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The Congregation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (CBVM), a Catholic order founded in the early 1800s, was faced with a series of strategic concerns, including an aging clerical population, a changing laity, reduced finances, very limited vocations, and an evolving mission. Some of these concerns faced the Catholic Church in America as a whole (including sexual abuse, not discussed in this case) and several of these issues were also facing the Catholic Church worldwide. The serious matters facing them were threatening the continued viability of the order in America, and the guidance they were receiving from Rome - instruction to decide which of three suggested models for restructuring they would adopt - seemed to back them into a corner, requiring selection from among several strategies not devised by their membership and commitment to the selected strategy going forward. Change was necessary, but one of the major concerns of the order was that it remain consistent with its stated mission while adapting to a new environment and “operating system.” Their decisions were driven by Rome, but the decisions were not made by Rome; the CBVM was as autonomous in its decision-making as any decentralized international organization.

In an MBA capstone project course, a team of four mid-career, working professionals had assessed the feasibility of a new venture idea. All four were dog-lovers who had been frustrated by the ineffectiveness of the various dog training programs and products in which they had participated. Their idea was to utilize a novel technology to assist dog owners in the training process. After completing the course, the team met to determine whether SmartPooch was just an interesting idea—or alternatively was a sufficiently promising opportunity that one or more of them would continue to explore it.

The four students who are the case protagonists conducted both primary and secondary research. In addition, the case writer conducted additional secondary research and consulted with the four students during the development of the case study.

Introductory Entrepreneurship course at Master’s or Undergraduate levels

Frameworks from which feasibility analysis questions were derived include Mullins’ New Business Road Test and Osterwalder’s Business Model Canvas. The discussion of opportunity recognition starts with the definition of opportunity drawn from Hansen, D.J.; Shrader, R.; and Monllor, J. (2009), “Composite definitions of entrepreneurial opportunity and their operationalizations: toward a typology”, Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research, Vol. 29 No. 17.

The present case study would help readers to understand paternalistic leadership behavior with its underlying theory. Readers would be able to appreciate the nature of experiences employees may have while working with a paternalistic leader high on authoritarianism. This case study would motivate readers to work out appropriate strategies for working under paternalistic bosses. The teaching note sensitizes readers about the complicated relationship between paternalistic leadership and culture.

Pyramid Globe Management Institute (PGMI) is struggling to generate revenue. PGMI founder, Tugmanshu Lakhani, has to find out new sources of revenue to keep the institute functioning. He constitutes a team of three professors for starting a new academic program with a foreign university. The initial success of the team brings favor from the founder but jealousy from the colleagues reeling under job threat. High authoritarianism and interference of the founder create a problematic situation for the three professors. When the new program starts showing promising results, the founder gets apprehensive about whether the new course may hurt the enrolment in the flagship program of the institute. The authoritarian and erratic behavior of the founder had a demotivating effect on the team working for the new program. Some team members resign under pressure while three professors stay to ensure the launch of the program. The professors have to resolve the conflict between their commitment toward PGMI in a troubled time and a career uncertainty if they continue working for it. Anticipating no change in the behavior of the founder and an uncertain future with PGMI, three professors quit after the start of the new program. The founder may continue losing committed employees if he is unable to balance his authoritarianism with benevolence and moral behavior. It will create more problems for PGMI in the future.

This case can be used in organizational behavior, leadership and team-building courses in the regular Master of Business Administration (MBA) programs. The case can further be used in the executive development program, especially for analyzing the leadership problem in higher education organizations.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 7: Management science.

Susan, a dog lover and an entrepreneur, wanted to start a franchise of Dog Shop in Ahmedabad. She had the data regarding the demand and costs incurred by Dog Shop on various verticals in its first year of operations. Based on this data and using an appropriate investment appraisal technique, Susan had to evaluate the three franchisee options offered by the company. The case can be used in any program and course which includes investment appraisal as part of its syllabus.

Services marketing, Market segmentation, Ethnography.

Postgraduate programs, Master in Strategic Marketing and Master in Business Administration.

One of the signs of an increase in religion awareness of Indonesian society is a high demand on Musholla in public area. While other shopping malls just provide a normal standard room for prayer, Senayan City has become a pioneer in introducing an excellent facility of a prayer room. In services marketing, one of the substantial matters to consider is physical evidence, or in other words service setting or servicescape. Musholla is one of the intangible aspects, which depicts services in shopping malls in Indonesia. There are three variables that distinguish visitors' types, such as time spent, liturgical compliance level and concerns for cleanliness/hygiene.

The objective of this case study is to give deeper comprehension about services marketing to students in a practical way. This case study illustrates that a company is capable of creating a strong brand by acknowledging consumer needs and providing extra benefits. Besides, students are also required to analyze diverse consumer needs as each segment has its own needs. The use of ethnography as an approach shows that such a contemporary method can capture dynamic behaviours and deeper insight on consumer needs.

Teaching notes are available.

The case is designed for students with prior knowledge of principles of management, particularly leadership theories. The case would also benefit bachelor students who already took an introductory course to leadership such as organizational behavior or graduate students who are familiar with the leadership and/or entrepreneurship literature. This case study may be used in the following academic courses: theories of leadership, leadership and leaders, organizational leaders’ roles, management skills, entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial management.

This case study may be used in the following academic programs: Bachelor’s in Business Administration Master of Science in Business Administration MBA Programs.

Kamal Reggad is a Moroccan entrepreneur who created the company Menaclick, an online business that aims to sell and promote various products and services nationally and internationally at discounted prices. Goods and services are posted on Menaclick’s website www.hmizate.ma, which means “good deals” in Moroccan Arabic. The Hmizate platform operates a daily-deals and group-buying website offering discounted deals to Moroccan customers. The deals are mainly on goods and services such as traveling, food, esthetics, shopping, high-tech gadgets and recreational events (Eco, 2013). Menaclick is based in Casablanca, Morocco, and its website www.hmizate.ma is one of the most popular websites in the country with over 40,000 visitors per day. In the past few years, Kamal has been significantly contributing to building the groundwork of the e-commerce industry in Morocco, a course that has been changing the way Moroccan customers shop for goods and services. In fact, it is because of the merits of group-buying sites such as Hmizate that over 16 million Moroccan internet users navigate the net daily to buy products and services online with ease and facility (Maroc Numeric Cluster, 2014). Kamal Reggad is a fitting example of an innate leader who introduced a new leadership style to Morocco. Kamal took a colossal risk by targeting a new and unexplored market in Morocco which is the e-commerce business; his risks have paid off. As the case explains, Kamal’s success is because of his passion, perseverance and positive attitude.

In general, the objective of the case study is to further enhance the understanding of leadership in general and entrepreneurial spirit in particular. The case study will assist students in developing their leadership-related skills through the discussion of a real-life situation and experience and propose an example of the importance of participative leadership during the launching phase of a business venture. The case is designed to provoke and stimulate students’ personal reflections about a particular management style, especially in entrepreneurship.

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.

Social entrepreneurship, sustainable development and emerging economies.

Advanced undergraduate students and Graduate students (MBAs).

We present the case of Marli Medeiros, a community leader in the city of Porto Alegre (south of Brazil) who has been working with the local government, local firms and local inhabitants over the last 40 years to build an organization that has been changing the reality of the slum Vila Pinto. The case highlights three main dilemmas faced by Marli Medeiros. Part 1 addresses whether to start a social entrepreneurship project in an environment surrounded by household violence and drug influences. Part 2 examines how to organize a community to develop this social project and challenge the context (local drug dealers). Part 3 considers how to work with different social players to innovate and manage a self-sustained social entrepreneurship that brings social change for an impoverished community.

Understand the five main characteristics required by social entrepreneurs to achieve social change by economic, self-sustained activities: social vision, sustainability guidelines, social networks development, search for innovation and search for financial returns. Understand the social entrepreneurship model from the point of view of a female leader in a local impoverished community. Understand and analyze the social and economic context of an emerging country.

Teaching note.

After reading and analysing the case study, the students would be able to distinguish the leadership styles based on leaders’ traits and behaviours, argue the importance of trust in leader–follower relationships thanks to the real-life examples presented and defend their side on the debate of whether leadership is born or made with the related theories and examples.

The teams coached by the successful Turkish basketball coach, Çetin Yılmaz, had reached the finals of the Turkish Basketball League six times and became champions three times. He assumed the coaching position of the Tuborg basketball team in December 2005. Although Tuborg’s Turkey branch made a serious financial investment in basketball, they were at the bottom of the league in the middle of the season. When Yılmaz took over the coaching position, the Tuborg basketball team’s main objective was not to be relegated from the top league in the 2005–2006 season. The team, working very hard, overcame the fear of relegation in two months but still had a very symbolic goal in front of it: winning the most prestigious game of the season by defeating the Karşıyaka team. However, in the last minutes of the game, with the influence of passionate Karşıkaya fans, the Tuborg team got scared and lost the game. At the end of the match, the club president entered the locker room and started shouting at the players, forcing the coach to face a severe dilemma. Either he would remain silent and risk damaging his leading position in the eyes of the players, or he would risk being fired by going against the president, even though he thought the president was right in what he said.

The target audience of this case study is undergraduate students. The field of study is sports management, leadership and coaching. This case study can be used in management, organizational behaviour and sports management courses while covering leadership and coaching topics.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human resource management.

Accounting and Finance (Performance Management and Management Control System).

Postgraduate Students in Business and Management.

This is a case of SmartBay System Integrator (SSI), an IT infrastructure system integrator based in Malaysia, a company that was facing declining profit margins. SSI was reputed to be a well-established locally owned system integrators in the northern region of the country, and the services it provided included building IT systems with high-end servers, networking solutions and software applications. Apart from the urgent need to improve sales, SSI intended to reduce the number of one-off customers and resolve the issue of increasing customer complaints. The complaints given to the company by customers revolved around the sluggish response to customers' requests, including delays in quotations and proposals, constant rescheduling of meeting with customers as well as unfavorable perceptions regarding the competency of SSI engineers. This case requires the analysis of the structure and control systems adopted by SSI to determine whether they are appropriate for the nature of the business and have suitable systems in place to resolve the issue of customer complaints.

This case can be used to teach the use of control systems in managing human resource issues in the context of highly specialised technical professionals in small service firms. In addition, the case also illustrates the need to match an appropriate control system to a specific type of organisational structure. In addition, the case can be relied upon to teach the differences between the various types of organisational structures and the different forms of control systems.

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

This case details the rise of a hard-disk storage manufacturer in the mid-1980s and the company's demise after executives manipulated the financial information.