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Forming ties with prominent partners can help convey greater status and legitimacy to the company (Hallen, 2008) and also increases the entrepreneur’s influence within their own network (Bonacich, 1987). This allows entrepreneurs to gain greater access to the information, experience or resources that the company needs.

The founders of the company provided us with access to the inner workings of the company, their mentors and advisors and themselves. The authors used archival research and interviews when preparing this case. Interviews allow for the development of uncensored, real-life insights into the entrepreneur’s business experience. The authors also interviewed two of their mentors and investors.

Having graduated from UMass Lowell with engineering degrees, co-founders Rajia Abdelaziz and Ray Hamilton build invisaWear into a venture, but they did not know much about business. With coaching from their mentors, Rajia and Ray focused on building their network to raise capital to finance the business. Despite all their hard work networking, however, they faced a hurdle. Rajia and Ray contemplated their dilemma. “Are the authors doing something wrong? What can the authors do differently to attract investors?”

This case is suitable for an undergraduate course in business or entrepreneurship. This case is intended to illustrate to both business and non-business students how entrepreneurs can go about building their networks to grow their businesses. Presented as a real-life example of how entrepreneurs build their networks, the case can also be used to hone in on select topics including mentoring, searching for resources and coachability.

Data for the case came from public sources, including legal proceedings, court filings and Securities and Exchange Commission filings. The authors perused hundreds of court documents and identified 28 that were most relevant to this case. The authors also used press interviews with the women highlighted in the case. The authors have no relationship with the company and no one from the company has reviewed the information presented in this case. As the case is drawn from sworn legal testimonies, interviews and related documents in the public domain, the authors did not have to seek approval for publication.

Pinterest touted itself as “the nicest place on the Internet.” It had an almost 80% female user base and purported to have an inclusive culture that embraced diversity. However, in June 2020, in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests, two former female employees of color violated their non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) to publicly accuse Pinterest of racial and gender discrimination. In August 2020, Pinterest’s former Chief Operating Officer, Francoise Brougher, filed a lawsuit charging the company with gender discrimination, retaliation and wrongful termination, and authored a public blog post titled, The Pinterest Paradox: Cupcakes and Toxicity, detailing her own experience with the company’s discriminatory culture. Three days later 236 of Pinterest’s 2,545 employees staged a virtual walkout and 445 employees signed a petition in an attempt to change Pinterest’s policies and culture. The case provides a brief overview of Pinterest, including its mission, values and organizational culture, and details several incidents and complaints by female and minority employees. The case questions whether employee complaints are a relatively narrow issue involving disgruntled former employees who did not fit at the organization or a much broader issue involving discrimination and managerial neglect in creating and maintaining a nondiscriminatory, inclusive culture. Students are encouraged to evaluate the situation in which Co-Founder, Board Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Ben Silbermann finds himself, evaluate the actions taken and decide if Silbermann should take any additional actions to address the discrimination claims and ensure a positive culture for all employees.

This case is appropriate for graduate and advanced undergraduate level courses in organizational behavior, human resource management and business law or any course where discrimination and workplace culture are discussed.

The case is based on a real supply chain outsourcing management decision at a major manufacturing company. The company has been disguised for confidentiality reasons. The case discusses different types of outsourcing, supply chain management, the benefits and risks of outsourcing, and various pricing models for outsourcing contracts. Students must make a management decision and answer these questions: Is supply chain outsourcing a viable option for DB Toys? What will the return on investment be? What is the best outsourcing model? What is the best pricing model?

Students learn the different types of outsourcing, supply chain management, the benefits and risks of outsourcing, and various pricing models for outsourcing contracts. Students also learn how to calculate the return on investment of supply chain outsourcing. Most important, the case enables students to understand the strategic context of outsourcing, and to decide which outsourcing model and pricing is appropriate.

Laura Green, Director of Event Planning at the Nova Waterfront Hotel in Baltimore, had been through the hiring process many times. She was comfortable with Nova's selection and behavioral interviewing processes. They had only interviewed two candidates for the open senior event manager position, yet they had been discussing what decision to make for two and a half hours. Normally, these kinds of meetings wrapped up in 30 minutes with a clear consensus. Today, they were gridlocked, unable to agree on a path forward. Green suggested that they all “sleep on it.” They would get together first thing in the morning, when they were fresh, and decide what to do.

The data for this case were collected via personal interviews with employees of the hotel and from information on the company's website, other company resources, and publicly available information about the company. Only the hotel's name, parent company's name, and people's names have been disguised to protect the confidentiality and anonymity of the individuals. The author has no relationship to the host organization or protagonist.

This case is appropriate for an undergraduate or graduate course in Human Resources Management, Organizational Behavior, or Recruiting and Selection.

This case may be used to illustrate, analyze, and evaluate the selection process and interviewing approaches (e.g. behavioral interviewing). The importance of selection, best practices for selection, candidate assessment methods, best practices for candidate interviews, and common biases which affect the fairness of selection processes are reviewed.

Mohan Dixit, Head, Sales and Marketing, India Operations, EuroMotoCorp Pvt. Ltd., an automobile manufacturing multinational company headquartered in Munich, Germany. This case outlines the harried nature of his life: professional problems (decrease in the market share, not being able to say ‘no’, unable to delegate, pressed for time, member of too many committees) and personal issues (weight gain, not able to spend time for his personal interests) and family problems (work-life balance issue). The case can be taught through different angles, including individual behaviour, transaction analysis, time and stress management, career management and general management. Apart from this, the case discusses the emotional instability of Dixit and the automatic cycle of behavior of Dixit in various situations and events. The case also discusses the ‘ego-self’ and the ‘natural—self’ of a person and how the two should be balanced for a good quality of life. The case thus delves deep into the psychology of a person and discusses how his/her thoughts or inner talk should be managed for a content and successful personal and professional life.

The tech giants Alibaba and Tencent compete on many fronts. This case focuses on three areas where they have competed very hard: new retailing, mobile payment, and ride-hailing. At the beginning of 2018, Alibaba and Tencent were gathering retail investments in bids to battle each other for shoppers' digital wallets. Key to the battle is China's mobile payment market, worth more than 200 trillion RMB, where Alibaba and Tencent are going head to head. The giants are not only directly competing in the payment platform area but also extensively fighting in other areas, such as ride-hailing, where they invested in and supported Didi and Kuaidi, respectively. To enhance understanding, this case also briefly goes through the history of the two giants. The purposes, methods, and consequences of their platform competition deserve an in-depth discussion

The case is aimed at providing students with an opportunity to understand various aspects of corporate governance and the consequences of poor corporate governance. The case addresses the following objectives: The students need to assess the role of the board in implementing corporate governance. The students should be able to explain the conflicts experienced by various stakeholders in an organization. The students need to evaluate the balancing act of growth and governance in a startup. The students should be able to determine the current state of business sustainability of the high-growth startups in India.

The case presents the challenges faced by the CEO of BharatPe, Suhail Sameer. Beginning in 2022, Bharatpe was in deep trouble as there were allegations of financial mismanagement, toxic work culture and widening losses. Co-founder Ashneer Grover and his wife Madhuri had to leave the company following charges against them. As Grover was the face of the company, Sameer would have to quickly act on filling the void and reassuring investors. Because of the uncertainty, scores of employees had already quit or were looking for other jobs. Questions were also raised about the board’s inaction and lack of proactive measures. After a meteoric rise for three years, BharatPe was struggling to survive the whole episode and put its focus back on business.

The case is intended for MBA students in corporate governance, organizational behaviour, business ethics and strategic management areas. As the case reveals the impact of poor corporate governance, it can also be used for executive training purposes on corporate sustainability, governance and leadership with a special focus on Indian startups.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

The case was devised using both primary and secondary data sources. Primary sources of data consisted of in-depth interviews with individuals using the cycle hire project. The researcher also had first-hand experiences of using the cycles. The case study has been tested with undergraduate and graduate students taking management information systems courses.

This teaching case study charts the London cycle hire project, mostly from its first inception in July 2010, right through to the planned expansion of electric cycles from Summer 2022. The main aim of the case is to introduce students to project management challenges which are part of the London cycle hire project. While the project was filled with enthusiasm from its early beginnings, various challenges were encountered including issues associated with the project procurement/sourcing process, software and technical problems, as well as other project management issues. Problems became so severe in 2011 that the service provider was hit with a penalty and had to make critical project improvements. Would these accountability measures prompt the service provider to resolve these issues? How would the service provider go about undertaking a fact-finding exercise to verify the existence of the challenges and address them to ensure renewed project success?

The case was written for classes at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. The focus of the case is particularly well suited for exploring topics and issues relating to types of information systems, project management and accountability, multiple global supplier procurement, as well as challenges associated with hardware integration and software design. While the case was targeted at MIS students, the case study would also be effective for an introductory level project management course or a general management course. The subject of the case, the bicycle rental program, is likely to appeal to students, and the basic underlying business issues, processes and objectives of the project are easily understood.

The case can be used in strategic management, international business or ethics courses. In strategic management courses, students will be able to identify political relationships as sources of a firm’s competitive advantage. Students will also understand the role of ethics in the firm’s competitive advantage. In international business courses, the students will be able to analyze the role that corruption and bribery play in the analysis of a country’s institutions. Students will also understand how corruption in a host country influences a firms’ decision to internationalize. Finally, students will understand the challenges that firms face when serving customers in other countries. In ethics courses, students will understand the nature of state/business corruption, i.e. the abuse of public office for private gain and the concept of state capture, i.e. managers controlling the political system for their advantage. Students will be able to analyze the decision of whether to collaborate with unethical partners or customers.

Bell Pottinger Private (BPP) was a British public relations (PR) firm with a successful but questionable reputation of helping famous critical figures and despots improve their public image. In 2016, Lord Tim Bell and the other leaders of BPP were asked to create a PR campaign for the Gupta family. The Guptas were a group of businessmen headed by three brothers who migrated from India to South Africa in the early 1990s. By the 2010s, they had built a business empire allegedly thanks to a corrupt relationship with the President of South Africa, Jacob Zuma and his family. The press and prosecutors were increasing their investigations on these relations. The case has two parts, which address two separate challenges and can be taught as standalone cases or in a sequence in two sessions.

MBA and Executive Education.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 5: International business.