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The case will offer insight to the students regarding the idea generation and development of a viable sustainable venture. It will promote the understanding of students regarding SDGs and how SMEs can contribute towards their attainment. They will learn to develop the action plan for a green business venture and understand how each of the business activity in each phase of value chain contributes towards environmental, economic and social sustainability.

Rana Waseem, a young business graduate started a small ecopreneurial venture to offer sustainable food from raw material till disposal in developing nation context named as Dhuaan ‘n’ Dukhaan (D ‘n’ D) in Sargodha, Pakistan. He had an aim to create a model of business that not only supports the local economy in terms of offering decent employment but also promotes a food business that generates nutritional self-sufficiency as per the triple bottom line concept. This case gives an exploratory insight into the actual sustainable operations that have survived eight months successfully and on the path of growth without profit being the sole aim. D ‘n’ D has benefited the lives of people in Sargodha by offering job opportunities, a decent wage, healthy food at affordable rates, reduction in diseases, reducing food wastage and efficient resource usage with a positive impact on the environment.

The case is suitable for undergraduate and post graduate students studying entrepreneurship and small business 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 3: Entrepreneurship

At three o'clock in the morning on September 10, 2001, Thierry Hautillac, a risk arbitrageur, learns of the final agreement between Pinault-Printemps-Redoute SA (“PPR”) and LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA (“LVMH”). After a contest for control of Gucci lasting over two years, PPR has emerged as the winner. PPR and LVMH have agreed for PPR to buy about half of LVMH's stock in Gucci for $94 per share, for Gucci to pay an extraordinary dividend of $7 per share, and for PPR to give a two and a half year put option with a strike price of $101.50 to the public shareholders in Gucci. The primary task for the student in this case is to recommend a course of action for Hautillac: should he sell his 2% holding of Gucci shares when the market opens, continue to hold his shares, or buy more shares? The student must estimate the risky arbitrage returns from each of these choices. As a basis for this decision, the student must value the terms of payment and consider what the Gucci stock price will do upon the market's open. The student must determine the intrinsic value of Gucci using a DCF model as well as information on peer firms and transactions. The student must consider potential synergies between Gucci and PPR and between Gucci and LVMH. The student must assess the likelihood of a higher bid, using analysis of price changes at earlier events in the contest for clues.

The case illustrates an entrepreneurial voyage and venture creation and through it helps in identifying the reasons and causes for that venture's failure. It also enables discussion on the importance of planning a venture, more importantly; financing, managing, growing, and ending a venture and on how to avoid the pitfalls that befall such enterprises. This case can be used in Entrepreneurship courses as well as MBA, PGP and Executive Education programmes on Entrepreneurship.

This case describes the challenges faced by Amul in organising dairy farmers into a co-operative and creating continuous opportunities for value addition. Participants in the case discussion are required to review the developments in the organisation and recommend a strategy for the future.

The “Anti-Racism in my Pocket” case illustrates how collaborative entrepreneurial leadership can build on personal experiences, expertise and a desire to change the status quo to support racial equity. The case will support students’ critical thinking skills and further heighten their understanding of the contributions of women in leadership, anti-racism and the role of technology. Moreover, the case is motivating for students with aspirations of using business skills and knowledge to contribute to social equity.

After completing this case, students should be able to identify the role of marketing in the development, implementation and evaluation of a behavior change initiative, the Anti-Racism Action Nuggets anti-racism training program; analyze qualitative and quantitative data to assess the impact of the Anti-Racism Action Nuggets Pilot using a logic model; identify marketing opportunities, challenges and strategies to scale the Anti-Racism Action Nuggets series for a broader impact; and discuss the relationship of gender in strategic positioning and marketing leadership to the development of the Anti-Racism Action Nuggets (Optional).

This case charts the development of an anti-racism training series by two friends, Allison Plyer (she/her) and Valerie (Val) Uccellani (she/her), called Anti-Racism Action Nuggets. The two protagonists aimed to change individual behaviors to reduce structural racism through lessons that were delivered in text messages to participants. Once the course is completed, they conduct a test pilot with members of NOW, LOVE, a women’s organization in New Orleans, Louisiana. At the end of the case, students are provided with the qualitative and quantitative pilot data for their analysis to recommend next steps and important marketing considerations for the Anti-Racism Action Nuggets series.

Undergraduate, graduate and executive education

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CCS 8: Marketing

In an effort to save his business, Paul Marciano, the owner of Italian family restaurant Maria’s Ristorante, runs a number of experiments focused on improving the customer experience around his target customer segment. These experiments lead to a better understanding about his business and cause him to make specific changes to his business model that ultimately improve things across the board. The experiments are based on research from the academic literature on the use of behavioral variables to manage customer perceptions.

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.

David Walker, a senior attorney in a busy white-shoe law practice is involved in an in-office dispute between his administrative assistant and a respected colleague. He had spent numerous hours listening to both sides tell their stories and has no answers. How was he ever going to help two people he valued greatly work out a compromise between their extremely polar positions? The case provides opportunities to explore the sources of interpersonal conflict, causes of escalation, and ways of diffusing and resolving it.

For the design of this case study, the authors used primary sources of information from the shops visited by them in preparation of the case and website of Fred Perry and secondary sources of information from both academic and journalistic publications.

Fred Perry is a premium clothing brand, well-known for its polo shirts. It was created by Mr Fred Perry, a British tennis player. The brand’s stated values are integrity, personality and individuality. Throughout its history, the brand has been adopted by different British subcultures but recently it has faced a challenge because of the brand appropriation by the Proud Boys, a US far-right white supremacy group and other extremist groups as Antifa and hooligans. The nature and actions of the group mean that Fred Perry runs the risk of losing control over its brand equity. This brand hijack means that Fred Perry risks alienating some of its customers by openly opposing the group but also by embracing this subculture’s appropriation. Practically, the brand opposed the appropriation in a press release and by putting an end to the sale of the black and yellow polo shirts in the USA and Canada. Fred Perry has also made a lot of efforts to reposition the brand away from extremist groups while maintaining its strong historical and cultural roots. Through this case study, students will have the opportunity to discuss this topic and explore solutions for brands that face this type of dilemma.

This case is designed to be used in a marketing management, brand strategy or consumer behavior/culture course, especially in the subfield of market segmentation in the telecommunications sector. Specifically, this case is designed for college seniors or master students with basic strategic marketing training. This case will help students understand the difference between the brand identity that the brand owners intend and the brand image that consumers actually perceive. It provides the basis of discussions on the topics of brand management, consumer culture, consumers-brands relationships, brand architecture, brand equity, brand appropriation and repositioning strategy.

At the end of the session, learners are expected to be able to evaluate the detrimental impact of stress on blue-collar workers’ well-being in Attainer Engineering Sdn Bhd; develop effective strategies to improve stressful conditions experienced by blue-collar workers in Attainer Engineering Sdn Bhd; analyse and select appropriate approaches that can help maintain the motivation levels of blue-collar workers in Attainer Engineering Sdn Bhd; analyse the impact of Attainer Engineering Sdn Bhd’s extensive investment in training new blue-collar workers, alongside the subsequent high turnover rate, on the decline in sales and profit; identify the critical changes that the managing director should have implemented to prioritize employee retention among blue-collar workers at Attainer Engineering Sdn Bhd; discuss the strategic implementation of mechanization, specifically in the context of automating repetitive processes, as an innovative solution to address the challenges faced by the ship repair and maintenance service industry heavily reliant on blue-collar workers in emerging markets; cultivate thoughtful debates on ways to keep blue-collar workers in the shipping repair and maintenance industry, as well as active learner participation and group interaction; develop learners’ analytical and critical thinking skills by guiding them through the analysis of a real-world case study in the shipping repair and maintenance industry, concentrating on the difficulties and potential solutions for blue-collar worker retention; and equip learners with practical knowledge and insights on implementing effective human resources strategies for retaining blue-collar workers in the shipping repair and maintenance industry, emphasizing the conversion of theoretical concepts into workable solutions.

This teaching case study centres on Attainer Engineering Sdn Bhd, a Malaysian conglomerate that bestows ship repair and maintenance services. Regrettably, the corporation has been subjected to a decrease in profitability and productivity owing to its high turnover rate of blue-collar workers. The ship repair and maintenance service industry is accountable for delivering comprehensive repair and maintenance services to ships, including their engines, hulls, machinery and other related components. The fundamental aim of this case study is to ascertain the rudimentary factors that contribute to this issue and foster effective strategies to enhance the motivation and retention rate of blue-collar workers in the ship repair and maintenance service corporation, using appropriate management theories, models and concepts. The case study brings to light the importance of discovering the most suitable approaches to retain blue-collar workers in the corporation to improve its profitability and productivity in a highly competitive market. This teaching case study will be beneficial for students and practitioners who want to grasp the disputes associated with retaining blue-collar workers in the ship repair and maintenance service industry and learn how to apply management theories, models and concepts to address these disputes effectively.

This case discussion would be highly suitable for undergraduate and postgraduate university students who are pursuing their studies in management or related fields and are eager to delve into the nuances of the ship repair and maintenance service industry. Furthermore, trainers from both private and public agencies who are keen on gaining a deeper understanding of the issues pertaining to retaining blue-collar workers in this particular industry and devising result-oriented strategies to tackle these concerns would also find this case discussion immensely helpful.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human resource management.