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This case illustrates the rationale for adopting employee ownership, and difficulties in implementing employee empowerment beyond investment. In the beginning it focuses on why Jerry Pritchett, one of the co-founders of Pritchett Controls, decided to convert it to an employee-owned company. In the body of the case, it details the efforts of the company to operate under its new ownership structure in an increasingly competitive environment. Although Pritchett established employee owners, only selected High Performance Work Systems (HPWS) practices have been implemented. The issue that reader must grapple with is whether other HPWS practices should be adopted or not.

Primary data were collected by interviewing eight managers including the current and former CEO at two of the firm’s three locations. Secondary data were used to supplement industry and competitive information.

Human resources courses, especially those that focus on strategic human resource management, organizational development, and how high performance organizations can be built, would be most appropriate for this case.

The primary theoretical foundations for this submission are shared entrepreneurship and HPWS. Knowledge of leadership, employee ownership, human resources, corporate governance, organizational culture and strategy would also be helpful in analyzing this case.

Accounting and Finance (Performance Management and Management Control System).

Postgraduate Students in Business and Management.

This is a case of SmartBay System Integrator (SSI), an IT infrastructure system integrator based in Malaysia, a company that was facing declining profit margins. SSI was reputed to be a well-established locally owned system integrators in the northern region of the country, and the services it provided included building IT systems with high-end servers, networking solutions and software applications. Apart from the urgent need to improve sales, SSI intended to reduce the number of one-off customers and resolve the issue of increasing customer complaints. The complaints given to the company by customers revolved around the sluggish response to customers' requests, including delays in quotations and proposals, constant rescheduling of meeting with customers as well as unfavorable perceptions regarding the competency of SSI engineers. This case requires the analysis of the structure and control systems adopted by SSI to determine whether they are appropriate for the nature of the business and have suitable systems in place to resolve the issue of customer complaints.

This case can be used to teach the use of control systems in managing human resource issues in the context of highly specialised technical professionals in small service firms. In addition, the case also illustrates the need to match an appropriate control system to a specific type of organisational structure. In addition, the case can be relied upon to teach the differences between the various types of organisational structures and the different forms of control systems.

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 technical reports released by the National Transportation Safety Board, along with secondary data in the form of available public data, such as news reports, interviews and memos, were used to round out the synopsis of the case study.

This case explores the events that led up to the crash of United Airlines Flight 717 (for anonymity), in Sioux City, Iowa, on July 19, 1989, and the subsequent investigation. The case uses secondary sources to highlight the positive team interactions between the pilots that led to the crash landing not being as catastrophic as it might have been with 185 survivors in an extreme crisis scenario. The teaching note focuses on the importance of cognitive bias, psychological safety and teamwork in a crisis situation, and practical recommendations for managers at all levels.

Organizational Behavior at the undergraduate and graduate level. Leadership and Change at the graduate and graduate level.

The reading and discussion on case will enable participants to appreciate importance of reward management in performance management system for both employee and organizational good; to develop insight on the effect of perceived discrimination on the motivation of employees; to internalize the effect of perceived unjust, subjective, non-communicative, non-transparent policies on the behavior and productivity of employees and overall organizational culture and climate; and to comprehend the importance of HR and OB issues with respect to performance management system for the benefit of employee morale, motivation and organizational culture.

The effectiveness of an employee is the key factor for the employer. All the profit that the company or the organization makes depends on the employees’ productiveness. The case needs to be understood in the overall context of performance management system (Ferreiraa and Otley, 2009) with focus on elements of appraisal and compensation via rewards and recognition as per objective standards. Performance management systems (PMSs) is a more general descriptor if the intention is to capture a holistic picture of the management and control of organizational performance. Performance management policies and practices refer to the processes of setting, communicating and monitoring performance targets and rewarding results with the aim of enhancing organizational effectiveness (Fee, McGrath-Champ and Yang, 2011). PMS includes both the formal mechanisms, processes, systems and networks used by organizations, and also the more subtle, yet important, informal controls that are used (Chenhall, 2003; Malmi and Brown, 2008). Otley (1999) proposed a framework which highlights five central issues which need to be considered as part of the process of developing a coherent structure for performance management systems. The five areas addressed by this framework include identification of the key organizational objectives and the processes and methods involved in assessing the level of achievement under each of these objectives, formulating and implementing strategies and plans, as well as the performance measurement and evaluation processes, process of setting performance targets and the levels at which such targets are set, rewards systems used by organizations and the implications of achieving or failing to achieve performance targets and types of information flows required to provide adequate monitoring of performance. While the case touches upon all the aspects of the PMS framework, it revolves round the reward episode and elaborates on the way it affects all stakeholders, those who got the benefit, those who felt discriminated and those were mere observers to the episode. Objective performance appraisals are needed to ensure that every employee produces the best performance and that the work performed is rewarded with reasonable increases in pay scales or special additional allowances or incentives. This system carries crucial importance as it helps managers to decide which rewards should be handed out, by what amount and to whom. Additionally, performance appraisals may increase an employee’s commitment and satisfaction (Wiese and Buckley, 1998) The case readers need to notice that when organizations fail to follow objective appraisal or reward standards, the same rewards become a cause of contention. The reward which was handed over to the employees in this case was in addition to the annual appraisal. Though the role of rewards has been well-recognized in motivating the employees to continue performing at high level and encourage others to strive for better performance, what needs to be recognized that rewards’ per say does not serve purpose. They need to be dealt within the context of performance management system. Using rewards to favor or discriminate a few employees by using subjective standards backfires and does no good as the person who is favored cannot take pride in it and is not motivated to perform better or equally well as he/she also knows that the work has no relation to the reward, it is personal favor, on the other hand, the one who is discriminated feel discouraged and demotivated to perform. Rewards have the potential to both help and harm the organization if dealt in a callous and careless manner. Use of rewards to favor or discriminate certain people due to subjective preference can be suicidal for the organization and irreparably damage the trust of the employees in the management. It has been well stated that fairness and objectivity are the core principles using an assessment of the nature and size of the job each is employed to carry out (Torrington et al., 2005). If any organization decides to include rewards as a motivating mechanism, it needs to cull out unambiguous and transparent criteria for rewarding. If employees perceive procedural or distributive injustice from the management, it is not only detrimental for the employee’ relations and teamwork, it also tarnishes the reputation of the organization and jeopardizes the culture of the organization. Reward management needs to be closely related to performance appraisals, job evaluations and overall performance management systems. The current case elaborates on one such instance where unjustified inequity in reward system not only disturbed the employees concerned but it had bred a negative image of the organization among other employees too, organizational citizenship was replaced with contempt and feeling of apathy.

Post graduate students and working professionals can benefit from this study.

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

Human resource management.

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).

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 learning outcomes of this study are as follows: use advanced frameworks and tools to convey complex ideas related to corporate social responsibility and ethics; apply relevant concepts and theories of ethics and corporate governance to a practical situation while making decisions; demonstrate understanding of the importance of stakeholders when developing socially responsible thinking; and analyze ethical and legal conflicts that need to be considered by employees in situations of whistleblowing.

Sara Khan was a Pakistani-American who had moved to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2015 to pursue her Bachelor’s degree in accounting. After graduation, she started working for a baked products manufacturer, Dough Fresh, which was a business unit of Dubai-based Fresh Foods Co. Three years later, she enjoyed her work in the company that embraced strong ethical values and socially responsible practices. She was recently given the task of delivering a financial statements’, investment projections’ and cost-cutting presentation to the senior management of Dough Fresh. Her performance at completing this task was of critical importance for her obtaining the eagerly awaited promotion to the senior accountant position. One day, while Sara was looking through some files to update the financial statements’ records, she came across a deleted purchase order of poppy seeds that amounted to AED 680,000. While poppy seeds were widely used as ingredients in baked products in other countries, they were illegal in the UAE. After approaching her colleague from the purchasing department, she realized that the purchasing manager, who was the grandson of the chairman, was closely involved in the matter. Moreover, it appeared that poppy seeds were used unwashed, which triggered deleterious health consequences and made them highly dangerous to consume. As Sara spent more time researching about poppy seeds and whistleblowing laws in the UAE, she questioned whether she should divulge this information or keep it for herself. Making this decision was extremely challenging. Because the UAE laws regarding whistleblowing were not comprehensive and constantly evolving, she was not certain whether her identity and reputation would be protected in case she decided to blow the whistle. Even more, she worried immensely about the prospect of her colleagues losing their jobs if this information became public, as many of them needed the money to support their families back home and to finance expensive health-related treatments of their relatives. At the same time, she was also aware that if poppy seeds were consumed by people unknowingly, this could lead to serious and even fatal health consequences. All things considered, Sara was caught between deciding what was the right thing to do.

This case study can be used in a higher level undergraduate business course on Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

The learning outcome of this paper is to identify and interpret the risks linked to cyber-security and their impact on the organization. Analyze business management regarding cyber-security and information technology (IT) risk management. Evaluate and propose decision-making strategies for IT projects.

Silver Bank is a financial entity with broad national coverage. Its growth was directly related to its investments in customer service. The entire organization is focused on satisfying its clients’ needs, improving their experience and making them loyal to the company. However, it did not pay enough attention to a threat that, with time, had become more pronounced: cyber-attacks. Its efforts to fight against this threat were only temporary solutions, as gaps in its IT system made it an easy target for criminals until the arrival of Iván Ramírez, who proposes a holistic solution to decrease the probability and severity of these attacks. However, past experiences, ignorance and budget constraints make it a difficult task to convince the bank’s board of directors to implement the proposed solution.

The case can be used as teaching material in upper-level undergraduate and graduate management courses: –undergraduate courses: information technology management, IT project analysis and management – MBA or graduate courses: information technology management, strategic management and security governance.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

The learning outcomes are as follows: to understand the management styles and motivations of SME founders; to understand how SMEs innovate with limited resources; to develop and evaluate technology and platform options to solve operational and business model issues; to build a transforming strategy by leveraging technology; and to understand the agricultural industry and its significance to emerging economies.

The case is about a Small and Medium Enterprise in India that focussed on the agricultural sector. The company was owner operated and highly successful. As a result, the owner decided to maintain status quo till the COVID-19 crisis forced the company to relook at its strategy and innovate for the second time in its history.

MBA.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.