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Financial reporting.

Postgraduate (honours and masters in financial reporting).

Transnet is the utility company responsible for, inter alia, the operation, construction and management of South Africa's fuel pipeline infrastructure. The company is wholly owned by the South African Government and prepares its financial statements in compliance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). One of Transnet's capital projects involves the construction of an upgraded multi-fuel pipeline. The expected costs of construction ballooned from ZAR12.6 billion (approximately USD120 million) to ZAR24 billion (approximately USD240 million) over a five-year period. This has raised questions about the prudential management of the company's capital projects and the basis on which the government subsidises Transnet's capital costs. The significant increase in project costs also begs the question: how should the cost of the self-constructed pipeline be accounted for in Transnet's annual financial statements?

Describe and explain the qualitative characteristics of useful information in terms of the Conceptual Framework (2010) and summarise the framework's key principles. Evaluate these principles, drawing connections between them and the relevant academic theory (as per the prescribed readings), with specific reference to the accounting for self-constructed plant and equipment.

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CSS 1: Accounting and Finance

The case introduces student to basic understanding of banking sector in Tanzania as well as the strategies and struggle to raise capital through shareholders’ funds. Application of Banking theory and Pecking order theory is evidenced from the case. The case outlines why the bank struggled to raise capital and what triggers the capital raising strategies. It also give students an opportunity to think about applicable theories of capital structure and bank capital, and strategies the bank could use to rescue its capital crunch in the future.

The case provides details of how the Capital Community Bank (CCB) raised its capital through strategic financial engineering which enabled it to raise the minimum regulatory capital required to be licensed as a financial institution unit, to a regional financial institution, to a fully fledged commercial bank. The bank started with a paid up capital of TZS 472.3m in 2002, involving four Local Government Authorities and individual investors. Capital raised to TZS 31.3bn in 2014 and down to TZS 20.6bn at the end of 2016. The minimum regulatory capital required is TZS 15bn, while paid up capital was 16.9bn. With the change of the management team in 2017, the bank is looking for avenues to raise further capital to meet the regulatory limits and continue to survive as a commercial bank, given dramatic changes in the banking sector in Tanzania.

The case is suitable for third year students in Bachelor of Commerce/Economics specializing in banking/financial services. It also suits postgraduate/master's students seeking a Postgraduate Diploma or Master of Business Administration in financial institutions/banking course.

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.

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.

Acting as chief financial officer (CFO), students try to determine how Coleco can fend off creditors. Coleco is in default on its loans and is in a negative equity position.

The learning outcomes are as follows: assessing the changing trend in the needs of the customer, leading to evolution of new types of businesses in the urban areas. Deep understanding of household service industry and its future. Assessing the skills and capabilities required to become an entrepreneur and follow entrepreneurship. Understanding the aggregator, two-sided business model prevailing in the market. Understand the concept of business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C) business model in household industry.

This case study is about two first-generation entrepreneurs from India who started a new innovative service delivery platform, UrbanKare with a vision to organize the household maintenance services industry. The company was founded in 2016 with a seed capital support of the State Government. The idea behind this initiative was to provide customers a professional, reliable and convenient household repair and maintenance services at their fingertips. The biggest challenge they were facing was that of aggregation of service providers (skilled workforce) and maintaining the service quality in the context of B2B and B2C service provision.

PG level courses – Industrial Marketing Startup and Business Entrepreneurship.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

Strategic management/business policy.

This case study is intended for undergraduate (business administration) level students.

PeakWater is a state-owned water supplier in Peakland. Owing to government restrictions, the water supply maintenance business of the company has to be outsourced to a separate entity, resulting in the establishment of FixIt, a wholly owned subsidiary of PeakWater. FixIt is mainly responsible for maintaining the water pumps, as well as investing in new projects for PeakWater. The lower efficiency and incompetence in investment of FixIt hinders the growth of PeakWater in the long run, and also causes discontent by the citizens. PeakWater's Board is evaluating two proposals submitted by the Group Planning Division.

These are: the nature of private enterprises and its creation of value for public enterprises; the conflicts of interest between private and public enterprises; and the criteria and considerations in the evaluation of corporate strategies.

Teaching notes are available – consult your librarian for access. The teaching notes include a list of supporting materials.

The learning outcomes of this study are to identify and discuss ways in which energy consumption in a residential educational institute can be reduced by improving demand-side energy management for sustainable development; summarise the challenges that an institute faces in transitioning to a more environmentally friendly mode of operations concerning energy management; illustrate the difference between operating expense and capital expenditure methods used for solar rooftop projects from the perspective of Goa Institute of Management (GIM); and analyse different project proposals for solar rooftop power generation energy using capital budgeting techniques.

Dr Ajit Parulekar, director at GIM, was evaluating the steps taken over the past few years for sustainable energy management to understand their impact and consider ways in which to take the environmental sustainability agenda forward. One of the projects that he was considering was the rooftop solar power plant. GIM had received proposals from several different vendors and evaluated three proposals out of these. He needed to decide on the capacity of the rooftop solar power generation and the type of contract that he should get into for the implementation of the project. This case study describes the differences and highlights the advantages and disadvantages of all the mentioned models with respect to GIM.

This case study is suitable for post-graduate level management students, as well as for undergraduate-level finance and management students.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS4: Environmental management.

This case study focuses on four main areas. By the end of the study, the students are expected to meet the following objectives by answering several assignment questions: understand the general business of a maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) company and why this business is a central player in the air transportation industry; understand and integrate certain strategy analysis tools, particularly Porter’s Generic Strategies, Ansoff Matrix, GE/McKinsey Matrix and International Market Entry Modes, to use later as justification for any recommendations about strategy; and prepare a systematic elaboration to use to recommend the company’s strategic plan.

This case study discusses PT GMF Aero Asia, Tbk. (GMF), a company that is based in Tangerang, Indonesia, and involved in the MRO for airlines. At the time of writing this case, the CEO was Iwan Joeniarto. The case elaborates on GMF’s competitive business operations in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, with the main focus being a discussion of Iwan’s visions for GMF’s expansion into the Middle East. This case study challenges students to think critically on the strategy level about the expansion plans of a local company into the international market. The main research questions the study attempts to answer are: What is an MRO in the aviation business? How does it relate to airport megahubs? Is the option for business expansion into the Middle East feasible for GMF? If not, are there any alternatives for that international expansion? Moreover, what recommendations can this study provide Iwan for entering that international market successfully? The students are expected to gain exposure to the international market entry in an MRO business. The students are also expected to understand and integrate the different strategy analysis concepts and tools, such as Porter’s Generic Strategies, Ansoff Matrix, GE/McKinsey Matrix and International Market Entry Modes.

This case study can be used as teaching material in several programs, including – but not limited to – the followings: Bachelor’s Degree program in Management, Business and Marketing (usually final year students), Master’s Degree in Business Management or Business Administration and Executive Education Program/Workshop/Seminar/Training for Business Development/Marketing Managers, VPs, Directors and Aviation Management Professionals. This case study can be used in the following classes/subjects: strategic management, strategic marketing management, international marketing, international business, global marketing, operations management and aviation 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 11: Strategy.

Rede Alta Velocidade, SA (RAVE), the state-owned company responsible for planning and developing a major high-speed rail project in Portugal, must persuade both public officials and lenders that the project is worth undertaking. It must also make a recommendation on the appropriate organizational form for the enterprise. Specifically, it must determine the role of the Portuguese government in financing and operating the high-speed rail network, with options ranging from full development and management of the project by the public sector to completely private development and management. Lying in between these two polar cases were a variety of hybrid models, often referred to as public-private partnerships (PPPs). Using data in the case, students have the opportunity to perform a benefit-cost analysis of the project. They also must think carefully about the optimal role of the government in a major new infrastructure project.

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

• Understand the nature of a global public good

• Perform a back-of-the-envelope benefit-cost analysis of polio eradication

• Discuss the appropriate strategy for eradicating an infectious disease

• Apply game theory to analyzing which countries would be likely to contribute funds toward global polio eradication

• Discuss the role of private organizations in the provision of global public goods

Understand the nature of a global public good

Perform a back-of-the-envelope benefit-cost analysis of polio eradication

Discuss the appropriate strategy for eradicating an infectious disease

Apply game theory to analyzing which countries would be likely to contribute funds toward global polio eradication

Discuss the role of private organizations in the provision of global public goods

Human Resource Management & Social Entrepreneurship.

The target audiences for the case study are undergraduate and postgraduate (e.g. BSc, MSc as well as MBA) students and also management trainees and executives who are interested in understanding the social capital enhancing practices, policies and strategies adopted by the world’s largest commercial employer to ensure complete satisfaction and contentment of 1.7 million employees and their family. Even senior management teams could be targeted in executive education programs, as this case discusses time tested practices, policies and strategies which have been sparsely discussed so far and hence can be expected to provide insights to senior corporate managers. The case also demonstrates the application of different frameworks on social capital and corporate social responsibility which can be used by the participants in their firms to assess the social capital.

Indian Railways (IR) remains the world’s largest commercial employer, with approximately 1.7 million employees, which conveys the huge magnitude of social capital inventory accrued. This social capital, especially people side of IR, played a very crucial role in running the organization successfully for more than a century. As an organization, IR has guaranteed heavy importance for its employees while making decisions on strategic level. But recently, IR was moving towards automation and was cutting on cost incurred for its employees. IR was already exhibiting decreasing trend in the number of employees employed in the organization. These initiatives were resisted by IR employees due to fear of job losses and insecurity. In 2013, Chief Personnel Officer’s (CPO) of different zones have to rethink about their HR practices to assure confidence for employees on the security of their jobs and sustain the social capital accrued by IR over years. The objective of this case study is to describe the social capital accrued by IR over the years by offering livelihoods for nearly 1.7 million families across the country. Teaching note applies the frameworks on social capital in literature in the context of IR. Teaching note also discusses how CPOs of IR can pursue the change initiatives among the employees without affecting the social capital accrued so far.

Case study’s primary objective is to apply frameworks available in literature on social capital and corporate social responsibility to understand the social capital accrued by IR over decades. The case study attempts to answer the following assignment questions which forms the learning objectives of this case study: How do the existing frameworks on social capital measurement explain the social capital accrued by IR over decades? How can a firm assess its accrued social capital? How can one demonstrate the same using the case of IR? How can IR pursue change initiatives when it comes to its employees without affecting the social capital accrued over time?

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:10 Public sector management.