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Upon completion of the case study discussions, successful students will be able to: discuss the challenges of green financing and provide solutions on how to address such challenges. Explore the different dimensions for structuring a green financing fund. Analyse the risks and suggest a mechanism for de-risking an investment fund.

Kenya Climate Venture was established in 2016 as an independent subsidiary of Kenya Climate Innovation Centre, with a seed capital of $5m from European development financing institutions Danida and UKAid and the fund raised another $5m in new capital in early 2020. Its remit was to invest in commercially viable enterprises in agribusiness, water, commercial forestry, renewable energy and waste management, largely targeting small and medium-sized enterprises. The case is exploring three themes; Theme1: Challenges of climate financing, Theme 2: Structuring a climate financing fund Theme 3: De-risking an investment fund.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 1: Accounting and Finance.

The focused case is a “disguised case” developed based on a real-life apparel company in Sri Lanka. The authors have disguised the company name and have not revealed the identity of the key respondents and any data, which makes the firm obvious. However, the processes and practices reported represent the actual scenario of the company (gathered through interviews done mainly with the case protagonist, General Manager (GM) – Risk and Controls) and the authors have not fabricated any data.

Having established itself as a pioneer in the apparel industry in Sri Lanka, Dots & Lines reached the pinnacle of its performance in 2019. Following the outbreak of COVID-19, the situation turned unfavorable: global customers canceled orders by the end of the first quarter of 2020. It experienced settlement delays, increased freight charges and supply chain barriers. The virus spread among the operational staff, leading to health and safety issues and absenteeism. On April 2020, the executive committee gathered and decided to form a position titled “General Manager (GM) – Risk and Controls” and a team to turn around the company. Dots & Lines witnessed the harvest of the risk management turnaround measures pioneered by GM – Risk and Controls, from the first quarter of 2021 with impressive revenue and profit figures. It developed a pool of key strategic customers, while key performance indicators dashboards and the risk matrix provided vital insights in moving forward.

The case, Dots & Lines is written for use in undergraduate and graduate-level classes in business administration and management degree programs. The focus aligns with discussions on industry competition, controls and risk management. Of further importance, the case is applicable to discussions on topics in strategic management accounting courses.

The learning outcomes are as follows: identify and evaluate the impact of risk factors for health-care organizations during crisis; evaluate the role of different organizational factors in building resilient health-care organizations; define organizational resilience in a health-care context; and apply the effect-strategy-impact resilience framework.

September 2022 found Ranjan Thakur, the Hospital Director at Manipal Hospital, Jaipur (MHJ) reflecting on MHJ’s resilience toward future health-care crises. MHJ was established in the capital city Jaipur of the Indian state of Rajasthan in 2014, as a 225-bed multispecialty unit of the nationally renowned Manipal Health Enterprises Ltd. As the Hospital Director, Thakur had been responsible for navigating his team and the hospital through the multiple health-care related challenges exacerbated by the multiple waves of the Covid-19 pandemic in a large Indian state with a sizable rural and semiurban population. Though Thakur and his team of doctors had worked through the vulnerabilities of their health-care ecosystem, mapping the risks and mitigating the same, Thakur asked himself if they had done enough. He wondered how a health-care institution such as theirs could sustain effective health-care delivery during future crises situations to deliver high-quality health care to the vulnerable communities. Had they effectively mapped MHJ’s vulnerabilities and built resilience into the hospital’s functioning? The backdrop of the case is public health in the state of Rajasthan (Jaipur), and the case is rich in detailing social factors such as behavior issues of patients, doctors and nurses; operational factors such as standardization of treatment and standard operating procedures, availability of resources, clinical concerns; leadership and management of the hospital through the pandemic. This case can be used by instructors to teach organizational resilience building in the health-care context.

Graduate- and executive-level courses in managing change during crisis in health-care context; health-care management/leadership.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 7: Management Science.

The case study uses a strategic foresight method, scenario-planning, to examine the strategic options for a financial services firm. As such, it covers the fields of strategy, environment of business, innovation, digital disruption and organizational change as they relate to the firm’s ability to adapt to changes in the environment of business in an emerging market context.

The case was developed with master's-level students in mind, particularly those seeking a master of business administration, masters in strategic foresight or related management degrees.

The case of NEDBANK, a longstanding and successful financial services firm based in South Africa is confronted with major challenges from competitors because of technological change in the industry as well as having to expand their market penetration across Africa. A rising regulatory burden, tough economic conditions and the need to access low income markets, provide a significant organizational development challenge as a decades-old bank, known for a relational approach to banking, has to navigate the new domains of “fintech”, micro-lending and public sector banking.

Students will gain comprehensive insight into the industry environment in emerging markets, understand the strategic management challenge before financial services firms in this environment and be able to consider the alternative strategic interventions that may be used to ensure corporate sustainability amid these challenges. Simultaneously, the case provides a comprehensive view into the use and application of scenario-planning for strategic 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 learning outcomes are as follows: to describe the possible problems in cross hierarchical and cross-functional coordination; to illustrate the month/year-end closing operations related issues at logistics and warehousing end; to analyze the importance of supply chain resilience/ contingency plan; and to compare the role of the tradeoff in decision-making: ethics (policies) vs operations.

Mr Azhar Ali working as a regional distribution manager was waiting for the finalization of sales orders, it was the last working day of the financial year. He had to fulfill all the orders to achieve his personal and organizational goals. He was excited as he was supposed to be promoted and transferred to Head Office on a national role, after a successful annual closing. It was not too late when his excitement turned into anxiety when he received a never expected direct call from Director Sales. Around 7:00 p.m., he was informed of some new orders for an important institutional customer, which was out of his own region. The orders were placed in Ali’s region because of stocks’ availability. Ali had no time to plan this huge order and there were no dispatch trucks available at that time. Should Ali take risk of organizational goals and his promotion and cancel those orders? Should Ali generate sales invoices to record sales and dispatch the stocks on next day compromising the organizational core values and policies?

BBA.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 9: Operations and logistics.

The contribution of the present case lies in the critical view that every business actor should exercise – be it general manager, middle management, supervisor or executive – when building a strong organizational culture in corrupt political environments.

The purpose of this case study is to explore the dilemma in which Marcelo Odebrecht, once CEO of Odebrecht, found/determined whether to continue with the business model established by the founders of Odebrecht or take a new path for the organization. After exploring the corrupt acts of Odebrecht and the scope of Operation Lava Jato, the reader can reflect on the importance of organizational culture (according to the three levels proposed by Schein) in the face of the emergence of corruption. By generating discussions about organizational culture, business ethics, political culture and corruption, the organizational culture of Odebrecht is problematized in relation to its real behavior.

Students of administration, business and international business undergraduates and graduates, as well as members of senior management in companies in the infrastructure sector. Also, given the plurality of possible readings, it is recommended that the case also be used in courses or specializations in organizational psychology, organizational sociology or organizational anthropology.

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 5: International Business.

Siemens Medical Solutions (SMS) offered innovative products and systems, clinical solutions, and services for medical professionals. Its latest project, transforming a hospital to digital records and processes, was experiencing serious delays that had damaged the relationship with the client. Management believed the underlying problem was that SMS was not using the correct approach to organization and processes for solutions marketing. The executives in charge of on-time completion and successful delivery of the project must now agree on a different recommendation.

Students will examine the infrastructure, customer offerings, and competitive landscape for Seimens Medical Solutions, as well as evaluate three potential organizational models (transient solutions, solutions streamlined enterprise, and adaptive solutions) to determine which represents the ideal structure for SMS. They will be able to identify the role of leadership in the organization, recommend how SMS should prepare for this change, and recommend how it would measure the transformation's success.

This comprehensive case has been written for an undergraduate-level course on general management and a post-graduate-level course on organizational behavior and strategic management. After working through the case and conducting an in-depth discussion of the assignment questions, students will be able to do the following: 1. perform a comprehensive assessment of the institute’s internal context to measure its resources and preparedness to deal with COVID-19; 2. apply organizational change frameworks (to understand the trigger of the change, type of change and change process); 3. qualitatively analyze the dynamic capabilities and resources available to reopen the institute; and 4. suggest ways to institutionalize agility in the organization to improve the preparations and future responses to student management on campus based on a thorough analysis.

Founded in 1996, the Indian Managerial Studies Institute, Indore, has emerged as a leader in management education by appropriately weaving the pertinent roles of industry, government and PSUs into a common thread. With the onset of COVID-19 in March 2020, IMSI Indore began to respond to educational and administrative challenges by building on resilient strategies. Two decision-making situations cropped up as the situation improved and again converged to the more lethal second wave in March 2021. Dr Hemant Vishwas, Dean of IMSI Indore, needed to determine whether the institute should continue with the reduced employee and hybrid classroom model or reopen with full-fledged operations for the following academic year.

This comprehensive case has been written considering the teaching pedagogy for an undergraduate-level course on organizational behavior (organizational development and change module) and a post-graduate-level course on organizational behavior and strategic management. This case is suitable for courses on organizational development, change and strategy implementation. Organizational behavior and organizational development and change can be used to understand the core concepts of the change content and process, i.e. the scope and scale of the change. The case also touches on inducing a dynamic change in response to the pandemic in an educational setting, teaching the concepts of dynamic capabilities. It is also expected to be useful for teaching courses related to operations strategies in educational services for executive degree programs and faculty development workshops.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human Resource Management.

The case begins in mid-2014 and provides an opportunity for students at the undergraduate and graduate level to complete several strategic assessments of an entrepreneurial department within a post-secondary institution. The continuing education department of a university in Canada has been transferred to the dean of an academic faculty. The department has had a history of budget deficits and the new dean and executive director (ED) were tasked to develop and implement a turnaround strategy.

The case is written by the dean who had firsthand experience with the turnaround strategy. The written case was reviewed for accuracy by two principal actors: the ED responsible for implementing the plan, and the vice-president academic who is the dean’s supervisor and was kept apprised of all developments throughout the turnaround. Some of the data were produced by staff within the operation of Professional, Applied, and Continuing Education and acknowledged in the case.

This case is suitable for courses in business strategy, operations management, and includes various implications for human resource management, organizational behavior, and entrepreneurship suitable for undergraduate and graduate courses. It has a focus on turnaround strategies and strategy implementation.

Theoretical underpinnings for this case include strategic visioning and communication: portfolio management and innovation; internal environment analysis and positioning; structuring and resource management; and monitoring and control systems.

This case has three primary objectives. First, it allows students to think through a conceptual cost and benefit analysis associated with the decision-making process in line with basic economic thinking. Students will revisit core concepts of marginal benefit vs marginal cost, the notion of opportunity costs and the role of sunk costs in this type of analysis, while also highlighting the nature of market structure, oligopolies and competition across firms in an industry. The second goal of this case is to consider the role of business ethics in the DC-10 case: specifically, to consider the potential influence of moral awareness and moral disengagement in unethical decisions made by McDonnell Douglas. Students will develop an understanding of these concepts and solidify their learning by applying them to the case and engaging in active discussion. Finally, the third goal of the case allows students to explore organizational culture and specifically offer recommendations for organizations thinking about the link between decision-making, the role of ethics and culture.

The technical reports released by the National Transportation Safety Board along with secondary data such as available public data such as news reports were used to round out the synopsis of the case study.

This case explores the accidents of two McDonnell Douglas DC-10s in the early 1970s at the onset of the jumbo jet race between Boeing, Lockheed and McDonnell Douglas. It explores the series of events during the “Windsor Incident” in 1972 and the subsequent accident over Paris in 1974. It explores the reasons why the cargo door on the DC-10 was faulty and subsequently why the door was not fixed. It examines the interplay of industry suppliers such as McDonnell Douglas and how they interact with oversight authorities such as the Federal Aviation Authority. The Teaching Note focuses on the economic thinking at McDonnell Douglas, behavioral ethics and organizational culture.

This case is best explored over a 90 min session but could be expanded to take up one 3 h session. The authors have used this case format in an undergraduate organizational behavior class, an MBA Leadership and Organizational Change class, and an MBA Economics of Managers class. It works particularly well in the MBA setting, as students with work experience can see the links between the mistakes made by McDonnell Douglas and their workplaces.