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Hasn’t everyone at some point felt as if the universe was conspiring against his or her success? This case narrative tracks the story of Emmett Taylor, an operations manager for a bottling company, as a snow and ice storm bears down on his southeastern U.S. plant. Taylor is already plagued by stress caused by all facets of his life-family, work, and personal health-and this storm is no exception. The story offers an opportunity to discuss time, energy, and priority management; individual behavior from a type-A personality; work-life balance; organizational behavior; and leadership. This case is a suitable substitution for the classic best-selling Darden case “John Wolford” (UVA-OB-0167).

This case is designed to achieve the following learning objectives: recognize the impact of personality traits on leadership style; identify the key elements in a turnaround strategy; examine leadership best practices from a gender perspective; and assess the role of strategic decision-making on company growth.

The case study describes how Lisa Su (Su), the first woman CEO of Advanced Micro Devices, helped turn around the debt-laden semiconductor firm within a decade through her transformational leadership, vision and values. The case first touches upon Su’s early life and education and the influence of her parents in shaping her personality. It then focuses on the first half of Su’s career, during which she was working on semiconductor projects and was involved in research and product development, and how she made the gradual shift to a people management role in her stint of over a decade at IBM followed by a leadership opportunity at Freescale Semiconductor Inc. The case then describes Su’s move to AMD in 2012 as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the company’s global business divisions at a time when AMD was nearly US$2.5bn in debt and revenues had increased only once in the previous five years. There were also rumors of bankruptcy and spin-offs after the company lost more than US$1bn in the year 2012. The cas

This case is meant for MBA students as part of their Organizational Behavior, Leadership, and Strategic Management curriculum.

Teaching notes Student feedback details.

CCS 11: Strategy.

Ian Henson was about to take the biggest financial risk of his life. He had just agreed to purchase three Booster Juice franchise stores in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada. Henson knew that transitioning leadership at companies was a difficult task, and he was aware that he was replacing a popular leader: Natalie Peace. Compounding the challenge ahead of Henson were two major hurdles, the first was demographic in nature: Booster Juice’s employee group was young (on average below 20 years old) and many adored Peace, he was certain that whoever replaced her would have a difficult transition. The second challenge was managing change: Henson needed to cut costs. Peace had several generous policies that Henson needed to consider altering or removing, a potentially unpopular task. Initially, this case puts students in Henson’s shoes: How should he handle the specific aspects of this leadership transition? It allows professors to examine the broader issue of managing a change process.

Data for the case were collected from various sources. Public records, historical documents, and media reports were the main source for general background information and context. Primary data were collected through a series of interviews with the present and past owners of the Booster Juice franchises discussed.

This case was developed for use in an undergraduate management course or where change management and leadership are specific modules, an organization behavior class is a good example of where the case should fit. The objective of the case is to illustrate the challenges that resulted from a change in leadership and examine how to manage the change process. The thought-provoking element in this case is the leaders involved have very different leadership styles. The authors anticipate this case would be one used early in the course, as it is concise and straightforward to read, and clearly illustrates the issues to be examined. It provides an effective tool through which to introduce students to change management and styles of leadership. The added value is that the case is based on a company built by an undergraduate student and thus students tend to be very interested in the business itself.

The main theoretical base for the case is based on change management and exemplary leadership. To facilitate this the authors use Kurt Lewin’s models of change, Kotter’s eight step process, specifically referring to Kotter (1995). The authors then use Kouzes & Psoner five practices of exemplary leadership, referring to Kouzes, and Posner (2003). The authors specifically reference Northouse (2010).

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 opens with Martha Stewart's 2005 release from prison following her conviction for obstructing an insider-trading investigation of her 2001 sale of personal stock. The scandal dealt a crippling blow to the powerful Martha Stewart brand and drove results at her namesake company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO), deep into the red. But as owner of more than 90 percent of MSO's voting shares, Stewart continued to control the company throughout the scandal.

The company faced significant external challenges, including changing consumer preferences and mounting competition in all of its markets. Ad rates were under pressure as advertisers began fragmenting spending across multiple platforms, including the Internet and social media, where MSO was weak. New competitors were luring readers from MSO's flagship publication, Martha Stewart Living. And in its second biggest business, merchandising, retailing juggernauts such as Walmart and Target were crushing MSO's most important sales channel, Kmart. Internal challenges loomed even larger, with numerous failures of governance while the company attempted a turnaround.

This case can be used to teach either corporate governance or turnarounds.

Students will learn:

• How control of shareholder voting rights by a founding executive can undermine corporate governance

• The importance of independent directors and board committees

• How company bylaws affect corporate governance

• How to recognize and respond to early signs of stagnation

• How to avoid management actions that can make a crisis worse

• How weaknesses in executive leadership can push a company into crisis and foster a culture that actively prevents strategic revitalization

How control of shareholder voting rights by a founding executive can undermine corporate governance

The importance of independent directors and board committees

How company bylaws affect corporate governance

How to recognize and respond to early signs of stagnation

How to avoid management actions that can make a crisis worse

How weaknesses in executive leadership can push a company into crisis and foster a culture that actively prevents strategic revitalization

This case challenges students to apply financial reporting concepts pertaining, most notably, to liabilities and expenses in a specific corporate situation. In the context of an interesting, but noncomplex, technical accounting issue, students debate the best way for Adenosine Therapeutics to present its compensation arrangements in its financial statements. In addition, this case also prompts students to debate the best way for a growing company, with cash constraints, to provide incentive and maintain top employees.

Business strategy.

The case has been written with the objective of enabling the students to understand the dynamics of a rapidly changing emerging market. It is structured for use at a Master-level course and an MBA audience in the subject of Business Strategy.

The case details the growth story of American fast food chain McDonalds in West and South India markets. Westlife Development Limited (WDL) operates McDonald’s chain of quick service restaurants (QSR) in these markets; they entered the markets in the year 1996 and since then have adopted various market strategies such as investments in multiple format QSRs, aggressive rollouts of new QSRs, increase in product variants etc. for a sustained growth trajectory. However, the increased competition from both the national and international QSR brands and the new segment of competition from “techie” food aggregators challenges their prospects to maintain a number one position in these markets. As Amit Jatia – the Vice President of WDL − prepares his presentation for the scheduled Executive Leadership Team meeting, he seeks answers to two prime questions a) How could WDL once again regain the number one status in these markets? b) What best strategies the team needs to adopt to remain relevant to the Indian consumers?

The case study should enable the student: 1. To comprehend the complexities of the Indian QSR market and its competitive dynamics 2. To analyze the factors contributing to the growth of the India QSR sector. 3. To identify the market factors that led WDL to adapt their strategy to the market 4. To understand the significance of business strategy localization as adopted by WDL in the markets of West and South India. 5. To evaluate sources of competitive advantage for McDonald’s in the West and South India markets.

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.

This case, “vineyard vines and The Brotherhood of the Traveling Pants,” introduces students to a unique partnership in the social media advertising world. Preppy clothing powerhouse vineyard vines had a history of interacting with its customers by featuring user-generated content in its catalogs and on its website and decided to continue this tradition on social media by partnering with a group of fans called The Brotherhood of the Traveling Pants. This successful and authentic social media marketing campaign resulted in increased sales for vineyard vines and influencer status for the members of The Brotherhood. At the end of the campaign, the vineyard vines marketing team is left debating how to grow its social media presence through partnerships. The case has been used as part of a social media marketing course and would be effective in any undergraduate- or graduate-level marketing course.

The subject areas are entrepreneurship, start-up ventures and business strategy.

The case is appropriate for undergraduate and graduate MBA.

Shikhar Veer Singh (Singh), a post graduate in Medical Biotechnology, quit a cushy corporate job to start his own food venture WoknStove Foodworks Pvt. Ltd. (WSFL) in October 2015. WSFL sold the ubiquitous popular Indian snack food “Samosas” under the brand name of “Samosa Singh”. “Samosa” – a deep fried triangular in shape with conical edges crispy wrap with variety fillings of potatoes/vegetables – was part of unorganized sector and sold by small shops and road-side hawkers. Singh spotted an opportunity to “brand” the “Samosas” that as well was gaining momentum in the international convenience food markets. The company set up a central kitchen near Electronic city, Bangalore, and started experimenting with different fillings. In February 2016, WSFL opened its first quick service restaurant (QSR) in Electronic city, Bangalore. It was an instant hit with consumers of all age groups. Gradually, the company started supplying bulk orders to various other customer segments such as corporate customers, schools and movie theatres/event stalls, that resulted in revenue growth. By January 2017, his monthly annual revenues amounted to INR […] Singh had ambitious plans to expand his business from a single QSR to 15 QSRs across the city by 2018. However, to cater to the increasing demands and support his expansion plans, he was yet to find out the most suitable back-end processes. He had adopted few standard operating procedures (SOPs) for quality operations and implemented 30 per cent of automation for backend processes at his central kitchen. Singh was aware of the automated machinery available in international markets that had conveyor belt arrangements where one could place the flour dough and filling consecutively to get the end product in a shape, unlike the shape of the Indian “Samosas”. The triangular shape with conical edges of the Indian “Samosas” was of utmost importance for the Indian consumers, as the shape associated them with the favourite snack, the “Samosas”. Singh preferred the method of manual filling to maintain the shape and decided to focus on increasing the shelf life of the “Samosas” instead. He felt that an increased shelf life would better equip him to cater the increased market and seasonal demands. However, the question was that whether this was a feasible option to support his ambitious expansion plans (with only 30 per cent automation)? Was Singh’s thinking right with respect to the business operation? More importantly, whether WSFL venture would be able to make an attractive business proposition for investments from any future institutional/angel investor? Singh’s mood turned reflective as he pondered on the above questions.

The case is structured to discuss the structure of Indian QSR market and factors contributing to its growth, evaluate WSFL’s ability to leverage the Indian QSR market potential, its strengths and shortcomings, to highlight the steps of consumer decision making process in terms of selection of a QSR and discuss WSFL’s business model and its future sustainability.

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

After decades of successful expansion, The Reader's Digest Association's products were mature. With an average readership age for the flagship Reader's Digest magazine of 50.3 in 2004, efforts to develop new products had so far failed to entice a significant number of younger customers. Following a financial downturn in 1996, positive financial results remained illusive. Several major changes instituted by Thomas O. Ryder, CEO since 1998, including acquisitions, re-capitalization, restructuring and systematic re-engineering of the corporate culture, had proven mildly successful, but RDA, as well as the entire publishing industry, faced a persistent decline in profitability. Could RDA fulfill its stated mission to create “products that inform, enrich, entertain and inspire people of all ages and cultures around the world”, and could it do this by continuing to rely on the 80-year old Reader's Digest magazine?