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After reading and discussing this case, students will learn to identify the content and context of enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation that is important from an operations standpoint. Through this case, student will discuss and evaluate the scenarios of ERP implementation arising from different deployment alternatives. Students will also learn to comprehend the case organization’s unique operational context and explore the challenges of introducing change into workplace environment and stakeholders’ overall expectations.

This case introduces students to the dilemmas of managerial decision-making that large companies face while implementing organization-wide technological upgrades, such as ERP. The case is set at a time point where ABC Mining Company – a large public-sector mining company – was trying to identify the most optimal ERP option based on its organizational structure and organizational processes. The information related to ABC’s organizational context included their business, structural and operational scenarios at the time. The information related to ABC’s stakeholders’ expectations reflected their perception about ERP and future implications. The information related to managerial conflicts reflected the understandings of the managers, in terms of need for ERP, needed skill to handle ERP and different types of ERP implementations that others have adopted. The case calls students for extensive analysis of the gathered information to identify and evaluate impacts and risks of all possible ERP alternates, and finally pick upon the most optimal ERP alternate. The case assumes a live 90-min class session conducted by an instructor. The instructor is recommended to assign the case to students for mandatory pre-reading before coming to class. The instructor is provided with a teaching plan to navigate the case.

The case is designed as an introductory case for an undergraduate or a graduate course pertaining strategic decision-making of ERP systems implementation.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

The Congregation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (CBVM), a Catholic order founded in the early 1800s, was faced with a series of strategic concerns, including an aging clerical population, a changing laity, reduced finances, very limited vocations, and an evolving mission. Some of these concerns faced the Catholic Church in America as a whole (including sexual abuse, not discussed in this case) and several of these issues were also facing the Catholic Church worldwide. The serious matters facing them were threatening the continued viability of the order in America, and the guidance they were receiving from Rome - instruction to decide which of three suggested models for restructuring they would adopt - seemed to back them into a corner, requiring selection from among several strategies not devised by their membership and commitment to the selected strategy going forward. Change was necessary, but one of the major concerns of the order was that it remain consistent with its stated mission while adapting to a new environment and “operating system.” Their decisions were driven by Rome, but the decisions were not made by Rome; the CBVM was as autonomous in its decision-making as any decentralized international organization.

Information Technology Security.

The case adds value for management students at all levels, as well as for practitioners. Work experience is not a requirement, as the case will expose some of the fundamental concepts pertaining to the scenario described. Assignment questions are designed from the perspective of teaching this case to a business student audience. The case could certainly be adjusted to fit the needs of students in more technical disciplines.

Set in October 2008, the case begins with the dilemmas facing Mr Ramanuj as he and his team from E-Infra Solutions prepared to address the damages caused by a major virus attach at OrangeInc headquarter at Bangalore, India. The virus attack destroyed all the important organizational documents residing on the computer systems and brought its business to a standstill. The catastrophe indicated the need for a comprehensive information technology (IT) security solution which was earlier overlooked by OrangeInc's management.

To teach the basic concepts of information security, in particular malware, and its impact on the business. To introduce the concepts and the importance of security awareness program. To teach the importance of IT infrastructure technology, process and procedures.

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 purpose of this study is to make students understand the logic behind and implications of the “Socio-Technical Imbrication Framework” that can help them understand the importance of aligning workforce motivation and capabilities with the modern technology deployed in the organization. Moreover, students will understand the essentiality and criticality of customer satisfaction for the organization.

The technical services operations team at Cotton Web Limited formerly relied on JS Node, e-coordination system, to address customer complaints. There were many bugs in that system as it did not carry along the complaint tracking protocol, was slow in response, fundamentally structured upon manual complaint record keeping that resulted in piling up un-resolved complaints for a longer period of time. The team under the leadership of Mr. Hasan Ali, a competent expert working as GM Research and Data Analytics, undertook detailed analysis of recurring glitches in this system and replaced it with a novel Web-based automated complaint management system at Cotton Web Limited. This entire diagnosis and intervention process took almost three months till completion. The case is written for use in courses in the curriculum of BBA, BBIS, BSIT and BSCS programs at undergraduate level. It is most suitable for the courses in leadership, change management, business process reengineering, soft engineering, team building and business communication.

The case is suitable for teaching at Undergraduate level to the students of BBIS, BBA, BSCS and BSIT students in the last year of their degree programs. Teaching faculty can use case-based methodology for student learning by putting them into a real-life situation faced by an organization and letting them think critically and identify following points for further discussion and clarity: individual or in groups; problem identification through discussion; the stakeholders involved in the company’s situation through presentation or one-pager presentation; case analysis with reaching best solution to prevailing issue at hand through group discussion; reaching a decision or solution with reasonable logic and justification through group discussions; and create further dilemma on the basis of questions unanswered within this case story.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 7: Management Science.

This case was designed for use at the undergraduate and MBA level in human resource management and international business. Upon completion of the case study discussion and assignments, students will be able to: (1) understand human resource management in multinational corporations and the importance of cross-cultural management and human resource integration in acquisitions; (2) understand the challenges and solutions faced by multinational corporations in the process of expansion; (3) analysis of what characteristics should be considered in CEO selection for managing a newly acquired company; and (4) analyze how to better promote global human resource management from the dimensions of localized HRM system reform and human resource structure reconstruction.

After a long period of negotiation, exploration, suspension and restart, Geely Group finally acquired 49.9% of the shares of DRB’s Proton Holding and 51% of the shares of the luxury car brand, Lotus Group. On the afternoon of May 24, Geely Holding Group held an acquisition signing ceremony with the Malaysia DRB-HICOM Berhad (hereinafter referred to as DRB). Geely’s commercial territory now extended into Southeast Asia, and its product spectrum increased to luxury sports cars.However, the completion of the acquisition did not mean peace of mind. On the contrary, Geely still faced a series of challenges because of differences in cultural background. The national cultures of the two countries (China and Malaysia) were very different, and so were the values of the two enterprises. Facing the challenges of promoting global human resource integration, Geely needs to make a fundamental decision on the HRM mode in the new-acquired company. Should Geely transplant its own management practice into the Proton, or adopt localized HRM philosophy? Which kind of global HRM practice would be more effective for supporting the new-acquired company developments in the future? In the post-acquisition management, how to better realize the global human resources integration become a key problem faced by Geely.

This case was designed for use at the undergraduate and MBA level in human resource management and international business.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human Resource Management.

A student can evaluate the variables related to the corporate governance decision for the future of the companies while simultaneously facing other internal factors, such as understanding the owner's address style. In addition, the student will be able to balance and weigh current resources, understanding that the conceptual frameworks of agency theory, resource dependence theory, agency and transaction costs, as well as the types of leadership and power are useful to understand this type of companies, common in emerging markets.

This case describes the actions of Nestor Salcedo Guevara, founding partner of Industrial Andina S.A. and owner of NSG Service Stations, companies focused on industrial manufacturing and retail fuel sales, respectively. The case covers a period of 40 years, from the founding of Industrial Andina S.A. in 1978, its restructuring into a family business in 1982, the strategic decisions concerning the political and economic situations from the eighties to the new millennium, and the creation of NSG Service Stations in the year 2000, until August 2018, when Nestor faced the decision to expand NSG Service Stations and reactivate Industrial Andina SA with new projects. Therefore, Nestor must decide the next steps for the future of both companies. This case study highlights several challenges of business economics and administrative strategy facing entrepreneurs or experienced managers and allows to discuss in class concepts of corporate governance such as ownership structure, incomplete contracts, management styles and defensive strategies associated with the power of the CEO - Owner.

Undergraduate students in Business Administration or Economics and post-graduate MBA. Business Economics courses, Strategic Management, Corporate Governance courses.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

This case is designed to teach how to structure information technology (IT) infrastructure outsourcing deals from both the outsourcer and the client perspective. Office Supply Incorporated (OSI) is a company in crisis, with challenges in its cost structure and poor IT performance. Outsourcing to Technology Infrastructure Solutions is an opportunity to both reduce costs and complexity for the firm, but students first must consider whether outsourcing is a good strategic fit for OSI. Detailed spreadsheet templates are given that are based on a real outsourcing client engagement for a major infrastructure outsourcing company. The spreadsheets are complex but have been simplified so that they automatically calculate when populated, allowing the students to quickly move to answering the management challenge: how should TIS price and structure the outsourcing deal? Answering this question provides deep insights into the business case for IT outsourcing and how outsourcers financially engineer a deal structure to ensure a win-win outcome for both the client and outsource service provider.

Students will: Understand the strategic context of IT outsourcing and when it will benefit a firm; Understand IT infrastructure outsourcing and management issues such as personnel reductions and organizational change; Learn which outsourcing pricing model is the best fit for a project; Create a rigorous cost-benefit financial analysis and ROI model for IT infrastructure outsourcing; Analyze the model and learn how to financially engineer the deal to be a win-win for the outsourcer and client.

This case examines a company that rents and leases computers. The primary objective of the case is to provide a scenario where students can see the link between operational flow measures such as inventory, throughput, and flow time and financial flows. The case presents a scenario where a firm sees financial performance worsen even though sales increase. A link between the operational measures and financial flows allows students to understand the causes.

To provide a scenario that shows the link between operational flow measures such as inventory, throughput, and flow time and financial flows.

This case has two primary purposes. First, it allows students to examine how cognitive bias can affect decision making in stressful situations. Students explore why individuals make flawed choices. They learn about how managers shape the context and the process through which teams make decisions. For instance, automation can create a climate in which people then struggle to cope with the unexpected when it happens. Students examine why individuals make these systematic errors in judgment. The case demonstrates that leaders need to be aware of the traps that individuals and teams encounter when they make decisions in crisis situations, and it enables students to discuss the strategies that leaders can employ to avoid these traps. Second, the case provides an opportunity to examine a catastrophic failure in detail. Students discover that it can be nearly impossible to identify a single factor that caused the failure. Instead, they learn how to apply multiple theoretical perspectives to examine a serious organizational breakdown. They become familiar with important concepts from behavioral decision theory, such as complex systems theory and how it interacts with cognitive bias.

The technical report released by the French Aviation Authority along with the primary flight cockpit voice recorder data were used as the basis for this case. Other available public data such as news reports were used to round out the case study.

On June 9, 2009, on a routine flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, Air France 447 (AF 447), carrying 220 people crashed in the mid-Atlantic Ocean. Drawing from various first-hand accounts (cockpit voice recorder) and secondary evidence of the tragedy, the case provides a detailed account of the key events that took place leading up to the accident. The case describes how the pilots on AF447 were confronted with a scenario they had not faced before, and through the confusion made a series of errors. Through many of the quotes in the text, readers gain an understanding of the impressions and perceptions of the pilots, including how they felt about many of the critical decisions and incidents during the last minutes of the flight. The case concludes by highlighting the main findings of the BEA report.

This case study is appropriate for undergraduate students studying organizational behavior. It is also appropriate for MBA-level leadership and behavior classes.

International management strategy.

Graduate and upper undergraduate classes.

This case deals with an information technology (IT) outsourcing company based in Egypt which has ventured into the international market right from the start without establishing itself first in the local market. Its record of success was due largely to a group of young Egyptian entrepreneurs with an international orientation. Their strongly held values were translated into an organizational culture that was manifested in the company's relationships with its clients, whether multinational companies or regional governments. This mutual trust has generated work through referrals and has saved the company the need, at least initially, to adopt a proactive marketing strategy. In addition to culture the company's structure has shown considerable agility in dealing with the unexpected demands from clients through developing strong functional departments supported by numerous cross-functional teams. The case also presents the development of the human resource function which is considered the backbone of IT outsourcing companies.

Students are expected to learn the following: internationalization of business start ups in developing nations can take place even in the face of limitations of the local markets; the importance of leadership and culture in fostering trusting relationships with clients; the need to constantly reconfigure resources to meet challenges of competition and the needs of clients; the viability of a defensive strategy for newly established companies if supplemented by trusting relationships with clients; and the role of an evolving structure to fit the growth stages of the company.

Teaching note.