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Strategic and organisational change, adaptation responses under competitive pressure and uncertainty and transformational process.

For Executive MBAs or MBA programs.

Founded in 1948 by Adrian Urquía, Aceitera General Deheza (AGD) transformed itself from a small oil-processing factory into the biggest indigenous firm in the industry. Nowadays AGD is a leading edible oil export company and also one of the frontrunners on the retail market for bottled oil with several successful brands. It ranked 40th among the 1,000 top companies in terms of turnover in Argentina in 1999 (Revista Mercado, 1999), and it is considered the fifth most important exporter in the country (Revista Mercado, 1999).After the changes the country went through in the 1990s, the company was able to adapt and thrive in an industry in which most indigenous businesses did not manage to survive. Nevertheless, the roots of AGD's success do not date from the 1990s but long before, in their thinking ahead about ways of improving technology, scale and cost-effective measures – a trio of decisions that would prove to be the right combination for survival and success.

An understanding of the process of business transformation: type and pace of change. The study of the transformation process of a firm will be complemented conceptually with the understanding of the adaptation process under the Argentinean context characterised by uncertainty. Students will also examine organisational flexibility. Defining organisational flexibility, the determinants of whether a firm is flexible or not and why we can consider AGD as a flexible firm.

Teaching note.

The case is positioned in the domain of building, managing and communicating corporate reputation. It discusses the entry of Lenovo in the Indian market where the company faced reputational challenges. Definition of a corporate reputation strategy which was aligned to the overall strategy of the company, helped Lenovo traverse difficult terrains. The case would be relevant for courses on corporate reputation, communication and strategy.

The case is targeted at MBA students, corporate and PR professionals. The case can be used for MBA courses or management development programmes on corporate reputation, communication, and strategy.

The case brings out key elements of entry into an emerging market flooded with international, well-positioned players and discusses the entry of Lenovo in the Indian market where the problem was compounded by perceptions of Chinese origin. How does Lenovo bring about a turnaround in positioning, building, communicating and managing reputation, how does it steer stakeholder opinion in its favour? Will Lenovo India be able to replicate the success model in China? The case presents the challenges and discusses the strategies adopted by Amar Babu, MD Lenovo to bring about a change in the existing perceptions of stakeholders.

To discuss strategies for building corporate reputation.

To critically examine and analyze the strategies adopted by Lenovo India to build reputation and gain market share.

To analyse links between strategy generation and reputation management.

Teaching notes are available, please consult your librarian to access these.

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.

Organizational behavior.

Upper-level undergraduate courses, introductory MBA courses.

This case study unveils the story of Al Qatef Holding, a Gulf-based real estate company that was created on the vision of one ambitious businessman. The case begins in 1999 when Faisal Al Qatef decided to pursue his dream of establishing a full-fledged corporation to serve the mounting real estate needs in the Gulf region. Faisal started his company by launching a number of residential and commercial property developments in his home country, Kuwait. During its early years of operation, Al Qatef Holding witnessed an impressive success and an increasing appetite for growth. A couple of years down the road, the founder made the strategic decision to open a new branch in Doha to seize the opportunity that the Qatari real estate market presented at that time. Yet, along with the rapid expansion came the company’s incapacity to deliver on its promises, generating many customer complaints and a damaged reputation owing to poor construction quality and significant delays in project delivery. The case describes the multiple challenges experienced by Al Qatef Holding throughout its evolution and portrays the external and internal dynamics that led to its initial success and subsequent decline.

Assess the internal dynamics and challenges that are associated with the management of small firms; discuss how leadership styles and characteristics affect the organizational climate and employee performance; demonstrate understanding of how corporate culture drives human behavior in the workplace; perform an analysis of firm structure to estimate its impact on individual and organizational outcomes; apply different techniques for enhancing employee motivation in organizations; and evaluate the effectiveness of managerial decisions and provide recommendations for securing corporate survival.

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.

After completion of the case study, the students will be able to understand the importance of being culturally savvy when working in a culturally diverse environment and managing people from different cultures; critically reflect on the risks resulting from the absence of a clear direction from the company’s top management regarding unifying corporate values and a diversity policy for cooperation across cultures; be aware of best practices in implementing diversity management (DM) initiatives in the company; and learn that changes in the strategic orientation (i.e. focus on automation projects) must be cascaded down to hard elements of structures, processes and systems, as well as to soft elements of skills, staff and management style.

The Kuwaiti branch of a Japanese corporation specialising in control systems and instruments, Rising Sun IT, hired a German professional, Alex, to handle the increasing demand for automation from customers. This recruitment followed several unsuccessful attempts by the company to deliver more advanced automation solutions. Recognising the need to adapt to Kuwaiti customer requirements or risk losing market share, Japanese management understood the importance of transforming their engineering staff. Failure to achieve this next automation step would result in a steady decline in market share and ultimately impact the company’s survival. However, Alex, who was supposed to lead automation projects, was confronted with opposition from the Indian engineering staff and managers. He was not able to find common ground with the staff and perceived issues such as lack of communication, delays in work schedules, missed deadlines and high levels of absenteeism, as a sign of low work morale. Although he tried to increase the awareness of his supervisor and other managers by informing them repeatedly about the problems regarding employee behaviours, his interventions went unheard. He felt ousted by his fellow colleagues and the other employees. Besides, from Alex’s point of view, the Japanese top management did not provide clear directions to the staff and explicit support to Alex in his efforts. This case study highlights three dimensions of Alex’s problem with establishing and maintaining working relationships with other people in the company:▪ Alex’s cultural “blindness” and ignorance of differences in work behaviours that ultimately led to his inability to build solid and trustful relationships with other employees. The case study demonstrates Germany’s performance-oriented and individual-centric culture versus India’s family- and community-oriented culture and the Japanese employees’ strongly hierarchical and company loyalty-oriented culture.▪ Lack of support from the Japanese top management to Alex, which is connected with a wider problem of the lack of a systematic strategic approach to managing a culturally diverse workforce. The case study pinpoints the rhetoric–reality gap in DM in the company, where the diversity, equity and inclusion programme and corporate values were applied only formally and had little attention from the leaders as well as non-managerial employees.▪ Employee resistance to change: The lack of positive communication from the top management level in the company regarding automation projects and the lack of support for Alex’s mission in the company resulted in steady resistance to executing projects, which endangered the company’s survival in the market. Also, one part of Alex’s problem with building a working relationship with the Indian engineering staff was based on the fact that others perceived him as the automation “change agent” – an advocate and catalyst of an undesirable change connected with adverse consequences on employment in the Indian community.

This case is intended for discussion in undergraduate management and business study programmes.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human resource management.

The expected learning outcomes are: to clarify the meaning of resilience and its attributes. To explore the influence of the leader on the development of organizational resilience. To identify critical decisions for the recovery of a business after an external event such as the earthquake that took place on September 19th in Mexico City. To point out the stages for the development of organizational resilience, in the short, and long term: anticipation, coping and adaptation. To clarify the actions that could be taken to prepare an organization for an extreme event or respond to a large-scale crisis.

The case is framed within the context of the September 19, 2017 earthquake in Mexico City. ProActive Strategies’ offices collapsed, causing some people to lose their lives and others to be injured. The protagonist needed to decide if the organization could survive and recover or needed to be closed after the earthquake. After ProActive Strategies survived and recovered, it was possible to identify the main stages to develop organizational resilience in this organization: anticipation, coping and adaptation. Also, the paper provides empirical evidence about how organizational resilience is anchored in the attributes at individual and community levels that include human, economic, social and political capitals, enhanced by technological capital. Furthermore, the enablers of resilience add external entities and the ecosystem at a macro-level, considering political, social and economic aspects of the context.

The study level and expertise required to address this case is medium. The richness of the discussion from the perspective of the students is related to the possibility to empathize with the protagonist and the different actors involved and to build on previous experience with crisis management to observe the potential risks and courses of action. Moreover, the professor also requires taking a neutral position to balance the requirements from a humanitarian perspective, with the business needs.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human resource management.

Post analysis of the case study, students will be able to comprehend the significance of Six Sigma and its integration with the human resources (HR) processes in the service sector. Post case study discussion, students will be able to: examine the HR processes of ISOQAR (India) and deduce the reasons to seek change in their approach; validate the importance of integrating Six Sigma in the human resource management (HRM) framework of an organization; and categorize the difficulties encountered while implementing Six Sigma in the service sector compared to those in a manufacturing environment.

In September 2006, four senior employees of an audit firm made the decision to start their own venture. They identified a gap in a sizable and fiercely competitive auditing industry. Nishid Shivdas, Suhas Risbood, Shiv Prakash Bhutra and Burgis Bulsara, co-founders of ISOQAR (India), had distinct leadership experiences that drove the organization to concentrate on developing a broad range of services, with a focus on management consulting, training and audit services. They created a distinctive positioning in market in a short span and reported growth by building strong customer relationships, providing high-quality service and personalized attention to individual clients and meeting deadlines. The wide gamut of services included areas such as the payment card industry, data security standard, information security management systems, business continuity management, service management systems, food safety management system, Responsible Jewellery Council certification services, retail audit services and risk assessment services. They concentrated on collaborating with UKAS for their accreditations. The focus on offering great services with faster response times, a varied array of services and the expertise of its founders let them to price their services at par with some of its competitors, and even higher in few cases. It did not have a large support staff; however, the ones they had were multifaceted, both full time and contractual. Being in the service industry, the founders realized that to maintain growth as the firm aims to grow geographically, their heavy engagement in the existing operations would have to give way to more standardized processes in general and HR in particular. Ensuring the integration of the current workforce to the Six Sigma framework presented challenges.

This case is designed for second-year students enrolled in Master of Business Administration/Post Graduate Diploma in Management (MBA/PGDM) or equivalent postgraduate-level programmes, in the domain of “Human Resource.” It will enable the students to engage with the significance of “Six Sigma” being used in various processes in the HRM framework. It can also be taught to students in the domain of Marketing because of its relevance to the service sector.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human Resource Management.

Learning outcomes are as follows: understanding the importance of aligning an entrepreneur’s personal orientation and values (e.g. detachment from the enterprise) with business decisions related to enterprise development; appreciating how prior exposure to business settings can be a source of entrepreneurship pursuits for an entrepreneur; and understand whether a different type of leadership can be instrumental in the creation, running and growth of an entrepreneurial venture, especially in terms of introducing differentiated offerings in the target market.

The case is about an entrepreneur, Sangeeth Varghese, with a very humble and conservative background, who worked in various firms, small and large, and become a young global leader at World Economic Forum, before foraying into entrepreneurship. He is driven by the core values of detachment and democratization, which is reflected throughout his life course and has developed his own views on leadership. After running his first venture LeadCap Ventures with some measure of success, Sangeeth is about to launch his new venture LeadBurg, a web- and mobile-based application for behavioral rating and competency discovery for individuals. The predicament for Sangeeth is about the uncertainties related to the new launch from a business perspective, as well as the concern whether the core principles of democratization and detachment that he identified with, would stand the test in this launch.

Master level program (e.g. MBA).

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

Leadership, human resource management, crisis management, change management and communication.

Executive education; postgraduate; undergraduate.

This case study describes the collapse of Satyam, a leading IT industry service provider from India. Satyam went into a crisis mode after revelation of financial fraud by its Chairman. This resulted in a crisis not just for the company, its clients and employees – but it also had the potential to shake up the entire Indian IT industry the world over, by shattering investor and client confidence in the Indian IT sector. The case provides the students with an inside view of the unfolding of events at Satyam and the people challenges that emerge in a crisis scenario. The case outlines reactions from the industry, government, clients and employees as they tried to make sense of a very chaotic situation, and its multi-level ramifications both within India and outside. The case ends with Thallapalli Hari, the Global Head of Marketing and Communication and ex-head of HR, trying to visualise and prioritise a course of action to propose to other members of the leadership team.

The key aim of this case is to provide a backdrop to the crisis, and also help students put themselves in the role of an HR crisis manager as well as portray the decision making and communication challenges that emerge in chaotic situations. The importance of an immediate and yet strategic response is emphasised and the case is a great starting point to have a discussion on the competencies and skills required in HR to lead under unusual circumstances. This case allows participants to get an in-depth understanding of the collapse of Satyam. The case also illustrates principles of leadership, change management and communication, in particular:

• Leadership: The Satyam story is an HR and leadership crisis nightmare come true. What should an HR leader do when you wake up to find your company with a ruined reputation, minimal financial capital, 53,000 employees on the payroll and more than 500 clients with pending deliverables worldwide. Where do you begin? The case illustrates a situation where immediate action is required to stop the tailspin into which the company was heading.

• Change management: The situation demanded that change be managed from a chaotic system to a stable system. The big issue though remains as to how one can get a system into a state of stability when everything is changing at the same time. Most change management plans have some stable variables, however in the case of Satyam there were multiple changes taking place simultaneously. A combination of change in leadership, client relationships, employee trust and confidence, market reactions together make for a perfect storm. Dealing with even one of these changes is a challenge for a company. In the case of Satyam, its entire existence was at stake.

• Communication: The demands for communicating effectively in a crisis situation are different than communicating under stable systems. The choice of medium, the speed of response, the content all need careful monitoring. Whereas most companies have teams that separately deal with internal and external communication, Satyam provides a unique situation where managing both effectively at the same time was critical to the future of the firm. The stakes for effective communication are much higher under the circumstances. This case can be used in organizational behaviour, human resources and corporate communications modules being taught to under-graduates, post-graduates and for executive education.

Leadership: The Satyam story is an HR and leadership crisis nightmare come true. What should an HR leader do when you wake up to find your company with a ruined reputation, minimal financial capital, 53,000 employees on the payroll and more than 500 clients with pending deliverables worldwide. Where do you begin? The case illustrates a situation where immediate action is required to stop the tailspin into which the company was heading.

Change management: The situation demanded that change be managed from a chaotic system to a stable system. The big issue though remains as to how one can get a system into a state of stability when everything is changing at the same time. Most change management plans have some stable variables, however in the case of Satyam there were multiple changes taking place simultaneously. A combination of change in leadership, client relationships, employee trust and confidence, market reactions together make for a perfect storm. Dealing with even one of these changes is a challenge for a company. In the case of Satyam, its entire existence was at stake.

Communication: The demands for communicating effectively in a crisis situation are different than communicating under stable systems. The choice of medium, the speed of response, the content all need careful monitoring. Whereas most companies have teams that separately deal with internal and external communication, Satyam provides a unique situation where managing both effectively at the same time was critical to the future of the firm. The stakes for effective communication are much higher under the circumstances. This case can be used in organizational behaviour, human resources and corporate communications modules being taught to under-graduates, post-graduates and for executive education.

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

AfrobitLink Ltd was an information technology (IT) firm with headquarters in Lagos, Nigeria. AfrobitLink started as a very small IT firm with less than two dozen staff. Within a few years of its founding, AfrobitLink established itself as a dependable organization known for delivering high-quality IT services. However, starting in 2004, AfrobitLink experienced rapid growth as it expanded to serve the telecommunications firms taking advantage of the deregulated market. This rapid expansion resulted in many challenges for AfrobitLink. The firm rapidly expanded into all 36 states in Nigeria, hiring a manager to oversee the company’s operations in each of the states. Poor hiring practices, inadequate training, excessive spans of control, low accountability, a subjective reward system, and other cultural issues, such as a relaxed attitude to time, resulted in low motivation, high employee turnover, poor customer service, and financial losses. By 2013, the firm was operating at a loss and its reputation was in shambles. Generally, the culture was toxic: employees did not identify with the firm or care about its goals, there were no performance standards, employees were not held accountable, self-interest and discrimination prevailed. The organization was in a downward spiral. Consultants were hired to help sort out the firm’s problems but these efforts yielded few results. Ken Wilson, the founder’s son, was hired in 2014 as VP of Administration to help get the firm back on track. As a change agent, Ken had to decide how to address the issues facing the firm and how to achieve profitable growth.

Primary sources included interviews with the company CEO, his wife, his son, and a volunteer staff member. Secondary sources included the company website. The names of the people and the firm in the case have been changed to provide anonymity.

This case is intended for use in graduate courses (although it can also be used in upper level undergraduate courses) in change management/organization development, organizational behavior, leadership, or international management. For graduate courses, students may focus on application or integration of several theories or concepts. For upper level undergraduate courses, students may focus on application of a single theory or concept. Below are suggested texts or readings for each type of student by subject.

Change management theories (e.g. Lewin’s force field analysis (Schein, 1996), Kotter’s eight-step change management process (Kotter, 2007), The change kaleidoscope approach (Balogun and Hailey, 2008)), social identity theory (Tajfel, 1981), attribution theory (Kelley, 1972), leadership theories (e.g. Hersey and Blanchard, 1969), intercultural/international management theories (e.g. Hofstede, 1980, 1991).