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On the evening of December 29, 1972, Eastern Air 401 (EA401) was on a routine flight from New York to Miami. Despite EA401 flying one of the most advanced aircraft at the time (the Lockheed L-1011), it crashed in the Florida Everglades killing 101 of its 176 passengers. Drawing from various first-hand accounts (cockpit voice recorder) and secondary evidence (news reports and online sources) of the tragedy, this teaching case provides a detailed account of the key events that took place leading up to the accident. The case describes how the pilots on EA401 were confronted with a simple scenario, a landing gear bulb not working in the cockpit, and through the distraction that ensued 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 NTSB report.

Depending on individual course objectives, this case can take two or one day to debrief. Specifically, if this case is used in an organizational behavior course, most of the case questions could be discussed in one day. However, if this case is used in a capstone HRM or group dynamics type course on teams and team training and performance, a second day could be used to develop documentation outlining training design or performance evaluation designs.

Pebble Technology Corporation (Pebble) was an early entrant into the smartwatch industry. Pebble’s Founder, Eric Migicovsky, began thinking about creating a smartwatch in 2008 while still an undergraduate engineering student. After selling about 1,500 prototype watches, he was accepted into Silicon Valley’s prestigious Y Combinator business start-up program. Finding it difficult to attract investors, Migicovsky launched a crowdfunding campaign that raised a record-breaking $10.27m on Kickstarter. The case concludes shortly after Apple’s unveiling of its soon-to-be-released Apple Watch. The case provides an opportunity to evaluate Pebble’s various strategic options at the time of Apple’s announcement.

The authors observed over 30 h of video and audio recordings of speeches, interviews and other events involving Pebble’s founder, other Pebble executives, investors and competitors. These recordings are all publicly available. Whenever possible, the authors also reviewed the Twitter feeds, Facebook sites and personal websites of Pebble’s top executives over time. Similarly, the authors followed Pebble’s official website, corporate blog and Kickstarter campaign websites. The authors also drew from numerous media reports. Due to the public nature of the data, no company release is provided nor has any information been disguised in any way.

The case is designed for both undergraduate and graduate students for courses in strategic management.

Entrepreneurship, Strategic Marketing, Retail Management.

It may be used in marketing/strategy/organisation behaviour courses of MBA programmes as well as in specific executive education programmes dealing with business strategy, sales and marketing, entrepreneurship and organisation behaviour.

In 2002, Rajan Chhibba co-founded Intrim Business Associates (IBA), a niche strategy consulting firm in India. IBA pitched for a consulting assignment for retail strategy/implementation with a steel manufacturer in India, where they were pitched against a large global consulting firm. After conducting a diagnostic study and reaching a stage where IBA had almost got the project, the client put forth a demand which was make-or-break for IBA. The case puts forth the questions faced by Rajan Chhibba at the time of replying to the client: How was IBA different from global consulting firms? Was IBA willing to compromise on quality of the project to reduce costs? Was reduction of price the only option for getting the project? What factors should Rajan Chhibba consider before making his final pitch?

This case may help students to: appreciate an entrepreneur's smart strategy up against formidable competition, analyse the resources crunch an entrepreneur faces and how he overcomes them, understand how organisations learn from their experience and appreciate the challenges in a competitive environment.

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