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One Acre Fund (1AF) is a nonprofit organization in rural western Kenya that helps farmers lift themselves out of poverty by providing a bundle of products and services that support farmers with quality inputs, training on farming techniques, access to credit, and assistance in achieving optimal prices. Since the organization's founding nearly a decade ago, it has grown to serve over 180,000 farm families annually as of July 2014. This high level of penetration into rural Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanzania makes 1AF a potential distribution channel for rolling out new products and technologies that could benefit farmers and their families. The organization prides itself on its innovative culture, and always strives to offer new products and methods to its farmers. In 2011 1AF realized that it needed to formalize its innovation process to ensure it was confident in new products before rolling them out across its entire farmer network. It therefore created a robust, multistep evaluation framework to assess new innovations on four criteria: impact, adoptability, simplicity, and operability.

After reading and analyzing the case, students will be able to:

• Articulate the importance of understanding the user's needs and perspective throughout the innovation process

• Identify key factors for a successful product launch into an existing channel

• Employ an assessment framework to analyze the viability of a potential innovation

• Design a test pilot for evaluating the launch of new innovations within an organization

Articulate the importance of understanding the user's needs and perspective throughout the innovation process

Identify key factors for a successful product launch into an existing channel

Employ an assessment framework to analyze the viability of a potential innovation

Design a test pilot for evaluating the launch of new innovations within an organization

The director of equipment finance at Burlington Northern Railroad Company must decide if a leveraged-lease proposal is acceptable. The case emphasizes the importance of the lessee's tax status to the value of the lease and how the perception of residual value affects the valuation for both the lessee and lessor. To value the lease properly, the student must identify the relevant cash flows and the appropriate discount rates for those flows.

This case explores the larger context of competition among Internet companies for market share globally, especially in the emerging Chinese economy, as well as concerns about advancing the core values of the company including user privacy. Specifically, it concerns the decision facing Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang when he is confronted with a request by the Chinese government to release the name of one of its users for alleged violations of Chinese law.

The learning outcome is to understand the difference between correlation and causation.

The case is set during the period of the COVID-19 pandemic, globally a search for effective treatments were underway. An initial forerunner that was being considered was Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG), given its effectiveness in the treatment of tuberculosis and other pulmonary-related infections. While there were a lack of randomised controlled trials, initial data from publicly related secondary data sources indicated that, in countries with BCG inoculation policies, the severity of the spread and mortality of COVID-19 was muted. The case is centered around the available information on BCG and COVID-19.

Post-graduate students learning statistics as part of a degree programme. The case assumes no prior statistics knowledge and therefore is aimed at teaching the difference between correlation and causation.

CSS 7: Management Science

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

The paper has the following learning outcomes: to understand the historical and geographical aspect of Pakistan vis-à-vis other countries of South East Asia and the world; to be able to understand the different marketing strategies of the tourism company; to gather the knowledge of many unknown facts which remain out of sight and hardly surface; to boost economy if its facts and figures are given due weight age and followed with true letter and spirit; and to give a big boost to an industry which remains mostly dormant for many decades. The ratio analysis of service sector is explained. How finances can be arranged in shortest time and generates profitability for the company is also discussed.

The study provides an overview on the following topics: lack of interest by the Government in promotion; training of tour operators and guide; and managing the expected income from this industry. This study makes the masses aware that how much potential exist in the field of tourism in Pakistan. How the tour operators find huge potential in all segments of tourism and how the big force of trained manpower can be formed and creates employment. Service sector mostly run on equity finances because of lack of collateral, how efficiently they manage the finance for the business year. It gives details of extensive marketing strategy, the huge profit margin in foreign currency and cost volume profit systems of tourism companies.

BBA, MBA and MS.

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 1: Accounting and Finance.

Provincial Industries has decided that the time has come to expand internationally. In this case and the activities along with it, individuals will need to consider different attributes or factors in each category evaluated. These categories include: business climate, communications, financial services, health services and “Quality of Life”, infrastructure, and transportation. This evaluation will decide the new international office location.

In the late 1990s, the National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak) faced a rude awakening as Congress stipulated that it eliminate its reliance on federal subsidies by 2002. In response, Amtrak drew up a plan for self-sufficiency, the centerpiece of which was a new high-speed passenger service that, it was hoped, would boost revenue enough to make Amtrak self-sufficient by 2002. To run this new service, Amtrak needed to purchase $750 million worth of new locomotives and train sets in 1999. Three alternatives were available for funding the purchase: debt financing, lease financing, or reliance on federal sources. The case opens with Amtrak's CFO instructing her staff in April 1999 to review a leveraged-lease proposal that has just been submitted by BNY Capital Funding LLC. The objectives of the case are to introduce students to financial leases as a financing alternative, explore the lease-versus-buy decision and the conditions under which financial lease arrangements make sense, and exercise skills in the valuation of financial leases.

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.

Diagnostics services in India were growing at 20% annually with billing of USD 3.4 billion. With WTO's GATS, foreign competition was arising. Dr. Lal PathLabs had formidable brand recognition and Dr. Arvind Lal was wondering whether to accept private equity and induct management professionals to keep pace with competitors through acquisitions or greenfield or sell out. He worried over loss of proprietary control. The industry practice of incentivizing doctors for referrals meant that acquisitions brought perverse incentive systems. The choice of compromising ethics or inventing another business model had to be made alongside whether to expand in India or abroad.

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.