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Organisational behaviour, strategic management and management of change, human resources management, business management.

Undergraduate and post-graduate management degrees: including courses on organizational behaviour, human resources management, marketing, business management and strategic management.

Dandiraz an electric appliance manufacturing company in Zimbabwe has an aggressive marketing director who had increased exports from 15 percent of the company's production to 40 percent and the company had won the National Exporter of the Year Award twice as a result of his efforts. The chairperson was uncomfortable with the outbursts of the marketing director when he talked to him about the production department. There was a disagreement between the marketing director and production director in the way certain issues were to be implemented. The chairperson was undecided on whose suggestions to follow since both directors were giving valid contributions but opposing each other.

Students can focus on the importance of how departmental conflicts can harm an organisation if not managed properly. Students will also appreciate the importance of making quality decisions by top management as an important ingredient for the success of an organisation.

Teaching notes are available. Consult the librarian for access.

Business management, corporate ethics and management of change.

The case study is relevant for undergraduate and post-graduate management degrees. It includes courses such as Business Management, Corporate Ethics and Management of Change.

AMARA, a leading parts dealer and a subsidiary company of MTD Holdings has been hit by allegations of corruption which involved a ring of senior employees who are said to have swindled the company out of spare parts worth millions of US dollars with the help of a few security guards who were authorising illegal movements at check points. The workers' committee who blew the whistle on the scandal were now impatient that the investigations ordered in December last year 2011 have not taken off as management appears not keen on them. Management was dragging its feet when it comes to dealing effectively with the allegations. There was no proper strategy on how the allegations were going to be dealt with. There was also victimisation of workers. Senior managers who have been tasked to investigate the issue were suspected to be involved in the scandal thus that is why they were dragging their feet in the investigation.

Students can focus on the importance of good corporate governance as a cornerstone of good business practice. The importance of an active board of directors is also vital for the smooth running of a business. Students will also appreciate the importance of making quality decisions by top management as an important ingredient for the success of an organisation. The issue of an effective control system in an organisation is also important to avoid leakages which will cost an organisation millions of dollars.

Teaching notes are available, please contact your librarian to access.

Organisational behaviour, business reengineering and management of change, human resources management.

This case study is intended for undergraduate and post-graduate management degrees. It includes courses on organizational behaviour, human resources management, marketing, business management, travel and tourism and strategic management.

Zim-Zum Welcome Hotel is a hotel in Zimbabwe in the travel and tourism sector. It was facing high turnover of employees and this was affecting the business through continuous hiring and training. The organization decided to introduce changes completely changing the way it does things, focusing on satisfying employees as well as customers. The new approach yielded favourable results, labour turnover dropped significantly and business improved greatly. In an effort to improve service, and increase profit, Zim-Zum has begun radically changing the way it hires, trains and deploys frontline workers. Management also examined how waiters and waitress do their job and concluded that there was supposed to be a division of labour between them and culinary staff. Management of Zim-Zum believe that companies that excel at managing frontline workers understand that excellent service is more than just a transaction.

Students can focus on: the importance of redesigning work so that superior service satisfies both the employee and the customer; human resources management is an important factor in improving employee performance and business performance; the importance of external and internal customers in improving company performance.

The purpose of this paper is to help organisations view strategy as a profession and something that needs training rather than something that is hard‐wired in executives when they are employed to top positions in organisations.

The author conducted research in organizations and found that strategy is in a state of crisis and has hit on hard times, mainly because executives do not have knowledge in strategic management and organisations make assumptions when executives are employed that they are strategists.

The assumption that when executives are employed they can think and act strategically has been refuted by this study since executives have shown lack of knowledge of strategic issues.

Methods are provided for organizations so that they can reduce the vacuum in strategy practitioners.

This paper gives practical advice from situations in organizations and helps organizations to reduce the vacuum in strategy practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to help top managers find ways of involving implementers of strategy at the strategic formulation level.

The author has conducted research in organisations that have come up with strategic plans, identified how top managers fail to include implementers when formulating strategy, and advises them on how to avoid this trap.

Grasping the real reason for involving implementers in strategy formulation for top managers may be a difficult task, though it is a fact that employees contribute better when they are involved in the planning stage.

Methods are provided for top managers to follow when formulating strategy.

This paper gives practical advice from situations in organisations and helps managers to involve all stakeholders holistically when formulating a strategy.

The purpose of this paper is to help boards of directors to find ways of establishing continuity in the strategic plan when strategists are employed on contract leave before the end of the strategic plan period.

The author has conducted research in organisations that have executives on contracts of three to five years, and identifies how strategic plans are negatively affected when executives on contract – especially top management – leave organisations when their contracts ends. Research in organisations has shown that strategic plans usually have longer periods than the contract of the strategist, and contract renewal is sometimes not obvious.

The length of the strategist's contract and the length of the strategic plan have not been taken into account when crafting strategic plans in organisations and appointing executive directors. This scenario has caused a lot of strategy failures.

Ways are provided for boards of directors and organisations to foster a culture of continuity of the strategic plan even when executives leave the organisation unceremoniously or when their contracts end and are not renewed.

This paper gives practical advice from situations in organisations and helps boards of directors to take into account the duration of strategic plans when employing executives.

The purpose of this paper is to help managers and leaders with the necessary information to implement a cure for poor organizational performance

The author has conducted research in organizations and has found out that many organizations are being affected by dysfunctional leadership, which is acting as a cancer, eating up many organizations.

Dysfunctional leadership has been found to be the cancer that eats many organizations.

Best practices are provided to cure challenges caused by bad leadership.

This paper gives practical advice from situations in organizations and helps organizations to identify signs of bad leadership and how they can be cured.

To help companies find ways of reducing costs when an executive director leaves an organisation because of poor performance or at the end of a contract.

The author has conducted research in organizations that have executives on contracts for three to five years, identifies how executive directors are heavily rewarded when their contract ends voluntarily or involuntarily. Researches in organisations have shown that if you sign a contract as an executive director there is no incentive for excellent performance because most contracts of executives are designed in such a way that poor performance can be rewarded indirectly.

Very few executives in Zimbabwe work through their contracts up to the end especially in parastatals due to what is perceived as poor performance but they are always met with a “golden handshake” as they call it though they have not contributed much except the demise of the organisation.

Ways are provided for organisations to follow and try to mitigate the costs of paying executives when they leave organisations unceremoniously or when their contracts end without renewal.

This paper gives practical advice from situations in organizations and helps organisations to take into account the costs implications involved when an executive director leaves the organisation before the end of contract or poor performance.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a new typology for classifying the leaders’ behaviors and investigate the effects of leaders’ behaviors on employees’ resilience.

This paper used a mixed method research (i.e. interview and questionnaire). First, through the interviews with employees, the leaders’ behaviors were identified. Next, based on the identified behaviors and Kano model the type of each behavior was classified. Finally, according to this classification, the impact of leaders’ behaviors on employees’ resilience was investigated.

Based on the results of the interviews, 46 leaders’ behaviors which influence employees’ satisfaction/dissatisfaction were identified out of which 10 behaviors were must-be; 5 behaviors were one-dimensional, 18 behaviors were attractive and 13 behaviors were reverse type. Also, the results of hypotheses testing showed that attractive behaviors have a stronger relationship to employees’ resilience than one-dimensional and must-be behaviors; one-dimensional behaviors have a stronger relationship to employees’ resilience than must-be behaviors; and reverse behaviors have an indirect effect on employees’ resilience.

This research proposes a new typology for classifying the leaders’ behaviors into the five categories and the approach and findings of this research contribute to the literature of Kano model and leadership theory.