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Data used to develop the case included primary data from employees and supervisors of a commercial floorcovering manufacturing plant in Northwest Georgia. The case company is not disguised.

The survey was developed using existing instruments from the Organizational Behavior and Human Resources Literature. Instruments were listed in Exhibits 2 through 7. The survey administration had the support of the Vice President for Resources and Facilities, and employees and their supervisors were given time to complete the surveys. The data gathered was analyzed by the researcher using SPSS statistical software.

Established in 1957, J&J started as a family-owned business but had grown and diversified its product offerings by focusing on commercial flooring. It survived several economic downturns and remained competitive in a market dominated by more prominent flooring manufacturers. J&J Industries strived to empower its 800 employees with various incentive programs. Employees remained loyal to J&J; many had worked for the company for over 15 years. However, management wanted to measure the impact of empowering and initiatives on employee performance and satisfaction to determine the real power of employee incentive programs. The Resources and Facilities Vice President employed Professor Lopez, a Management Professor, to develop a survey to measure these constructs and analyze the data to guide future incentive programs. Data from the employee and supervisor survey was provided along with the statistical analysis results for interpretation and recommendations for VP Fordham.

The target audience for this case is primarily students in a research methodology course and students studying quantitative regression analysis and interpretation. The focus is predominantly on graduate-level students in Master of Business Administration or Master of Accounting programs in business. Graduate students should have completed courses in management or organizational behavior, business statistics or quantitative methods or data visualization and cleaning as background knowledge for this case. Specifically, students should understand regression analysis and know when and how the tool is used for managerial decision-making.

This case study is best suited for courses in career management, stress management, work–life management or science of well-being in organization behavior (OB) or human resources management (HRM). This case study is targeted at the MBA or executive development programs. The learning outcomes of this case study are as follows: to analyze the challenges in balancing Suraj Kumar’s (the protagonist) work–life balance situation and identifying the main causes of such a conflict. What are some strategies that could be used to address these issues? To develop a plan to balance work responsibilities with family and personal life. What specific actions could he take to achieve this balance? To design a training program for employees that addresses work–life balance issues. What topics would you cover in the training, and what methods would you use to deliver the content? To create a proposal for a flexible work arrangement program that an organization could offer to its employees. What would be the benefits of this program, and how would it be implemented and managed? To develop a business case for why an organization should prioritize work–life balance for its employees. What are the potential benefits of doing so, and how can the organization measure the impact of its efforts?

This case study discusses conflicts due to competitive priorities that people face in balancing the pressures, roles and responsibilities between their professional life (careers) and their personal life, and the trade-offs that they make across these multiple aspects of their lives. This case study revolves around Suraj Kumar, a successful consultant, who was offered a promotion as the executive director for the social sector. This promotion would require extensive travel and time away from his family. Kumar was struggling to balance his work responsibilities with his family life and his involvement with the Smile and Shine Foundation, which supports the education of children from economically weaker sections of society. He was reflecting on his past and present and trying to figure out how to prioritize his commitments while also achieving his personal and professional goals.

This research has shown that a case discussion and role-play can be effective for a less experienced audience. Instructors can provide multiple perspectives to stimulate reflection and debate. For executive MBA or executive development programs, a self-reflection exercise is recommended. Participants in these programs may have personal experience dealing with or may know others who have dealt with work–life balance issues, making self-reflection a valuable tool.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human resource management.

Strategic Management and Marketing.

Management students (MBA).

In the present times of global competition and busy schedules of individuals, it is expected that companies provide service with security, sincerity and flexibility keeping pace with changing global scenario of marketing. Service receiver expects competitive and optimum facilities with ease while sitting in any corner of the world at any time of the day. It implies that the service provider should be available at all times/all places for satisfying the needs of the customers. A daunting task ahead of Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) was to change its conventional approach and work toward a newer, user-friendly one. The top management, i.e. the Board of Directors, took up the task of identifying a quicker but securer approach to provide optimum facilities to the policyholders.

Achieving customer satisfaction through alternate collection channels and retaining market share, role of customer servicing in creating competitive advantage, challenges for a large public sector enterprise – traditional approach or modern approach, role of private companies in development of insurance industry, creating awareness about the product/service through different distribution channels and use of information and telecommunication technologies to reach remote places, are the expected learning outcomes.

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CSS 8: Marketing

The learning objectives are intended to stimulate the students’ comprehension of the various challenges faced by Indian startups in the digital ecosystem. With the changing working dynamics in organizations around the globe, managers are expected to explore unconventional business models to facilitate operational growth. The case study is a valuable resource for graduate students to enhance and evolve their critical thinking and solution-oriented skills as forthcoming managers of digital businesses. Students should be able to analyze the case, respond to the questions and evaluate the consequences of workplace flexibility, moonlighting and its applicability in an organizational context. With the Indian Government introducing schemes such as the Digital India initiative and Startup India, it is predicted that numerous startups will opt for digital business standards and a remote work approach. The case bridges classroom theories and a real-life digital company to help students connect with emerging market scenarios.

During the digital era, India witnessed a shift in companies’ work culture, which amplified when COVID-19 hit the country. Organizations started to work remotely and experienced the numerous benefits it brought. The comfort of working from home was greater for digital businesses whose significant operations could be performed online. However, is it really that productive for digital companies to telecommute? The case illustrates how a digital company, Career Pandit, formed in 2018, unfurls and expands its business and further highlights the challenges the pandemic raised concerning people management. In addition to the discussion, the purpose of the case is to determine the implication of workplace flexibility and moonlighting and how Indian startups cope with the uncertain future challenges it brings.

Under graduate and postgraduate students.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human Resource Management.

To analyze and personally relate to an individual having faced a quarter-life crisis; to define how environmental factors influence the person’s career priorities; to analyze the causes of career-family conflicts; to comprehend another gender’s position and concerns; and to originate ideas for prospective career development.

The case study presents a career management dilemma of a PhD candidate, senior lecturer at the Almaty Management University, Kazakhstan and a married mother of two small children. Having faced a kind of quarter-life crisis and the pressures of a traditional society with gendered career trajectories, the protagonist (33) is challenging her initial plan of an academic career that sees gradual promotion and progress and has to make a difficult decision about her professional and personal identity amidst the realities of a newly emerging and transitional economy.

Master’s level

Teaching notes, company’s organizational charts, protagonist’s curriculum vitae, PowerPoint slides with the protagonist and her classmates’ pictures.

CSS 6: Human Resource Management.

The case has practical value exhibiting forces creating sustainable livelihood at grassroots level and at the same time depicting how business and social goals can be reconciled through innovative mechanisms.

The case covers the journey of a social enterprise lead by a woman entrepreneur, run by women workers and providing livelihood to several rural women entrepreneurs through providing skill development training in making hand-made jute bags.

MBA and BBA

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship

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.

The given case deals with the fact that primary objectives of services producers and marketers are identical to those of all marketers: to develop and provide offerings that satisfy consumer needs and expectations, thereby ensuring their own economic survival. To achieve these objectives, service providers need to understand how consumers choose, experience, and evaluate their service offerings. It also talks about employing innovative techniques at the basic level by optimizing available resources offering quality service at value based pricing, thereby, increasing customer retention by developing the trust of the consumer.

Graduation or post graduation level students studying subjects pertaining to the services aspect of marketing, namely innovative service offerings, value for money, service experience and evaluation, challenge of integrating the 4 A's of services marketing and offering them in sustainable quality, promotional or communication mix for services and consumer behaviour.

Today's dual-career couples, single-parent families, and two-job families are realizing a burning consumer need: more time. Individuals in these and other non-traditional family configurations are overstressed with their work and home obligations and find that dealing with many of life's everyday tasks is overwhelming. For many customers, all types of shopping have become “drudgery or worse.” The antidote to this time deficiency is found in many new services that recover time for consumers. One such professional service is catering. The present case study deals with grass root level innovations in this service offering that adds flavour to our lives.

Understanding the catering services offering and its features in evolving consumer's world; analyzing the importance of optimizing available resources and offering customer satisfaction, ensuring marketers own economic survival; realizing the significance of value offering and related value based pricing for services; comprehending the importance of word of mouth in post experience evaluation in services; the effect of quality and quantity consciousness in marketers while offering catering services; and understanding obstacles and challenges faced by small and medium service industries at the initial level.

Teaching notes.

This case is in four parts, highlighting the crossroads at which the protagonist Savita finds herself in and the difficulties she faces in balancing her career aspirations with family responsibilities. A Fellow of Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad, Savita's dilemmas concern working in a prestigious management institute in Kolkata versus getting a job in Mumbai in order to psychologically and financially support her family and get married; joining her husband in China on his posting versus going to the US on a prestigious fellowship prioritizing her career, and finally, starting a family versus postponing the decision till the couple were together and reasonably settled in their respective careers.

Leadership style and organizational change.

The case study level is rated medium to difficult depending on the depth of the analysis undertaken. Managers and executives who undergo training in leadership related issues will benefit from the case study through development of analytical- and decision-making skills. In addition, this case study is written for high level managers and postgraduate students in business courses.

This case study revolves around a man whose name is Rozano Saad. He was a man with strong will, imagination, and ready to explore the new world of Huntsman Tioxide. To him, development of people was necessary. Development of people is the process of getting people to progress from dependent to socially and economically self-reliant. This man with positive views saw difficulties with enthusiasm and noted obstacles as opportunities. He was brave enough to go that extra mile into moulding the organization in the “right pattern.” He was an optimistic angel who was sent to the bleak area of Teluk Kalong, though others might just pack their bags and leave. He was eager for improvement and never stopped looking for ways to make the situation better.

The target users of the case study are expected to:

• Identify the critical success factors (CSFs) of successful leader.

• Examine the leadership and decision making styles employed by the leader.

• Develop the competencies or capabilities of a leader.

• Determine programmes or initiatives and strategies used by the leader in transforming the organization.

• Apply the lesson learnt of a successful leader to their organization.

Identify the critical success factors (CSFs) of successful leader.

Examine the leadership and decision making styles employed by the leader.

Develop the competencies or capabilities of a leader.

Determine programmes or initiatives and strategies used by the leader in transforming the organization.

Apply the lesson learnt of a successful leader to their organization.

Teaching notes.