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Workforce diversity is a reality and offers many benefits to business. Nevertheless, managing diversity poses numerous challenges. This case involves religious diversity, focusing on employers' legal duty to accommodate religious practices. In the case, the assembly line at Electrolux's Frigidaire plant in St. Cloud, Minnesota hummed with activity when suddenly a group of Somali workers walked off the line. The Somali employees were new immigrants and introduced cultural and religious customs which were for the most part unfamiliar to management. The employees were Muslim and left the work stations to observe sunset prayers, one of the five daily prayers central to the Islamic faith. The management dilemma presented in the case is balancing the demands of assembly line production with the religious requirements of Muslim workers in a legal and effective manner. There is a substantial epilogue detailing Electrolux response to the situation which can be used as the basis for further class discussion. To help guide this dialogue, a “mini-instructors manual” follows the epilogue.

This case is mainly about the development journey of Tujia, a unicorn in China's accommodations-sharing sector, as well as the development status of the sector. On December 1, 2011, Tujia.com—China's first medium- and high-end vacation apartment booking platform—was formally launched, and it announced the first round of capital injection in less than half a year after its launch. It completed D and D+ round of financing on August 3, 2015, securing $300 million with an estimated value exceeding $1 billion. The completion of this financing round meant that Tujia formally entered the $1 billion club composed of “unicorn” Internet companies. In June 2016, it announced the strategic M&A of Mayi; in October 2016, it announced its strategic agreement with Ctrip.com and Qunar.com for the M&A of their apartment and homestay businesses. The completion of these transactions manifested the matrix with the four major platforms Tujia, Mayi, Ctrip, and Qunar. Since then, Tujia has become the absolute pacesetter in China's online accommodations-sharing sector.

The manager of a meatpacking factory allows his 100-plus Muslim workers to take breaks believing that it is an appropriate response to the religious needs of this large part of his employee base. But the breaks have begun to interfere with the overall operation of the plant, resulting in a loss of productivity. Other employees have become irritated resenting what they see as preferential treatment. Because of the productivity issues, other employees' complaints, and concerns about the credibility of his management, the manager considers reneging on his agreement.

This case study has been developed based on the primary data obtained through a series of interviews held with the senior management of Cargills, and the secondary data obtained from the company’s corporate website www.cargillsceylon.com/,annual reports and publicly available sources of information such as newspaper articles.

This case study focuses on the strategic responses employed by Cargills (Ceylon) PLC – a leading business conglomerate in Sri Lanka – in response to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The duration of this case study is from January 2020 to September 2021. The case study particularly examines the key business sectors of Cargills (Ceylon) PLC – retail, food manufacturing and quick service restaurants – which elaborate on the change management practices and strategies deployed by the company in each of these sectors during this challenging period. This study is based on the primary data gathered from the interviews held with the Cargills (Ceylon) PLC team, and the secondary data obtained from the corporate website of Cargills (Ceylon) PLC. This case study is most suitable to be taught in academic courses related to strategic change management.

The case is most suited to be discussed with undergraduates (3rd year and 4th year) following business and management studies related disciplines. While the pivotal area around which the case has been developed is strategic change management, covering environmental analysis, strategic analysis and process of change management, the case could also be used in strategic management classes, to discuss environmental analysis, strategic planning approaches and business and corporate level strategies.

CSS 11: Strategy.

General management/Strategy: Problems with debt recovery industry in India Strategic positioning and core competencies: expansion plans.

The case can be used on an MBA program for a course in strategic management. It can be used to understand the concept of strategic positioning. It will give the students an opportunity to critically evaluate a firm’s strategic positioning in the competitive environment, enable them to understand how to create and capture superior value by differentiating as compared with other players in an industry and address expansion and growth strategies.

The case represents the success story of “Adhikrut Jabti evam vasuli”, a debt recovery agency that dared to use the unconventional strategy of employing women as recovery agents, against the stereotyped muscle-flexing male agents. Continuous focus on improving the processes and systems backed by an authoritative yet tactful approach of persuasion and patience has brought this recovery agency accolades and growth. But now Parag Shah the Managing Director is planning to expand its horizons and wonders whether he should go ahead opening up more branch offices across the country or whether he should convert his recovery firm into an Asset reconstruction company.

The case reinforces the importance of “Strategic positioning” of a firm due to well-planned differentiation in services. The case also addresses concepts of leadership, standardization, people skills and relationship 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 11: Strategy.

We obtained information on China Gerui from secondary published sources, including annual reports downloaded from the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) EDGAR database, news sites and newspapers, the company’s website and journal articles. One of the authors visited the China Gerui plant in Henan, China.

China Gerui, a Chinese metal fabrication company, enjoyed exponential growth because of its location, product innovation and ability to move up the value chain. At the height of its success, the company listed on the Nasdaq and had plans to raise capital to fund ambitious expansion plans. Unfortunately, four years after listing on Nasdaq, the company received a letter from the listing qualifications department notifying China Gerui that they were not in compliance with Nasdaq’s filing requirements because it had not filed its Form 20-F. Now, the company had only five days to decide whether to request an appeal of the letter.

This case is best suited for higher-level undergraduate accounting and finance courses such as intermediate accounting, auditing, international accounting, financial statement analysis, corporate finance and investments analysis. It is especially appropriate for graduate-level global accounting and advanced financial statement analysis courses. In these courses, the best placement is after coverage of SEC regulations and requirements for financial statement reporting and disclosure. Moreover, the case may be used as a tool to demonstrate the step-by-step process for searching and retrieving information from a public company’s filings through the SEC’s EDGAR database.

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

This case study aims to yield the following learning outcomes: understand the key performance indicators of successful human resource management (HRM) in the hospitality and tourism sector, especially during pandemics; identify the various concepts and strategies of HRM and recruitment over a short period; conceptualize the types of HRM practices such as safety and health, recruitment and promotion and rewards when facing pandemic conditions as well as the handling of hotel staff in strained times; evaluate the crisis management solutions used by human resources to lower the employee turnover rate; and develop a crisis management plan from a human resource standpoint in a pandemic situation.

A five-star hotel in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bab Al Qasr Hotel & Residence (BAQHotel) opened in October 2016. In April 2020, the hotel began accepting patients with COVID-19 in conjunction with the Abu Dhabi’s Healthcare Company (SEHA), as a support to the UAE Government, through Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi (DCTAD), to meet the local needs and sustain business during these unforeseen circumstances, which heavily impacted the whole World. Samer Majari, the Human Resource Director of BAQ hotel was responsible for recruiting and supervising delegates, while ensuring the comfort of hotel staff, arranging for their transportation, catering, safety and well-being. To combat the high staff turnover, including COVID-19-positive staff, Majari reviewed the existing staff model; divided the staff into two groups for providing services to both sides of the hotel; arranged for separate accommodations, food and transportation; and retained the existing resources and recruited new workers. This study aims to provide management solutions that concern hiring of staff from the existing UAE market and highlights ways of creating a lower staff turnover rate through incentives and compensations, while also managing staff by motivating them and also safeguarding them against COVID-19.

This case study intends to provide a context for creative solutions to human resource challenges facing organizations during a pandemic. It also involves swift responses to crises faced by HR managers and the immediate solutions required. Therefore, this case study can be used in undergraduate level courses for students pursuing a bachelor’s or a master’s degree in HRM, hospitality management, crisis management or international business studies. Moreover, this case study can be used for corporate training and to help hospitality industry staff, mid-level human resource managers and organizational development practitioners to better understand crisis management in their hotels.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human Resource Management

Human resource management.

The case can be used on courses related to human resources management (HRM), which are offered in management programmes like MBA/PGDBM. The case could also be used in management development programmes, seminars and workshops that have HRM as a component of the programme. The case can be used effectively for classroom discussions as well as in distance learning programmes.

The case looks into the HRM practices at a leading Indian construction company – ABC Constructions. The case tries to explain the management perspectives behind the people practice initiatives undertaken by the company in order to recruit/retain and nurture talent. The case also explains the basic principles underlying its human resource policies. It tries to explain the initiatives taken by ABC Constructions to meet the challenges posed by the changing business environment, as the company moves beyond the borders of the country of its initial operations. The case provides an overview of unique challenges faced by a company in the Indian construction industry, where a significant number of people executing its projects are not its permanent employees.

The students would get a fairly good understanding of existing good practices in the field of human resource management, especially in the context of a multifaceted and labour intensive construction industry in the Indian corporate scenario. Anecdotes of actual experiences with respect to people management would facilitate greater understanding of the complexities involved at the grass root level of functioning and implementation. Theoretical inputs relating to training could be better understood through the customised programmes provided by the company for its diverse workforce. The HR challenges faced by the top management as a company grows and expands to new markets can better be understood.

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

After completion of the case study, the students would be able to identify and evaluate organizational culture as a critical element of organizational resilience and assess its fit to the business context, evaluate different elements of organizational resilience and their contribution to business adaptation and develop leadership approaches that help adapt and leverage organizational culture to foster individual, team and organizational resilience.

This teaching case covers topics of organizational leadership, including organizational culture and organizational resilience. This case study is appropriate for the postgraduate and executive education programmes. This case study covers the approach to organizational leadership and resilience of the OKKO, a Ukrainian retail petrol station network. The dilemmas considered by top managers of the company emerged in February–April 2022 amid the unfolding Russian invasion of Ukraine. The case study protagonists solved multiple business and organizational dilemmas to continue efficient business operations while allowing the organization to adapt to a complex and fast-changing environment. They leveraged a distinct corporate culture, strong employee engagement and established business processes and management practices to ensure the viability of the business.

This case study is appropriate for postgraduate and executive education programmes. The level of difficulty is light to medium. Recommended pre-requisites are understanding human resources management terminology and reviewing preparation materials. The case study is suitable for teaching courses in leadership, people management and organizational development that cover corporate culture, leadership and organizational resilience.

CSS 6: Human resource management

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

Womenomics is the idea that women’s economic development will lead to improving the economy as a whole

The case is a primary case. Gender equity is about treating men and women fairly, data for the case was collected through interviews with the protagonist Ms Kalpana Anand.

Although women are capable of writing their own destiny regardless of what they are and where they come from, Kalpana Anand, the Executive Director of Avaneetha Textiles, believes that education plays an essential role in empowering women. Accordingly she is determined to offer shop floor jobs to young underprivileged women aspiring dropouts that provides them an opportunity to learn while they earn. Established in the year 2004 in Coimbatore, Avaneetha Textiles is currently being managed by two sisters Uma (Managing Director) and Kalpana. Although this business model supports around 900 young women, not all have made the most of it. Only 25% of their employees benefitted from the “learn-while-you-earn” program promoted by the company. Kalpana realized that such a conduct would hinder the achievement of empowering women. Therefore, the challenge before her was to motivate more women to enroll for different courses and thereby improve the quality of their life.

Graduate or post-graduate level of courses in management, commerce, sociology, social work and related subjects.