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After completion of the case study, the participants would be able to understand the challenges in building a sustainable homestay tourism business; develop a positioning statement for La Pinekonez which builds a unique competitive advantage; and outline elements of the business strategy to profitably sustain and grow a sustainable tourism homestay in terms of service offering, pricing, marketing and operations.

La Pinekonez Homestay, located in the beautiful region of Himachal Pradesh, India, is the subject of this case study, which explores both its successes and its difficulties. In August 2022, Arvind, the dedicated sole proprietor of La Pinekonez, grappled with multifaceted challenges, the first being the foray of established hotel chains into the homestay business. As the protagonist, was is in dilemma of preserving La Pinekonez’s unique identity amidst corporate competitors, particularly with regards to differentiating from the expanding hotel chains. The clash between customer expectations for hotel-like amenities and the homestay’s commitment to sustainable tourism presented a crucial challenge. Negative reviews questioning the authenticity of La Pinekonez’s green initiatives heightened the complexity. Adding to Arvind’s predicament were the seasonal fluctuations in tourist inflow and his aspiration to embrace immersive tourism trends. This case study facilitates exploration of strategic positioning, sustainability management and marketing strategies in the dynamic and competitive hospitality industry. It also offers insights into the complexities of balancing differentiation, customer satisfaction and sustainability while navigating the evolving landscape of tourism trends.

This case study is suitable for students of tourism and hospitality management at postgraduate level. The case study can be discussed once the basic concepts of hospitality management and service dimensions are covered.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CCS 12: Tourism and hospitality.

To complete this case, students will need to access financial statements from the Securities and Exchange Commission’s webpage. The links are provided. Students will also need to review the conceptual framework that is typically covered in Intermediate 1 to respond to question 5.

This case is based on the three financial statement restatements that Weatherford International Ltd. made over an approximately 18-month period. The restatements were due to a fraud committed by manipulating the income tax accrual in the financial statements. The manipulation used was to overstate the amount of income used to calculate the dividend exclusion and then use a relatively high tax rate to calculate the resulting tax benefit. The tax rate used for the fraud was substantially more than Weatherford’s effective tax rate (ETR), which was a prominent part of the company’s strategic growth plan. The tax senior with the external auditors who reviewed the entry made for the dividend exclusion captured the inconsistency with the comment that “This [the entry] deserves a huh?” The case is intended for students in Intermediate 2, where financial statement restatements and their effect on the company’s financial statements are typically covered. During the years covered in this case, Weatherford was also under investigation for violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). Weatherford’s FCPA violations included multiple instances of bribery, the inappropriate use of volume discounts, improper payments and kickbacks in the United Nation’s Oil for Food program. Weatherford received the eighth-largest fine in the history of FCPA violations (at that time) of $152m. Weatherford’s FCPA investigation expanded, and the company paid another $100m in fines for violations of sanctions law and export control law. This case focuses only on the fraudulent manipulation of the financial statements through the tax accrual and does not delve into the other investigations. However, the linkage between those investigations and the fraud in this case is Weatherford’s nonexistent internal controls.

This case was designed to be used in Intermediate 2 financial accounting classes to highlight financial statement restatements and review the conceptual framework and materiality. The students who used the case did not have difficulty with the tax aspect of the case. However, most of the students had taken one tax class previously or concurrently. If students have not had any exposure to tax, the instructor might want to walk students through the tax aspects of the case.

The case was developed from secondary sources and interviews with a security analyst. The secondary sources include company annual reports, news reports, analyst reports, industry reports, company websites, stock exchange websites and databases such as Bloomberg and CMIE Prowess.

Increasing competition in product and capital markets has put tremendous pressure on managers to become more cost competitive. To address their firms' uncompetitive cost structures, managers may have to consider dramatic restructuring of their businesses. During 2014–2017, Tata Steel Ltd (TSL) UK considered a series of divestitures and a merger plan to nurse the company back to health. The case considers the economics of the restructuring plan. The case is designed to help students analyze a corporate downsizing program undertaken by a large Indian company in the UK and to highlight the dynamic role of the CFO and governance issues in family firms. It introduces students to issues surrounding a typical restructuring and provides students a platform to practice the estimation of value creation in a restructuring exercise. While some cases on corporate restructuring in the context of developed economies are available, there are very few cases written in an emerging market context. This case bridges that gap. TSL presents a unique opportunity to study corporate restructuring necessitated by a failed cross-border acquisition. It illustrates the potential for value loss in large, cross-border acquisitions. It shows how managerial hubris can prompt family firm owners to overbid in acquisitions and create legacy hot spots. In addition, the case can be used to discuss the causes of governance failures such as weak institutional monitoring and poor legal enforcement in emerging markets that could potentially harm minority shareholders.

The case was developed from secondary sources and interviews with a security analyst. The secondary sources include company annual reports, news reports, analyst reports, industry reports, company websites, stock exchange websites and databases such as Bloomberg and CMIE Prowess.

The case examines the development and launch of an exchange-traded fund (ETF) based on JUST Capital's socially responsible corporate ranking methodologies. The case provides a market overview of Environment, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) and socially responsible investing (SRI), what has driven growth in those areas worldwide, and several best-practice investment approaches. Following the overview, the case describes the founding and development of JUST Capital, explores JUST Capital's ranking methodologies, and presents the decision point faced by the CEO: requisite selection of one of three strategies in order for JUST Capital to generate “self-sustaining” revenue.

This public-sourced case describes the latest restructuring efforts by Deutsche Bank (DB) and gives a short history of prior restructuring efforts from the decade before. In July 2019, Christian Sewing, the new CEO of DB, announced a series of measures that included, among others, the elimination of global equity trading, the layoff of 18,000 employees, the creation of a “bad bank” to transfer noncore assets, and the suspension of dividends until 2022. The case describes key decisions a bank CEO makes when a bank needs to change course to return to profitability and growth. The case offers an opportunity to debate these key decisions, as well as discuss some of the prior ones during earlier restructuring efforts, and put the students in the CEO's shoes: What would you do and why? The case also describes key banking performance metrics (e.g., ROE, ROA) and other critical variables such as those reflecting capital health (Tier 1 ratio), as well as gives an overview of the bank business model and factors impacting bank profitability and value.

The data for this case were obtained primarily through a series of in-person interviews in Penang between the authors and Pete Browning (a pseudonym) from 2017 to early 2019. The authors also consulted secondary data sources, including publicly available material on BMax and “Company B”.

This case examines a key decision, or set of decisions, in the life of a small- to medium-sized management consultancy group, namely, whether they might expand their operations in Southeast Asia, and if so, where. These key decisions came in the wake of their having already established a very modest scale presence there, with an operating base on the island of Penang just off the north western coast of Peninsular Malaysia. The initial establishment of a Southeast Asian branch had been somewhat spontaneous in nature – a former colleague of one of the two managing partners in the USA was on the ground in Malaysia and available: he became the local partner in the firm. But the firm had now been eyeing expansion within the region, with three markets under particular consideration (Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand) and a further two (Vietnam and China) also seen as possible targets, though at a more peripheral level. The questions facing the decision makers were “was it time they expand beyond Malaysia?” and “if so, where?”

This case could be used effectively in undergraduate courses in international business. The key concepts on which the case focuses are the factors affecting market entry, particularly the choice of market and the assessment of potential attractiveness such markets offer.

This case was developed via primary data collected from personal (one to one) interview with the CEO and founder of Dialogue in the Dark Malaysia (Dialogue Malaysia), Stevens Chan. With Stevens’ contact, the authors also conducted personal interviews with Kaye Chan (co-founder and wife of Stevens Chan), Lynn Foo (project manager since inception until early 2022) and Dr Foo Yin Fah (academic researcher in social entrepreneurship and advisor for Dialogue Malaysia). Secondary data included reports on visually impaired context in Malaysia, Dialogue Malaysia’s annual reports and online articles. Prior to the primary data collection, the authors obtained ethics approval from the University Human Ethics Committee (Project ID: 35461).

This case narrative focuses on Stevens Chan, a blind social entrepreneur who champions the empowerment of the disabled and marginalised community. Through a social franchising model, Stevens founded Dialogue in the Dark Malaysia in 2012. As a social start-up, Stevens showcases the strengths of blind and visually impaired individuals through transformative experiential encounters and reimagining future possibilities. Although there are constant challenges in securing financial and human capital, Stevens never lacks psychological capital, characterised by hope, self-efficacy, optimism and resilience. His vision is to educate society on the power of empathy (and not sympathy) and to create a holistic experience of celebrating diversity and inclusion through an innovative discovery centre, where the elderly and the disabled community (including the deaf, mute and those with mobility issues) share their lives with the public through fun activities. However, the future of this social enterprise is uncertain, and this case invites participants to embark on this journey with Stevens to uncover future pathways for growth and social impact.

The case is tailored for higher level undergraduates and entry-level and mid-level managers of executive education programs.

The information used in the case study was obtained from secondary sources, such as internal documents, reports, news, and organization websites. Three of the four authors played a hands-on role in the case.

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the global challenge of hiring and retaining health-care workers. To address its own challenges, Mayo Clinic decided to fundamentally transform its 30-year-old tuition assistance program: from a model centered on the premise that tuition assistance was an employee benefit for professional development purposes, to one that was more driven to meet the business needs of the employer by preparing internal talent for important roles throughout the institution. Herein, this case study first describes how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted health-care organizations like Mayo Clinic. Next, this study provides details on the original employee tuition assistance program, and then, focuses on the reasons for its need to be changed. Afterward, this study introduces the new tuition assistance programs. Finally, this study follows with examples of how both Mayo Clinic and its employees navigated through initial challenges, such as resistance to change and lack of engagement. In sum, this case study provides critical insight into designing workforce education programs that provide professional development for meeting the workforce needs of the organization.

This case can be used as teaching material in relevant undergraduate- and MBA-level courses, such as human resource management, human resource development and compensation and benefits. This case allows students to critically analyze workforce education programs (e.g. tuition assistance programs) and to plan how to strategically align those with the workforce needs of the organization.

This case is based on primary and secondary data collection. ABCo’s Founder, Jocelyn Sheppard, sat down with the author for a 75-min recorded interview in July 2022, and she provided follow-up information via email. Interview data was supplemented with secondary data from publicly available sources to fill in portions on the founder, the company’s history and its location; and triangulate the collected interview data (Creswell and Poth, 2018). There are no conflicts of interest that the author needs to disclose related to the founder or company.

The case was piloted at one institution in the Fall 2022, Spring 2023 and Fall 2023 semesters, with 59 undergraduates in an in-person social entrepreneurship course and 165 undergraduates and 33 graduate students in an online asynchronous social entrepreneurship course. All students worked through the case in groups, and as a requirement of their corresponding assignment submission, they provided feedback that was de-identified. In total, 60 groups reported their feedback, which was considered during the subsequent drafts of the case and instructors’ manual IM.

According to the anonymized feedback, the protagonist, product line, desired social impact and experienced challenges of ABCo were all said to be interesting, approachable and relatable for students, and the case piqued the interest of students coming from different majors (e.g. business, environmental issues, human services and criminal justice). Students from rural areas, or those who have family in rural areas, felt the case was particularly interesting; a handful of the students in the asynchronous online class who were unfamiliar with such settings suggested providing students with some additional contextualization of rural environments, either through class discussion with other students who had experience in those environments or additional media or text-based supports. Further adjustments also included removing a reading and a corresponding question and revising elements within the Teaching Approaches section of the IM to support the additions they suggested within the feedback (i.e. spending time to define and walk through the provided model and highlight the differences of rural entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship in the rural as a class before engaging in the related write-ups for that question).

Jocelyn Sheppard, Founder of Appalachian Botanical Company (“ABCo”), had built her company not just on a vision of revitalizing reclaimed coal mine land through planting and producing products with lavender, but also to have a social impact on the rural town of Ashford and its greater region of Boone County in West Virginia, USA. While she understood that hiring workers in need of a second chance would present its challenges, she was shocked by the depth of social need her new employees presented, which contributed to many employees’ disruptive behaviors and turnover. To approach the problem at hand, Sheppard needed to reflect on the resources around her, namely, other entities and organizations who might be able to support her efforts to improve how ABCo delivers on its social mission and, thus, helps to improve the local community and its economy. The case draws upon literature and models within rural entrepreneurship and community development to have students advise Sheppard on what she should do next to improve the social outcomes for ABCo and its employees.

This case is geared for both upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses in entrepreneurship, including in social, environmental and rural entrepreneurship courses and course modules. The case introduces students to a social enterprise struggling to get its footing in a rural context. The case would be suitable for both introductory and advanced courses, especially when placemaking/place-based entrepreneurship or ecosystem building are discussed.

South Africa had formally introduced a policy of inflation targeting (IT) in February 2000. By December 2001, the governor of the South African Reserve Bank, after reading the latest statistics, was concerned with the disappointing economic data. Economic activity had slowed drastically, to the point that the country appeared to be heading for a recession. The gloomy statistics forced the governor to consider whether the country had pursued the right policy. Persistently high unemployment, one legacy of the apartheid era, meant that South Africa did not have the luxury of waiting for new policies to bear fruit. With the inflation forecast to exceed the mandated target, the governor would have to tighten monetary policy, which would further restrict investment. Was it is time for South Africa to change course?