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By the end of the case study discussion, it is expected that students will have learned to assess what makes it likely that firms will respond to episodes of stakeholder activism; establish the interplay between nonmarket strategies and corporate governance mechanisms in assessing shareholder activism; explain about the board of directors as a corporate governance mechanism; evaluate the threats of nonmarket dimensions as a strategic response from the board; and understand the impact and increasing power of shareholders over board decisions.

In April 2019, to pressure Rumo S.A. regarding the duplication of the Itirapina–Cubatão railroad, indigenous peoples from 12 São Paulo villages bought six Rumo shares, which were quoted on Tuesday, April 23, 2019, at around BRL17 each. Duplication of the railroad started in 2011 and affected the lives of the Indians. The company promised to implement more than 100 improvements to the villages, but as of 2019, half of the improvements were at a standstill. After buying enough shares to entitle them to participate in the annual general meeting (AGM) of shareholders, the Indians went to Rumo’s AGM to voice their concerns and show how the villages had been affected. It was the audit committee that needed to discuss and solve the case of the indigenous peoples. What steps would Rumo take next? What was the best thing to do with regard to the claims of the Indians? This case shows the start of corporate activism in Brazil. This case reports the dilemma that Rumo faced with the indigenous activism at the beginning of 2019 because of the expansion of their railroad network across indigenous lands.

This case is suited for a class in which the students are exposed to a corporate governance framework and internal and external governance mechanisms. The case can be applied at the graduate and executive levels in relevant courses such as corporate governance, corporate responsibility, strategic management, and the stock market.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

This case was developed to explore what social entrepreneurship looks like in an emerging market context. It tells the story of Neil Campher, a self-identified social entrepreneur working in South Africa, a country that has recently been awarded middle income status by the World Bank despite sharing a ranking with Syria on the Human Development Index. In environments of deep market failure, what does social enterprise look like? and can you sustain change in communities of extreme poverty? The case looks at the academic characteristics of social entrepreneurs and applies them to Neil to see if he “qualifies”. It has a particular focus on the bricoleur social entrepreneur. It explores concepts of poverty, and looks at sustainability, achieved through asset-based community development. It explores the need for organisations to transition in response to the environment and provides a tool to assess sustainability. The value of the paper is in exploring what social entrepreneurship looks like in an emerging market context. It also raises important questions on sustainability in environments which are inherently constrained.

This case study is aimed at students of social entrepreneurship, development studies, sustainable livelihoods and asset-based development. It is written at an Honours level and is therefore appropriate for use in customised or short programmes. The case study is a good introduction for students with a background in business (e.g. Diploma in Business Administration/MBA/custom programmes) who are wanting to understand social enterprise and blended theories of social and economic change.

The case study follows self-identified social entrepreneur Neil Campher in the grime and crime-ridden township of Helenvale, outside Port Elizabeth, in South Africa. Campher has given up his glitzy career as a financier in the economic hub of Johannesburg and returned to his home town, drawn by a need to give back. Helenvale used to be where he and his school friends would hide from the apartheid police, but as an adult, his friends are focused on strengthening and progressing the community. Campher’s entry point to change is a small waste recycling project, and the case study looks at how he uses this as a lever to achieve deeper structural change in the community. The teaching case exposes several questions around social entrepreneurship and change: what is social entrepreneurship in an emerging context and is Campher a social entrepreneur? What is community led change and can it be sustainable? Campher’s dilemma is around sustainability – has his extensive involvement of the community been enough to achieve progress in Helenvale?

The case study gives insight into social entrepreneurship in a developing country context. It highlights the nuances in definition and introduces the importance of context in shaping the social entrepreneur. The case is an opportunity for students to interrogate ideas on poverty and classical interpretations of social entrepreneurship and relate them to a small community that mirrors the macro country context in South Africa. The case study shows how asset-based approaches to development are interlinked with basic principles of social entrepreneurship. It shows that sustainability is more than a secure and predictable income stream and the need for community engagement and commitment to the solution. In tackling these issues, the case questions sustainability potential and the need for the organisation to transition to respond to opportunity and the changing environment.

Video X1 5minute video interview with Neil Campher 5min: YouTube Video of Campher from Interview 1 www.leadingchange.co.za (live from 01 April 2016) Video News report of gang violence in Helenvale 3min: YouTube. This is a quick visual introduction to Helenvale. It is a news clip, so is particularly focused on the angle of the story. It includes interviews with residents. The site www.youtube.com/watch?v=TluLpTuEq8I Northern Areas burning 2min: YouTube is a collection of video footage from a local reporter which shows Helenvale and its surroundings. The site www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCW-Hp24vMI shows the Text Global Competitiveness Report: South Africa; the first page gives additional information on social and economic development in South Africa, highlighting developed/developing country attributes. It also highlights how Helenvale is a microcosm of the negative social development indicators in South Africa (http://reports.weforum.org/global-competitiveness-report-2014-2015/economies/#economy=ZAF). 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 3: Entrepreneurship.

This case study focuses on social entrepreneurship in emerging markets, looking at what is social entrepreneurship, theories of market failure, opportunity generation through effectuation, social franchising and funding.

Students of social entrepreneurship, development studies, sustainable livelihoods and asset-based development. It is useful for customised or short programmes or for students with a background in business (e.g. Diploma in Business Administration/MBA/custom programmes) wanting to understand social enterprise and blended theories of social and economic change.

The case tells the story of Unjani container clinics which are providing affordable, quality access to people who struggle to access South Africa’s crumbling public health system. Dr Iain Barton recognised the role that nurses can play to relieve pressure on the system, by providing primary healthcare. He piloted Unjani using shipping containers as clinics with support from his company, Imperial Health Sciences. The story of Unjani is therefore one of startup and sustainable growth, partnership and building independent, self-sustaining social enterprises in a franchising system. The theory explored includes the importance of context, the role of market failure in spotting opportunity, developing opportunity through effectuation, defining social entrepreneurship and funding and growing the organisation.

The teaching objectives are framed by Mair (2010) who finds that where social entrepreneurs operate affects what they do and how they do it. Objective 1: Explores the influence of context on social entrepreneurship helping students frame a definition of social entrepreneurship. Objective 2: Students are able to connect the theory of market failure to opportunity identification and effectuation for social entrepreneurs. Objective 3: Students apply the definition of social entrepreneurship based on Santos’ (2010) Positive Theory. Objective 4: Students will be able to apply knowledge of social franchising models, as an approach to scaling. Objective 5: Students understand the principles of resource dependency theory and are able to use the funding spectrum as a tool to identify funding types.

Links to two videos are provided in the case. Recommendations are also made for materials to be used in the class, e.g. Global Competitiveness Index and Gapminder World, which are excellent tools to demonstrate the social and economic growth divide.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

The subject areas are social entrepreneurship, gender, institutions and emerging markets.

Bachelor, Master, PhD.

Some of the fastest growing economies in the world are situated in East Africa. However, there are many institutional challenges. The societies are, for example, heavily patriarchal. Women are, hence, in a particularly vulnerable situation. This is the case of one woman entrepreneur who views the support of other, less educated, women as a main part of her venture. She is a highly educated woman, who has lived part of her life in the USA. Her father is an influential person in the city. She does not need to work at all for her livelihood. She wants the women in her country to have a chance to become economically independent from men. Therefore, she uses her expertise in chemistry to help groups of rural women to make soap and other beauty products from local plants. The case not only illustrates the institutional challenges and how the macro-level institutions affect micro level action but also illustrates the agency enabled by networks and a more fortunate class background. It is an example of a contextually embedded social entrepreneurship process, with simultaneously good and bad odds.

Main learning objectives are the importance of avoiding both ethnocentrism and androcentrism when analyzing driving forces, processes and decision-making among social entrepreneurs. After having processed this case, students should be able to: critically and independently discuss the context dependence of driving forces and processes of social entrepreneurship; critically and independently discuss the gendering of driving forces and processes of social entrepreneurship; and understand and discuss the prerequisites for social entrepreneurship for different groups in a given society, including the class and gender dimensions and the intersection between these dimensions.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

The learning outcomes are as follows: successful students will demonstrate an understanding of challenges in producing and delivering a product in emerging economies; they will be able to analyze the tradeoffs in operational decisions of a social enterprise; and students will apply supply chain principles to solve social and environmental challenges.

Carbon Roots International is a social enterprise in Haiti producing and selling charcoal from sugar cane waste. Their operational challenge is designing a supply chain, which enables them to accomplish their social goals while building a profitable enterprise.

This case can be used in graduate operations management and supply chain management courses. The company in the case is a social enterprise.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 9: Operations and Logistics

Organisational behaviour; Leadership; Organisational development; Public–Private partnership; Health care management; Public health.

Masters students in Business Administration, Post Graduate Diploma, Clinical Training of Medical Professionals, Health Leadership Programme.

Prof Jannie Hugo, the protagonist in the case, was considering his dilemma of aligning the multiple partners involved in public health care. A high level of collaboration was required of a multitude of stakeholders in developing the Daspoort clinic into a pilot site for the Tshwane district’s implementation of the National Health Insurance system. In addition, the re-engineering of primary health care with the focus on the patient and community orientated approach were launched on this site.

Gaining insight into international and national landscapes and principles of health care systems. Critically analyse the role of technology in delivering innovative health and social services. Present judgment of Prof Jannie Hugo’s contextual leadership effectiveness in enhancing collaboration between the multiple stakeholders and recommend next steps.

2 × DVDs on Vimeo, Slides and teaching plan with discussion or exam questions with model answers.

CSS 7: Management Science.

This case study will allow students to critically analyse and develop entry strategies into untapped foreign markets. The case study was designed to introduce students to identifying and analysing information related to target markets for expansions in international business.

The main objectives of this case are to evaluate and make the “Go Global” decision for the company; to take a position on entry timing for a company for entering an overseas market; to select a country for entry based on cultural, administrative, geographic and economic analysis and other relevant factors; and to evaluate a firm’s readiness for exports.

This case study on Satya Pharmaceuticals presents a typical dilemma faced by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in emerging markets such as India while exploring the untapped overseas markets to expand their business. Satya Pharmaceuticals produced over-the-counter Ayurvedic medicines. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the consumer preference for Ayurvedic products had increased globally. Home country governments’ emphasis on exports and conducive consumer preferences created an opportune time for such SMEs to explore uncharted markets with a propensity for herbal medicines. Amidst strict regulations regarding safety, efficacy, labelling and packaging norms, along with a subjective understanding of the consumers’ sentiments regarding alternate medicines, SMEs had to select their target market carefully for their products to be successful overseas. This case study presents the basic information that entrepreneurs needed to explore the foreign markets. It revolved around checking firms’ preparedness to explore foreign markets, identifying target markets, timing the entry and entering those markets.

This case is appropriate for graduate-level courses in management that offer subjects such as international business.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 5: International business.

After completion of this case, students will be able to: define and understand the external and internal components of the strategic management process; define and explain various alternative strategies that help companies create a sustainable competitive advantage; understand and explain the five main choices of entry mode that are available to organisations when considering entry into a foreign market, suggest an entry mode that is relevant to Standard Bank and explain the pros and cons of each entry mode; and understand how a company can offer or phase in its service offerings.

This case situates Sola David-Borha, CEO for the Africa Region at the Standard Bank Group, in April 2018, considering whether and how to expand into personal and business banking in Cote d’Ivoire – a country that Standard Bank had just re-entered, having exited there in 2003 because of the civil war. The bank has operations in 20 sub-Saharan African countries and its growth strategy is focussed on Africa. This strategy is reflected in its slogan: “Africa is our home. We drive her growth”. David-Borha has a number of questions on her mind. These include: can the bank offer financial services that will meet the needs of the Ivorian people, how can the bank expand into personal a business banking – indeed is rapid expansion into this sector the right decision for now?

Advanced/graduate courses in strategic management and international business.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 5: International business.

This case, along with its B case (UVA-QA-0865), is an effective vehicle for introducing students to the use of machine-learning techniques for classification. The specific context is predicting customer retention based on a wide range of customer attributes/features. The specific techniques could include (but are not limited to): regressions (linear and logistic), variable selection (forward/backward and stepwise), regularizations (e.g., LASSO), classification and regression trees (CART), random forests, graduate boosted trees (xgboost), neural networks, and support vector machines (SVM).

The case is suitable for an advanced data analysis (data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence) class at all levels: upper-level business undergraduate, MBA, EMBA, as well as specialized graduate or undergraduate programs in analytics (e.g., masters of science in business analytics [MSBA] and masters of management analytics [MMA]) and/or in management (e.g., masters of science in management [MScM] and masters in management [MiM, MM]).

The teaching note for the case contains the pedagogy and the analyses, alongside the detailed explanations of the various techniques and their implementations in R (code provided in Exhibits and supplementary files). Python code, as well as the spreadsheet implementation in XLMiner, are available upon request.

After completion of the case study, the students will be able to gain knowledge on public–private partnerships (PPPs) in emerging markets; understand how to apply the sensing element of the dynamic capabilities framework in analysing context, especially in emerging market context; and understand how to apply the dynamic capabilities framework to the process of developing brand equity.

On 20 March 2020, in Johannesburg South Africa, Dr Barbara Jensen Vorster, the head of corporate communications and marketing at the Gautrain Management Agency, was considering her dilemma of how to manage stakeholders at a time when the patronage guarantee was under question. The nature of the Gautrain PPP transport contract entailed a revenue guarantee that was called a patronage guarantee. How did they build their Gautrain brand equity during the Gautrain PPP patronage guarantee controversy? This case study highlights the perspectives of multiple stakeholders which places the Gautrain brand equity under strain. The Gautrain brand identity was created to project an integrated, overarching brand position for the construction project and later the operating company. The logo illustrated Africanisation, and the slogan “For People on the Move” represented a modern collaborative approach. Upholding the status of the brand is an important quest for the corporate communications and marketing team, and therefore the issue around the patronage guarantee must be addressed. This case study illustrates contrasting views about the Gautrain being elitist versus the rapid rail train enabling economic prosperity. The pro-prosperity versus pro-economic development values were at the heart of the different opinions around the patronage guarantee. Students are therefore confronted with their own values while the case study aims to drive an awareness or consciousness around these issues in an emerging market.

This case study is appropriate for advanced undergraduate and Master of Business Administration courses focused on marketing, communications and/or stakeholder management, such as in business and society courses. At both levels, the case study will be valuable in generating discussion on communications models and how to manage stakeholders ranging from government to community representatives. In courses where dynamic capabilities theory is taught, this case study will offer a specific application of this model in the context of brand communications and building brand equity in times of controversy.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.