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International business or International marketing.

The case is recommended for undergraduate and graduate courses in the fields of international business and international marketing. The aim is to show students the problems that a family business in the animation industry faces while growing and internationalizing. Specifically, the case discusses the entry mode selection and market selection challenges faced by an emerging market company in the comic book and animation industry to operate overseas and compete with entertainment giants such as Disney and DC Comics. The case enables the instructor to discuss international market selection theories and evaluate entry modes. For graduate students, the international market selection can be further developed by using more robust concepts such as psychic and cultural distance.

This case examines the trajectory of a pioneering company in the comic book and animation industries, and in the licensing of trademarks in Brazil. Mauricio de Sousa Productions was founded in 1959 and is considered to be one of the most successful cultural producers in the country. According to a leading Brazilian public opinion research agency, 97 per cent of Brazilian children and 96 per cent of their parents are familiar with the Monica and Friends characters. As one of the main players in the publishing market, with 86 per cent of market share, Mauricio de Sousa Productions has a product portfolio that goes beyond Monica and Friends comic strips: the company’s show on the Cartoon Network ranks third in audience viewing in the country and the company has produced animated movies, books, shows and games. However, despite its experience in publishing comic books in several countries, Mauricio de Sousa Productions (MSP)’s worldwide operations have not been as profitable and sustainable as expected. Aiming at expanding its global presence, MSP’s top management decided in 2014 to review the company’s internationalization strategy and operations to enhance the firm’s performance.

The case highlights the key factors facing firms when expanding from an emerging markets. Students are expected to discuss and evaluate options, thus developing their knowledge and decision processes related to family-owned business challenges and opportunities, international market selection theories and international market entry mode. Developing strategies to face challenges as those presented by competitors such as Disney should bring opportunities to students to think outside models and weigh risks. Finally, the case gives students opportunity to base their decision processes and evaluations on logistics problems as well as psychic and cultural distances. It also compels the students to appreciate the various challenges involved in exploiting international market with animation content and intellectual properties as a service.

Company presentation to use in the discussion introduction can be found in: www.monicaandfriends.com/content/video.php

CSS 5: International business.

Wall Street hedge fund manager Kim Meyer is considering investing in an SFA (slate financing arrangement) in Hollywood. Dave Griffith, a Hollywood producer, is pitching for the investment and has conducted a broad analysis of recent movie data to determine the important drivers of a movie’s success. In order to convince Meyer to invest in an SFA, Griffith must anticipate possible questions to maximize his persuasiveness.

Students will analyze the factors driving a movie’s revenue using various statistical methods, including calculating point estimates, computing confidence intervals, conducting hypothesis tests, and developing regression models (in which they must both choose the relevant set of independent variables as well as determine an appropriate functional form for the regression equation). The case also requires the interpretation of the quantitative findings in the context of the application.

On April 4, 2013, a video game website reported that the next-generation Xbox console—due to be released by Microsoft the following month—would require an always-on Internet connection in order to operate. The new version of the SimCity game that had been released earlier that year with an always-on requirement had been a disaster. Hardcore gamers reacted negatively to the news.

When the Xbox One console was officially revealed on May 21, Microsoft effectively confirmed that it would require an always-on connection for validating digital rights. Predictably, gamers reacted negatively, a response that was exacerbated when Microsoft's president of the interactive entertainment business, Don Mattrick, made dismissive statements about their concerns

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

• Address the challenge of marketing a product to multiple adjacent but very different customer segments

• Understand the need for a unified vision before going to market

• Develop a strategy that addresses the complexity of a world in which the company may no longer own the “loudest voice in the room”

Address the challenge of marketing a product to multiple adjacent but very different customer segments

Understand the need for a unified vision before going to market

Develop a strategy that addresses the complexity of a world in which the company may no longer own the “loudest voice in the room”

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.

A product manager at Apple examines the past, present, and future of the PC industry in September 2011 in the wake of Steve Jobs's resignation and HP's announcement that it was exiting the PC industry in favor of enterprise software solutions and consulting. The protagonist thinks through current forces in the PC industry, including market share trends, mobile computing, ultrabooks, and cloud computing services—as well as the position of the Mac in Apple's product portfolio—and is faced with making a decision about the future of the Mac.

Pharmaceutical marketing, brand protection.

It could be used with the pharmaceutical marketing students and MBA students for analysing counterfeit medicines' menace in developing countries and positioning of a disruptive technology. The case could be used for marketing consultants, Brand managers and executive development programmes to explore issues such as protecting brands through technology, pharmaceutical packaging marketing, competitiveness of counterfeit drugs, global harmonisation.

Against the backdrop of rising menace of counterfeit drugs in developing countries, the case talks in particular about an innovative pharmaceutical packaging company. The company has developed a unique security technology called non-ClonableID™ which can enable products to be authenticated throughout the supply chain, thus protecting brands and preventing misuse. Despite a promising technology, it poses challenges regarding its adoption and commercial success.

Counterfeiting as an inevitable result of Globalization has become a global nuisance and has to be dealt at global level. Brand protection could be one of the lowest cost tools for pharmaceutical companies to restore public confidence in their products and themselves. While all methods for anti-counterfeiting are known to have short lives the menace still must be dealt with. For this, companies need to deploy anti-counterfeiting strategies that set up various layers of security.

Teaching note.

Encyclopædia Britannica was the leading provider of encyclopedias in the English language, but after sales declined rapidly in the early 1990s the company was forced to file for bankruptcy. Many different organizational and market factors contributed to this crisis, such as the diffusion of the PC, the invention of Encarta, the technical challenges of moving text to electronic formats, and the difficulties of inventing a new format while also operating the leading seller of books. Looking back, what could the company have done differently?

To illustrate important themes on a leading firm's response to technical opportunities and threats; teach students about technological waves, technological disruption, and different concepts of obsolescence; and examine strategic concepts such as attacker's advantages and skunk works.

Corporate social responsibility, sustainability and business ethics.

This case has been designed for undergraduate students, with two target audiences. The first is business and management students following modules in corporate social responsibility (CSR), sustainability and business ethics. Here the accent is on allowing the students to explore and debate how CSR agendas are emerging within a specific sector of the retail economy. The second is students pursuing fashion, clothing, textile, retailing and consumer studies degrees and here the focus is on how some of the leading fashion goods retailers are addressing CSR. More generally the case can also be used on “Contemporary Issues” modules within general business and management programmes.

This small case offers an exploratory review of the emerging CSR issues currently being publicly addressed by the world's leading fashion goods retailers. It includes a brief introduction to CSR; a brief thumbnail sketch of the fashion goods industry; details of the method of enquiry; a description of the CSR issues currently being publicly addressed by the top ten fashion good retailers on their corporate web sites; and some critical reflections on the CSR agendas being pursued by these retailers. The case study is novel in two ways. First, it focuses upon what is an emerging market issue rather than on emerging markets per se though a number of the issues raised in the case have major implications for emerging economies. Second, it addresses the CSR issues being addressed by a number of the leading fashion goods retailers and as such it a not a case which relates to individual decision making. While the case is principally focussed upon the retail sector it ranges across the whole of the supply chain.

The paper provides an accessible review of the CSR issues and agendas currently being pursued by the leading fashion goods retailers and as such it will be of interest to academics, students and practitioners who are interested in both the fashion industry and corporate sustainability.

Teaching notes are available, please consult your librarian for access.

Management, Information technologies.

Courses at the senior university level in social and organizational sciences.

This case aims to observe modes, levels and specific problems in application of information technologies in informing, information sharing and collaboration as important aspects in ensuring quality in control of the processes that occur at school. Some deficiencies in application of information technology within these processes have been identified and alternatives to solving them have been offered. The discussion concerning the solutions was performed according to the parameters that were singled out as important in the analysis of the problems. A school that is recognized in Zlatibor region and elsewhere in Serbia for its advanced development tendencies was selected for the case study. The proposed solutions are practically applicable in any work collective.

Modern management strategy in education; the importance of process management in insuring quality of whole management system; the importance of implementation of modern information technologies in school management 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.

The learning objectives are intended to stimulate the students’ comprehension of the various challenges faced by Indian startups in the digital ecosystem. With the changing working dynamics in organizations around the globe, managers are expected to explore unconventional business models to facilitate operational growth. The case study is a valuable resource for graduate students to enhance and evolve their critical thinking and solution-oriented skills as forthcoming managers of digital businesses. Students should be able to analyze the case, respond to the questions and evaluate the consequences of workplace flexibility, moonlighting and its applicability in an organizational context. With the Indian Government introducing schemes such as the Digital India initiative and Startup India, it is predicted that numerous startups will opt for digital business standards and a remote work approach. The case bridges classroom theories and a real-life digital company to help students connect with emerging market scenarios.

During the digital era, India witnessed a shift in companies’ work culture, which amplified when COVID-19 hit the country. Organizations started to work remotely and experienced the numerous benefits it brought. The comfort of working from home was greater for digital businesses whose significant operations could be performed online. However, is it really that productive for digital companies to telecommute? The case illustrates how a digital company, Career Pandit, formed in 2018, unfurls and expands its business and further highlights the challenges the pandemic raised concerning people management. In addition to the discussion, the purpose of the case is to determine the implication of workplace flexibility and moonlighting and how Indian startups cope with the uncertain future challenges it brings.

Under graduate and postgraduate students.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human Resource Management.