Search results

The case could be used in many courses in the field of business and management, for example, environmental management, strategic management, corporate strategy, green or sustainable marketing and international business.

The case has a difficulty level of being appropriate for undergraduate and postgraduate students. However, in utilizing this case as a required component of business courses at various levels, the authors have discovered a different approaching between undergraduate students and postgraduate students in answering those discussion questions. Undergraduate students have tended to focus on the more conceptual and basic approaching based on understanding the main concepts of environmental upgrading. Postgraduate students have a better application and critical thinking based on a better understanding of the fundamental knowledge and concepts. Accordingly, the case has been developed in a manner that will allow students to realize the importance of environmental issues and analyze the company’s main issues as detailed in the case and then suggest opinions and any ideas for the strategy the company should consider and pursue in future. Furthermore, students should identify several points on the company’s chosen strategies and actions for environmental upgrading.

This case is written in the form of an interview with the Chairman and chief executive officer of VIYELLATEX Group, one of the leading firms which embarked upon environmental upgrading in the apparel industry of Bangladesh and in the world. This is an analytical case and not a decision-making one. The main theme of the case revolves around analyzing what drove VIYELLATEX Group to upgrade environmentally, how the group upgraded, the challenges that VIYELLATEX Group has faced and outcomes of environmental upgrading. Environmental upgrading implies an improvement in environmental performance through changes in technological, social and organizational processes and avoiding or reducing the environmental impacts of businesses. In summary, the VIYELLATEX case is an investigation of a leading company in Bangladesh to implement environmental standards and management practices being part of the apparel global apparel industry governed by global retailers and brand marketers.

The learning outcomes are understanding of “corporate sustainability” as a corporate social responsibility of business philosophy, understanding of key features of the apparel industry in Bangladesh, understanding of the main issues and challenges faced by the apparel firms (suppliers) involved in international business regarding environmental upgrading, understanding of the relationship with primary stakeholders, in particular buyers of apparel firm (defining stakeholders and how to cooperate with stakeholders) and understanding of the environmental upgrading in terms of its drivers, processes and outcomes.

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 4 Environmental Management.

This case study has been developed based on the primary data obtained through a series of interviews held with the senior management of Cargills, and the secondary data obtained from the company’s corporate website www.cargillsceylon.com/,annual reports and publicly available sources of information such as newspaper articles.

This case study focuses on the strategic responses employed by Cargills (Ceylon) PLC – a leading business conglomerate in Sri Lanka – in response to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The duration of this case study is from January 2020 to September 2021. The case study particularly examines the key business sectors of Cargills (Ceylon) PLC – retail, food manufacturing and quick service restaurants – which elaborate on the change management practices and strategies deployed by the company in each of these sectors during this challenging period. This study is based on the primary data gathered from the interviews held with the Cargills (Ceylon) PLC team, and the secondary data obtained from the corporate website of Cargills (Ceylon) PLC. This case study is most suitable to be taught in academic courses related to strategic change management.

The case is most suited to be discussed with undergraduates (3rd year and 4th year) following business and management studies related disciplines. While the pivotal area around which the case has been developed is strategic change management, covering environmental analysis, strategic analysis and process of change management, the case could also be used in strategic management classes, to discuss environmental analysis, strategic planning approaches and business and corporate level strategies.

CSS 11: Strategy.

The learning outcomes are as follows: to demonstrate the phenomenon of strategic inertia in organizations and the impact this has on the type of renewal process that is undertaken; to differentiate between environmental and organizational adaptation strategies and synergies; to apply practical steps of renewal by outlining the influential forces and distinct stages of the process; and to create a practical framework that organizations can use as a guideline for sensing and reacting to changes in the business environment.

The case study examines the strategic renewal processes of Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) for the period 2012–2019. Amplats is the world’s largest producer of platinum group metals (PGMs). Despite the adversarial business environment of the South African PGM mining industry, six years into its new strategy, the organization had emerged debt-free and was poised to be sustainable. This posed a unique dilemma in strategic decision-making, namely, how to maintain a strategic renewal process. Chris Griffith, CEO of Amplats, was about to retire, but realized that the organization had yet to fulfil its potential. The ambition of the organization was to redefine the industry benchmark for performance across multiple pillars of value for different stakeholders, and to become the most valued mining company by 2023. Set in 2019, the case invites students to look back at the symptoms of strategic inertia at the time of Griffith’s appointment as CEO, and to define the nature and stages of the renewal that the organization underwent. This will provide insights that will enable an examination of the application of a framework for continual strategic renewal.

Postgraduate business students

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy

This comprehensive case has been written for an undergraduate-level course on general management and a post-graduate-level course on organizational behavior and strategic management. After working through the case and conducting an in-depth discussion of the assignment questions, students will be able to do the following: 1. perform a comprehensive assessment of the institute’s internal context to measure its resources and preparedness to deal with COVID-19; 2. apply organizational change frameworks (to understand the trigger of the change, type of change and change process); 3. qualitatively analyze the dynamic capabilities and resources available to reopen the institute; and 4. suggest ways to institutionalize agility in the organization to improve the preparations and future responses to student management on campus based on a thorough analysis.

Founded in 1996, the Indian Managerial Studies Institute, Indore, has emerged as a leader in management education by appropriately weaving the pertinent roles of industry, government and PSUs into a common thread. With the onset of COVID-19 in March 2020, IMSI Indore began to respond to educational and administrative challenges by building on resilient strategies. Two decision-making situations cropped up as the situation improved and again converged to the more lethal second wave in March 2021. Dr Hemant Vishwas, Dean of IMSI Indore, needed to determine whether the institute should continue with the reduced employee and hybrid classroom model or reopen with full-fledged operations for the following academic year.

This comprehensive case has been written considering the teaching pedagogy for an undergraduate-level course on organizational behavior (organizational development and change module) and a post-graduate-level course on organizational behavior and strategic management. This case is suitable for courses on organizational development, change and strategy implementation. Organizational behavior and organizational development and change can be used to understand the core concepts of the change content and process, i.e. the scope and scale of the change. The case also touches on inducing a dynamic change in response to the pandemic in an educational setting, teaching the concepts of dynamic capabilities. It is also expected to be useful for teaching courses related to operations strategies in educational services for executive degree programs and faculty development workshops.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human Resource Management.

Strategic and organisational change, adaptation responses under competitive pressure and uncertainty and transformational process.

For Executive MBAs or MBA programs.

Founded in 1948 by Adrian Urquía, Aceitera General Deheza (AGD) transformed itself from a small oil-processing factory into the biggest indigenous firm in the industry. Nowadays AGD is a leading edible oil export company and also one of the frontrunners on the retail market for bottled oil with several successful brands. It ranked 40th among the 1,000 top companies in terms of turnover in Argentina in 1999 (Revista Mercado, 1999), and it is considered the fifth most important exporter in the country (Revista Mercado, 1999).After the changes the country went through in the 1990s, the company was able to adapt and thrive in an industry in which most indigenous businesses did not manage to survive. Nevertheless, the roots of AGD's success do not date from the 1990s but long before, in their thinking ahead about ways of improving technology, scale and cost-effective measures – a trio of decisions that would prove to be the right combination for survival and success.

An understanding of the process of business transformation: type and pace of change. The study of the transformation process of a firm will be complemented conceptually with the understanding of the adaptation process under the Argentinean context characterised by uncertainty. Students will also examine organisational flexibility. Defining organisational flexibility, the determinants of whether a firm is flexible or not and why we can consider AGD as a flexible firm.

Teaching note.

At the end of the case discussion, students should be able to:▪ analyse and discuss networks as a form of social capital;▪ identify and discuss alternative growth strategies for an small, medium, micro enterprise (SMME) in the context of prevailing challenges;▪ use the six domains of the entrepreneurship ecosystem to identify and discuss factors that enhance and challenge a business with particular reference to an SMME; and▪ analyse and understand the key dimensions of entrepreneurial behaviour using the case protagonist as an example.

Nhlanhla Dlamini, the managing director of Maneli Pets based in Johannesburg, South Africa had opened an office in Cincinnati in the USA in July 2019 to take over the distribution and marketing of the company’s high-quality protein pet treats. Just over eight months later, the COVID-19 pandemic exploded across the world resulting in unprecedented disruption to people’s lives, world trade and the global economy.Now, in June 2022, Dlamini contemplated the successes and challenges he had experienced since starting Maneli Pets in 2016, not least of which was parting company with US-based Novel Dog LLC, which had previously marketed and distributed the pet treats. He had built an internationally accredited factory from scratch, produced pet products and a brand that was appealing to the competitive international market, and exported to 12 countries around the world. However, Dlamini had also faced the retrenchment of a large number of staff, the breakdown of the relationship with Novel Dog, the difficulties of setting up a distribution business in the USA along with overseeing the South African factory, and in September 2019, his co-founder, Sipha Ndawonde, had left Maneli Pets.Maneli Pets had served Dlamini’s philanthropic purpose of creating jobs and contributing to the growth of the South African economy. Despite the setback of parting ways with Novel Dog, he hoped to continue to create jobs and return to and exceed the staff numbers he had achieved by 2018, regardless of the hard work involved.In his dual position of managing director of Maneli Pets, based in Johannesburg, and sales director of the distribution and marketing arm, Nandi Pets Inc. in Cincinnati, Dlamini had a global view of the companies’ financials that he realised had been missing initially. Would the new structure of Maneli Pets he had created in 2019 in a pre-pandemic world see the company profitable by the end of 2022? What else could he do to take the company to the next level?

MBA, Masters in Management, Postgraduate Diploma in Business, Executive Education short courses.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

The Dudley Beauty case illustrates a contemporary branding, management and marketing challenge facing many companies that are 50 plus years old. Movahhed (2016) highlights the six elements to consider during brand strategy: the target audience, the brand promise, brand perception (past, current and future), brand values, brand voice and brand positioning. The times have changed with changing macroenvironmental factors including political, economic, sociological, technological, legal and other environmental (PESTLE) changes that affect a business but which the business does not directly control.

The case is based upon an interview with Dudley Beauty CEO and President Ursula Dudley Oglesby and secondary sources.

The “A Makeover for Dudley’s Q+” case explores the challenges of a second-generation textured hair care and personal care company in the direct selling channel as it faces an aging market and changing business and economic environment. A Black-owned company, begun in 1967 by her parents, Dudley Beauty is led by the founders’ daughter, Harvard College and Harvard Law School-educated, Ursula Dudley Oglesby. At over 50 years old, the company has continually created new textured hair products and has high brand awareness among older Black consumers but has not adequately addressed changing hair trends and shifting communication preferences of younger consumers. The company is at a critical point needing to reach a younger, larger market to survive. The business situation supports marketing, management, strategy, and/or entrepreneurship undergraduate students in understanding how macroenvironmental forces and internal structures affect businesses.

This case is intended primarily for use by undergraduates in a variety of courses. It is suitable for courses in Principles of Marketing, Entrepreneurial Marketing, general Entrepreneurship and Marketing Strategy courses covering topics such as direct selling, the role of environmental factors in business, rebranding efforts using digital and social media marketing and women/minority business owners.

The case illustrates how environmental forces affect an industry’s profitability. PESTEL and five forces analyses can be used to examine the retail agricultural equipment industry.

Single case study.

Jonathan Sullivan has a decision to make. His company is struggling due to difficult industry conditions. He is questioning if the company can continue to survive. MEC is an agricultural equipment dealer. The industry has experienced boom-and-bust periods since the company was founded. But the current downturn seems different. The past five years have been difficult as manufacturers have changed their dealership practices. Jonathan has struggled with some of the new practices the manufacturers have implemented. These new practices could negatively impact the company’s ability to survive. Jonathan wonders, “What is the best path forward for the business?”

The case is designed to be used in an undergraduate strategic management course.

The subject areas are strategic management, transportation management and business management.

This case is useful for undergraduate and postgraduate level students majoring in strategic management, transportation management and business management.

Etihad Rail Company is planning to implement a mega infrastructure project in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). They have included freight rail system as part of the 2030 Abu Dhabi economic vision and the UAE national Charter 2021. The plan is to link the UAE’s main cities via the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) border. This ambitious project presents a formidable task for the Etihad Rail Company and the region, as there is no previous railway history of this kind. The project requires coordination of rail standards from East of Ghwefatet and the Northern Emirates cities and will ultimately be combined with the Western Saudi Arabia borders. The transportation system in the region will be improved greatly with the introduction of a cargo and passenger railway system in addition to the current road system and other means of transportation. The Etihad railway network is the first infrastructure project in the UAE, and it will bring economic, strategic, social and environmental changes to the country. This case aims to present an overview of the strategic management dimensions of the Etihad Rail and the processes involved. This case will analyze whether Etihad’s top management team should make a decision to focus only on freight rail or to include passenger transportation as well. Many questions will be addressed in this paper such as the following: What steps should Etihad take to start passenger rail? Will economical, strategic and environmental aspects affect it? And if so, how? The case will focus on the analysis of the different aspects of Etihad Rail by using strategic management tools as guidance for implementation and determining its success factors.

In this case, the students can learn and understand the purpose of commencing cargo rail projects in the region; discuss the mechanisms which help in promoting sustainability and the business growth of Etihad Rail; and identify the challenges and issues freight rail may face in terms of legal, economic and environmental aspects and identify and alternative solutions.

Teaching notes are available upon request.

CSS 11: Strategy.

Because U.S. legislators are often most attentive to the issues raised by people who create jobs in their states, Bob Epstein, a local business owner, has been asked by activists to help lobby for a bill that would mandate the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in California. Before deciding whether he should work to establish the business community's backing for this bill, Epstein must weigh the pros and cons of supporting measures that might put his business (and standing in the community) at risk.

Use the 4 I's framework to evaluate the nonmarket environment, assess the political impact of the potential coalitions in favor of and opposed to the bill, identify the type of politics that characterizes the situation, and describe the strategies each side will likely use in contesting the bill.