Case studies

The learning outcomes of this case will help the participants to assess values, motivations and interpersonal relations that exist and evolve in a family firm; analyze individual-level strategies in absence of business growth strategy and succession plan; expose trade-offs associated with natural inheritance or merit-based succession; reveal alternate strategies of coping with conflicts in multi-generation multi-family firms.

This case focuses on leadership, succession and conflicts at Dalal Group, a 50 years old textile yarn trading family-run business. The trading business has 10 members across three generations working in it. The business is making profits but the growth of the business is not synchronous to the number of family members working in it. As revenues are stable and buyers’ network is not growing, an internal tussle has begun among the members to preserve business resources available to them. The founder, who is also the Managing Director of the Group, is about to retire in a couple of years but there is no clear successor to his position. In the absence of a business growth plan and uncertainty about the next leader, members are clueless about their own future and that is affecting their interpersonal relations at work. This has triggered the need for decision and action by the founder, failing which the business might disintegrate. The case author has used personal interview methods and secondary sources like annual reports and manuals of the company to collect data and information.

Senior Undergraduates, MBA (Entrepreneurship and Family Business), MBA.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human resource management.

Abelha et al. (2018). “Transformational Leadership and Job Satisfaction: Assessing the influence of Organizational Contextual factors and Individual Characteristics” Review of Business Management, Volume 20 No 4, pp. 516–532. Avolio, B. J., Zhu, W., Koh, W. and Bhatia, P. (2004). Transformational leadership and organizational commitment: Mediating role of psychological empowerment and moderating role of structural distance. Journal of Organizational Behavior: The International Journal of Industrial, Occupational and Organizational Psychology and Behavior, 25(8), pp. 951–968. John M Alexander and Jane Buckingham, “Common good leadership in Business Management: an ethical model from Indian tradition”, Blackwell Publishing, 2011, UK and USA. Angus Corbett (2016). A systems approach to regulatory excellence (pp. 255–270), Achieving Regulatory Excellence, Brookings Institution Press, retrieved from http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/PBRLit/Corbett.pdf. Cary Coglianese (2015), Listening, Learning, Leading- a framework for regulatory excellence, Penn Program on Regulation, sourced from https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Listening-Learning-Leading_Coglianese-1.pdf

First, skills: to help students to apply their knowledge in transformational leadership; to help students to apply their understanding of impact of transformational leadership on organizational excellence in not-for-profit organizations. Second, knowledge enhancement: to understand the various components of transformational leadership; to enable the students to understand the different components of organizational excellence with a special focus on not-for-profit organizations and government regulators; to enable the students to understand the process of impact of transformational leadership on organizational excellence and its relevance in emerging markets context. Third, attitude development: students should understand the importance of leadership and its impact in emerging markets.

The case elucidates the transformational leadership style of AICTE Chairman and his key attributes of humility, high ethical standards, openness to ideas and suggestions and problem-solving attitude. The case also highlights how the transformational leadership style of AICTE Chairman heralded the journey of Organizational Excellence of AICTE – an Indian Technical Education regulator. The case maps the change of AICTE from an inward-looking, controlling, opaque organization to a forward-looking, enabling, transparent organization.

This case can be used in leadership classes for Management in Business Administration (MBA) students and participants in executive development programs. The case focuses on transformational leadership and its impact on organizational excellence in context of emerging markets The case also outlines the various components of organizational excellence in not-for-profit organizations and government regulators and hence provides a fresh perspective for measuring organizational excellence.

CSS: 10: Public Sector Management.

The case study helps students to understand how public-private partnership (PPP) airports runs their business, how regulatory policies impact their business. The case also explains why the Cochin International Airport business model is so unique compared to any airport in India.

In 2016, Airport Economic Regulatory Authority released a new tariff regime for Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL).CIAL has undergone challenges because of the tariff changes (changes every five years), which were implemented in 2017. This has impacted their business model. The CFO of CIAL was under pressure to share the impacts with the shareholders and to provide a way forward for the business. Cochin International was known to be one of the cheapest aeronautical tariff charging airports. The case discusses the issues of a public utility when it is under a regulatory price regime. The case explains different regulatory mechanisms (single till: the whole commercial revenue is cross-subsidized). The case discusses issues regarding Cochin International Airport, which is a public utility under PPP mode. Since 2016, regulator has changed the price regulatory regime from light touch (no price regulation only monitoring) to hybrid till regulation (a percentage of commercial revenue is cross-subsidized). The case explains what made Cochin International Airport so unique. It explores the challenges because of the regulatory regime, how it affects Cochin airport’s strategy for business. How should the management of CIAL to act on the above issue? What will be the impact? Will they need to change their business models?

The case is basically focused on MBA level students who are in their final year. There are various MBA courses in which this can be taught, which can be infrastructure management, infrastructure regulation, domain courses such as airport management. The student should have basic knowledge of economics, public utility and business strategy. The case helps them understand the impact of regulation, the role of the regulator and its impact on business strategy.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS: 10 Public Sector Management.

After attempting the case, users are able to: analyse issues and problems faced by a call centre in Malaysia. Determine the root causes of the problems faced by call centre employees and generate alternative solutions to solve the problems faced by the company and to ensure the sustainability of the business.

This case was about the challenges faced by Daniel, the General Manager of an integrated security protection system company, Secure First (SF). Despite investing in the latest security technologies, conducting a major overhaul of the procedures, introducing an enhanced digital system at the call centre and providing training to the call agents, it was on the verge of losing its important long-term client due to its substandard performance. The client experienced major losses due to break-ins. After a thorough investigation, the problem surfaced in their call centre. Most of the staff were not familiar with the newly adopted system. The circumstances worsened when many of the call centre’s senior employees were tendering their resignations. The case discusses the aspect of employee satisfaction, staff performance that led to the turnover issue amongst employees in a call centre. The case explores what short-term and long-term strategies could Daniel suggest to change the call centre’s course to retain SF’s key account in times of desperation.

This case has a moderate level of difficulty and may be used in undergraduate students.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human resource management.

The teaching objectives of the case study will enable the students as follows: to recognise the challenges of information technology (IT) implementation in the health-care sector associated with employee resistance, to apply the technology acceptance model for analysing the degree of employee resistance, to relate the utilisation of Kotter’s 8-step change management approach in successful IT implementation in the health-care sector and maintenance of employee productivity and to classify the leadership traits reflected by the leaders in training the 600 diverse employee population of Al-Ain hospital.

The case highlighted the predicament the government-owned Al-Ain City Hospital, United Arab Emirates, faced following the surge in the incidences of COVID-19 in the country in March 2020. The hospital management decided to initiate the work-from-home arrangement as a non-pharmaceutical intervention of handling the spread of the disease amongst its employees. Fatima Almur, the Information Technology Director in Al-Ain Hospital, asked the Application Support Manager, Aysha Shahwan, to deploy some IT tools significant for remote support to patient care within two weeks. Shahwan faced significant challenges in deploying the IT tools in two weeks given the diverse workforce, with the majority of them having limited knowledge in operating the tools, and hence, their apprehension in the usefulness of the tools. Besides, Shahwan had to deploy some advanced tools for easy and secured access to the electronic health record, telemedicine and telecommuting using mobile phones, tablets or PCs. The deployment of these advanced tools would be jeopardised by employee acceptance and consequent dwindling productivity. Considering the issue of employee acceptance of the change and their limited knowledge, Shahwan had, therefore, to develop training frameworks to boost the former’s perceived usefulness and ease-of-use of the IT tools. Will Shahwan successfully deploy the advanced IT tools to enable the hospital staff, including medical staff and departments, to ensure efficient patient care from a remote location? Will she be able to train the 600 employees across genders, ages and knowledge, use the IT tools and safeguard them from common software threats like email phishing and ransomware? Will the hospital be able to sustain its vision of quality patient care using advanced technologies through this new arrangement of remote support amidst the pandemic when patients are more?

Undergraduate business management.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 10: Public sector management.

The learning outcomes of this paper are as follows: to understand the characteristics of a natural monopoly such as telecommunications sector and impact of “network externality”; to understand the role of a regulator in maintaining a balance between competition and consolidation of telecom sector; to understand the importance of first-mover advantage in telecom sector and coping mechanism of late entrants; to understand different pricing mechanisms of “natural monopolies” that can be adopted to remain profitable; to understand social cost of price floor in telecommunications sector.

Indian telecom sector is going through a downturn where most of the private sector telecom service providers have reported huge losses, failed to pay adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues and reported decline in average revenue per user over a period of 3–4 years. Fierce competition in the sector leads to rock bottom calling and data charges. Bharti Airtel benefitted for being the first mover in terms of market share but with entry of JIO in 2016, the service providers have entered a price war. As a result, service providers have requested Mr. R.S. Sharma, Chairman of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to come up with a floor on calling charges and requested the government for a bailout package. Currently, Mr. R.S. Sharma, Chairman TRAI is facing a dilemma whether to regulate and come up with a floor on calling and data charges or leave the sector for market correction. Mr. Sharma can also recommend to amend the definition of AGR. Telecommunications sector exhibit the characteristics of a natural monopoly where there is a need of a regulator to introduce “competition for the sector” and “competition in the sector.” In India, TRAI is the regulatory body responsible for introducing “competition for the sector” by auction and “competition in the sector” by deregulating calling and data charges, maintaining at least three private and one public service provider, decreasing “switching cost” of the customers, etc. The case deals with the issues of why there is a need of a regulator in natural monopolies, how different chairmen of TRAI have successfully introduced competition “for” and “in” the sector, and how Indian telecom sector went through a downturn? What should TRAI do to maintain competition in the sector?

The case deals with the issue of managing telecommunications sector (a natural monopoly) by a regulator in the context of India. The regulator had successfully introduced “competition in the sector” and “competition for the sector.” This led to sharp increase in subscriber base and decrease in calling and data charges. Presently, fierce competition in the sector has left the service providers cash crunched. The case deals with the dilemma faced by the chairman of the regulatory body in India on whether the regulator should come up with a price floor or market correction. Study level: MBA, Executive MBA.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 10: Public sector management.

The learning outcomes are as follows. First, female managers can face gender inequity in different forms, such as the glass ceiling and glass cliff, while they run for leadership positions, especially in male-dominated business contexts. Second, managers can show high performance and be effective leaders as long as they are aware of that all managers are evaluated according to a wide variety of criteria, and play many different managerial roles, such as interpersonal, informational and decisional roles. Finally, managers should pay attention to all stakeholders’ demands in decision-making process for sustainability and performing better in the long run.

Since football began gaining popularity in Turkey at the dawn of the 20th century, the sport remains the most popular national sport today. However, recently, a new name has shaken the world of Turkish football: Berna Gozbasi, the first female football manager in Turkish history. In the middle of 2019–2020 football season, Gozbasi became the first female club president after she assumed leadership of Kayserispor. Kayserispor was officially founded as a Turkish professional football club in 1966, and, as its name suggests, was based in Kayseri, a sizeable industrialised city located in Central Anatolia. The team competes in the “Turkish Super League”, Turkey’s top football competition. In this case, to discuss gender inequity, leadership, and management in the sport context, the authors explained the dilemma Gozbasi faced while she decided whether or not to accept this challenging role. Then, the authors examined the experiences she gained as a leader and the dilemma she faced to diminish the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the organisation she led.

Undergraduate and MBA students.

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CSS 6: Human Resource Management.

This case is to familiarise students with the peculiarities of managing people by focussing on human capital development (HCD). Through the case, students are exposed to the critical recruitment and retention issues faced by METAL STAR Limited Company (METAL STAR), which have a detrimental impact on their business operations. Through the novel use of the transformer-transactor-performer (TTP) profiling tool, students are able to recognise the importance of matching the right candidate to the right job as a solution for recruitment and retention issues. At the end of the case analysis and discussion, students would have a clear idea of the TTP Profiling tool and how to identify core elements needed for an effective and holistic recruitment-retention-separation strategy for a company. The knowledge gained is most valuable for the students as it can be applied to other companies having similar HCD issues.

Carina Yew is the General Manager of METAL STAR, a sheet metal fabrication company in Penang, Malaysia. After more than 28 years of operations, METAL STAR has been adopting the same human resources (HR) processes and has failed to keep up with the current HR trends. Yew has to decide the best way to lead her company in transforming the HCD strategy to enable smooth and profitable business growth.

The case is relevant for undergraduate, postgraduate or even executive students taking courses pertaining to HCD or human resource management.

CSS 6: Human resource management.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

After a thorough analysis of the case, students will be able to do the following: understand the building blocks of incentive structure in an organizational setting. Review the existing incentive structure at WINFORT. Develop effective incentive approaches to motivate employees at workplace. Illustrate the importance of performance management review to motivate employees.

The case explores the motivational state of a talent acquisition executive or talent scout working for a staffing firm, WINFORT Services in New Delhi, India. The two main characters in the cast are Helena Stacy, the Lead Talent Scout at WINFORT and Sofia Williams, the Talent scout. There was a meeting conducted between Helena and Sofia regarding the latter’s performance review held annually. However, to Sofia’s surprise, she could to get any salary hike this time as she failed to achieve her given targets. This led to a serious altercation between the two and resulted in Sofia started thinking of looking for alternate job opportunities.

The case is suitable for any postgraduate course, in particular MBA or MBA executive development program on human resource management, talent management, compensation and benefits, and as a module on motivation in organizational behavior.

CSS 6: Human Resource Management.

In addition, there are more resources available to augment the understanding of the business operations of staffing firms in India. Interested instructors and students are advised to go through these resources to better understand the routine operations of a staffing organization. https://talentcorner.in/how-recruitment-industry-generates-wealth/ https://wowidea.in/how-recruitment-agencies-in-india-works/ https://www.michaelpage.be/about-us/our-recruitment-process?fbclid=iwar0ftzztbzm5afvdwv_oyvp1f1p8zgpuflrbt8z6yg9zakm5c0kaoaom6ha

The expected learning outcomes are: to clarify the meaning of resilience and its attributes. To explore the influence of the leader on the development of organizational resilience. To identify critical decisions for the recovery of a business after an external event such as the earthquake that took place on September 19th in Mexico City. To point out the stages for the development of organizational resilience, in the short, and long term: anticipation, coping and adaptation. To clarify the actions that could be taken to prepare an organization for an extreme event or respond to a large-scale crisis.

The case is framed within the context of the September 19, 2017 earthquake in Mexico City. ProActive Strategies’ offices collapsed, causing some people to lose their lives and others to be injured. The protagonist needed to decide if the organization could survive and recover or needed to be closed after the earthquake. After ProActive Strategies survived and recovered, it was possible to identify the main stages to develop organizational resilience in this organization: anticipation, coping and adaptation. Also, the paper provides empirical evidence about how organizational resilience is anchored in the attributes at individual and community levels that include human, economic, social and political capitals, enhanced by technological capital. Furthermore, the enablers of resilience add external entities and the ecosystem at a macro-level, considering political, social and economic aspects of the context.

The study level and expertise required to address this case is medium. The richness of the discussion from the perspective of the students is related to the possibility to empathize with the protagonist and the different actors involved and to build on previous experience with crisis management to observe the potential risks and courses of action. Moreover, the professor also requires taking a neutral position to balance the requirements from a humanitarian perspective, with the business needs.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human resource management.