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Business management, entrepreneurship, strategic management and business environment.

Undergraduate and Masters level business and management programmes.

This case features a small labour intensive Chinese company, Bags of Luck (BoL), located in the south-eastern Fujian province. BoL makes ladies fashion handbags, unisex fashion backpacks and trendy lightweight cases for laptop and netbook computers for export to the US market. BoL have done very well over the years as a small private enterprise focusing on low-tech manufacturing and have managed to stay afloat through the most difficult period of the recent world recession. Currently troubled by fast changing market trends, rising material and employment costs, continuing appreciation of the Chinese currency, severe labour shortage, declining production volume and profitability, dated machinery, passive and reactive nature of business model, ineffective management structure and a complete lack of strategic vision, BoL is in deep crisis with its fate now hanging on the balance.

The case provides encourages students to: research into a range of current business management issues; analyse the impact of environmental changes on the survival and growth of a business organisation; develop their strategic thinking informed by real life and real-time research and assess the impact of exchange rate changes on the Chinese economy and the sustainability of Chinese model of economic growth.

Teaching note.

Banking, Emerging Markets, Innovation.

Undergraduate Business students and MBA students.

This case describes the creation of YES MONEY: a domestic remittance service for migrant workers. Broadly, the case is about conceiving and deploying an information and communication technology-based solution for financial inclusion. It describes how Anand Bajaj, chief innovation officer at YES BANK, created a solution for migrant workers who wished to send their money to their families in rural India.

Gaining a better understanding of the process of creating new services, especially in the banking industry. Understanding the context in which YES BANK operated when it created YES MONEY. Drawing general lessons that can be applied to innovation, especially in emerging 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.

Entrepreneurship, Strategic Management, Organizational Change Management.

Postgraduate and undergraduate students.

Restoran Minang Plus is a self-styled family-owned and managed restaurant featuring a gamut of Malaysian Negeri Sembilan and Indonesian Padang dishes. The eatery establishment has sailed the food industry waters successfully since 2004 and currently has five branches. However, there are certain imperatives they have to institute to integrate their entrepreneurial challenges with organizational change management. The nature of the forces in the competitive restaurant landscape requires a continuous rethinking of current strategic actions, organizational change, communication systems, motivation, asset deployment and strategic flexibility to respond quickly to changing conditions and thereby develop and maintain a competitive advantage. The question is how do they integrate this organizational change management to their entrepreneurial challenges with a view to achieve and maintain competitive advantage?

The expected learning outcomes are as follows: understanding managing diversity by looking at the different categories of diversity, that is, generic characteristics and learned characteristics that influence work attitudes; explaining how fostering learning and reinforcement can help in increasing job satisfaction; describing the basic motivational needs of the employees and how it can help in increasing job performance; understanding how an entrepreneurial firm can maximize its firm performance through effective change management; and understanding the importance of strategic management in an entrepreneurial firm.

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

The case discussion will help the participants figure out ways the entrepreneur could handle problems such as labour shortage, demonetisation and customer retention and find possible strategies to overcome them.

MVR Leathers is a small-scale leather-processing unit located in Chennai. MVR was the brainchild of Venkat Raj, who started his career in 1982 as a casual labourer in an unrelated domain. His unwavering persistence helped him to become an independent entrepreneur by 2008. In achieving his dream to become an entrepreneur, Raj encountered many challenges and an equal number of new opportunities. Each time he faced a challenge, he met a new set of people who helped him. However, at times, the same people who had helped him once might throw him out of the scene. In brief, his struggle is never-ending. He keeps fighting to come back and find new avenues to success. A different set of challenges surfaced as he took charge of his firm as a sole owner. Once again, he countered those challenges with courage and grit. In doing so, he made full use of his experience.

The case can be used for discussions at the executive, postgraduate and undergraduate levels. Academic courses that address topics such as entrepreneurship, entrepreneurs, small-firm strategies, business environments, leather industry, leadership, human resource management and entrepreneurial journeys can use the case for classroom learning.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

The case is directly related to courses on corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the Management of Business Administration (MBA) Programme.

Courses like “International Business/Marketing”, “Strategic Planning” and “Business Ethics” of the MBA Programme. Management Development Programmes for working executives, on the Topics “Corporate Social Responsibility”, “Manpower Planning”, “Growth of Business Clusters” and “Social Accountability”.

The labour-demanding industry of Tirupur knitwear exports is facing both happy and sad situations. While orders from importers are piling up, lack of manpower planning proves a stumbling block. The industry employs more than 300,000 workers. After hours of toiling, workers still lead a pathetic life; have no access to good housing or quality education for their children. Highlighting on this situation, the case brings forward the questions, why is it that firms have not realised their CSR to provide commendable standards for their employees? what situations would provide the drive or compulsion to adapt social responsibility? and how far is fulfilling the social responsibility a direct answer to solving the labour issue faced by the export firms?

The case serves to help students to understand the theoretical concept CSR. It brings to the students understanding: the drivers of CSR; challenges that would make the business units to honour their social responsibility; what lies as the practical situation on awareness of CSR; and to have a wholesome practical view of CSR in the context presented in the case.

Teaching note.

The case dwells with the following theoretical concepts: Appreciate the different need dimensions required to motivate different employee types based on need theory (Alderfer, 1969). Identify the functional needs as per Maslow’s need hierarchy (Hall & Naougaim, 1968) for the permanent and contractual workers. Outline why only hygiene factors are insufficient to arrest worker absenteeism during a pandemic like COVID-19. Apply need theory and “Herzberg’s two-factor theory” (Herzberg, 1966; Herzberg et al., 1957) to enumerate the measures that need to be implemented to build supply chain resilience by reducing absenteeism by motivating employees.

The case is based on primary research carried out by the authors at Alkem Laboratories Ltd., Sikkim unit in India, during the COVID-19 pandemic that hit the company leading to high absenteeism of contractual workers.

Alkem Laboratories Ltd. is a leading pharma major from India with a global footprint. At the break of COVID-19 pandemic, the manufacturing unit of the company at Sikkim is facing the scare of mass absenteeism, especially among the contractual workers who account for 60% of the workforce of the unit. Ashok Priyadarshi (Vice President, Human Resources) and his team along with the think tank of the unit have to find a solution to the problem at hand. What shall be the measures that the think tank will propose? The team sets out to find an answer to these questions so that Alkem could seize the business opportunity at the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The case is suitable for undergraduate- and graduate-level courses in organizational behavior, organizational change and development and supply chain risk management. The case can also be positioned for executive education and training modules in companies on employee motivation and commitment.

Labour relations management, business management, HRM, focusing on the labour relations of Chinese enterprises.

This case is designed for students in schools of business or management, undergraduate MBA or executive MBA classes. Students should already have a basic knowledge about Chinese labour relations, HRM, and organizational development.

In 2004, a deal transformed Anhui Xuanjiu Group from a state-owned enterprise (SOE) to a private company. Li Jian, the Chairman of Xuanjiu Group, focused on creating happiness for employees. Thanks to Li Jian's efforts, Xuanjiu emrged from its crisis which was formed in the planned economy system. After several years of development, the labour relations management of Anhui Xuanjiu Group became a model among private enterprises in China.

Students can gain new insights into labour relations in China. The case provides an example of building friendly labour relations to avoid labour disputes. It provides a set of measures for retaining and motivating workers.

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

The case offers a unique opportunity to understand the market dynamics of a young luxury brand that aspires to empower women and pursue the broader goal of marketing sustainability in an emerging market. The discussion would enable learners to conduct environmental analysis and assess implications of crisis (current pandemic) on business, understand the marketing mix implications for a firm with societal orientation, learn to design effective brand positioning strategies and plan social and market driven brand strategies to ensure sustainable growth.

Gauri Malik, an investment banker-turned-social entrepreneur, forayed into the luxury home décor and furniture market with Sirohi, in 2019. In a market driven by exclusivity and design appeal, the brand had sustainability at its core. Malik worked with 200 women, from a conservative rural base in India to create traditional products that were hand-made with recycled natural fibres and upcycled plastic wastes. Driven by the goal of securing the livelihood for a larger group of women artisans, Malik wanted to scale up from 350 to 5000 products in the next five years. Hence, for materializing her ambitious plans she sought answers to- Could her home-trained women artisans deliver the promise of quality and finesse to support Sirohi scale up as a luxury brand? While it was extremely critical for Sirohi to have an articulated image-she wondered if the parallel focus on the up-market luxury brand image and sustainability-create competitive advantage or lead to diffused positioning?

Classified as MODERATE in terms of difficulty level, the case can be effectively used in post-graduate programmes for foundation courses on Marketing Management, elective courses on Brand Management or Sustainability Marketing.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

The case presents a responsible investment dilemma case. Swedish institutional responsible investors have to make a choice about their investment in Lonmin, a platinum mining company whose operation are located in South Africa and has been the theatre of workers’ killings.

The case targets MBA students and can be taught in a corporate finance course, a corporate governance course, a business ethics course or on sustainable and responsible investment.

The teaching case follows the journey of Hilde Svensson, the head of equities for a Swedish responsible investor. She has been tasked to visit the site of Lonmin in South Africa which is the theatre of a tragic workers’ unrest that led to the killings of 44 workers in August 2012. She must decide what the best responsible investment strategy is to adopt with Lonmin for the future.

The students are expected to learn about what responsible investment entails and the dilemmas that can be faced by responsible investors. The case also gives insight to business students and the complexities of environment, social and governance (ESG) analysis and how to integrate financial and ESG analysis when you are a responsible investor.

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

CCS 1: Accounting and Finance

Social Entrepreneurship/management of non-profit organizations (and non-government organizations).

Undergraduate/MBA/Executive MBA.

PUKAR is a niche non-government organization (NGO) working on a unique concept of “Right to Research”. It has several themes aimed at democratizing research and broadening access to knowledge among the disenfranchised or the weakly institutionalized groups. The resulting output is disseminated through media such as lectures, Web site, books and newsletters, thus initiating local, national and global debates about future of these groups. PUKAR conceptualizes all projects around this philosophy, which are supported by few specialized funding organizations. Funding organizations, on the other hand, are trying to support many causes aimed at improving the quality of life of citizens of various countries. Thus, PUKAR's growth is constrained by limited funds. Nevertheless, PUKAR has been able to create transformation in the lives of youth who carry out these projects. PUKAR, therefore, faces a continuous challenge of conceptualizing proposals that are meaningful and impactful for the society and to stay true to its core philosophy.

The expected learning outcomes include: to understand the nature of challenges (both strategic and operational) faced by a niche NGO; to analyze how the strategy of an NGO evolves with time; to analyze the impediments of growth for a niche NGO; and to analyze the strategic options for growth and sustenance of an NGO.

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