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This case was based on secondary data that included various websites, news and academic articles, social media posts and press conferences before, during and after the World Cup. Multiple sources were examined to ensure the accuracy and credibility of the information presented in this case. The goal was to gather relevant information on the Moroccan soccer team, its performance in the FIFA World Cup and the leadership strategies used by Walid Regragui.

“We are the dreamers, we let it happen: Morocco’s soccer team leadership story” explores the transformative journey of Morocco’s soccer team in the 2022 World Cup, highlighting the exceptional leadership of coach Walid Regragui and the power of shared values deeply rooted in Moroccan culture. The instructional manual provides faculty with a compelling case study to inspire discussions on leadership, followership, team dynamics and cultural identity. The case emphasizes the importance of harnessing cultural roots, building trust and unity within a diverse team, strategic vision and tactical brilliance. It demonstrates that with authentic leadership, belief in shared dreams and the strength of cultural values, extraordinary achievements can be realized. The case aims to inspire and educate students, encouraging them to embrace their own cultural heritage, foster teamwork and pursue their dreams with unwavering determination.

The academic level of this case can vary depending on the specific course or program in which it is being used. It is suitable for graduate levels in various fields such as leadership studies, sports management, organizational behavior, cultural studies, or international business. The case provides a comprehensive analysis of leadership, team dynamics and cultural identity, including faith and spirituality, making it adaptable for different academic levels and disciplines. Instructors can adjust the depth of analysis and additional readings or activities to align with the specific educational level and learning objectives of their course.

After completion of the case study, students will be able to learn, understand, examine and customize leadership styles per organizational culture; understand the conflict management styles of a female leader; and comprehend the organizational change process to devise an effective communication strategy.

Ever-changing business demands managers adopt organizational change in leadership styles, business processes, updated skill sets and minds. One must be ready to understand influential nurtured corporate culture and human resource resistance towards the inevitable change. This case study attempted to discuss the female protagonist dealing with an organizational conflict. The case study introduces one such protagonist from a century-old woman’s educational institution. Subsequently, this case study presents organizational change under the leadership of a female protagonist. This teaching case study gives the reader an insight into situational leadership, conflict management styles and the corporate change process by implementing an appropriate communication strategy. This case study describes the change process through the various decision-making scenarios that an academic institute over a century old faced during the post-pandemic crisis after adding a crucial protagonist. The employee union, followed by students and administrative employees, has challenged the dominating leadership position held by the college principal. Protests occurred due to the college administrator’s refusal to adjust her approach to leadership. This teaching case then provided different leadership styles of the current and old leaders. Finally, the case study lists the challenges a leader faces during turbulent times and the lessons a leader should learn from such situations while transforming the institute.

The teaching case benefits undergraduate students in business management subjects such as conflict management, leadership and organizational behaviour. Nevertheless, trainers can use this case study to teach seasoned managers and emerging leaders the significance of adopting and implementing change while understanding situational leadership.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 10: Public Sector Management.

The case was written from secondary materials.

This case is designed to support learning objectives in a Human Relations class of a university management course. The case explores how the UK Metropolitan police, working with the Girls’ Network, piloted a reverse mentoring programme for six months in 2021. Three senior officers were mentored by a trio of teenage girls from disadvantaged London boroughs. The aim of the programme was to address falling trust in the police by creating more understanding and empathy in the mentees for the issues facing the communities where the mentors lived, and to give the mentors more confidence from the experience of representing their communities. Each mentor–mentee pair focused on a specific policing issue that was relevant to the mentor’s neighbourhood: knife crime, domestic abuse or social inequality. Through the process, the senior Met police officers gained a deeper understanding of the challenges in the communities they served. Now that the pilot had been completed, the Met faced a decision point. Should the programme be spread further through the Met?Through reading and discussing the case, students are expected to explore the importance of empathy in the workplace and how reverse mentoring, when having the right support and overall intent, could be used in organisations.

This case is appropriate for university management courses. This case has a difficulty level appropriate for undergraduate and postgraduate courses. This case could be incorporated into a unit on human behaviour, leadership or coaching.

This case study would enable students to understand the concept, process and advantages of mergers and acquisitions as a growth strategy with respect to 1mg. Also, the students would be able to use the threats, opportunities, weaknesses and strengths matrix to map 1mg’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

This case study analyses the transformation journey of 1mg to Tata 1mg, one of the most trusted internet pharmacies in India. This case describes a small start-up that was launched in 2013 and had made many acquisitions since then. This case revolves around Tata Digital’s purchase of 1mg. The case starts out by explaining 1mg’s financial situation and why the company was acquired. This case study focuses on how the integration helped Tata Digital and 1mg realize their respective missions. Furthermore, the case study illustrates the benefits and difficulties of this integration.

This case study is basically aimed at postgraduate management students; it can be used in strategic management and health-care courses. Students can understand the concept of diversification and acquisition with the help of this case study. Students can also gain an insight into the organic and inorganic diversification as a growth strategy.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

This case study is related to start-up post-listing investment analysis. Through this case study, students will be able to perform the business analysis guided by the Venture Evaluation Metric tool, perform financial analysis using the discounted cash flow methods and perform investment analysis recommendation with justifications from the business and financial analysis performed above.

This case study sets out the study of a scalable start-up, Zomato, which is a successfully listed start-up firm in India. Despite the start-up development success in the pre-listing, the firm has exhibited a continuous unprofitable finance performance in the post-listing and has further experienced a volatile share price performance, both of which have puzzled existing and potential investors. In addition, some analysts are in the opinions that the firm share price valuation have been inflated with overvaluation since in the initial public offering stage and remain traded with overvaluation in the market. Notably, considering the negative indicators mentioned above, investors are concerned about long-term sustainability of the firm business and financial performance. In the context of post-listing investment, the following questions are material to investors: What is the realistic growth trajectory for Zomato in the medium term? What is Zomato’s share fair value in the medium term? Can one see opportunities or risks ahead of investing in Zomato’s shares? What will be the investment strategy for new investors?

This case study is suited to bachelor’s and master’s level in business schools studying entrepreneurial finance analysis.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 1: Accounting and finance.

There are two theoretical concepts that can be taught in this case.The new approach to teaching entrepreneurship is termed “lean start-up” and “hypothesis-driven entrepreneurship.” The business model canvas is a core tool of this approach. This framework defines nine key components of a successful business strategy. These components include defining value propositions; identifying customer segments; identifying channels; maintaining customer relationships; defining key activities, key resources and key partners; understanding the revenue model of the business; and the organization’s cost structure. This is considered to be a rigorous approach to learning about and developing a new venture.The other theoretical approach that can be discussed through this case is the link between uncertainty and entrepreneurial growth. These theories associate the willingness of entrepreneurs to bear the perceived uncertainty associated with entrepreneurial acts as representative of the belief-desire model. There is a need for entrepreneurs to experiment and search for alternative paths forward in order to counter this uncertainty. Systematic search processes to discover relevant information will strengthen this process.

This case is based on primary data collected through interviews with company personnel. The company consented freely to the use of their data in the case. The authors have no connection with the company. The four student coauthors had previously pursued an internship with the company and had worked on the machine learning analysis part.The two faculty coauthors in the case contacted the company after the internship and discussed the opportunity to write the case on the company. One of the faculty then interviewed key personnel in the company, including one of the co-founders.

Xoxoday is a technology company that provides employee rewards and corporate gifting to its customers. The company was started by Sumit Khandelwal, Manoj Agarwal, Abhishek Kumar and Kushal Agarwal. In 2018, the company reinvented itself as an experiential gifting company.The company faced some challenges during the lockdowns imposed due to COVID-19. Khandelwal knew that they had to try something new to achieve higher growth in the future. He wondered if higher usage of technology was the solution. It was necessary for them to carve a new path in these times.

This case study can be used at the undergraduate level in courses relating to entrepreneurship strategy and business models for entrepreneurs.The case can be used to highlight the dilemmas faced by entrepreneurs due to unforeseen crises. This case is relevant for classes that will discuss growth crises and out-of-the-box solutions for unprecedented crisis situations.

Upon reading, analyzing and participating in the classroom discussion of this case study, students will be able to use the blue ocean strategy (mainly the Strategy Canvas tool) to analyze how companies establish their products as viable and the go-to solution for consumers; perform a competitive analysis for competitive products; learn how to use data from the case, including industry trends, to predict the future market position of products; and learn how to develop strategies for new products in the market.

Abdishakur M. Afrah, who served as the Head of Business Development at Premier Bank, oversaw a substantial banking portfolio, which included Premier Wallet – the first digital wallet in Somalia. This case study outlines Premier Wallet’s journey and its transformative impact on the banking sector. Owing to the mobile wallet, consumers could, for the first time, engage in purchasing, withdrawing cash, shopping online and topping up without needing a bank account at Premier Bank. This allowed for the financial inclusion of the unbanked Somali population. This case study also highlights the Wallet Send feature, a disruptive feature that challenged the prevalent Hawala system in Somalia. This feature enabled customers to send money across 110 countries via their smartphones, facilitating direct deposits to the mobile or bank accounts of their family and friends or to cash withdrawal points nearby. Despite these advanced features, Premier Wallet struggled with broader acceptance, hindered by a mere 9% internet penetration, the absence of a national identification (ID) system and stiff competition from WAAFI, a fintech application supported by Hormuud Telecom, Somalia’s leading telecommunications company. The case study also delves into the strategic decisions Afrah had to make to position Premier Wallet as the top mobile money option for consumers in Somalia.

This case study is suited for undergraduate-level courses.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship

After completion of the case study, the students will be able to understand the importance of being culturally savvy when working in a culturally diverse environment and managing people from different cultures; critically reflect on the risks resulting from the absence of a clear direction from the company’s top management regarding unifying corporate values and a diversity policy for cooperation across cultures; be aware of best practices in implementing diversity management (DM) initiatives in the company; and learn that changes in the strategic orientation (i.e. focus on automation projects) must be cascaded down to hard elements of structures, processes and systems, as well as to soft elements of skills, staff and management style.

The Kuwaiti branch of a Japanese corporation specialising in control systems and instruments, Rising Sun IT, hired a German professional, Alex, to handle the increasing demand for automation from customers. This recruitment followed several unsuccessful attempts by the company to deliver more advanced automation solutions. Recognising the need to adapt to Kuwaiti customer requirements or risk losing market share, Japanese management understood the importance of transforming their engineering staff. Failure to achieve this next automation step would result in a steady decline in market share and ultimately impact the company’s survival. However, Alex, who was supposed to lead automation projects, was confronted with opposition from the Indian engineering staff and managers. He was not able to find common ground with the staff and perceived issues such as lack of communication, delays in work schedules, missed deadlines and high levels of absenteeism, as a sign of low work morale. Although he tried to increase the awareness of his supervisor and other managers by informing them repeatedly about the problems regarding employee behaviours, his interventions went unheard. He felt ousted by his fellow colleagues and the other employees. Besides, from Alex’s point of view, the Japanese top management did not provide clear directions to the staff and explicit support to Alex in his efforts. This case study highlights three dimensions of Alex’s problem with establishing and maintaining working relationships with other people in the company:▪ Alex’s cultural “blindness” and ignorance of differences in work behaviours that ultimately led to his inability to build solid and trustful relationships with other employees. The case study demonstrates Germany’s performance-oriented and individual-centric culture versus India’s family- and community-oriented culture and the Japanese employees’ strongly hierarchical and company loyalty-oriented culture.▪ Lack of support from the Japanese top management to Alex, which is connected with a wider problem of the lack of a systematic strategic approach to managing a culturally diverse workforce. The case study pinpoints the rhetoric–reality gap in DM in the company, where the diversity, equity and inclusion programme and corporate values were applied only formally and had little attention from the leaders as well as non-managerial employees.▪ Employee resistance to change: The lack of positive communication from the top management level in the company regarding automation projects and the lack of support for Alex’s mission in the company resulted in steady resistance to executing projects, which endangered the company’s survival in the market. Also, one part of Alex’s problem with building a working relationship with the Indian engineering staff was based on the fact that others perceived him as the automation “change agent” – an advocate and catalyst of an undesirable change connected with adverse consequences on employment in the Indian community.

This case is intended for discussion in undergraduate management and business study programmes.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human resource management.

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.

This case was developed from the author’s personal experience as a participant in one of the health taskforce subcommittees. The author also sought the inputs of the Vice President of Health and Medical Education, the Dean of the Health Sciences College, the Student Affairs Assistant Dean of the Pharmacy College and the previous Vice President of Health and Medical Education. Moreover, secondary data were obtained from the office of the Vice President of Health and Medical Education at Qatar University (QU).

The government of Qatar has consistently provided generous funding for QU over the years. However, recent economic challenges, such as drops in oil prices, have had a negative impact on the country’s GDP and export revenue. In response, QU began to implement a new organizational structure. Specifically, the university proposed merging the three health-related colleges (health sciences, medicine and pharmacy) into a single cluster called the health education cluster. This decision was supported by a broad benchmark of approximately 40 universities worldwide, as well as input from various stakeholders within the university. Forming a cluster was expected to benefit the organization as a whole. However, the decision faced resistance and challenges that required investigation by top management. Would the new organizational structure be accepted by all? Was it feasible to have a single cluster that encompassed three distinct departments within the organization? These are examples of the questions that this case study addresses.

This compact case is suitable for a case study in basic undergraduate, postgraduate and advanced courses in Strategic Management at a business school. The case highlights the need to restructure an organization and the use of strategy formulation and implementation in the framework of management.