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This case features an entrepreneur who must decide whether to sell his small distribution company. The case explores several issues for class discussion: (1) valuation of a private company, (2) assessing the entrepreneur's perspective and alternatives, (3) deal structuring (including earnouts), (4) risks and their effect on value, and (5) advice from a banker's perspective.

There is little published information available in the area of youth programs and social entrepreneurship in underrepresented communities. However, there are many idealistic entrepreneurs in the community; the case describes the experience of one such individual. Case analysis and the Instructor’s Manual are based on standard theories and techniques in organizational environmental and strategy analysis, as well as information and approaches regarding nonprofit functioning.

This case was prepared from primary sources, based on interviews with the founder. The name of the organization was disguised but the location and the founder’s name were not.

Growing up in a rough neighborhood, Darnell found refuge in an after-school program, which he credited for several positive values. As an adult, he felt a strong desire to give back to the community he had grown up, and still lived in. Thus, was launched MoveAhead, a fitness-based after-school program similar to the one he had participated in. However, as was common for many social entrepreneurs, Darnell struggled to overcome severe lack of capital and to deal with operational issues. Now, MoveAhead had reached a critical and existentially important point, when a strategic decision had to be made.

This is a decision case. It discusses the difficulties faced by a social entrepreneur who had a strong drive and conviction but little capital. The case describes a strategic turning point for one such organization. It can be used in business and management courses at the undergraduate level. It would also be relevant to a course on (social) entrepreneurship. The level and analysis required of students and discussion questions used can be adjusted depending on whether the course is introductory or more advanced, such as strategy.

This case describes the evolution of MHFC, a player in the Indian informal housing sector. As a new entrant offering micro home loans to the financially excluded lower income families of urban India in 2008, MHFC had grown to an annual number of 18,000 loans worth INR 8 billion with an average ticket size of INR 0.43 million (USD 6,000).

With a 53.5% purchasable equity stake in MHFC, Chopra and his team were left with certain decisions to make. Should the company on-board a new social investor? Or should it bring on the more readily available and capital-rich private equity investors interested in the lucrative prospects of the microfinance housing sector?

The case discusses two key objectives: (1) to understand the entire entrepreneurial journey of a group of entrepreneurs and how they plan to exit the venture, and (2) to enable classroom discussion on how to develop a business model from scratch, get it funded, achieve scale and then exit.

Fundraising, Marketing Strategy.

Undergraduate and Postgraduate.

Professional fundraising plays a key role in the operation and sustainability of various forms of organizations, particularly non-governmental organizations (NGOs). “Fundraising for Life” is the success story of a center that is totally dependent on fundraising to achieve its mission of lifesaving and treatment for children with chronic diseases regardless of their financial situation. This case sheds the light on the primary sources of contributions, the importance of an integrated development program, the mutual benefits of partnering with other entities and the challenges encountered in the fundraising endeavors in this developing and unstable part of the world.

The students will be able to explore the current practices used in fundraising as well as the marketing and communication strategies employed in nurturing and maintaining relations with potential donors and partners. They will also be able to explore the internal and external challenges and opportunities available for fundraisers.

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 learning outcomes of this paper are as follows: to uncover the social innovation in the peacebuilding model of the Children for Peace Initiative (CPI); to identify the key success factors of the CPI model; to discuss the sustainability of the model of CPI-Kenya; and to apply the contact theory and personal transformation theory to CPI model.

The case is written to address the issue of intercommunity peacebuilding between the Pokot and Samburu. It focusses on social innovation in peacebuilding implemented in seven villages among the Pokot and Samburu. The activities revolve around the involvement of children as key actors in peacebuilding and the exchange of heifer between the communities to sustain the peace. The heifer is one of the sources of conflict. In this case, this powerful cultural symbol is used to create bonding and friendship between the conflicting communities. While there were many peacebuilding attempts in the pastoralist communities, CPI-Kenya introduced a model that focusses on building a new human relationship between the communities. It includes all the social groups of the communities, making it more successful and sustainable than other previous attempts.The two co-founders, Monica Kinyua and Hilary Bukuno, narrated the story of how the CPI-Kenya started, highlighting the uniqueness of their peace-building approach and the strategy they adopted to build a new relationship between the communities. They shared powerful stories of how CPI managed to bring a peaceful living between the Samburu and Pokot in Baragoi, particularly in Amaya and Longewan villages.In the beginning, the main challenge for the CPI-Kenya team was finding the right approach to implement their peace innovation by making children become the catalyst of peace in their communities. With children at the centre of the CPI model, the best approach was getting entry through schools. The school is an accepted social system that has over time gained trust from all parents who send their children there.The case provides the students with the element that is essential for social innovation in the community. The students can learn from the case the importance of collaboration for social initiative, community engagement and inclusive peacebuilding. It portrays a unique strategy in community leadership and management. Further, the students will learn one concrete application of the human contact theory and personal transformation theory. The case highlight how cultural symbols that are sources of conflict can be turned into the symbol of peace. Starting with one group of people in a community and growing into other groups in the same community through a ripple effect.

The case can be used for Master’s and Doctorate.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

Carol O'Reilly is the Executive Vice President of a regional bank in the New York metro area. She is evaluating an investment in online banking as an extension of bank services. Her bank, East Side Bank, is one of the most productive in the U.S. In fact, it was named America's most efficient bank in 1998. This became a cornerstone of their marketing strategy and they fiercely protected their efficiency ratio. She received a visiting contingent of bankers from Finland. Their use of technology and online banking was far more developed than most U.S. banks. Yet they were not nearly as efficient as the top U.S. banks. They discovered on their visit, that their cross selling had suffered as their online capability advanced. The U.S. bank customer was more profitable because they used multiple bank services and were willing to pay higher fees for the personal contact. This case centers on the implications of this revelation to East Side Bank.

The primary subject matter of this case concerns the potential impact of the adoption of online banking to a commercial bank. Secondary issues include strategic decision making in the banking industry and a comparison of the impact of technology on banks in Finland and the U.S.

The case has a difficulty level of three, which makes it appropriate for a junior level course. The case is designed to be taught in ½ hours and requires about 3 hours of preparation. It is designed for use in Strategy, Marketing, Money and Banking, or International Business courses.

In 2006, four successful entrepreneurs decided to establish a world-class mega university. Initially, the project progressed slowly until Vineet Gupta was able to locate a small plot of land in Sonipat, Haryana. Forty-eight hours before the payment deadline, Ashish Dhawan and Sanjeev Bikchandani agreed to invest in their personal capital to kick start the project. They however suggested a pivot in favour of a smaller private liberal arts college. Meanwhile, Pramath Sinha, with prior experience in establishing the Indian School of Business launched a pilot through the Young India Fellowship (YIF). Dhawan and Bikchandani, through their extensive entrepreneurial networks, raised scholarships for the first two batches of the fellowship in the hope of attracting other donors to the board and getting a buy-in for Ashoka University. The team faced a number of challenges: managing the new model of collective philanthropy, recruiting faculty and finding jobs for the first undergraduate batch. At Ashoka University's first graduation ceremony in 2017 they wondered whether this model could revolutionise the higher education space like the IITs and IIMs had done for the country.

This failure case study tells the story of All World Media, a start-up offering internet-based media planning and buying tool created by ambitious Estonian entrepreneurs in 2011. A few years earlier the two founders had come up with an idea that in their opinion would revolutionize the process of media planning and buying for advertisers. They had noticed that the industry worked in an intransparent and inefficient way. Based on their own extensive experience in various internet ventures and following first consultations with key industry players they were confident that the market was ready for a self-service online media marketplace.

The (A) case focusses on the initial business idea and on the events before the launch of the internet platform. The case includes the entrepreneurs' concept, the main contents of the business plan, and the operational steps until the launch of the service on the market. The (B) case outlines the events after the launch of the online service, analyzes the possible reasons for the failure of the original business model and discusses potential strategic alternatives that are still open for the entrepreneurs.

The two-case sequence can be used for a 90-minutes session in marketing, entrepreneurship or strategic management courses in graduate and executive programs. The case is accompanied by an instructor's manual which also includes suggested assignment questions and proposed session plan.

The case can be used to examine the resources and capabilities of small firms considering entering international markets. It can also be a vehicle for examining typical barriers that such companies may face and must overcome when expanding abroad: liabilities of smallness, liabilities of foreignness, liabilities of emergingness and liabilities of outsidership.

The case is based on several interviews with both entrepreneurs over a one-year period and on secondary information from reports and documents.

This teaching case presents the trajectory of a Brazilian services company operating in the corporate events planning industry. The case explores the potential for the company’s international expansion, and the vision and engagement of the entrepreneurs, despite several barriers the company needs to overcome.

The case can be used in Entrepreneurship and International Marketing courses, both at graduate and undergraduate levels. It can also be used in training seminars for executives of tourism and events planning companies, and for employees of export promotion agencies.

The area of focus is on internationalization strategies, specifically on developing suitable strategies to support an internationalization initiative of a new medical device company.

This case is designed for final year undergraduate and MBA students. It is suitable for courses of organizational management, organization theory and design, strategic management, and international business as well as international marketing.

GranuLab, a medical device company that produced the synthetic bone graft substitute GranuMaS, aspired to be a high-growth company. To achieve this aspiration the company had made plans for internationalization, which include penetrating the ASEAN, Middle East, Latin American, and African markets within the next five years. By December 2010, GranuLab had completed the construction of its new manufacturing facility in Shah Alam, about 30km from Malaysia's capital city of Kuala Lumpur. This manufacturing facility had the capability to produce high volumes to support the company's high growth plan. However, the company's internationalization processes had taken longer than expected and this has led to a low business volume. By mid-2012, the company was forced to make a quick decision as it had suffered a year and a half of operations losses. GranuLab had to formulate a strategy as to how to position GranuMaS and penetrate the targeted markets. Failure to internationalize would incur even greater losses and might hinder the achievement of its high growth aspiration by 2015.

This case is designed to stimulate case analysts' thinking into providing recommendations for the appropriate internationalization strategies to be adopted by the management team to ensure that the company could succeed in achieving its goals. The case will expose students to the concepts and theories of strategic management, international business, international entrepreneurship; and facilitate the development of students' abilities to apply those concepts in managerial situations.

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