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In March 2009, Steve Fowler, vice president of strategy and client service at full-service advertising agency Ayzenberg, had just completed what he considered to be one of the most innovative campaigns he had ever handled. Capcom, a leader in the video gaming industry, had just launched Resident Evil® 5 (RE5), the latest release of one of the industry's most valuable game franchises. RE5, a powerful asset with a passionate fan base, had warranted the use of an online viral, or word-of-mouth (WOM), campaign for its worldwide game launch. Although the creative work and appropriate media for the RE5 launch had been meticulously planned, Fowler was also interested in measuring the effectiveness of the campaign to better serve his client. In the past, measuring WOM was practically impossible. However, a software company named Meteor Solutions had found a way to do exactly that. Fowler and his team had worked with Meteor to execute several campaigns for other clients, but he had never applied Meteor tools on such a large scale. Fowler knew Capcom would want to hear specific WOM figures. What was the return on investment for the RE5 campaign and the implications for future campaigns? Had the Meteor tools provided comprehensive and actionable information, or was more work needed before these solutions could be widely used in advertising?

How to measure the value and fully leverage social media marketing including key success factors, challenges, metrics and implications for future campaigns and other industries.

The learning outcomes are as follows: to use advanced frameworks and tools to convey complex ideas related to strategy and sustainable business practices; apply relevant concepts and theories of corporate social responsibility and governance to a practical situation while making decisions; demonstrate understanding of the importance of stakeholders when developing socially responsible thinking; and analyze the different strengths and weaknesses of the organization when making a decision that would affect the company strategy.

Claire Humphry was the General Manager at the renowned The Nacre Hotel in Penang, Malaysia. Claire had a very busy job as she had many people who reported to her, and the hotel was always full of guests. One of the things Claire also managed was the restaurant OceanSound that was owned and operated by her hotel. OceanSound was a very thematic restaurant that specialized in making sculptures of food for special events. On the New Year’s Day in 2023, Claire came to work ready to tackle what was sure to be a long and busy day. However, Claire had not anticipated exactly how taxing the day would end up being. During Claire’s talks with her colleagues throughout the day, her conversation with her friend, the head chef of OceanSound, Poh, would nag at her head for the rest of the day based on the events that followed. The New Year’s special sculpture at OceanSound was to be a large rabbit made of cake to commemorate 2023 being the year of the rabbit according to Chinese zodiac. This is usually kept secret until the sculpture is revealed; but somehow this information had been leaked. This led to The Nacre Hotel and OceanSound being in the spotlight for bad reasons as this sparked a debate online regarding food wastage. This escalated quickly and even led to a famous food influencer commenting on this using specifically The Nacre’s name. Activists also quickly emerged in front of the hotel to protest the creation of sculptures and the food wastage in Malaysian hospitality industry, seeking to make an example out of The Nacre Hotel. The online criticism died down and was eventually replaced by praise for the sculpture. The activists were also eventually asked by the hotel security to leave, which led to the rest of the day to go as expected for a New Year’s Day at The Nacre. However, Claire’s nagging suspicion that they were not out of the woods led her to start looking into food wastage in the hospitality industry in Malaysia to educate herself and bring it up in a future meeting. Two days after this incident, on January 3, 2023, Claire found The Nacre Hotel posted on the newspaper headlines, dissecting the food wastage associated with the hotel now. After getting an urgent phone call from the Regional Manager, who was pressured by the board and shareholders, Claire decided the time to address this issue could not be delayed any longer. She wrote an email to her strategy team to come up with some ideas for possible solutions to the issue and to present them in a group meeting within a week’s time. At the conclusion of the meeting, Claire was contemplating about the decision that she had to make if she wanted The Nacre Hotel to continue operating successfully in Malaysia’s hospitality industry.

The main theoretical concepts illustrated in the case include corporate governance approaches, types of corporate social responsibility, stakeholders’ prioritization, organizational culture, organizational structure, industry analysis and strategic choices. Therefore, this case study can be used in a upper-level undergraduate business courses in the field of Strategic Management and Corporate Social Responsibility. The case study can be successfully used in a capstone course on Business Policy and Strategy, when tackling the concepts of corporate social responsibility, environmental sustainability strategy and corporate governance. Under this scenario, the usage of conceptual frameworks from Chapters 2 and 3 of the textbook titled “Concepts in Strategic Management and Business Policy: Toward Global Sustainability” by Wheelen and Hunger would be required. This case study can also be successfully applied to MBA level courses on Strategic Management in a Globalized World. In this case, the latest edition of the textbook titled “Exploring Strategy” by Whittington et al., could be used (particularly, the material from Chapters 2–9, 11, 14 and 15). Additionally, the case could also be used in courses related to Tourism and Hospitality, especially in schools which have specialized programs in this field.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CCS 12: Tourism and Hospitality.

Competing in Emerging Markets; Internationalization of Service Firms; Global Marketing.

Senior undergraduate or graduate students in business schools.

Uber first entered the South Korean taxi hailing service in Seoul in September 2013. In March 2015, the company shut down its operations after being charged for operating an illegal service. However, in January 2016, Uber decided to re-launch Uber’s premium service, UberBLACK after working with the city government. Given the country’s unique characteristics, was the decision to re-enter the market justifiable? Would Uber’s new strategies including partnering with a local company be sufficient? How could Uber gain more market share against its local powerful competitors?

Outcomes This case allows students to understand the challenges of internationalizing services of a global company in an emerging market that has strong national cultures and domestic preferences. The students will learn how to analyze the country and industry external environment as well as internal resources and capabilities to formulate the appropriate market entry strategies and to effectively implement them. The students will also learn the critical role of host country government and how to manage its relationship, the first- and second-mover advantages/disadvantages and the sustainability of innovative business models.

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CSS 11: Strategy

Ms. Cindi Bigelow, COO and third generation in her family to head the R.C. Bigelow Tea Company, located in Fairfield, CT, believed one strategy to move her business forward would be to attract a younger audience for her product line. Hot tea appeals primarily to women 45+ who typically drink the beverage for its soothing effects. A test market, designed to make hot tea more appealing to a college-age audience, was conducted at a nearby university by a Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) team drawn from the chapter's membership. Key words: Target audience, market segmentation, demographics, market research, promotion mix, advertising, copy development, media selection.

The case study draws on structured interviews with Rob Chase, Founder and CEO of NewGen Surgical, as well as secondary data sources to analyze the effectiveness of these solutions in mitigating the risks and enhancing the company’s competitive advantage.

This case study examines how NewGen Surgical, a small- to medium-sized medical equipment manufacturer based in the USA, navigates a supply chain crisis caused by post-pandemic (COVID-19) supply and demand distress, trade restrictions, and the US–China trade war in 2022. It outlines the journey of CEO and Founder, Robert Chase, as he started, grew and is maintaining the company and its various challenges. The case study reviews the risks and vulnerabilities of the company, which heavily relies on Chinese suppliers for most of its operations. To address the supply chain challenges, the case study explores alternative solutions such as insourcing, reshoring, diversifying the supplier base, changing safety stock and implementing new technologies. The case can be designed to teach business courses such as global business, supply chain and entrepreneurship.

This case study is intended for undergraduate and graduate students in courses such as global business, supply chain and entrepreneurship. In addition, this case study may be incorporated with modules on learning organizations, knowledge management and entrepreneurship to aid students in comprehending the principles of global sourcing, offshoring and supply chain management.

This case is designed to achieve the following learning objectives: recognize the impact of personality traits on leadership style; identify the key elements in a turnaround strategy; examine leadership best practices from a gender perspective; and assess the role of strategic decision-making on company growth.

The case study describes how Lisa Su (Su), the first woman CEO of Advanced Micro Devices, helped turn around the debt-laden semiconductor firm within a decade through her transformational leadership, vision and values. The case first touches upon Su’s early life and education and the influence of her parents in shaping her personality. It then focuses on the first half of Su’s career, during which she was working on semiconductor projects and was involved in research and product development, and how she made the gradual shift to a people management role in her stint of over a decade at IBM followed by a leadership opportunity at Freescale Semiconductor Inc. The case then describes Su’s move to AMD in 2012 as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the company’s global business divisions at a time when AMD was nearly US$2.5bn in debt and revenues had increased only once in the previous five years. There were also rumors of bankruptcy and spin-offs after the company lost more than US$1bn in the year 2012. The cas

This case is meant for MBA students as part of their Organizational Behavior, Leadership, and Strategic Management curriculum.

Teaching notes Student feedback details.

CCS 11: Strategy.

During the COVID-19 pandemic micro-, small- and medium-sized businesses were hit hard. This was specially so in the restaurant business where physical lockdown and social distancing norms were challenging. Thus, small business performance was a concern (Akpan, Udoh, & Adebisi, 2020). This case study addressed this theoretical aspect. Zhang, Gerlowski, & Acs (2021) had highlighted the challenges of business continuance and enterprise sustenance, during the COVID-19 pandemic. This case study provided insights regarding how these aspects of business continuance and enterprise sustenance were addressed by “Café Tato”. Bhattacharyya and Thakre (2021) had deliberated regarding how firms through strategic initiatives and tactical responses were required to manage COVID-19 pandemic and economic lockdown. Café Tato case study was in line with these recommendations for firms. Barbieri et al. (2020) and Reardon et al. (2021) had outlined steps regarding maintaining business operations reliance given a business crisis situation like during the COVID-19 pandemic. Café Tato case study described this. Café Tato case study accommodated perspectives regarding business crisis situation, business continuance, enterprise sustenance, operations reliance, organizational strategic versus tactical initiatives and finally small business performance.

The teaching case study was written based upon primary data collected from the owners of Café Tato. Furthermore, secondary data was used for building the case.

Café Tato was the most popular and the oldest tea cafés in Goa, India. It had a presence in Panjim and Margaon in Goa. On 24 March 2020 India went into an economic and physical lockdown because of COVID-19 pandemic related crisis. One week down the line on 31 March 2020, Mr Pranav Dhuri (hereby referred as Pranav), one of the owners of Café Tato, was contemplating how to ensure business continuance once there was semi-normalcy restored. What would the initiatives that need to be undertaken was critical for success of Tato the legendary café in Goa was playing in the mind of Pranav.

This teaching case study could be used in the class for strategy planning and implementation in the course of strategic management. This case study could apply for teaching both bachelor’s and master’s students of business management. The case could also be taught to management students for helping them understand how small business firms, while confronting challenges of COVID-19, planned and implemented strategies in the course of strategic management. This study helped strategic management students understand the importance of organization culture in any business as it directly influenced the profitability and sustenance of business. The Dhuri family had all along laid stress on keeping the culture alive by taking various steps at critical times in improvising and maintaining the standards. The study also helped to understand the importance of good leadership and its direct impact on the employees in a crisis situation (COVID-19) work environment and ensure business sustenance.

It is expected that students enhance their awareness of businesses’ role in human rights protection as a key factor in their corporate social responsibility (CSR) engagement and core objective achievement, as well as understand the effects of gender-based violence on organizational performance and identify and develop policies for a socially responsible strategic plan for effective communication with current and potential stakeholders.

The case of AFF Consulting Group in Mexico illustrates the challenges that firms face when doing business in an environment riddled with inequality and gender-based violence. The firm is challenged with developing a socially responsible strategic plan to ensure effective communication with stakeholders. The case has been developed as a narrative to demonstrate the intricacies of internal dynamics and discussions, which lead to strategic planning and decision-making.

The case study illustrates the challenges of business dynamics in an emerging market. It is applicable, especially, for undergraduate and graduate students in management studies related to CSR, ethics, human resources, collaborator management and human rights.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

In an MBA capstone project course, a team of four mid-career, working professionals had assessed the feasibility of a new venture idea. All four were dog-lovers who had been frustrated by the ineffectiveness of the various dog training programs and products in which they had participated. Their idea was to utilize a novel technology to assist dog owners in the training process. After completing the course, the team met to determine whether SmartPooch was just an interesting idea—or alternatively was a sufficiently promising opportunity that one or more of them would continue to explore it.

The four students who are the case protagonists conducted both primary and secondary research. In addition, the case writer conducted additional secondary research and consulted with the four students during the development of the case study.

Introductory Entrepreneurship course at Master’s or Undergraduate levels

Frameworks from which feasibility analysis questions were derived include Mullins’ New Business Road Test and Osterwalder’s Business Model Canvas. The discussion of opportunity recognition starts with the definition of opportunity drawn from Hansen, D.J.; Shrader, R.; and Monllor, J. (2009), “Composite definitions of entrepreneurial opportunity and their operationalizations: toward a typology”, Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research, Vol. 29 No. 17.

Strategic management.

This case is suitable for graduate students, postgraduate students and MBAs.

YC Company is a foreign trade SME operating in the lighting fixtures export business in Ningbo City, a major outdoor lighting products manufacturing base in mainland China. Established by Li Lele in 2008, the sales revenue and gross profit of YC Company have been increasing every year, reaching $ 4.06 million and ¥ 1.00 million, respectively, by the end of 2011. However, the growth rate of profit lagged far behind the growth of sales revenue. If this situation were not controlled, YC Company would hardly survive in this increasingly competitive market. Li Lele, the CEO of the company, was trying to find a way to enlarge the profit margin.

This case lets students learn more about strategic management. Students are expected to learn: how to precisely identify and map a problem; and how to select a better solution by analyzing the context and using some strategic analysis tools, such as Porter's Five Power, Smile Curve, SWOT. In the learning process, students are expected to acquire a better knowledge of some strategic management theory/method, international business, the condition of small and medium trading companies in China.

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