Search results

This case on “Corporate governance: a farce at Volkswagen (VW)” is set in September of 2015. The precipitating events, which started with the Emissions scandal and tampering of the technology, unfold a history of threatening organizational culture, deliberate cheating, and failure of good governance. The case presents that though the outgoing CEO took the responsibility for the event but said that he was shocked by the event and stunned that the misconduct of such a scale could occur in the VW Group. Given the roles and responsibilities of board of management and the supervisory board, how could the scandal of such magnitude go unnoticed? Were robust corporate governance practices being not followed at VW?

The case is based on the material available in the public domain, records, press reports, published books, interviews published by key board members of Volkswagen and the company website.

This case can be used for undergraduate senior classes or graduate and executive education level courses in corporate governance and ethical practices. This case will sync best with the topics around Board Composition and size, Board Independence, fiduciary duties of supervisory board, board duality and leadership and its impact on organizational culture.

This paper aims to sensitize learners to some of the ethical and public relation issues involved in decision-making with specific reference to the educational field.

This case brings out a dilemma faced by the school management of Vidyalaya School, Karnataka, India in responding to a notice issued by the State Government to pay a huge compensation and to re-absorb a teacher who was rendered physically challenged owing to an accident within the school premises. The case is set in the milieu of a self-financed, private education industry during the period 2013-2018. This is a case in “Strategy formulation” and “Ethical dilemma” involved in the field of education in India. A teacher was permanently injured and confined to a wheelchair in an attempt to rescue a child attempting to jump off the school building and end her life for having obtained low marks in a test paper. While the school management was initially sympathetic and paid her medical bills and full salary purely on humanitarian grounds, they discontinued this support-line after about two years. The teacher filed a complaint with the Disability Commission, a grievance redressal body of the Government of Karnataka, India. She demanded re-absorption into the job, payment of salary arrears and reimbursement of all the subsequent medical bills incurred abroad totaling Rs 15.5 million, which is unaffordable for a school of that size. The management is faced with a situation where they cannot accept such a huge financial liability as well as accept a wheelchair-bound teacher who would not be able to discharge her duties. The school was briefed by legal experts that there exists no law that specifies either compensation or re-absorption into the job in a situation like this. At the same time, to fight the case purely on legal grounds and deny her a decent livelihood would impact the image of the school as being inhuman to a lady who had actually tried to help the school in the name of humanity. The management is caught in a dilemma on the course of action they must take – to fight the case legally or to accept the demand on humanitarian grounds.

This paper is suitable for Undergraduate or Graduate students of 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 11: Strategy

Human Resource Management & Social Entrepreneurship.

The target audiences for the case study are undergraduate and postgraduate (e.g. BSc, MSc as well as MBA) students and also management trainees and executives who are interested in understanding the social capital enhancing practices, policies and strategies adopted by the world’s largest commercial employer to ensure complete satisfaction and contentment of 1.7 million employees and their family. Even senior management teams could be targeted in executive education programs, as this case discusses time tested practices, policies and strategies which have been sparsely discussed so far and hence can be expected to provide insights to senior corporate managers. The case also demonstrates the application of different frameworks on social capital and corporate social responsibility which can be used by the participants in their firms to assess the social capital.

Indian Railways (IR) remains the world’s largest commercial employer, with approximately 1.7 million employees, which conveys the huge magnitude of social capital inventory accrued. This social capital, especially people side of IR, played a very crucial role in running the organization successfully for more than a century. As an organization, IR has guaranteed heavy importance for its employees while making decisions on strategic level. But recently, IR was moving towards automation and was cutting on cost incurred for its employees. IR was already exhibiting decreasing trend in the number of employees employed in the organization. These initiatives were resisted by IR employees due to fear of job losses and insecurity. In 2013, Chief Personnel Officer’s (CPO) of different zones have to rethink about their HR practices to assure confidence for employees on the security of their jobs and sustain the social capital accrued by IR over years. The objective of this case study is to describe the social capital accrued by IR over the years by offering livelihoods for nearly 1.7 million families across the country. Teaching note applies the frameworks on social capital in literature in the context of IR. Teaching note also discusses how CPOs of IR can pursue the change initiatives among the employees without affecting the social capital accrued so far.

Case study’s primary objective is to apply frameworks available in literature on social capital and corporate social responsibility to understand the social capital accrued by IR over decades. The case study attempts to answer the following assignment questions which forms the learning objectives of this case study: How do the existing frameworks on social capital measurement explain the social capital accrued by IR over decades? How can a firm assess its accrued social capital? How can one demonstrate the same using the case of IR? How can IR pursue change initiatives when it comes to its employees without affecting the social capital accrued over time?

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:10 Public sector management.

The subject area is corporate social responsibility (CSR).

The study is applicable to undergraduate- and graduate-level courses on CSR.

The case discusses the issue of integrating CSR in TPDDL’s (TPDDL – Tata Power Delhi Distribution Limited) business model. TPDDL was formed as the result of a joint venture between Delhi Vidyut Board and Tata Power. At the time of the joint venture, a large number of users of electricity in Jhuggi-Jhopdi (JJ) clusters were not paying for electricity usage. A huge number of residents were not even in the system where they could be billed. The ones who were in the system had strong political banking as they were huge vote banks and hence would not pay. Only 40 per cent of electricity that was going to JJ cluster was billed due to this TPDDL was incurring huge commercial losses. As residents had very low income, TPDDL decided to invest in CSR activities to train the residents so that they could secure a job and pay the bills as well. Mr Praveer Sinha, MD and chief executive officer (CEO), urged his team to bring 100 per cent JJ clusters under the billing net without any coercive measures. TPDDL adopted parent company Tata’s CSR code and came up with innovative ways of engaging with these communities.

The outcomes are: strategic CSR initiatives for business excellence; incorporating CSR in existing business Model 3; role of stakeholders in CSR implementation; and benefits accruing from CSR activities.

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.

This case extends existing social enterprise theory about how an organization balances its mixed goals: financial, social and conservation. Both growing demand and management transition bought about the challenging issue of sustainability.

The authors have applied the case for undergraduate and postgraduate programs.

The central protagonist is Mr Samson, a local authority who has to make a decision on whether he should approve or reject the budget with aims to take over the Surabaya Zoo. This is about debate whether conservation social-enterprise should involve human intervention or follow the natural path.

This case introduces some concepts and implementations about social enterprise and public policy. For the undergraduate program, the case is designed to introduce the concept of social enterprise and public policy. For the postgraduate program, the students are encouraged to enhance their analysis through conducting feasibility studies including financial sustainability and ethical analysis.

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

Aster Retail (AR) is the retail pharmacy division of the Aster Dr Moopen's Healthcare (ADMH) Group. The group delivers healthcare services across the Middle East, India and the Far East, with a portfolio of hospitals, clinics, diagnostic centres and retail pharmacies. AR, under the leadership of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jobilal Vavachan, is well known for its people-centric approach, unique culture and innovative human resource (HR) practices. AR has won multiple awards for HR practices, service quality and business performance. In a recent corporate restructuring (2018), “Aster Primary Care” was carved out by combining the group's Clinics and Retail businesses. This case discusses the evolution of AR's HR journey and the challenges associated with integrating culturally diverse businesses without compromising the values of ADMH and its promise, “We'll Treat You Well.”

The learning outcomes are as follows: to analyze the driving forces that lead non-government organizations (NGOs) to develop need-based programs; to evaluate the strategy adopted by NGOs in attaining the organization’s mission and creating a social impact, corporate social responsibility, inclusion, labor market, social enterprise, strategy and vocational learning; to apply social business canvas for analyzing the business model deployed by NGOs to develop market linkages; to analyze the challenges in setting and scaling NGO programs and strategies designed to address the same; and to enable students to brainstorm in creating future growth options for scaling up and replicating NGO programs.

The case describes the journey of Salaam Bombay Foundation (SBF), a national-level NGO registered in 2002 in Mumbai, India. In March 2020, SBF had an annual budget of INR 13.98 crores (US$1.84m). It addresses the challenging environments children from economically constrained families face by engaging them in continuing school education and providing vocational training. Since its inception, SBF has launched and executed many in-school and after-school programs. To successfully transit skilled adolescents and teenagers into the labor market and help them make informed career decisions, SBF launched “DreamLab,” a stipend-based “internship” model, in August 2018. Gaurav Arora, Vice President SBF, was assigned the responsibility to scale up skills@school and DreamLab internship programs. With disruptions caused by the pandemic in March 2020, Arora struggled to operationalize DreamLab as initially planned. The case is at a crucial decision point where clouds of uncertainty have made Arora and his team anxious about their future course of action.

The case is intended for students of undergraduate and graduate programs in Business Management, Social Entrepreneurship and Social Work programs. Executives of management development programs can also use the case to analyze the effectiveness and management of the skill development program.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

The case study aims to investigate human resource management issues of national importance, and specific recruitment issues important to the company.

Students studying, e.g. Human Resource Management/Developing Human Resources as courses within an undergraduate business degree program. The audience is also targeted through courses that include the study of cross cultural management/diversity.

An industrial organization in the United Arab Emirates has a multinational workforce, where many employees are recruited from overseas. The recruitment process necessitates liaison with recruitment agencies at a distance, and locally with the government labor office.

Students will be able to:

• analyze that companies exist in an external environment that impacts on their internal policies;

• describe the importance of quality assurance to the HR function in an organization; and

• explain how the HR department works closely with all departments in an organization.

analyze that companies exist in an external environment that impacts on their internal policies;

describe the importance of quality assurance to the HR function in an organization; and

explain how the HR department works closely with all departments in an organization.

Teaching notes.

To understand the challenges of building a successful business in an emerging market like Yola, Nigeria. To understand the role of micro-finance banks in doing business in Yola, Nigeria. To comprehend strategies adopted in market segmentation and sales of products or services to the customer. To apprehend strategies adopted to sustain and compete in Nigeria – both rural and urban.

Standard Microfinance Bank Limited (SMFB) was a private micro-finance bank situated at Yola, Adamawa State of Nigeria. It initially started as a community bank in 1992 to provide loans to individuals and small business owners in Adamawa. It started with the services of payment service and savings account with a limited lending capacity. It had become a full-fledged retail bank and was grown to 13 branches across Nigeria. It planned for expansion such as market development, product development and diversification by the year 2020. It had a customer base of 60,000 till the end of December 2018. Vazheparambil Mani Francis was the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the SMFB. The SMFB faced challenges such as operating the remote villages, lack of financial literacy among people, recovery of the loan amount, submission of false credentials and change of customer identity after loan by their customer. It was not going to be an easy task for him to operate the business of SMFB in Nigeria. However, in December 2018, Francis was facing a dilemma about the future success of SMFB business in Nigeria by looking into the challenges and complexities of business. Francis was determined to figure out the appropriate growth strategy for managing the challenges.

Undergraduate and graduate early-stage program.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.