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Learning outcomes are as follows: to appreciate the people challenges imbedded in an acquisition; to assess and analyse the impact of an acquisition process; to propose appropriate strategies for managing an acquisition; to explore the advantages and disadvantages of mergers and acquisitions; to describe the main reasons for the failure of M&As.

Often mergers and acquisitions fail because of the inability to either manage or consider organisational and people management issues. It has also been acknowledged that during a process of extreme change or transition, such as a merger and acquisition (M&A), employees view the past as a time of safety and security with the future appearing as uncertain and confused. This teaching case study highlights these challenges and the change processes imbedded in an acquisition. The acquiring firm is Marshall Foods, a well-established branded continental distribution company with a strong emphasis on nutritional whole food products based in South Africa, and the target firm is Tru-Foods For You, a small Cape Town online company that sold natural and organic foods. The case study explores the challenges faced by the Tru-Foods For You owner and staff as a result of the acquisition process. The case describes the background to the acquisition, the processes during this phase and the resultant outcomes.

Business students who are studying at postgraduate or MBA level and executive short courses in strategy and change 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.

The case provides rich description of an actual decision making situation related to selection of a consulting company. An Indian company a US based manufacturer of Widgets with intent to capture 20% market share in India. When in-house efforts didn't yield quick results, the company decided to explore the option of hiring a consulting firm to develop a growth strategy. Various stakeholders were involved in the actual decision making which was seen as a trade-off between expertise and price.

MBA, advanced undergrad, entrepreneurship and technology commercialization classes.

Entrepreneurial diversity, equity and inclusion, medical device innovation, and models of business accelerators.

The first half of the case explores Kathryne Cooper’s professional and personal journey and the ways her life experiences inform the goals she helps set for The West Coast Consortium for Technology & Innovation in Pediatrics (CTIP). As an African-American woman codirector of a medical device accelerator focused on the pediatric market, Cooper was acutely aware of the lack of diversity in the tech industry. The second half of the case explores the medical device market and the need for organizations such as CTIP. Cooper implemented a revised application process and system to encourage applications from underrepresented minority founders. CTIP was in a unique position to support concept stage products and nontraditional founders. The case concludes with a description of seven companies that have applied to join CTIP’s portfolio. Students are instructed to consider, as Cooper, which companies to support and what type of support to offer.

Explore the ways personal backgrounds inform leadership positions. Analyze how ventures are evaluated from a grant-funded accelerator (in contrast to an investment-fund accelerator). Examine the wide range of support that nontraditional founders require in the underserved pediatric market.

Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

A model to support diversity of gender and race in entrepreneurship.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

Pebble Technology Corporation (Pebble) was an early entrant into the smartwatch industry. Pebble’s Founder, Eric Migicovsky, began thinking about creating a smartwatch in 2008 while still an undergraduate engineering student. After selling about 1,500 prototype watches, he was accepted into Silicon Valley’s prestigious Y Combinator business start-up program. Finding it difficult to attract investors, Migicovsky launched a crowdfunding campaign that raised a record-breaking $10.27m on Kickstarter. The case concludes shortly after Apple’s unveiling of its soon-to-be-released Apple Watch. The case provides an opportunity to evaluate Pebble’s various strategic options at the time of Apple’s announcement.

The authors observed over 30 h of video and audio recordings of speeches, interviews and other events involving Pebble’s founder, other Pebble executives, investors and competitors. These recordings are all publicly available. Whenever possible, the authors also reviewed the Twitter feeds, Facebook sites and personal websites of Pebble’s top executives over time. Similarly, the authors followed Pebble’s official website, corporate blog and Kickstarter campaign websites. The authors also drew from numerous media reports. Due to the public nature of the data, no company release is provided nor has any information been disguised in any way.

The case is designed for both undergraduate and graduate students for courses in strategic management.

Dr. Lawrence Frazier was an emergency room physician who was an employee of Honore Staffing Services of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He worked at Methodist Health System hospital in Grant, Georgia. He had recently added the title of ER Medical Director and served as liaison between Honore staffing and the Methodist hospital. His additional duties included overseeing the other physicians which staff the emergency room. Methodist had a bonus system in place based on obtaining 31 patients’ satisfaction surveys each month. Dr. Frazier believed that the small sample lead to erroneous results and created problems for the physicians under his supervision. He wanted to change the data collection process (e.g. sample size collected, instrument), but encountered obstacles when he broached the subject with his hospital administrators.

This case consists of conversations with six prominent venture capital investors in the United States. The topics covered include investment strategies and relationships with entrepreneurs in the United States and around the world.

The Mercini Lady Case is a modern statement of the law on the rights of the buyer in a sale contract. The seller has to supply goods in conformity with description, of merchantable quality and fit for the stated use. These rights, the ‘implied conditions’, however, can be ousted by express terms in the contract. The Court of Appeal judgement of the UK keenly considered that the exclusion clause should be interpreted in its business sense. However, it sided with precedence established over hundred years that the exclusion clauses take away valuable rights of the buyer and must be strictly and technically constructed.

The technical report released by the National Transportation Safety Board, along with the primary flight cockpit voice recorder data and archival interview data, were used as the basis for this case. Other available public data such as news reports were used to round out the synopsis of the case study.

United Express Flight 5925 was a scheduled commuter passenger flight operated by Great Lakes Airlines with a Beechcraft 1900 twin turboprop. It was a regularly scheduled flight from Chicago O'Hare International Airport to Quincy, Illinois, with an intermediate stop in Burlington, Iowa. Drawing from various first-hand accounts (cockpit voice recorder) and secondary evidence (news reports, archival interview data, and online sources) of the tragedy, the case provides a detailed account of the key events that took place leading up to the accident at Quincy regional airport. The case describes how the radio interactions, a jammed door and degradation of situational awareness all contributed to the accident. Through many of the quotes in the text and eyewitness accounts, readers gain an understanding of the impressions and perceptions of the pilots, including how they felt about many of the critical decisions in the last minutes of the flight and the situation at the airport.

When the authors teach this case, the students are required to read it as pre-reading before class. Various readings and materials (see supplemental readings below and Exhibit 3) are made available to students before class, and the instructor can choose to use some of these materials to further explore areas of interest. This case is best explored over a 90-min session but could be expanded to take up one 3-h session. This case can be covered in an undergraduate senior capstone organizational behaviour seminar, any general organizational behaviour class (including introductory in nature), an undergraduate communication theory class or an MBA class that focuses on applied organizational behaviour concepts. It works particularly well in the MBA class, as students with work experience can make the links between the behaviours explored in the case and their everyday workplaces.

In 2007, BP sought and received regulatory approval to expand operations at its Whiting Refinery in northwest Indiana. Had the project gone forward as planned, the refinery would have discharged significantly higher levels of pollutants into Lake Michigan, but would have also contributed to economic development in the region. The result of BP seeking and being granted regulatory approval triggered a firestorm of controversy from multiple segments of society. This case study draws from secondary sources to examine the positions of a variety of stakeholders who influenced BP's decision as to whether or not it should expand its Whiting Refinery. Relevant stakeholders included for analysis are citizen and environmental organizations, political groups, trade associations, BP's employees, and stockholders. The intended target audience for this case is upper-level undergraduate business students studying issues related to business and society, such as corporate social responsibility and sustainable development.

International Marketing, Marketing Strategy.

Postgraduate Programs.

This case investigated the effectiveness of experiential marketing on Indian customers and how it can be used to bring about significant positive change to the perception of a brand and its brand promise in emerging markets. Polaris India was a wholly owned subsidiary of Polaris Industries USA Inc. it was founded in India in 2011 with Mr Pallav Dubey as Head of the organization. Polaris specialized in building world class off road vehicles (ORVs) and was a global leader in the same. India did not have a ready-made market for ORVs as such. Mr Dubey was entrusted with the task of creating a market for the product and successfully sell it in the Indian market. There was no production facility in India and all the products were imported as Completely Built Unit (CBU) from US-based production facilities. Mr Dubey tried different communication adaptation methods using traditional styles of marketing which gave limited success. However, the concept of Polaris experience zones, which used the concept of experiential marketing was a hit and started yielding returns. The case study provided an opportunity to explore the reasons behind the success of Polaris India despite having a product whose price was affected by currency fluctuations, a product which was majorly used in agricultural areas in USA but was perceived as a premium product in emerging markets. The case also looked into the question of product adaptation and communication adaptation for successfully selling a product in the global market especially in emerging markets. The role of the chief protagonist Pallav, his contribution to the previous stints at different organizations and the role of a leader in this scenario has been brought to the forefront.

The case is expected to deliver answers to the following questions in an effective manner: How to price a product effectively in the International Market? What is Experiential Marketing? How is International Marketing strategy different in an emerging market?

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 8: Marketing.