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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).

This case describes the journey of Karson as he transitions from female to male. Throughout his life, Karson experiences a great deal of anxiety trying to reconcile his identity with the expectations of society. The anxiety inherent in this situation is described in order to get the reader to more fully empathize with the issues faced by transgender individuals. The case then focuses on issues specific to the workplace as Karson begins his career with a counseling agency and experiences several instances of discriminatory behavior.

Ostensibly the case is about an employee resigning from the organization due to lack of support, job clarity, and information about reporting structure. It addresses issues of socialization process, performance appraisal, and communication issue between colleagues in a consulting organization. The case serves as medium for diagnosis and action planning around integration of new employees into the organization, effective performance appraisal, and resolving communication barriers.

Leadership, organizational behavior, entrepreneurship.

This case study is intended for undergraduate and graduate levels.

This is a leadership case about Agnes Jean Brugger, founder of the A.J. Brugger Education Project (also known as the A.J. Brugger Foundation (AJBF)) in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua. It is the story of how and why she and Chris Berry co-founded this unique non-profit foundation in tandem with Piedras Y Olas: Pelican Eyes Resort (PEPO) in the late 1990s. The case focuses on how her identity and values shape the origins of AJBF and how the organization evolves in the context of the Nicaraguan and Anglo-American cultures. “Devoted to assisting Nicaragua through education and development of one of the country's most valuable and treasured resources: its young people”, the vision for AJBF was a cutting edge socially conscious venture that grew to meet the needs of the community that had captured Jean's heart and mind. The case ends in early 2009 on the precipice of the biggest economic down-turn the US economy has experienced in recent history. Standing at the edge of this cliff, Jean contemplates the numerous successful accomplishments of the foundation, while reflecting on the many leadership and organizational problems she, as Founder and Chair of the Board, faces.

The case will help participants to: evaluate and discuss leadership effectiveness, identifying responses to opportunities and challenges; explain cross-cultural identity from the Globe Study model and how it impacts organizational interactions; explore successful models of cross-cultural leadership through the lens of gendered theory; explore the ways in which social entrepreneurship can be seen as an extension of socially-minded leadership; describe how socially-minded entrepreneurship is different from traditional forms of entrepreneurship; describe social identity and evaluate its impact on leadership; and discuss the rich historical and community context that influences interpersonal and organizational dynamics.

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

The purpose of this paper is to help readers better understand the psychological impact of employees feeling underutilized in the workplace.

The case is based on primary data collected from Jonathan and describes his actual experience in the workplace. Mark also provided input on the situation. Because Jonathan and Mark are still employed in the same institution, the names have been disguised to protect their identity.

Jonathan is a highly motivated and successful employee who was promoted into a position that had no real responsibility. His manager would not restructure the job to make it more challenging or rewarding, so after three years of frustration, Jonathan has to decide if he should keep trying to fix the job, coast until retirement or resign.

This case is applicable for undergraduate business courses in organizational behavior, principles of management, principles of human resource management or leadership.

MBA.

Master’s level in Change Management, Organizational Leadership and Human Resource Management.

Mr Sharma, the dynamic and entrepreneurial Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the newly formed Soni Manipal Hospital (SMH), Jaipur, and Unit Head, Manipal Hospitals [Manipal Health Enterprises Pvt Ltd. (MHEPL)], in a meeting with SMH’s Head of Human Resources and the Head of the Nursing Management, Mr Yaduvanshi realised the exponential growth of employee resistance, their lack of skills and technological advancements for documentation hindering the hospital's transformation goal. The case study highlighted the challenges the protagonist faced when taking charge as the CEO after nine months of acquisition and the factors contributing to them.

Students reading this case are expected to understand leadership theories, strategic and quality management approaches, and theories of social behaviour, such as Herzberg’s two-factor theory and social exchange theory (SET) and the application of these concepts in acquired organisations to develop healthy leadership–employee relations and change management theories.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human resource management.

Human resource management.

It is appropriate for graduate students majoring in human resource or business management. Students who are interested in studying Asian economies in the world, as they are the most growing economies in the world and at the same time have a shocking number of people employed in the informal sector.

This case study talks about women workers who face a glass ceiling at the management level and deplorable working conditions at the informal level. This case involves women in the paper bag-making business, a part of the urban informal sector. The paper bag-making business provides employment and income generation for the urban poor. The focus in this study is on women production workers, rather than entrepreneurs or professional managers. Focus of the study will be on the change in the pattern of income distribution within the family-based household, the degree of bargaining power derived from productive work and income and impact of technology on the plight of unskilled women force and how technology and vocational training can lead to utilization of manpower being wasted because of lack of synergy between technology and the informal sector in India. Expected learning outcomes Four key points of selection, training, assessment and leadership all have been addressed in this case study, and the relevance of these points is important from the point of view of management students who have to understand the linkages and the hidden costs these informal sector occupations come with and then to device an appropriate strategy to bring and use these human resources to their full capacity by utilizing the existing resources instead of adding new ones, which in development economics is known as Solow residual.

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

Students learn to evaluate a firm’s growth strategies with the aim of establishing long-term business sustainability. Students will examine the impact of external macro-environmental factors that influence firm growth in an emerging market context. Using this case, students will learn how to apply a resource-based view to a firm’s offering by comparing and identifying the competitive advantage of the internal resources of the firm. Using this case, students can apply the principle of strategic fit by strategically analyzing the opportunities and threats in the external environment, while taking into account the firm’s internal strengths and weaknesses.

This case outlines the strategic, macro-environmental and marketing challenges that the Cape Town-based private higher education institution, Red & Yellow Creative School of Business, faced as it entered its 25th year of existence. In 2019, Red & Yellow had its roots in industry and had done well historically to cement that bond through the creation of successful alumni and the constant innovation of its higher education offering. Two weeks before having to present a detailed five-year growth strategy plan to the board of directors, Rob Stokes, the Director and Chairman of Red & Yellow, was faced with a multitude of decisions pertaining to the sustainable growth of the school. Recent growth patterns showed that programs with lower profit margins, such as classroom-based full-time programs, had experienced double-digit growth while student numbers for higher gross profit offerings, such as online and executive education programs had started to decline. Another challenge that the school faced was the need for its students to future-proof their careers in a world where artificial intelligence and machine learning threatened their careers and jobs. As such, Red & Yellow was confronted with one central strategic problem: How to grow strategically in the short term while developing a sustainable and scalable growth strategy for the school in the long term.

This case could work well as part of an executive education course, as well as a strategic management course for master’s degree or Master of Business Administration students.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

The learning objectives have been prepared in accordance with the Blooms Taxonomy (Engelhart et al., 1984). After completion of this case, students would be able to examine and expand the concept of institutions (i.e. a sport as an institution in this case) and understand how important it is to incorporate them in the policy level decision-making (Knowledge); understand a different form of the social institution (i.e. Jallikattu) and capture its relevance for all the involved stakeholders by taking into consideration the challenges that could stem from their interplay (Application); analyze the interests of various stakeholders and their concerns that add to the complexity of a socially relevant issue (Analysis); and integrate the developments of an event (i.e. Jallikattu) over its timeline and develop an action plan for being prepared or for resolving such exigencies, especially for public policy decision making (Synthesis).

The case is centred on Senaapathy Kangayam Cattle Research Foundation whose primary aim is conservation and breeding of native breeds of cattle. The protagonist of the case, Karthikeya Sivasenapathy, managing trustee of this foundation, has invested significant efforts to create awareness on the importance of Jallikattu. Jallikattu is an ancient Indian sport played in the rural regions of Tamil Nadu state in India and has been in existence for over 5,000 years. This issue has come into limelight due to its initial ban by the Supreme Court of India in 2014 and its subsequent stay on the ban in 2016. While there are several arguments surrounding this controversy, the arguments can be broadly classified under those who support the ban (i.e. oppose Jallikattu) and those who oppose the ban (i.e. support Jallikattu). Due to the involvement of various stakeholders (government supreme court, animal welfare boards and breed saviour groups) with conflicting objectives, the dynamics of decision-making to settle this issue became very complicated, confusing and time-consuming for Karthikeya. By using the lens of institutions and stakeholder theory, the authors explain the issue around Jallikattu in this teaching note. Teaching note also documents the unfolding of events that happened after 12 January 2017 which succeeded in lifting the ban on Jallikattu.

The case is written for undergraduate and graduate-level students pursuing business programmes and for senior management professionals participating in the executive education programmes. The case is suitable for those who are expected to work in an environment where there is a multitude of complex, formal as well as informal institutions. This case can be used to teach the concepts of institutions, the dynamics involved and to give the flavour of the interactions between these different institutions in solving a social issue. It will fit well into courses on strategic management, social movement and institutional theory.

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CSS 1: Accounting and Finance.

Family business.

Specialized undergraduate courses, Elective MBA courses.

This case study uncovers the remarkable story of the relentless growth and sporadic weakening of Nurul Ain (NA) Limited, a family business conglomerate with major operations in the Eastern region of Africa. The case provides an opportunity to follow the different stages of development of this family-owned organization through a sequence of strategic events and family dynamics that led to its recurrent success, decline and rejuvenation. Despite the numerous successes of NA Limited since its establishment in the early 1990s, the ambiguous relationship between family, ownership and management systems has caused a ripple effect of strategic, structural and governance challenges that threaten the sustainability of the family business. Nowadays, the founder faces the pressing challenge of ensuring his legacy remains intact and is passed over to his chosen successor, who, in turn, is confronted with the dilemma of joining the family business or pursing an independent career outside NA Limited. Shedding light on the complexity of today’s family-run organizations, the case allows examining the effectiveness of strategic decision-making in an emerging market context by applying a variety of family business principles, theories and frameworks.

Discuss the sources of competitive advantage and the typical challenges that family firms face in the context of emerging markets. Perform a comprehensive corporate diagnosis and examine the specificities of strategic management process in family businesses. Assess the succession management practices in family-run organizations and design a profile of successful successor. Discuss the effectiveness of various corporate governance mechanisms in the context of family-owned enterprises. Evaluate the strategic choices of the top management team and offer recommendations for securing the family business longevity.

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.