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Sara Lee Corporation's acquisition binge in the 1980s and 1990s left the company with a portfolio of vastly different businesses operating independently of one another. It had experienced rapid top-line growth, but at the same time cash flows had declined. Sara Lee ignored both internal and external warning signs until a major transformation plan became necessary. This case examines the company's multiple turnaround attempts. The learning objective of the case is to analyze “early stage” turnaround efforts by examining how the company found itself in decline, evaluating its attempts to improve its performance, and assessing the turnaround plan.

(1) Learn to identify a specific challenging moment when reading and analyzing a turnaround plan; (2) address the implementation problems of an early stage turnaround and discuss exit options; (3) evaluate when a change of long-held beliefs and decades-long strategy by a company is warranted; (4) evaluate Sara Lee's marketing strategies in light of the disappointed retail and wholesale customers; and (5) show the similarities in traits between turnaround managers and high-growth entrepreneurs.

Corporate entrepreneurship; Intrapreneurship; Human Resources.

MBA students in Human Resource, entrepreneurship and/or PhD students in the areas of Human Resource, Corporate Entrepreneurship and/or on Intrapreneurship studies.

This case reveals that progressive change originated from individual’s positive deviance approaches, opportunistic sensitivity, ability to learn, evaluate and the ability to develop ideas on how to exploit or pursue identified opportunities (intrapreneurial behaviour).

The student will learn to deal with the complex nature of organisations and the tendencies of institutional processes to be uncertain, unpredictable, and uncontrollable; appreciate the internal workings of an organisation, the external environment; and understand the role of generative leadership, positive deviance, novelty ecosystems and intrapreneurial behaviour and the fact that connections and interactions in a social network are non-linear or non-proportional. This means that complex system predictions can be much more than simple regression predictions. They will be able to apply both bottom-up and top-down influences from proactive leadership or generative leadership events and benefit from positive results and the emergence of innovation.

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.

International Business, International Entrepreneurship, International Marketing.

Advanced undergraduate and graduate students are the primary audience. The case can also be used in executive classes with emerging economies as a focus.

Kaspersky Lab is a provider of information technology (IT) security products such as anti-virus, anti-spam and network security software. It is Russia's largest software company and the only Russian firm that ranked among the world's top 100 software companies. This case presents several interesting features of the company and its environment. The foci of the case are on potential barriers facing firms based in emerging economies in their internationalization initiatives and negative country of origin effects associated with emerging economies.

The learning objectives of this case include:

• To identify internal and external sources of competitive advantage for a developing world originated successful entrepreneurial firm.

• To assess the potential barriers facing an emerging economy-based firm in the internationalization process and analyse whether such barriers differ across economies of various characteristics.

• To evaluate whether the natures of obstacles and challenges faced by an emerging economy-based firm is different in a newly evolving industry.

• To analyze how an emerging economy-based firm can overcome some of the barriers to internationalization.

To identify internal and external sources of competitive advantage for a developing world originated successful entrepreneurial firm.

To assess the potential barriers facing an emerging economy-based firm in the internationalization process and analyse whether such barriers differ across economies of various characteristics.

To evaluate whether the natures of obstacles and challenges faced by an emerging economy-based firm is different in a newly evolving industry.

To analyze how an emerging economy-based firm can overcome some of the barriers to internationalization.

It intends to help the learners assess the scenarios of volatility in the Indian capital market which was caused by unpredictable market forces. It also helps in understanding how analysts struggle to predict the direction of the market and what options strategies can be recommended to be deployed by the investors to maximize returns in such compelling scenarios.

This case study presents snapshots of high volatilities caused by the market and economic forces in the Indian capital market. It depicts how analysts struggled to predict the direction of the market; and how high volatility can put them in trouble. It also exemplifies as to how by selecting the apt strategies, investors maximize their immediate returns in a volatile period and can produce large returns in a short time.

The best time to discuss the case is during the completion of options strategies in the course of Derivatives or Portfolio/Investment 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 1: Accounting and Finance.

Nina, a 30-year old Asian Indian female, joined Morris University in the fall 2006 semester after completing her doctorate. She was an instructor and course designer at this historical black institution in a rural town in the southern part of the US. Ninety percent of the students and staff of Morris University (MU) were African-American. MU was committed to the objective of educating African-American youth and the concept of “students first” was one of its core institutional values. Nina's experience teaching an organizational learning course was very unpleasant. Her student evaluations were poor with harsh comments about her and the course. Nina was asked by the department head to prepare a teaching improvement plan for herself.