Search results

The proposed areas of study for this case are strategic management, marketing, tourism planning and development, hospitality management, attraction management and special event planning and management.

The case is suitable for undergraduate and graduate students pursuing courses in the areas of strategic management, marketing, tourism planning and development, hospitality and tourism management, attraction management and special event planning and management.

The Denbigh Showground located in the parish of Clarendon, Jamaica, is the venue of the annual Agricultural and Industrial Show. Three separate studies conducted indicated the need for its development to enable the use of the facility all year round and to contribute to the socio-economic development of the parish. Suggested development options from these studies included a fun and amusement park, a site for eco-tourism and a multi-purpose agri-cultural facility with linkages to the parish's cultural legacies and places of interest. The large land acreage could facilitate its development, making the property a leading “agri-cultural” attraction concept.

he students should be able to: identify the typology of the Denbigh Showground as an attraction; categorize the product offerings of the Denbigh Showground from a marketing perspective; explain the factors to consider regarding the development of the showground; analyze the socio-economic contributions of the facility to the parish of Clarendon and the community's attitude towards the development of the showground; discuss the potential uses of the Denbigh Showground that can make it a leading international “agri-cultural” attraction; synthesize the concept of sustainable tourism development and its importance to the development and viability of the attraction for future generations; and assess other tourism concepts such as community-based tourism, special interest tourism and alternative tourism and how they relate to the development of the Denbigh Showground.

This case study will help students understand the concept of an agri-cultural attraction and its impact on the socio-economic development of the surrounding communities and the country as a whole. The case will contribute to the existing body of knowledge in the areas of community development and residents’ perception regarding tourism development. It offers insights to both potential and current investors; provides practical guidance to the government and other tourism planners to enable better planning for the areas’ future growth and development; and serves as a reference for academicians as well as undergraduate and graduate students.

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

Marketing, entrepreneurship, operations management, and transportation/logistics.

The case is suitable for junior, senior undergraduate and first-year graduate business classes. It can be used entirely in business classes in marketing, entrepreneurship, operations management, and transportation/logistics, and parts of it can be used for discussions in classes related to emerging economies/markets, environmental management, sustainability, and technology management.

The case builds on the expansion plan considered by a young software company, called Hangzhou Omnipay located in the city of Hangzhou, China. Mr Chao, Vice President (VP) of Omnipay, is the main character of the case. He was aware of the current car-sharing industry leader – Zipcar headquartered in Boston and also identified multiple stakeholders in the city for decision making. By collaborating with a global student project team, Mr Chao collected a great deal of information and data. This teaching case provides students and educators ample opportunities to examine, from a multitude of aspects, the viability of a car-sharing service in Hangzhou.

The central goal is to help students gain a comprehensive understanding of the role of car-sharing service in a country's development in sustainability, socio-economy, environmental commitment, and new urban life style, as well as in a technological company's active pursuit of business expansion opportunity. In addition, students will not only understand the social, cultural, technological and strategic perspectives of car-sharing service implementation, but also develop and enhance analytic skills needed to conduct fundamental cost analysis, determine a base-line pricing scheme, and service location network design.

Teaching notes are available, please contact your librarian for access.

Designed to teach conjoint analysis, this case challenges students to make tactical decisions based on marketing research. It should be paired with the technical note “A Practical Guide to Conjoint Analysis” (UVA-M-0675) and that note’s accompanying supplemental PowerPoint file (UVA-M-0675TNP). A National Basketball Association franchise is struggling to increase attendance. It contracts a marketing research firm to conduct a conjoint analysis focusing on several aspects of its season ticket offerings with the hope that it can profitably improve its attractiveness.

Food service management, human resource management, hospitality strategic management and, international business and management.

Graduate students.

The purpose of this case study is to determine whether the practice of talent management serves to motivate fast food service employees. It aims to determine employees’ perceived level of awareness and importance of talent management practices; current practice of talent management within the fast food service sector; and to assess the level of motivation of employees from talent management practices. The survey method employing the use of questionnaires was used to ascertain data from a fast food service establishment in Jamaica, a developing island destination located in the Caribbean region (Sinclair-Maragh and Gursoy, 2015). Jamaica is chosen for the study, as there has been an increase in the number of both local and international fast food entities over the years (Collinder, 2014). The focus on fast food service is important, as they have been providing employment to a significant sector of the population. This type of business operation is classified as a tourism related hospitality area (Purcell, 1996) and as indicated by Christensen and Rog (2008), talent management presents an intriguing opportunity for hospitality organizations to attract employees with requisite skills and experience. The industry is also challenged in maintaining motivated employees (Baum, 2008). Talent management can assist organizations that have long-struggled with high turnover rates and the ability to attract and engage employees that are considered assets and not liabilities. Lockwood (2007) points out that engaged employees are loyal, hardworking and passionate about their work. Motivation theory is used to provide theoretical support for the findings of the study. This is because behavioral theorists such as Abraham Maslow suggested that survival, safety, belonging and self-esteem are factors that can be used to motivate employees and Sigmund Freud believes that people need to be rewarded to get work done (Nohria et al., 2008). This theory is plausible to the study, as it is postulated that talent management can enhance employee engagement, through highly motivated employees (Christensen and Rog, 2008). The study finds that majority of the employees understood the meaning of the term “talent management”. In terms of their personal and professional development, the employees believe that these are highly influenced by the organization’s culture. They pointed out that skills are usually developed through training, cross-training and succession planning. Financial assistance is given for further training and skill development. The performance evaluation process is used to identify employees’ specific skill. Although this is done, the majority has not been placed in other departments that would benefit more from their skills. Only 7.6 per cent reported that this was ever done. Employees’ emotional wellbeing is also important. Although majority of the employees (44.7 per cent) are happy about their work, they indicated that they could be motivated by coaching, mentorship and empowerment initiatives. Overall, the employees’ sense of belonging through their engagement and development, and self-esteem through their morale and competence are important to their motivation levels. They are also motivated when support is provided for training and skill development as explained by the motivation theory.

The learning outcomes are intended to guide the teaching-learning process and stimulate students’ understanding of the concepts of talent management specific to fast food service employees’ motivation. The case study is a useful resource for graduate students to enable and develop their critical thinking and solution-oriented skills. Students should be able to critically analyze the case and respond to the questions to garner and improve their understanding of talent management and its applicability in the fast food service sector. Further understanding of the concept can be derived from developing dimensions and measures of talent management that can be generalized to the food service sector.

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 6: Human Resource Management.

The learning outcomes of this study are as follows:

1) illustrate the project management failures that contributed to the fire accident at Grenfell using a fishbone diagram;

2) identify and classify the power and influence of various stakeholders involved in a brownfield project using a relevant framework; and

3) elaborate the need for following effective stakeholder management processes and project leadership, especially in the context of a refurbishment/renovation project.

On 14th June 2017, the Grenfell Tower in North Kensington, West London, UK, caught fire. The fire raged for 60 h and around 72 people lost their lives. Many criticized the response of the London Fire Brigade (LFB) and their lack of preparedness to respond to such an emergency. There were calls for Dany Cotton, the Chief of LFB, to resign. However, there had been a major cladding-related refurbishment at Grenfell, and subsequent investigations revealed that the use of combustible materials, a lack of compliance with the fire-safety norms and a blatant disregard for resident safety had contributed to the fire. The tragedy was a cumulative outcome of failure on two counts: effective project management and stakeholder management during the process of refurbishment, especially in the context of a low-cost housing project. Given this situation, this case considers whether Dany Cotton should own up to her responsibility and resign from her position. In the process, the case considers Grenfell refurbishment from the theoretical lens of project management in the construction management scenario to understand the factors that could have led to an “avoidable” tragedy.

Postgraduate students of construction management; final year undergraduate engineering students who have a foundational course on project management; and architects.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 2: Built environment.

The case specifically discusses the role of stakeholders and non-market forces and how they can potentially influence the strategic choices of firms. Participants need to have some basic understanding of non-market forces, and stakeholder theory. The case is suitable for courses on sustainable supply chain management, closed loop supply chain management, reverse logistics, green business, environmental management, strategic management and business in emerging economies.

The target audiences for the case are bachelor and first-year MBA students and trainees who are interested in learning the relevance of non-market forces in sustainable growth of an industry and the importance of stakeholder management in the smooth conduct of business.

The case study details how the plastic industry in Kerala faces a non-market threat and how it affects the progress of the industry by using the example of Ashiyana Pipe. Though plastic is a unique material by virtue of its reusability and non-perishable characteristics, it has invited a lot of criticism, as there is a wide spread perception regarding its detrimental impact on the environment (such as choking drains, preventing the degradation of solid waste because of its impermeability, etc.). But the reason for experiencing the detrimental impact of plastic can also be attributed to the inability of the supply chain of the plastic industry to reach a closed-loop status, especially in developing countries such as India, as all categories of post-consumer plastic are not reaching recycling plants. Lack of awareness, lack of community participation in proper segregation and aggregation at the source, absence of incentive systems, weak regulations and poor monitoring are discussed as the common barriers hindering the achievement of closed loop status of plastic supply chain. Detailing the barriers, the case study explains the failure of informal and formal recycling markets in Kerala. Finally, the case study proposes a model with involvement of all the key stakeholders to reposition the hate toward plastic into love through recycling initiatives.

Expected learning outcomes of the case are listed below: illustrate the importance of stakeholder involvement in achieving a sustainable business and to stress the importance of a decentralized approach. Illustrate the relevance of non-market forces in sustainable growth of an industry that has significant impact on the surrounding environment and society. Critically analyze the existing business models (based on market mechanism) and suggest possible improvements and alternatives. Understand the challenges that will be faced while implementing an inclusive model with involvement of all stakeholders to reduce the negative impact of non-market forces.

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.

Managing non-profit organizations, social enterprises, strategic management for small entities and tourism.

Useful for graduate students enrolled in courses with development aspects. Undergraduate students learning about non-profit organizations can also benefit.

This is a case of a small non-profit organization that is struggling to formalize its operating systems to generate sufficient surplus to plough funds back to the community that it envisioned to serve. The protagonist has to make a decision of whether to invest large sums in a health center for permanent visibility or to implement health services on a smaller scale given its current level of operations. Whether the protagonists’ operations are scaleable or not is also in question, as its main activity – slum tours – is not a widely accepted concept.

1. Students will understand the challenges of starting and growing non-profit organizations. 2. Students will recognize the need to make operations efficient and to establish control systems to manage enterprise resources. 3. Students will realize that decision-making requires the balancing of interests of multiple stakeholders. 4. Students will learn to analyze the options of financing social projects considering marketing, operations and financial data. 5. Students will gain better appreciation of the merits and demerits of slum tourism.

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.

Incorporated on February 18, 1959, Oil India Ltd. (OIL) was a leading public sector oil and gas company involved in the exploration, development, production and transportation of crude oil and natural gas in India. Since its inception, OIL had committed itself to being a socially responsible organisation in and around operational areas, particularly the north-eastern state of Assam where 90% of company operations were concentrated. Despite many successes, the “People's Company” continued to be a target for disgruntled local and student communities who frequently created operational hazards for the firm—from sit-ins and blockades to pilfering and disrupting production facilities. No less than 400 organisations, of which 50-60 had been consistently active, were currently in the forefront of demanding something from OIL. Many of these demands were beyond the purview of OIL's CSR policy and focus areas. Additionally, being a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU), OIL also faced multiple demands from the government. On February 16, 2019, news arrived that there was yet another blockade in Duliajan, Assam. What should OIL do to address and possibly mitigate operational interruptions?

The case concerns a situation where a manager finds that a candidate for the new position of supervisor for the Sports and Recreation Centre in the housing colony of the company is someone with whom she has a troubling history. She approaches the General Manager, HR and shares the details of her experiences and her concerns about this person's candidature, requesting that the candidate’s case not be processed further. She presents it as a serious matter with a potential threat to vulnerable women and young girls as the position involves close engagement with the residents of the colony. She provides details of her first-hand experience and familiarity with the candidate to build credibility for her position. However, the boss dismisses her concerns, reminding her that it was all in the past and advises her to move on. She requests him to consult the members of the Executive Committee of the Residents’ Association before taking a decision. He agrees to do so and sends an email to the team. She finds that he treats her concerns summarily in his email and frames the issue very differently from her, presenting a simple choice between two options. The HR manager is worried and wonders if there is anything she can do in the matter. The context would help generate discussion relating to persuasion, framing and managerial communication challenges.