Search results

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 applies a stakeholder analysis to examine the trade-offs between the firm’s strategy and the interests of different stakeholder groups. A PESTEL analysis supports an evaluation of the firm’s situation. Consumer behavior theories on psychological ownership and territoriality offer a framework for analyzing the conflicts that arise from the inhabitants’ protests.

This case relies on secondary sources, including news reports, social media sites and company websites. This case has been classroom tested with undergraduate students in a strategic management course in January 2019 at the University of Cologne, Germany.

In November 2016, Google announced its intentions to rent a building in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin to open a Google Campus, a business incubator for tech start-ups that would offer entrepreneurs support, workshops and access to networks. Following the announcement, dissatisfied local communities organized protests, in which leaders complained that “It is extremely violent and arrogant of this mega-corporation, whose business model is based on mass surveillance and which speculates like crazy, to set up shop here” (Business Times, 2018). Berlin’s Government supported the Google Campus plan; inhabitants rejected it with fierce and persistent protests. In face of this challenge, was it still possible for Google to continue its plans in Berlin?

This case qualifies for use in strategic management classes at undergraduate and MBA levels. Its focus aligns well with stakeholder analyses, PESTEL analyses and business strategy. In addition, for courses on organizational communications or public relations, this case provides a way to explore the relationship between Google and its stakeholders, especially protesters, in detail. Moreover, this case is well suited for consumer research and public policy courses (e.g., transformative consumer research) centered on discussions of territoriality.

Contracts term of commercial sale of goods have a ‘title retention clause’, preventing the transfer of ownership till the seller is fully paid. The unpaid seller gets the right to repossess the goods from the buyer. Exigencies of businesses have led to introduction of further clauses allowing the buyer to use or sub-sell the goods even before the transfer of ownership. The United Kingdom Court of Appeal judgment in the Caterpillar Case brings out the effects of the contradictions of a title retention clause qualified by the right of the buyer to use or sub-sell.

This case has multiple theoretical linkages at the micro-organizational behavior level (e.g. job enrichment), but it is best analyzed and understood when examined at the organizational level. Students will learn about shared entrepreneurship, high performance work systems, shared leadership and virtuous organizations, and how they can develop a sustainable competitive advantage.

The case was prepared using a qualitative approach. Data were collected via the following ways: literature search; organizational documents and published historical accounts; direct observations by a research team; and on-site audio recorded and transcribed individual and group interviews conducted by a research team (the authors) with organization members at multiple levels of the firm.

John Lewis Company has been in business since 1864. In 1929, it became the John Lewis Partnership (JLP) when the son of the founder sold a portion of the firm to the employees. In 1955, he sold his remaining interest to the employee/partners. JLP has a constitution and has a representative democracy governance structure. As the firm approaches the 100th anniversary of the trust, it is faced with multiple challenges. The partners are faced with the question – How to respond to the environmental turmoil?

This case has environmental issues – How to respond to competition, technological changes and environmental uncertainty and an internal issue – How can high performance work practices provide a sustainable competitive advantage? Both issues can be examined in strategic management courses after the students have studied traditionally managed companies. This case could also be used in human resource management courses.

Marketing.

This case study would suit any class that deals with the interaction between the nature of business and society and is rooted in a specific basis in developing Asia. The particular nature of the class could be used to shape the subsequent discussion if necessary: a marketing class would focus on the need for development of the local market and consumer behaviour, while a management class might be more interested in the issues relating to an appropriate ownership structure in an emerging market in a company based on an amalgamation of smaller units likely to have been run by technicians (farmers) or party functionaries.

Vinamilk is a Vietnamese company that has grown from humble beginnings as a collection of small-scale dairy co-operatives until the current time when it is one of the largest and most successful companies in that country and recognized as a significant developing Asian success. It has managed this while operating in a product category that has had very little tradition in Vietnam and for which demand has had to be created in order to enable the company to expand. The success of Vinamilk has now made it possible to imagine an international or a transnational future in which it would no longer be tied to its Vietnamese home or to be required to support government-supported developmental goals such as supporting employment and using local inputs. A debate is taking place, therefore, about the nature of the continuing relationship between firms and the public sector in a rapidly developing nation.

The objectives include: evaluation of the nature of the business-state relationship; evaluation of the nature of the home environment with respect to its attitude to business; and understanding better the nature of emerging markets and their interaction with international markets.

Teaching notes are available for faculty. Please consult your librarian for access.

Corporate governance, privatisation.

Masters level programmes, with particular focus on corporate governance, privatisation, and organizational development.

Yutong Bus is a real and highly publicized case in China. It is a listed company carved out from a state-owned enterprise (SOE), Yutong Group. Later the management successfully bought out Yutong Group and thus indirectly controlled the company. The deal transformed Yutong Group from a SOE to a private company. The management was innovative in pushing through the management buy-out (MBO), but politically, it created a public outcry about the loss of state-owned assets. The key issue here is the selection of state owned enterprises suitable for privatization and, more importantly, the determination of selling price. In China “the market for corporate control is still lagging behind” (Shanghai Stock Exchange).

Students would be expected to gain an understanding of recent economic reform in China, Corporate Governance in the Chinese context and wider issues associated with privatization and MBOs.

Teaching note.

This case is suitable for undergraduates, MBA students and students from business administration departments in the teaching of human resources management and performance management.

Luodian Electric Power Construction Corporation Group (LEPCC Group) is a state owned enterprise transformed from a construction unit of Luopu Power Supply Bureau (LPSB), a governmental organization in charge of all the electricity supply in Luopu City. The general manager of LEPCC, Gu Ming tried to set up a modern market-oriented management system for LEPCC. Unfortunately the problems that had accumulated in the past two decades during which LEPCC was a governmental organization made his reforms very difficult. The first headache for Gu Ming was the performance appraisal reform in LEPCC. The existing performance appraisal system seemed to have at least three problems in practice: unclear appraisal objectives, an improper assessment system, a different appraisal standard for similar positions. What should Gu Ming do to build a proper performance appraisal system to help the fast-growing LEPCC Group to make LEPCC a competitive market-oriented player?

The first objective of this case is to enable students to understand that the issues of working performance are issues of people first, rather than issues of the management system. If the management focuses on the system instead of on the staff of the company to design the performance management system, the system will be fruitless and inefficient. The second objective is to cultivate students' capability to apply the basic theories of human resource management and the knowledge of performance appraisal in case analysis and practical management. This case, seemingly about performance appraisal, is in fact about the organizational structure and processes of the organization. Reform should start with organizational analysis, job analysis and job descriptions. Only when all these have been done correctly, can the performance management system be designed more reasonably, scientifically and efficiently.

Teaching notes are available; please consult your librarian for access.

The case study highlights two strategic angles – that of the business unit (business strategy, profitability, market leadership. organizational culture, operational turnaround, industry structure and competitive dynamics) and the owner (returns, repositioning strategy and funding plan). By the end of this case study, students would be able to understand the changing competitive forces of a dynamic industry; analyse the circumstances leading to a change in the control of a firm from the state to the private sector; understand the logic of acquiring a perennially loss-making firm operating in a volatile environment without a unique strategy; identify a firm’s strategic and operational choices for financial turnaround, return to profitability and regaining market leadership; and learn about the actual strategic realities and choices confronting a troubled business organization in a difficult industry.

When the Tata Group took over Air India on 27 January 2022 from the state that had ownership for 68 years, Air India was under a long spell of poor performance, bleeding losses and unmanageable levels of debt. Unsatisfactory customer service, management issues and competition were the key reasons. Therefore, a crucial question facing the group’s Chairman N. Chandrasekaran was what workable strategy he could use to reposition Air India and make it profitable again so as to recover the $7.5bn of estimated investment involved in the acquisition and turnaround.

This case study is intended for undergraduate and graduate executive education levels in business administration and management and allied subjects, particularly for courses in strategic management, marketing, financial management, turnaround and transformation, mergers and acquisitions and organizational change.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

Aurelia Dimas had been sent to investigate the various properties being offered by the State of California in the form of a sale-leaseback agreement. The opportunity was perfect for her firm, Orrington Financial Partners, which had recently expanded its fixed-income portfolio to include real estate. The wide range of offerings in the Golden State Portfolio provided both diversification and stability over a period of decades. She had spent the last week walking the halls of each and every building to see the offering first hand. Now the task of valuing the portfolio rested on her shoulders.

By reading and analyzing this case, students will be exposed to real estate valuation and understand the issues with a sale-leaseback investment. The objectives are obtained by requiring students to justify how and why they make adjustments to the cash flow forecasts provided to them by a real estate advisory firm, explain their methodology for arriving at a specific value for a piece (or a portfolio) of commercial property, and debate the pros and cons of a sale-leaseback structure.

We obtained information on China Gerui from secondary published sources, including annual reports downloaded from the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) EDGAR database, news sites and newspapers, the company’s website and journal articles. One of the authors visited the China Gerui plant in Henan, China.

China Gerui, a Chinese metal fabrication company, enjoyed exponential growth because of its location, product innovation and ability to move up the value chain. At the height of its success, the company listed on the Nasdaq and had plans to raise capital to fund ambitious expansion plans. Unfortunately, four years after listing on Nasdaq, the company received a letter from the listing qualifications department notifying China Gerui that they were not in compliance with Nasdaq’s filing requirements because it had not filed its Form 20-F. Now, the company had only five days to decide whether to request an appeal of the letter.

This case is best suited for higher-level undergraduate accounting and finance courses such as intermediate accounting, auditing, international accounting, financial statement analysis, corporate finance and investments analysis. It is especially appropriate for graduate-level global accounting and advanced financial statement analysis courses. In these courses, the best placement is after coverage of SEC regulations and requirements for financial statement reporting and disclosure. Moreover, the case may be used as a tool to demonstrate the step-by-step process for searching and retrieving information from a public company’s filings through the SEC’s EDGAR database.

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