Case studies

This case aims to assist students to learn about leadership theory and leadership effectiveness in terms of organizational change. It is best suited for undergraduate courses in leadership development, organizational behavior and specific teaching modules in Master in Business Administration courses.

Leadership and leadership effectiveness; organizational change.

This case is about a decade (2010–2020) of a transformation journey of the School of Business at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU). Dr Durnin has been the first female Dean of School of Business in Connecticut State Colleges and Universities (CSCU) who made this transformation possible and continuing on. With listening ears and a supportive heart, Dr Durnin first moved faculty and staff members out of a “sick” office building and then created a supportive and collaborative culture to build the consensus among faculty and staff members to change for good. It has been her personalized influence, charisma and extraordinary upward negotiation that lead the School to shape its collective effort toward a multi-year Association to Advance Collegiate School of Business accreditation process since 2014. When dealing the uncertainty caused by the 2020 global pandemic, her autonomy-supportive approach once again connected people meaningfully together to excel the challenges brought by COVID-19 pandemic.

This case provides an example of female leader in higher education to illustrate a successful transformational leadership (TFL) example in the USA, as well as its implications on gender issues and leadership effectiveness. Upon completing the analysis of this case, students should be able to: – understand the TFL concepts, theory and its behavioral implications on gender and leadership effectiveness; and – assess and evaluate effectiveness of TFL styles in organizations.

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.

CSS 6: Human resources.

Transformational leadership, Organizational change, Gender and leadership effectiveness

Case can be taught at the undergraduate or postgraduate level, including executive Master of Business Administration programs.

This case is intended for courses in strategic management, entrepreneurship and innovation at the undergraduate or postgraduate level.

The case is about challenges faced by Linda Portnoff, the Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Riteband, a Sweden-based fintech startup. In March 2020, Portnoff was conducting beta testing of Riteband’s app, which experts considered the world’s first stock exchange for music trading. After completing a PhD, Portnoff who was working as a Research Analyst, left her job to pursue entrepreneurship. Through Riteband, Portnoff helped to resolve pain points of artists who were forced to give the copyright of their music tracks or albums to distributors, in lieu of funds or promotional campaigns that distributors arranged for them. Portnoff invested in developing a patent-pending machine learning-based algorithm that based on several parameters could predict the likelihood of a music track or an album to become a success. Based on this prediction and royalty that artists were interested in sharing with fans, shares were issued to investors, who were also fans of the artists. As Portnoff identified an innovative business opportunity to trade music on a stock exchange based on Riteband’s machine learning algorithm, competition in Riteband’s strategic group was also becoming intense. Consequently, Portnoff was facing challenges of establishing competitive advantage of Riteband. Furthermore, as women in general faced challenges in raising funds for their startups, and even though Portnoff obtained some funding for Riteband, but overall, funding was a challenge for her as well. Moreover, as machine learning was a technical aspect for artists and potential investors, Portnoff also faced challenges to monetize on its machine learning algorithm.

By the end of the case study discussion, students should be able to: understand the principles of cross-industry innovation and explain the creation of new business opportunities based on cross-industry innovation; differentiate between direct and indirect competitors through strategic group analysis and further critically analyze the competitive advantage of business over other direct competitors; determine ways of reducing gender biases in venture capital funding; describe how machine learning works and further formulate ways to monetize a business through machine learning; and demonstrate the application of the value proposition canvas and business model canvas.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship; CSS 11: Strategy.

Applicable to both undergraduate and graduate courses in managing technology or sustainability.

Technology strategy.

Business Model evaluation.

Sustainable technologies.

In this case study, gas and electric utility holding company Southern Company has embarked on an ambitious experiment to learn more about energy usage at a household level, as well as community scale microgrids. Every minute, 62 homes in Reynolds Landing upload appliance and electrical outlet level data to Southern Company. How can Southern Company use this vast amount of data to promote energy efficiency? Are microgrids a key to creating a more sustainable and resilient energy future? At a higher level, how can microgrids impact or change traditional power generation business models like those used by Southern Company?

1. To explore why companies develop technologies that are counter to current business models.

2. To understand how new technology can lead to new business models for existing businesses.

3. To understand the drivers of company led R&D.

4. To discuss “technology push” applications. Where technology is developed and then a market or markets are sought.

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

Two parts here. The first is looking at sustainable energy solutions such as solar farms and micro-grids. The second is this case challenges students to ask how this research helps the 45% of consumers making less than $40,000/yr.

CSS 11: Strategy.

This case study is intended for an MBA level audience; however, it can be used for upper-level college students as well.

This case's main subject areas include the following: organizational strategy, NGO strategic management, strategy and management during pandemic and women entrepreneurs or women-led business.

This case is about the organizational strategy of the Veronica Robles Cultural Center, an NGO, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The central challenge of this case study is about decision-making for a sustainable future, given limited resources, and thus a great urgency to plan conservatively. The central protagonist of the case is Veronica Robles herself. Veronica is an entrepreneur in both her personal career as a performing and teaching artist as well as the founder and creator of many programs to help spread culture and unite communities, including the Veronica Robles Cultural Center.

Students will learn about entrepreneurial strategy, NGO creation and management, strategy to create social value and organizational management during time of pandemic or widespread crisis.

This case is focused on creating social value through the analysis of a woman-founded and managed NGO. While managing the NGO's strategy through the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, operations must proceed with the utmost level of sustainability. With a focus on the well-being of the community, Veronica Robles Cultural Center (VROCC) needs to find a way to remain relevant in the short term while building out a sustainable organizational structure to succeed in the long term.

CSS 11: Strategy

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

This case present the dilemma of an employee who, having been terminated in a manner he deems is unfair, has to decide whether to cash or return a $2,500 check wrongfully sent him by his former employer.

This case describes the creation and performance of the America's Cup team and the leadership of Dennis Conner.

Set in 1999, this case allows students to put themselves in the positions of both Airbus and Boeing as Boeing considered how to respond to Airbus's decision to announce its plans to proceed or not with the $10 billion development of the world's first commercial superjumbo jet, the Airbus A3XX. Boeing was considering a development effort to “stretch” its 747 jumbo jet into a larger superjumbo version, the 747-X. At the time, the two companies’ widely available 20-year forecasts for jumbo- and superjumbo-jet demand were particularly divergent. In light of this very public “agreement to disagree,” Boeing could pursue several alternatives, all of which were related to Airbus's decision about whether or not to develop the A3XX. This case presents an opportunity for students to make a real downstream decision. It was prepared as a final exam for an introductory decision analysis course involving subjective probability assessment, decision tree modeling, simulation, real options, and game theory. In the analysis of this case, a student is expected to utilize ideas from all five of these areas.

Madison Kryswada, director of alumni relationships at State University, assembled a 123-school data set to explore, in her words, “the drivers of alumni giving rate. ” The alumni giving rate contributed 5% to the increasingly important U.S. News & World Report rankings of U.S. colleges and universities. Wanting to understand the relationship between this variable and school characteristics, Kryswada gave her assistant a list of four well-formed questions to answer.

A product manager at Apple examines the past, present, and future of the PC industry in September 2011 in the wake of Steve Jobs's resignation and HP's announcement that it was exiting the PC industry in favor of enterprise software solutions and consulting. The protagonist thinks through current forces in the PC industry, including market share trends, mobile computing, ultrabooks, and cloud computing services—as well as the position of the Mac in Apple's product portfolio—and is faced with making a decision about the future of the Mac.

A regional director of a consulting firm must decide how to compete for a major consulting contract. Appshop can take a level payment contract, a lower level payment with a prospective bonus given high performance, or bid on an RFP where a significant reward is given contingent on the client's savings. The case can be used to introduce Monte Carlo simulation modeling and to build skills in structuring a decision tree in a spreadsheet. It affords an opportunity to simulate alternative risk profiles and to discuss their comparative advantages.