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After analysing this case study, students will be able to understand the relationship between compensation, reward management and gig workers’ behaviour; apply the theory of organizational behaviour related to compensation management to address the motivational issues; analyse the challenges in managing the gig workers’ expectations related to compensation; and design innovative ways of retaining gig workers, especially delivery partners among the gig workers.

In April 2022, Riya, who worked as a business development manager at a newly established food delivery app company named “Our Kitchen” (located in Hyderabad, India), attended a meeting where the chief executive officer expressed concern about the difficulty in retaining their delivery partners. The company provided food delivery services to the customers by procuring ordered food from partner restaurants in select Indian cities. The delivery partners of the company worked part-time and received a commission for the hours they worked. With the rising fuel cost, minimal career growth and negligible social security benefits, it was hard for them to continue in their jobs. As a result, there were high attrition rates in the food delivery company. This case study is about the attrition issue being faced by the company and explores various strategies through which Riya could think of retaining the delivery partners so that there was a win-win situation for both parties. The dilemma given in the case study would help in understanding the motivational theories and factors that encouraged delivery partners to work for these jobs.

The case study is ideally suited for discussing human resources concepts, especially problems related to the retention of delivery partners without reducing the profit of the organization. It will help in understanding the motivational factors leading to job satisfaction and how that will help in the retention of delivery partners. The case study can also be used to teach the executives in a management development programme. This will help them to understand the gig workers’ motivational factors and the causes of their attrition.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human resource management.

The case has the following learning objectives: to assess the importance of the business environment, its impact on the organization and how the organization responds to the changes in the business environment; to apply the resource-based view of the organization and resource dependence theory; and to apply and analyze the organization’s strategic initiatives within the framework of the political, economic, social and technological analysis model, Porter’s five forces of business analysis and to make recommendations based on the above analysis.

The paradigm shift in technology has an impact on business. With 155,015 Post Offices, India Post has the most widely distributed postal network in the world. This case captures the journey of India Post from inception to its current form. Over its life, the organization has evolved because of multiple changes. But the recent changes have threatened to disrupt the organization. These changes have been induced by three major forces: technology, the rise of competition, especially foreign players, and social changes in urban and rural India because of changing consumption patterns as incomes rise and online retail grows. The organization has reacted to this threat by leveraging its resources to offer new products according to customer tastes by entering more unique industries and product categories. They have started logistics services in association with Indian railways and started offering retail services such as bill collection and college application forms. Also, they have created a financial division, “Payment Bank.” Thus, they have evolved from being a single entity of postal-related services to various services. The case poses a dilemma if these product diversifications are thriving as the organization’s product portfolio has diversified, given its existing capabilities and ability to create newer capabilities, particularly the payment bank.

The case is ideally suited for the discussion of resource-based view of the firm in the subject strategic management and organizational theory. The case can be used to discuss resource dependence theory as well. It is equally well suited to discuss the impact of environment in business in the subject organization theory and the impact of technology on change in the subject organizational change. The case is meant for MBA. The case can be used for executive audience as well.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

This study adopted interview methods and field visits to collect the data. An audio recording was done for the whole interview and presented as facts in this case. Field visits were done to see the packs and understand the consumers and their purchase habits of pickles.

Pandian Pickles is a pickle manufacturer located in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, a state in the southern part of India. Mr Kandasamy, one of the partner of the Pandian pickle, had been thinking of ways to grow the business. Pandian Pickles dominated the low-price unit (LPU) market with a unique packing of pickles done in “arecanut” leaf. This added a unique flavour to their pickles. Mr Kandasamy envisioned to grow the business by introducing higher stock-keeping units in the form of jars and tap the middle class and the upper-middle-class segments in the market. In this category, there were much more prominent and branded players. Being a small regional player, Govindan wondered how Pandian Pickles would take these more prominent players in the industry head-on.

The case is ideally suited for discussing the concept of product line stretching, particularly in the product mix strategies of a small and medium enterprise (SME). The case can best fit into the courses such as Entrepreneurship Development, Product and Brand Management, Marketing Management for the Undergraduate levels and in the courses such as Strategic Marketing, Bottom of the Pyramid Markets and Strategies Management of SMEs in the postgraduate levels.

We model the interaction between a profit-maximizing firm and an activist using an infinite-horizon dynamic stochastic game. The firm enhances its reputation through “self-regulation”: voluntary provision of an abatement activity that reduces a negative externality. We show that in equilibrium the externality-reducing activity is subject to decreasing marginal returns, which can cause the firm to “coast on its reputation,” that is, decrease the level of externality-reducing activity as its reputation grows. The activist, which benefits from increases in the externality-reducing activity, can take two types of action that can harm the firm’s reputation: criticism, which can impair the firm’s reputation on the margin, and confrontation, which can trigger a crisis that may severely damage the firm’s reputation. The activist changes the reputational dynamics of the game by tending to keep the firm in reputational states in which it is highly motivated to invest in externality-reducing activity. Criticism and confrontational activity are shown to be imperfect substitutes. The more patient the activist or the more passionate it is about externality reduction, the more likely it is to rely on confrontation. The more patient the firm and the more important corporate citizenship is to firm’s brand equity, the more likely that it will be targeted by an activist that relies on confrontation.

A large literature studies why firms self-regulate and “signal green.” However, it has ignored that regulators have enforcement discretion, and may act strategically. We fill this gap. We build a game theoretic model of whether a firm should signal its type through substantial self-regulation. We find self-regulation is a double-edged sword: it can potentially preempt legislation, but it can also lead regulators to demand higher levels of compliance from greener firms if preemption fails. We show how self-regulatory decisions depend upon industry characteristics and political responsiveness to corporate environmental leadership. We have made a number of simplifying assumptions. We assume activist groups cannot challenge regulatory flexibility in court, and that regulatory penalties are fixed and are not collected by the regulator. Firms with low compliance costs confront a tradeoff regarding self-regulation. They can blend in with the rest of the industry, and take few self-regulatory steps. This reduces the risk of regulation somewhat, and preserves their ability to obtain regulatory flexibility should regulation be imposed. Alternatively, they can step up with substantial self-regulation. This better mitigates the risk of regulation, but at the risk of signaling low costs and becoming a target for stringent enforcement should regulation pass. Recent work has found negative market reactions to corporate claims of voluntary emissions reductions, despite the conventional wisdom that it “pays to be green.” We offer a new explanation to scholars and managers: regulatory discretion may undermine the ability of industry self-regulation to profitably preempt mandatory regulatory requirements.

This case study exposes students to conflicts with distributors, escalated scenarios of a trade association and the possible repercussions of such a scenario. Upon completion of this case study, the students will be able to understand the critical success factors for a distribution setup and alignment of channels for driving growth; understand and manage the power dynamics with a stakeholder, like trade associations, distribution reach, fallacies in managing the distributors and identifying the gaps; critically evaluate negotiation opportunities when a trade association is not directly related to the principal organization.

This case study showcased a conflict between the distributor and Universal Heater Industries (UHI), a leading player in the water heater business in India. In 2015, the global leadership of UHI identified India as an emerging market and undertook a complete management overhaul to implement a new growth plan. Several measures were put in place that leveraged the global product portfolio and new people were appointed to push the agenda. Manish Singhal, the national sales head of UHI, selected Kerala as the pilot state to implement the new plan. However, the projects failed, as the distributor escalated the treatment meted out by UHI to the Electrical Trade Association (ETA). Trade associations have had a history of playing truant with players like UHI, and because of this, business came to a complete halt. The UHI and ETA teams met once; however, the suggested closure by ETA needed to be aligned with UHI’s interests. Singhal’s dilemma deepened, and they had to decide the next steps.

This case study is suitable for a postgraduate marketing course in a segment on managing channels, intermediaries, distribution management and channel conflicts. The uniqueness of this case is in the dimension of the trade association and managing the stakeholders.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS8: Marketing.

The purpose of this study was to identify and determine the best fit model of triple bottom line (TBL) performance. Particularly, it delved into the interrelationships among variables which include sustainable management practices, strategic orientation and organizational culture on TBL performance. This study employed descriptive-correlation technique using Structural Equation Modeling. Data were sourced by administering survey questionnaires to 400 individuals performing key functions among large manufacturing companies operating in Region XII, Philippines. Results displayed that sustainable management practices, strategic orientation and organizational culture positively and significantly correlated with TBL performance. Structural Model 4, which depicted the direct causal relationships of sustainable management practices and organizational culture to TBL performance of large manufacturing companies, satisfied all the indices used and was found to be the best fit model. Finally, this study adds value to a growing body of literature viewing TBL through the lens of corporate sustainability.

The purpose of this research paper is to find the optimum parameters, namely, the sliding speed, applied load and percentage of silicon carbide particles (SiCp), under which AlSi10Mg/SiCp composites experience minimum wear.

Wear rate (WR) of AlSi10Mg, AlSi10Mg/10SiC and AlSi10Mg/20SiC was measured using pin-on-disk equipment according to ASTM G99 standards. Response surface method was used to design the experiments, model and analyze the tribological behaviour. Tests were conducted as per Box–Beheken design of experiments. The wear mechanisms were observed using scanning electron microscope. Genetic algorithm was used to find the optimum parameters for minimum WR.

Wear mechanisms underwent changes with variation in applied load, sliding speed and per cent SiCp. An optimum wear condition was obtained when the process parameters, namely, the sliding speed, applied load and percentage of SiCp, were at 4 m/s, 10 N and 20 per cent, respectively. Combined GA-RSM approach was successfully used to predict the minimum WR condition of AlSi10Mg/SiCp composites with an accuracy of 94 per cent.

The tribological behaviour of AlSi10Mg/SiCp composites has been investigated in detail. A statistical WR model is proposed. This paper provides an optimum condition to design the tribo contact between steel and AlSi10Mg/SiCp composites.

Feng found that political institutions (operationalized in terms of political repression, political instability and policy uncertainty) do matter for economic growth by constraining individuals’ decisions in their marketplace (Feng, 2003, p. 296). Political stability is also an important element among the World Governance Indicators developed by Kaufmann et al. as part of the World Bank project to assess good governance in 1996. Economic well-being is also dependent on political stability and consistency in governance policy. Loss of economic and political confidence is therefore accepted as a factor affecting economic well-being of a society. How far these hypotheses are supported or negated by evidence from Northeast region of India that has witnessed insurgency for six decades now is the object of enquiry in this chapter. Alongside pure economic indicators such as Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) and FDI, this article looks at the play of political factors like stability of governments in the representative democratic paradigm sanctioned by the Constitution of India in the Northeastern states of India during the decade 2006–2016.