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After completing the case, students will be able to understand the reasons for the lack of successful strategy implementation in companies, especially engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) and general contractors in Iran’s oil, gas and petrochemical industry; understand the importance of alignment as an organization capital in successful strategy implementation and familiarize themselves with assessing the alignment readiness of companies; understand the importance of leadership as an organization capital in successful strategy implementation, comprehend one of the most essential theories of leadership in the world of management and familiarize themselves with assessing leadership readiness using this theory; and understand the importance of leadership as an organization capital in successful strategy implementation, comprehend one of the most essential models of organizational culture in the world of management and understand how to assess the readiness of organizational culture in companies.

This case discusses the reasons for strategy implementation failure at PetroSahand International Group, one of the most prominent EPC and general contractors in the oil, gas and petrochemical industry in Iran. This case also examines organization capitals such as alignment, leadership and organizational culture, the three most important factors for the successful implementation of strategies, at this company. PetroSahand is an international, project-oriented company that has been able to successfully complete more than 100 large domestic and international projects during its four decades of activity. However, the company is currently facing many difficulties such as overdue debts and projects.

The target audience of this case are graduates and undergraduates in the courses of Strategic Planning, Strategic Management, Strategy Implementation, Strategy in Action and Change Management. Additionally, this case study can be useful for senior managers of companies and can help in the successful implementation of strategies as well as improving their company’s alignment, leadership and organizational culture.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

Human resource management.

Undergraduate and graduate level Human Resource Management programmes; Leadership modules.

This case accounts the experience of a Malaysian company, Telekom Malaysia Berhad, in implementing talent management practices in its organization. There were several developments that prompted Telekom Malaysia Berhad to initiate a talent management program. The emergence of competitors had forced the company to introduce initiatives to sustain the business. One of the key initiatives involved the need to better manage its talent. The talent management process at Telekom Malaysia Bhd is divided into four key stages. These are first, talent spotting; second, talent assessment and endorsement; third, formulation of individual development plan; and the fourth, readiness level assessment. Each of these stages is implemented using a well-defined set of standards and activities.

This case examines how commitment and support from line management is crucial in the successful implementation of a talent management program and HR-related initiatives generally. Line managers are identified as the missing linchpin between HRM and organizational performance. The case will also identify how the role of line managers is now shifting to support the HR in a strategic sense. Thus, we find a shift in the HR profession from personnel management to strategic human resource management. The case examines the importance of a positive leader-member relationship, creating a culture which is receptive to change. This can be achieved by transformational leader who fosters closer relationships with subordinates. Finally, the case pinpoints how development can occurs in three main ways – on the job experiences, relationships, networking and feedback and formal training opportunities.

Teaching note.

Bright Lights is a small non-profit organization in Lincoln, NE offering a summer enrichment program to school aged children. Post 9/11, the organization faces challenges in its efforts to sustain financial resources. With enrollment and course offerings on the rise, funding is more important than ever. At the second to the last meeting of the year at which budgets are established, the Bright Lights' Board of Directors asked the Executive Director, Kathy Hanrath, and the Co-Owner/Director of Education Services, Barb Hoppe, to come up with some alternatives for fundraising top present at the final yearly meeting. Kathy has recently attended some sessions on franchising at a local entrepreneurship conference and would like to explore franchising as an option for Bright Lights growth. Kathy feels that franchising might have the potential to both increase performance and funding. This case focuses on issues associated with the exploration of franchising as a method of distribution and capital acquisition for a social organization. It calls attention to the appropriate situations for franchising, the importance of organizational assessment for franchise readiness, and other legal, economical, and organizational considerations.

Rendering digital services have taken centerstage in the current ICT for development discourse. E-Government services are mostly under this discourse with the aim to provide citizen centric services in the public domain. Business and development organizations alike are also investing in developing their own digital infrastructure for rendering services to its stakeholders. This case describes scenario in which a cooperative organization wishes to use digital infrastructure and provide digital services to its farmer members. The cooperative continued investing in ICT since the last couple of decades and constantly upgraded it to ease the transaction and bring efficiency and reduce information asymmetry. This had greatly benefitted the members. However, the cooperative is aware that its communication network built on the wireless medium has its own limitations in introducing new services and integrating its databases and applications. The cooperative took note of “Digital India (DI)” initiatives to provide digital services to rural areas and build an ecosystem to empower the citizens in its governance set up. This DI policy has implicit provisions of better networking protocols with improved bandwidth. The organization has a dilemma to continue with investing its own resources or explore possibility of piggybacking on the DI initiative. The cooperative wished to examine the total cost of ownership in either case and assess the feasibility of converging with the infrastructure created by the government.

The Government Information Technology Policies are increasingly favouring citizens and in favour of shared infrastructure and services. It is worth the examination to evaluate strategies to deploy IT infrastructure and services with optimized cost and better returns in an enterprise. This is far more important for a social enterprise like AMALSAD cooperative (user-owned firm) that has deployed its own IT infrastructure and ITeS. AMALSAD cooperative deployed its IT assets long back and in the meanwhile, the Government policy is in favour of providing services over the internet.

The case serves to help students to understand the theoretical concept of Enterprise information systems infrastructure and services. It brings to the students understanding: the drivers of IT infrastructure to provide digital services; challenges that would make the social enterprise (in this case user-owned firm) to understand the opportunities and challenges of deploying the right digital infrastructure and get services on demand. The case presents the scenarios for the students to deliberate and find answers to the right approach for estimating the total cost of ownership (TCO).

The case situation presents a scenario for digital government services. Most of the customer-facing enterprises including social enterprises are also providing digital services. It is important that such services converge at an optimized TCO.

Masters in Business Administration with a concentration in Information Systems.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 7: Management Science.

The case is written based on publicly available data from primary sources such as the company’s annual reports, company website and the company’s presentations, as well as from secondary sources comprising newspaper articles, research papers, research magazines, magazine articles, industry reports, research reports, etc. as indicated in the references. The company’s financials and peer data are sourced from the Thomson Reuters Eikon database.

The case examines the financial position of Macy’s, Inc., America’s largest and one of the oldest premier departmental stores, with a consolidated annual turnover of US$18,097m in the fiscal year 2020/2021 (FY, 2021). Over the previous few years, the company had been struggling with decreasing market share and profitability mainly due to increasing competition from online retailers and deep discounters, which was affecting the company’s share price. With the appointment of a new chief executive officer (CEO) in fiscal year (FY) 2017, Macy’s, Inc. undertook several changes to revive its financial health and improve its market share. However, it still registered heavy losses of US$3,944m in the FY 2020/2021, the company’s first time in the past decade. With many retailers filing for bankruptcy, was there more that Macy’s could do to improve the company’s position and regain lost investor confidence? Will its entry into emerging markets play a crucial role in its turnaround?

The case can be used in undergraduate and postgraduate courses such as accounting for managers, financial statement analysis, management accounting, introduction to accounting and advanced financial statement analysis. The case can also be effectively used to understand the primary fundamental analysis of the company that involves understanding the company’s positioning and strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis. The case would also help business management and entrepreneurship students to get a preliminary idea about the change management process. Finally, the case can be used to familiarize students with using Microsoft Excel to build financial analysis worksheets.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

The students should be able to understand the potential and competitive advantage of community-based business model. The students should be able to familiarise themselves with the concept of entrepreneurship through acquisitions. The students should be able to decide when a firm should use acquisition as a key driver coupled with fewer efforts on organic growth or vice-versa. The student should be able to evaluate the success or failure acquisition as a growth strategy. The student should be able to evaluate the key metrics and other variables in the acquisition of target companies. The students should be able to wear the shoes of the protagonist and resolve the dilemma.

The teaching case looks at the dilemma of Sairee Chahal. Chahal is the founder of SHEROES, an online community for women. SHEROES started as an online career ecosystem for women. As time progressed Chahal witnessed conversations beyond career and moved towards women-centric themes. Chahal decided to pivot it into an online community for women. Her growth strategy for SHEROES has primarily been driven by serial acquisitions coupled with dispersed efforts on organic growth. In the meanwhile, Chahal had harboured an ambition to bring 100 million users to SHEROES by the year 2024. In a period spanning from 2016–2020, SHEROES acquired six niche women-centric companies. SHEROES grew to be a community of 1 million users to 20+million women users by 2020. On the other hand, the industry leader, Mogul used a diametrical approach to grow the platform into 30+million users by 2020. It had primarily used organic growth strategies such as content development, designing courses, referrals and many more. However, Chahal found herself in a dilemma when a reporter posed a question to Chahal. Chahal’s growth strategy depended on acquisitions, coupled with less effort in organic growth. Conversely, Mogul grew primarily via organic growth strategies. The reporter’s question forced her to question and revisit her growth strategies. She wondered if a target of 100 million users could be achieved with the acquisition as a major driver and less effort invested in organic growth or whether it might be better to make organic growth the key growth strategy while pushing acquisitions to the back seat. The uniqueness of the case lies in the female protagonist who is trying to build a larger-than-life community primarily via acquisitions with little effort on organic growth. Such a phenomenon has rarely been explored in teaching cases. The case is based on secondary data and the information is available in the public domain.

The case is designed for post-graduate students in the entrepreneurship curriculum. Within entrepreneurship, it is well-suited for use in specialised courses on “growth of an entrepreneurial venture” or “entrepreneurial strategies”. An instructor may take it up in the middle of the module as students would have familiarised themselves with various growth strategies. An instructor may use the case for a very niche course such as entrepreneurship through acquisition. An instructor may take it up as an introductory case in such a course. It can also be used in the executive programme aimed at “women entrepreneurship”, “community-based model” and “serial acquisitions” to teach how women or founders create and grow entrepreneurial ventures with acquisitions or communities as their focal tenet. The case has been tested in the authors’ post-graduate student’s entrepreneurship course. An instructor can use it when the instructor wants to discuss the various growth strategies available to an entrepreneurial firm.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

The central issue in the case is opportunity identification and decision making. While the literature on direct selling is limited, much has been written about ideation, effectuation, causality and opportunity identification and assessment. Scholars of entrepreneurship debate whether entrepreneurial opportunities are identified and assessed primarily through effectuation or causation.

This case is based upon a combination of interviews with the protagonist, her staff and secondary research.

This case explores the opportunity identification, assessment and decision making of an energetic, African American, female founder and CEO in the rarely-researched direct selling channel. Dr Traci Lynn Burton founded her company at 24 with an investment of $200. In 2008, in its second incarnation, Traci Lynn Jewelry became a direct selling company and has taken bold steps. By 2018, the company was a direct selling leader and was preparing to launch a new product line. The case supports undergraduate students in understanding effectuation and causation, opportunity identification and assessment, and direct selling.

This case is primarily for upper division undergraduates. It is suitable for courses in entrepreneurial strategy, entrepreneurial marketing, general entrepreneurship emphasizing opportunity identification, opportunity assessment and/or effectuation.

Entrepreneurship.

MBA level – entrepreneurship courses, MA level – women empowerment issues, MBA – thriving in unstructured environments.

Saundarya Rajesh, was the founder-president of AVTAR Career Creators (ACC) a talent consulting firm that offered solutions in training, hiring, selection process outsourcing and human resource information studies to over 400 clients. The case describes the progressive journey of Saundarya as an entrepreneur in discovering and exploiting opportunities as they arise at different points of her career. Saundarya did pioneering work for creating flexi-career opportunities that included tools for Flexidizing® and Unbundling® of jobs. She has won many accolades for her work that included Tie Stree Shakti Awards 2011 for excellence in entrepreneurship, Cavinkare's Chinnikrishnan Innovation Award for Outstanding Entrepreneurship 2011 and India Today's Business Wizards of Tamil Nadu, 2011. Saundarya was happy with the fact that there were 23,000 women currently on the AVTAR I-WIN network and there were 13-15 lakh more women whose talent could be harnessed. She dreamt of ensuring that 1.2 million Indian women, who had dropped out of the workforce in the past 10-15 years, could be brought back to contribute productively. While there appeared to be an acceptance of the flexible working concept among the potential employees and employers, several questions about the future potential of such a work-force needed to be answered.

To understand the factors that constitute entrepreneur's alertness such as personality traits, social networks and prior knowledge. To understand the importance of entrepreneur's alertness for identifying business opportunities. To understand types of entrepreneurial opportunities. To understand the opportunity identification triad: recognition, development and evaluation. To understand how to develop a business model in under-defined contexts.

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

After reading and discussing the case study, students should be able to identify the reasons why the company needed to digitise and how this links to the company’s strategy around technology and innovation, analyse the digitalisation implementation process followed in the case study by using an organisational change management model and make recommendations and propose a solution for the protagonist to consider for the successful roll-out of the digitalisation project.

DRA Projects is part of the DRA Global business based in South Africa. The company is known locally in the mining and engineering industry for its project development, delivery, execution and operations capabilities. Digital transformation is a key strategic focus in the industry, as clients seek digitised integrated systems. For this client offering, J.C. Heslinga, managing director of DRA Projects, was tasked with leading the digitalisation of the project delivery system. From July 2020 until July 2022, Heslinga led the implementation team through different organisational change stages. As the next phase included rolling out digitalisation to pilot projects and engaging employees and clients in the new process, Heslinga wondered if enough was done to ready the business for this change. The end users would be executing the changes, so their adoption will be imperative for successfully rolling out digitalisation. The case study concludes with Heslinga pondering the approach needed for the next phase. The case study focuses on the digitalisation implementation process through the lens of organisational change. The case study presents an opportunity to analyse and identify the theories and models used in organisational change within a real-life business context. The organisational change learnings can be adapted to help students with any transformation changes in similar business scenarios.

Postgraduate- and master’s-level students and business executives attending short courses will benefit from the learnings. The learnings can be applied to improve decision-making, organisational behaviour and strategic implementation using the fundamental principles of organisational change.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human resource management