Case studies

The subject area is international business and strategy. The case allows scope for the following areas: internationalisation, market strategy, emerging market multinational companies, and doing business in Africa.

The primary target audience for this teaching case is postgraduate business students such as Master of Business Administration (MBA), or postgraduate management programmes. The case is primarily designed for use in courses that cover strategy or international business.

This case centres on the international growth strategy of FMBcapital Holdings Group (FMB), the Malawian commercial banking firm. The case finds the founder and current group chairman, Hitesh Anadkat, in 2016, as he and the FMB board are about to decide on the next move in their Southern African strategy. Since opening the first FMB branch in Malawi and becoming the country's first commercial banker in 1995, Anadkat and his team have ridden a wave of financial deregulation across the region to successfully expand into neighbouring Botswana, Zambia, and Mozambique. Now, an opportunity to gain a foothold in Zimbabwe means the leaders must decide (1) whether they want to continue to grow the FMB footprint across the region, or focus on their integration and expansion efforts within existing markets; and (2) how they will realise this strategy.

International expansion – identifying the need to expand into new markets; identifying the combination of internal strengths and external conditions that make international expansion viable; and identifying and analysing each possible new market(s) and the decision-making process involved.

Political, social and economic factors in Africa – understanding how these external institutional factors present constraints, risks and opportunities for internationalisation and hence shape strategy; understanding that these factors may vary significantly across countries on the continent (in spite of their geographic proximity) and in some cases, within a single country; and understanding that by selecting markets with extreme socially and politically volatile contexts, the risk of a worst-case scenario transpiring (in which institutional forces trump business strategy) is appreciable.

Combination of resource- and institutional-based approaches – recognising that successful internationalisation requires capitalising upon both internal resources and institutional mastery.

Choosing expansion strategies – assessing the type of new market entry (e.g. greenfield or acquisition of existing operations) and its adequacy for penetrating a new market.

Using networks and local partners – to substitute and enhance the benefits that originally flow from a small (and sometime family-established) business, with an emphasis on acquisition of skills and networks in foreign countries.

Regional integration – optimising business operations through a sharing or pooling of resources and improved capital flow between subsidiaries, in some instances by taking advantage of economies of scale (this extends to enhancing the reputation and awareness of a brand across a wider region).

Family businesses – identifying the value that can be gained through establishing a family business with the support of many “close” stakeholders while also noting the limitation that exist as expansion and growth is required.

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.

Describes the career transfer and development system at UPS, showing incentives and policies that move managers across countries and functions, and how this movement develops high quality general managers.

To demonstrate the way in which a cross-functional, cross-cultural career transfer program can break down silo and national barriers and achieve cost effective integration.

When a consultant recommends an overhaul of the HR compensation practices that the family business is known for and prizes, what should be the next steps?

Evaluating business advice when it is contrary to one's strengths, values, and beliefs.

Prudential Equity Group had downgraded Danaher to underweight status, citing concerns over its inadequate organic growth. By March 2009, its CEO wondered how to keep growing a company that faced changing worldwide economic circumstances, pressure from low-cost competitors, new competitors, flat or declining demand for company products, price increases for certain raw materials, and criticism from market analysts.

The owner/editor of the small Davis Press encounters a dilemma when she is given the opportunity to publish a novel set in the Islamic holy city of Mecca. Given the events of the last 16 years—the angry fallout after Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses, the continuing Iraq War, and the recent controversy of Koran desecration at the U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay—publishing the novel presents a host of various ethical dilemmas, including whether she should put her staff at risk. This case discusses the ethics of a free press and challenges the profit motive in the face of jeopardizing political and religious world affairs.

This case can be used in management of international business courses to illustrate the analysis of market attractiveness, the importance of fit between firm capabilities and market requirements, and the effects of multimarket competition. It describes the international expansion challenges facing EAC Nutrition, the infant formula division of a Danish conglomerate, in early 2002. Growth in EAC's core markets of Thailand and Malaysia has stagnated and EAC is contemplating three expansion options: entry into India, geographic expansion within China, and product line expansion in existing markets.

Richard Alpert, senior partner at Evergreen Investments, must decide which of his two best employees to promote to the position of managing VP. He had initially preferred Charlie Pace over Daniel Faraday, but that decision had become less clear-cut when Alpert inadvertently overheard an office conversation and learned that Pace was taking Adderall, a stimulant primarily prescribed for people suffering from attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Pace did not have ADHD and apparently obtained the medication by deceiving a physician. Alpert is faced with a number of questions, including whether it was fair to Faraday—or any other high-performing employee—to be passed over for promotion in favor of someone who illicitly boosted his performance with a substance he did not medically need.

Gender in the workplace. Is it still an issue? While it is increasingly easier in the early 21st century for women to work, manage, and take positions of high responsibility in American business, some issues and difficulties still remain. This series of vignettes touches on some difficult situations—for both women and men—involving sexual and romantic relationships in the workplace, decisions on whether to start a family, dress codes, family obligations, and sexual harassment.

Based on the negotiation between Google and the Chinese government to allow access by Chinese citizens to a high-speed Chinese version of the Google search engine. In order to reach agreement with the Chinese government, Google had to agree to allow the government to censor access to some sites turned up by Google's search engine. In agreeing, Google compromised its open-access policy. There were inquiries into the agreement by the U.S. Congress and some outcry from U.S. citizens.

To learn how to analyze a negotiation from the perspective of each party when one is a government and the other a private-sector organization; a subpoint here is the difference between short-term and longer-term interests. To address the difficulties of balancing business ethics and financial objectives; an important point here is to address what it means to be ethical in a for-profit business environment. To understand the long-term effects of short-term actions.