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The context of the case presents an account of how corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiated by Lawrence & Mayo (L&M), a company dealing in optical frames for 140 years, helped to build brand equity, image and identity, creating a strategic advantage against competition. The case had a deep-rooted theoretical association with a theory such as the triple bottom line theory (three Ps: profit, people and planet) on CSR. The case helps to understand and clarify the role of CSR in brand equity. It also gives an insight into the value and culture of L&M, and its impact on various stakeholders, namely, employees and customers.

This case is related to the CSR orientation of L&M and its impact on brand equity. As a brand, L&M is over 140 years old and has a dynamic and trending optics market in India. There is a dilemma in the company around the impact of CSR on brand equity, customer engagement and company goodwill. This case focuses on maintaining and improving brand equity, identity and image through CSR initiatives.

Undergraduate and postgraduate students, essential for students focusing on Marketing and CSR disciplines.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

On completion of the case, the students will be able to understand the concept and importance of sustainability; understand how triple bottom line can help a company make a transition towards sustainability; evaluate the tensions between the three pillars of triple bottom line approach; assess the role of circular economy model as opposed to the conventional linear model in the transition of a company towards sustainability; and understand the sustainability challenge in an emerging market context.

Despite the promising growth potential of the plastics industry in India, it is faced with sustainability challenges owing to its detrimental impact on environment. To preserve the environment and human kind, the government made a bold announcement in 2018 to eliminate the use of highly polluting single-use plastics (SUPs) in the country. Amid this growing sustainability threat against plastics and the fall in demand of SUP items, this case illustrates that Sandip Patel, the plant manager of Cello Plastotech, is entrusted by the CEO with the responsibility of adopting a triple bottom line approach encompassing its three pillars, that is, people, planet and profits, as a response to the sustainability challenge. The strategic rethinking towards adopting sustainability required Patel to face the challenge of striking a balance between the three pillars of triple bottom line while also taking some valuable insights for plastic waste management from the circular economy model. While making a transition to sustainability, he needed to evaluate different options like stopping the manufacture of SUPs and look for alternatives, use of biodegradable raw material which was expensive but environment friendly or manufacture such durable plastic products that would replace SUPs.

The case is aimed at teaching the topic Triple Bottom Line approach in the courses of business strategy and sustainability in under-graduate and post-graduate level courses in the discipline of Management. It can also be used as a supplementary reading in courses like Corporate Social Responsibility and Circular Economy. In emerging markets’ context, these topics are generally taught to MBA students in courses like strategic management, sustainable business and business ethics.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

This case will help students to improve their understanding of several important aspects of an organization’s culture and the importance of ethics in developing an organization’s culture. Students will be able to demonstrate their understanding of the concept of values and their importance in business and learn what organizations should do to make their culture more value-driven. Students will be able to identify the impact an organization’s blurred culture causes and understand the concept of “value congruence” and its need to get higher employee performance. Students will be able to understand the importance of Holland’s person-job fit theory, in an organizational context, along with the impact of Hofstede’s national culture on the organizations’ culture of a country. Students will realize how a result-driven performance management system impacts an employee’s morale negatively, and discover why an organization should balance on giving equal importance to both result and behavior-based performance appraisal system. Students will develop sensitivity to the application of the “triple bottom line” and deontological approach in ethics, and determine how to formulate policies for sustainable and ethical process-driven organizations.

There are two aspects to this case. On the one hand, it talks about the ethical dilemma faced by the protagonist Mr. Vijay Shekhar while working with Smartschool.com, with its head office in Bangalore, India. On the other hand, the case focuses on the performance management system at Smartschool.com, its existing framework and the impact it has on employees and other stakeholders. It also emphasizes the importance of establishing a value-driven culture in an organization for its long term sustenance.

Graduate and under-graduate business students/MBA level.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human resource management.

This paper aims to explain the theory of stakeholder, value chain analysis and triple bottom line sustainability approach.

The present case was developed from both primary and secondary data sources. The primary sources included visits to Global Enterprises and collected data through a structured interview. The secondary sources included enterprise annual reports and websites.

This case presents the innovative approach adopted by a for-profit social enterprise, utilizing locally available resources, changed products and an improved business model to deliver the desired social impact. It highlights the challenges social entrepreneurs face and how the people at the grass-root level are uplifted through the success of a social entrepreneurial venture. The case study is based on an interview conducted with the founder and managing director of Global Enterprises and other stakeholders (farmers, women artisans and employees). An interview schedule was used for conducting the interviews. The researchers tried to understand the business model deployed, stakeholders involved, challenges faced, competencies needed and strategic decisions made by the social entrepreneur that helped the enterprise become sustainable. The social problems identified by the entrepreneur include unavailability of quality raw material at a reasonable price on time; financial scarcity and massive dependence on non-institutional financial sources; lack of product development, market research and production; and the high price of handmade products compared to factory-made products. The case explains how the entrepreneur addressed the problems of cotton farmers, women artisans and local youths through his enterprise. The case also explains how he could make a social venture sustainable in the long run.

This case targets graduate-level students and is designed to be taught in Entrepreneurship, Social entrepreneurship, Rural entrepreneurship, Business administration and Entrepreneurship development. It can also be used for other programmes, where problem identification, opportunity recognition, stakeholder analysis and porter's value chain analysis are taught.

The case will offer insight to the students regarding the idea generation and development of a viable sustainable venture. It will promote the understanding of students regarding SDGs and how SMEs can contribute towards their attainment. They will learn to develop the action plan for a green business venture and understand how each of the business activity in each phase of value chain contributes towards environmental, economic and social sustainability.

Rana Waseem, a young business graduate started a small ecopreneurial venture to offer sustainable food from raw material till disposal in developing nation context named as Dhuaan ‘n’ Dukhaan (D ‘n’ D) in Sargodha, Pakistan. He had an aim to create a model of business that not only supports the local economy in terms of offering decent employment but also promotes a food business that generates nutritional self-sufficiency as per the triple bottom line concept. This case gives an exploratory insight into the actual sustainable operations that have survived eight months successfully and on the path of growth without profit being the sole aim. D ‘n’ D has benefited the lives of people in Sargodha by offering job opportunities, a decent wage, healthy food at affordable rates, reduction in diseases, reducing food wastage and efficient resource usage with a positive impact on the environment.

The case is suitable for undergraduate and post graduate students studying entrepreneurship and small business management.

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 3: Entrepreneurship

This paper uses financial report information to analyze the accounting results of the COVID-19 vaccine development for Johnson & Johnson (J&J). This paper also uses stock price information to analyze the market reactions to the COVID-19 vaccine development and the state of clinical trials for J&J.

This instructional case investigates the interaction between J&J and the COVID-19 vaccine. This paper uses information from financial reports to analyze the accounting results of the COVID-19 vaccine development for J&J. This paper also uses stock price information to analyze the market’s reactions to the COVID-19 vaccine development and the state of clinical trials for J&J.

This case has been used in both undergraduate and graduate levels to highlight the application of accounting theories to practice and improve the understanding of financial statements, especially when Covid-19 has affected the global economy. Under this new context, students could explore new ideas from accounting aspect.

The case aims to investigate the interaction between J&J as a pharmaceutical company and COVID-19. It provides a context in which to discuss the consequences of COVID-19 vaccines from several financial perspectives, such as stock prices, accounting policies, earnings and cash flows:

LO1: Understand the responses of stakeholders to J&J’s COVID-19 vaccines.

LO2: Understand the accounting policies that J&J and its competitors follow regarding COVID-19 vaccines related to revenues, R&D expenditures and government funds.

LO3: Apply Ball and Brown’s theory to the impact of COVID-19 vaccine development on earnings quality of J&J and its competitors.

LO4: Assess the importance of COVID-19 vaccines in management decision-making through dividend policy and management compensation structure.

The objective of writing this case study is to allow management students to engage with the complexities of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in the insurance sector in an emerging economy like India. Upon completion of this case study, the students will be able to critically evaluate the business environment of the insurance sector of a developing economy like India, analyse the impact of M&As on the insurance industry of India, appraise the post-merger consequences and strategies to deal with these consequences, assess the applicability of market power and growth theories in the context of M&As and develop a strategic action plan for handling post-merger challenges.

On 3 September 2021, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) approved the “Scheme” related to the merger of the non-life insurance division of Bharti AXA General Insurance Company Limited (“Bharti AXA”) with ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company Limited (“ICICI Lombard”). Earlier, on 21 August 2020, the boards of the companies had approved entering into definitive agreements through a scheme of arrangement. The merger received approvals from different regulatory bodies as mandated (Gandhi et al., 2023). Bhargav Dasgupta, managing director and Chief Executive Officer of ICICI Lombard, stated, “This is a landmark step in the journey of ICICI Lombard, and we are confident that this transaction would be value accretive for our shareholders” (FE Bureau, 2020). However, the merger posed a dilemma for Dasgupta and the management regarding crop insurance owing to its impact on profitability. Crop insurance historically had high claim ratios nearing 135% for ICICI Lombard for financial year 2018. The company ceased to underwrite this product from 2019 onwards (TNN, 2019). However, ICICI Lombard had to fulfil the three-year commitment made by Bharti AXA to the state governments of Maharashtra and Karnataka towards crop insurance. It was a scheme initiated by the Government of India, covering farmers against losses due to cyclonic rains, rainfall deficits and other unforeseen calamities. Dasgupta faced a challenge in managing the interests of the farmers and the company’s shareholders while balancing profitability, which had already been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. This case study delves into post-merger complexities in the financial sector non-life insurance industry in emerging countries like India.

This case study is suitable for undergraduate and post-graduate management students and executives from the insurance industry.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

The learning outcomes of this paper is as follows: to strategically evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, threats and resulting opportunities that face an entrepreneurial startup. To apply the academic principle of competitiveness and evaluate the competitive advantage of the business and its competitors through the application of the Porter’s five forces model. To evaluate the contextual tensions that entrepreneurial ventures face, and how these affect the growth of a sustainable business. To develop the skills to create a target market analysis by using segmentation, targeting and positioning principles. To evaluate the best strategic actions to grow a business through the lens of sustainable entrepreneurship, by using principles such as the triple bottom line and people, opportunity, context and deal and framework.

The case look at business challenges faced by an entrepreneur, Renshia Manuel, the CEO of GrowBox, as she attempts to balance the profitability and social impact of her venture in Cape Town, South Africa. GrowBox sells customisable self-contained wooden boxes equipped with all materials to grow a variety of vegetables and herbs for consumers. Large volumes of boxes are often purchased by corporate clients who donated these to lower-income communities as part of their social responsibility projects. Additional landscaping and food-scaping services make up another revenue stream of the business. The case study documents the conception of GrowBox in 2016 and the growth of the business in the first four years of operation. The theft of equipment, and difficulty in recruiting and retaining staff due to the volatile social climate of where the business was situated, have put the business under great financial pressure and reduced the efficiency of business processes. The case highlights a number of the harsh realities of sustainable entrepreneurship where both profitability and social impact are vitally important to ensure business sustainability. The case dilemma involves the choices faced by Renshia at the beginning of 2020 regarding the future, sustainable growth of the business.

The target audience for this teaching case is primarily business students at a postgraduate level, particularly those studying in the fields of sustainable entrepreneurship and social development, as well as marketing in emerging markets. This teaching case is intended to be used as a case study in postgraduate business programmes such as postgraduate diplomas in management, specialist Masters programmes such as those focussed on entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship or social development, as well as those studying a Master of Business Administration or related executive education programme.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

Recognize the interest groups of the business as stakeholders and shareholders. Understand the role of strategic corporate social responsibility (CSR) in attaining competitive advantage for the firm. Apply the techniques of financial statement analysis such as common-sized financial statements and ratio analysis. Analyze the overall financial position of the company such as its liquidity, solvency and profitability position. Evaluate the appropriateness of various CSR activities given the size of the company, its business model and financial position. Create a suitable CSR policy draft incorporating the critical elements of a CSR policy that enables the firm to operationalize it and fulfill the disclosure norms.

The management of Ball Industry Limited (BIL) had overlooked the mandatory requirement of CSR policy formulation. The company had not yet spent anything on CSR since the regulation had come into force. The company’s financial position was not healthy. Still, it fell under the regulatory clause as a borderline case and must spend 2% of its average three years’ profit on CSR activities. The company had previously ignored the requirement of formally drafting a CSR policy and deciding about the actions it might want to carry out. Now that the regulator had started sending show-cause notices to several companies who had not yet begun CSR, BIL was under immense time pressure to draft its CSR policy and initiate the relevant CSR activities. Emily, the chief operating officer of BIL, was assigned the task of preparing the blueprint of the CSR policy of the company and made it available for discussion in the upcoming meeting. The task at hand was to formulate a sound CSR policy under the constrained financial state considering its strategic planning, including the SWOT analysis, competitive environment and the overall general market and economic conditions. She submitted that rather than a vanilla CSR activity, strategic CSR would support the firm to differentiate itself from competitors. She was struggling to formulate a CSR strategy that could achieve both economic and social goals.

The case will be most suitable for use in undergraduate and graduate courses.

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CSS 1: Accounting and finance.

Hewlett-Packard (HP) had a long history of engaging in corporate citizenship, dating back to its founding. By 2009, however, under the leadership of its latest CEO, Mark Hurd, the company had lost its focus on corporate social responsibility (CSR). Hurd instead focused on undertaking a financial turnaround and overcoming other reputational challenges; he viewed CSR and philanthropic efforts as costs rather than as strategic levers. He instituted widespread cost-cutting measures to get HP back on track, including reducing CSR expenditure. The HP board, however, did not want to let CSR go by the wayside; in fact, it wanted HP to reorganize and restrategize its approach to corporate citizenship.

The case focuses on this strategic transformation from traditional, cost-center CSR to business-aligned social innovation. It outlines the details of the board's approval of the new strategy, and then discusses how HP employees worked to reorganize their CSR activity. The new team, the Office of Global Social Innovation (OGSI), had to devise a pilot project to demonstrate the new approach. The project under consideration was an engagement that would improve the early infant diagnosis process for testing infants for HIV in Kenya—an area virtually unknown to HP. The case asks students to assess the work of the OGSI team thus far, and to put themselves in the shoes of one team member who had to justify the project to HP's leadership.

The case is especially important for demonstrating the most recent shifts across some leading companies regarding how they position CSR, as well as how for-profit leaders can structure partnerships for impact.

After reading and analyzing the case, students will be able to: understand current shifts from traditional corporate social responsibility work to social innovation; understand the challenges facing leading companies as they seek to do well (enhance the company's bottom-line performance) by doing good (making social impact); identify best practices for developing partnerships for impact; articulate a project's social impact and how it aligns with a desirable business impact.