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A room attendant in a small hotel with approximately 63 employees undermines her supervisors and disregards authority in deliberate defiance of company policies, rules, regulations and procedures. Disrespect is shown in several behaviours that include interfering with the work of other employees, spreading rumours, gossiping to other room attendants and complaining about unfair treatment.

This case was field researched and the company and individuals are disguised.

This case is suitable for third- or fourth-year undergraduate students. Within human resource management it is suited for use in a course or series of classes on employee relations or performance management. The case could also be used for an organizational behaviour course to explore conflict and struggle in organizations and the range of passive and active resistance practices that occur. In this particular case the context of women and minorities working in low-skilled roles could be examined.

In advance of this case students should have a background in performance management theory and practice, disciplinary systems and practice and the behaviours associated with workplace resistance, insubordination and misconduct.

This case involves the March of Dimes (MOD) Foundation, the “leading nonprofit organization for pregnancy and baby health.” MOD’s mission was to support medical research, organize volunteer workers, and provide community services and education to save babies’ lives (www.marchofdimes.org). The strategic issue in the case involves creating awareness of both the mission and services of MOD and the critical issue driving that mission – premature births. The organization must create a desire for various target markets to take action in response to the problem. The main protagonist is Doug Staples, Senior Vice President for Marketing and Communications.

Data were collected via personal interviews with the primary protagonists, Doug Staples, and Mike Swenson of the Barkley agency. The MOD provided quantitative Gallup studies they commissioned, as well as documents unveiling the roll-out in the San Jose, CA region. The Barkley Agency provided qualitative data from a study which consisted of eight focus groups conducted in two markets and ten personal interviews. Secondary research was used to provide a support for industry and market data, to supplement organizational facts provided by the MOD, and to identify and link marketing theory to the situations provided in the case. The organization, facts and characters in this case were not disguised. MOD was consulted throughout the case development process.

This case study is recommended for marketing courses at the undergraduate level. It is most appropriate for marketing management, introductory marketing, or marketing strategy classes. Additionally, this case is a good fit for courses focused upon not-for-profit marketing issues.

The strongest opportunities to apply theory using this case relate to branding (see De Chernatony and Dall’Olmo Riley, 1998 for a content analysis of the brand literature). These theories include brand image and personality (Aaker, 1997; Belk, 1998; Grohmann, 2009), brand awareness (Aaker, 2002), brand involvement and customer loyalty (Brakus et al., 2009), brand engagement (Sprott et al., 2009), brand relationships (Breivik and Thorbjornsen, 2008), and brand equity (Aaker, 2002, 2008). Specifically, question 2 addresses brand personality, and questions 3 and 4 explore relationships with the brand such as the emotional power of the brand and brand association. Question 6 focuses on positioning strategy.

The case study uses a strategic foresight method, scenario-planning, to examine the strategic options for a financial services firm. As such, it covers the fields of strategy, environment of business, innovation, digital disruption and organizational change as they relate to the firm’s ability to adapt to changes in the environment of business in an emerging market context.

The case was developed with master's-level students in mind, particularly those seeking a master of business administration, masters in strategic foresight or related management degrees.

The case of NEDBANK, a longstanding and successful financial services firm based in South Africa is confronted with major challenges from competitors because of technological change in the industry as well as having to expand their market penetration across Africa. A rising regulatory burden, tough economic conditions and the need to access low income markets, provide a significant organizational development challenge as a decades-old bank, known for a relational approach to banking, has to navigate the new domains of “fintech”, micro-lending and public sector banking.

Students will gain comprehensive insight into the industry environment in emerging markets, understand the strategic management challenge before financial services firms in this environment and be able to consider the alternative strategic interventions that may be used to ensure corporate sustainability amid these challenges. Simultaneously, the case provides a comprehensive view into the use and application of scenario-planning for strategic management.

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

Resource-based view (RBV) theory (Barney, 1991; Barney and Mackey, 2016; Nagano, 2020) states that a firm’s tangible and intangible resources can represent a sustainable competitive advantage (SCA), a long-term competitive advantage that is extremely difficult to duplicate by another firm, when it meets four criteria (i.e. not imitable, are rare, valuable and not substitutable). In the context of this case, we believe there are three sources of SCA to be discussed using RBV – the major league soccer (MLS) team player roster, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to exploit this roster and the league’s single-entity structure: • MLS players: it has been widely acknowledged that a firm’s human resource talent, which includes professional soccer players (Omondi-Ochieng, 2019), can be a source of SCA. For example, from an RBV perspective, a player on the Los Angeles Galaxy roster: > cannot play for any other team in any other league at the same time (not imitable and are rare), > would already be a competitive player, as he is acquired to play in the highest professional league in the country (valuable) and > it would be almost impossible to find a clone player matching his exact talent characteristic (not substitutable) anywhere else. Of course, the roster mix of players must be managed by a capable coach who is able to exploit these resources and win championships (Szymanski et al., 2019). Therefore, it is the strategic human resource or talent management strategies of the professional soccer team roster that will enable a team to have the potential for an SCA (Maqueira et al., 2019). • Technology: technology can also be considered a source of SCA. However, this has been a source of contention. The argument is that technology is accessible to any firm that can afford to purchase it. Logically, any MLS team (or for that matter any professional soccer team) can acquire or build an AI system. For many observers, the only obvious constraint is financial resources. As we discuss in other parts of the case study, there is a fan-based assumption that what transpired in major league baseball (MLB) may repeat in the MLS. The movie Moneyball promoted the use of sabermetrics in baseball when making talent selection (as opposed to relying exclusively on scouts), which has now evolved into the norm of using technology-centered sports analytics across all MLB teams. In short, where is the advantage when every team uses technology for talent management? However, if that is the case, why are the MLB teams continuing to use AI and now the National Basketball Association (NBA), National Football League (NFL) and National Hockey League are following suit? We believe RBV theorists have already provided early insights: > “the exploitation of physical technology in a firm often involves the use of socially complex firm resources. Several firms may all possess the same physical technology, but only one of these firms may possess the social relations, cultural traditions, etc., to fully exploit this technology to implementing strategies…. and obtain a sustained competitive advantage from exploiting their physical technology more completely than other firms” (Barney, 1991, p. 110). • MLS League Single-Entity Structure: In contrast to other professional soccer leagues, the MLS has one distinct in-built edge – its ownership structure as a single entity, that is as one legal organization. All of the MLS teams are owned by the MLS, but with franchise operators. The centralization of operations provides the MLS with formidable economies of scale such as when investing in AI technologies for teams. Additionally, this ownership structure accords it leverage in negotiations for its inputs such as for player contracts. The MLS is the single employer of all its players, fully paying all salaries except those of the three marquees “designated players.” Collectively, this edge offers the MLS unparalleled fluidity and speed as a league when implementing changes, securing stakeholder buy-ins and adjusting for tailwinds. The “socially complex firm resources” is the unique talent composition of the professional soccer team and most critically its single entity structure. While every team can theoretically purchase an AI technology talent management system, its application entails use across 30 teams with a very different, complex and unique set of player talents. The MLS single-entity structure though is the resource that supplies the stability required for this human-machine (technology) symbioses to be fully accepted by stakeholders such as players and implemented with precision and speed across the entire league. So, there exists the potential for each MLS team (and the MLS as a league) to acquire SCA even when using “generic” AI technology, as long as other complex firm factors come into play.

This case relied on information that was widely reported within media, press interviews by MLS officials, announcements by various organizations, journal articles and publicly available information on MLS. All of the names and positions, in this case, are actual persons.

MLS started as a story of dreaming large and of quixotic adventure. Back in 1990, the founders of the MLS “sold” the league in exchange for the biggest prize in world soccer – the rights to host the 1994 Fédération Internationale de Football Association World Cup before they even wrote up the business plan. Today, the MLS is the highest-level professional men’s soccer league competition in the USA. That is a major achievement in just over 25-years, as the US hosts a large professional sports market. However, MLS has been unable to attract higher broadcasting value for its matches and break into the highest tier of international professional soccer. The key reason is that MLS matches are not deemed high quality content by broadcasters. To achieve higher quality matches requires many inputs such as soccer specific stadiums, growing the fan base, attracting key investors, league integrity and strong governance, all of which MLS has successfully achieved since its inception. However, attracting high quality playing talent is a critical input the MLS does not have because the league has repeatedly cautioned that it cannot afford them yet to ensure long-term financial sustainability. In fact, to guarantee this trade-off, the MLS is one of the only professional soccer leagues with an annual salary cap. So, the question is: how does MLS increase the quality of its matches (content) using relatively low cost (low quality) talent and still be able to demand higher broadcast revenues? One strategy is for the MLS to use AI playing technology to extract higher quality playing performance from its existing talent like other sports leagues have demonstrated, such as the NFL and NBA. To implement such a radical technology-centric strategy with its players requires the MLS to navigate associated issues such as human-machine symbioses, risking fan acceptance and even altering brand valuation.

The case is written and designed for a graduate-level (MBA) class or an upper-level undergraduate class in areas such as contemporary issues in management, human resource management, talent management, strategic management, sports management and sports marketing. The case is suitable for courses that discuss strategy, talent management, human resource management and brand strategy.

After completion of the case study, students will be able to understand the concept of clustering and identify clusters for improving capacity utilization, analyse transport routes to optimize logistics resources, analyse the impact of a full truckload on resource optimization, evaluate unused capacity and ascertain the impact of reverse milk run to reduce the same and apply clustering and reverse milk run to optimize the logistics resources.

The case study is about a freight forwarding company that offered end-to-end logistics solutions for the exporters based in India. Within a short time span, the company became one of the sought-after service providers for its clients. However, when the company planned to expand its business by expanding its client base, the efficiencies reduced and hurt the profitability of the company. It was all excellent with the limited number of clients, but as the number of distantly located clients surged, the operating costs increased. Trucks were running with partial loads, thus reducing efficiency. The rate of increase in cost surpassed the rate of revenue every time. The cost per mile of transportation was on the rise. The surging fuel prices were adding to the heat. In spite of being one of the first choices for clients, the company could not generate good profit margins. If they chose to increase prices, the company would have lost customers to the cheaper unorganized players in the market. It was time to choose between growth and survival. The company could not sustain itself without devising a mechanism to reduce costs. The company would not have sustained itself without devising a mechanism to reduce costs. To sustain in the business, the company had to device a mechanism to reduce costs. Whether to continue operating the conventional way or to transform? Was there a logistics strategy that would have improved transportation efficiency and reduced the costs for the company?

The case study is suitable for teaching post-graduate management courses in operations and logistics, supply chain management and supply chain analytics, as well as entrepreneurship-related courses.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CCS 9: Operations and logistics.