overcome the resistance exerted by the employees and to improve the existing system are also discussed.

This case study’s primary objective is to provide a comprehensive understanding of the HR practices being followed in IR, the world’s largest commercial employer. The case also attempts to assess the ERP system initiative by IR and analyse how it can be imbibed into the existing IR’s HR system. In short, the case study attempts to answer the following assignment questions which form the learning objectives of this case study: What are the HR practices that are being followed in the world’s largest commercial employer? How are the HR practices followed helpful in the retention of employees? How can IR pursue the change initiatives, especially ERP implementation, among the employees without any resistance? What are the changes/initiatives that can be imbibed in the HR practices to improve the existing system?

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.

The case provides a great illustration of women leadership in crisis times. A failed merger forced a deep review of the firm strategy and a realization that the legacy leadership arrangement was not optimal anymore. The hustand-and-wife team ended up swapping executive positions, with Charlotte resolutely taking on the CEO position.

The case is designed as an integrative case looking simultaneously at key subjects such as leadership, entrepreneurship and management of a fast growing service firm, strategy as applied to IT consulting and finally gender studies, with the possibility to discuss the impact of gender roles.

The case investigates Charlotte's efforts at building an original Search Engine Optimization firm in Seattle, progressively taking control from her husband to save the firm from bad strategic decisions.

The case is written to convey the emotional rollercoaster lived by Charlotte and key decisions she had to make as the leader of this fast growing data analytics firm. Learning outcomes focus on what is expected of a leader in such situation, in particular a female leader in a male-dominated technology environment.

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

Consulting in general, and data analytics consulting in particular, are male-dominated worlds where a female leader faces many obstacles to realize their potential. Charlotte provides a masterful example of how to contribute to and lead a fast-growing firm and manage the family and the relationship to a partner who also happens to be the co-founder of the firm.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship

Dialogue in Darkness (DID) is a global social enterprise, which provides products and services such as workshops, exhibitions and activities in the dark in China. The corporate workshops are designed for companies, institutions and government agencies to provide unique leadership training and some other training in teamwork, communication, innovation and change management. And education workshops are aimed at providing young people with unique leadership training and training in teamwork, innovation and empathy and so on for the educational institutions. Over the past five years, DID, headquartered in Shanghai, has expanded to Beijing, Chengdu and Shenzhen, realizing strategic coverage of East, West, North and South of China. DID achieved break-even within less than one year since its inception. Its sound and healthy development offers an innovative way for the sustainable development of social enterprises.

This case is most suited for the course on Strategic Management.

The case can be used for post graduate management students and executive education participants. It should be used in the section dealing with capabilities of an organization.

Sonalika Group, situated in Punjab, India, started its operations in 1969 by manufacturing agricultural implements and equipment’s. By 1990, the firm graduated into manufacturing tractors. It gradually expanded its wings in countries like Nigeria, Argentina and Brazil and became the third largest tractor manufacturer of India in FY 2012. The year 2005 was a landmark year when it entered the passenger vehicle segment through its subsidiary International Cars and Motors Limited that launched a multi-utility vehicle (MUV) named Rhino. The vehicle was expected to fill up the vacant spot created by the withdrawal of “Qualis”, which was a highly popular MUV manufactured by Toyota. However, the enthusiasm of launching Rhino waned with time because its sales did not pick up as expected. After selling around 5,000 units of Rhino, the company stopped its production as the product had started showing up teething problems. The marketers and designers burnt midnight oil to bring out an improved version of Rhino. This version was christened “Extreme” and launched in 2012. Despite all marketing, sales and service efforts, “Extreme” also failed to take off. The group is wondering when it was so successful in tractors why it has not been successful in passenger vehicle category. It has to work out a strategy to be successful in passenger vehicle segment as well.

Expected learning outcomes are as follows: to analyse the external and internal environment for a business and understand its impact on business decision-making; to understand the relationship between operational capabilities and dynamic capabilities; to identify opportunities and match it with internal capabilities; to analyse the reasons for product failure and identify remedial measures; to understand the process of technology diffusion and thereby strategic planning.

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 11: Strategy