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Data for the case came from public sources, including legal proceedings, court filings and Securities and Exchange Commission filings. The authors perused hundreds of court documents and identified 28 that were most relevant to this case. The authors also used press interviews with the women highlighted in the case. The authors have no relationship with the company and no one from the company has reviewed the information presented in this case. As the case is drawn from sworn legal testimonies, interviews and related documents in the public domain, the authors did not have to seek approval for publication.

Pinterest touted itself as “the nicest place on the Internet.” It had an almost 80% female user base and purported to have an inclusive culture that embraced diversity. However, in June 2020, in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests, two former female employees of color violated their non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) to publicly accuse Pinterest of racial and gender discrimination. In August 2020, Pinterest’s former Chief Operating Officer, Francoise Brougher, filed a lawsuit charging the company with gender discrimination, retaliation and wrongful termination, and authored a public blog post titled, The Pinterest Paradox: Cupcakes and Toxicity, detailing her own experience with the company’s discriminatory culture. Three days later 236 of Pinterest’s 2,545 employees staged a virtual walkout and 445 employees signed a petition in an attempt to change Pinterest’s policies and culture. The case provides a brief overview of Pinterest, including its mission, values and organizational culture, and details several incidents and complaints by female and minority employees. The case questions whether employee complaints are a relatively narrow issue involving disgruntled former employees who did not fit at the organization or a much broader issue involving discrimination and managerial neglect in creating and maintaining a nondiscriminatory, inclusive culture. Students are encouraged to evaluate the situation in which Co-Founder, Board Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Ben Silbermann finds himself, evaluate the actions taken and decide if Silbermann should take any additional actions to address the discrimination claims and ensure a positive culture for all employees.

This case is appropriate for graduate and advanced undergraduate level courses in organizational behavior, human resource management and business law or any course where discrimination and workplace culture are discussed.

Strategic Marketing, Marketing Management, Services Marketing.

MBA and Executive MBA.

The case talks about the inception and growth of OYO Rooms, a company that originally started as ORAVEL Stays Ltd. in 2012, as a platform for booking budget and premium accommodations, but graduated to become OYO Rooms, an online aggregator of hotels, with a unique business model of “managing the partial inventory of rooms” in hotels and offering a proposition of affordable, consistent, quality experience to business, leisure and pilgrim travellers. The company received rounds of funding from Greenoaks Capital, Lightspeed Ventures, Sequoia Capital and DSG Consumer Partners. Moreover, unlike its competitors, OYO adapted itself to the fast-changing consumer preference and grew at an enviable pace and by 2016, was present across 190 cities through a network of 6,500 hotels. However, OYO Rooms had to face a multitude of challenges both from the consumer and hotel owners’ ends, primarily service quality concerns from the customers and majorly concerns out of payment irregularities or non-abidance to written contracts from the hoteliers’ end. The dissatisfaction levels increased to an extent that experts started raising questions on the viability of the business. OYO was growing at an aggressive rate but breakeven point was yet to be achieved. Moreover, growing dissatisfaction and switching amongst its customers as well as hoteliers threatened the very existence of the model. The case allows the students to critically analyse the strategies of OYO for deliberation on whether the business model was sustainable in the long run. It also encourages the students to deliberate on the possible growth strategies for OYO as also on the service recovery strategies for OYO.

The case has been positioned around the following modules: industry analysis; value of a two-sided business model to both parties; sustainability of a unique business model, against the challenges that it faces; applying the VRIO framework (resource-based view); complaint handling and service recovery strategies; applying the Ansoff’s grid for possible growth options.

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.

The learning objectives are intended to stimulate the students’ comprehension of the various challenges faced by Indian startups in the digital ecosystem. With the changing working dynamics in organizations around the globe, managers are expected to explore unconventional business models to facilitate operational growth. The case study is a valuable resource for graduate students to enhance and evolve their critical thinking and solution-oriented skills as forthcoming managers of digital businesses. Students should be able to analyze the case, respond to the questions and evaluate the consequences of workplace flexibility, moonlighting and its applicability in an organizational context. With the Indian Government introducing schemes such as the Digital India initiative and Startup India, it is predicted that numerous startups will opt for digital business standards and a remote work approach. The case bridges classroom theories and a real-life digital company to help students connect with emerging market scenarios.

During the digital era, India witnessed a shift in companies’ work culture, which amplified when COVID-19 hit the country. Organizations started to work remotely and experienced the numerous benefits it brought. The comfort of working from home was greater for digital businesses whose significant operations could be performed online. However, is it really that productive for digital companies to telecommute? The case illustrates how a digital company, Career Pandit, formed in 2018, unfurls and expands its business and further highlights the challenges the pandemic raised concerning people management. In addition to the discussion, the purpose of the case is to determine the implication of workplace flexibility and moonlighting and how Indian startups cope with the uncertain future challenges it brings.

Under graduate and postgraduate students.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human Resource Management.

Judy was a high-performing professional manager who was with her company for 15 years and was a manager for six. She was a confident, positive, and happy person but recently lost her confidence in herself and her abilities. She dreaded going to work because she never knew what she would face from her boss, Dennis. Dennis was a brilliant man who was recently promoted to Senior V.P. He was condescending, and he humiliated people in public. Complaints to the CEO and a harassment claim produced no results. Dennis did the CEO's dirty work and served a role needed in a fast-paced and profit-driven corporate culture. Judy enrolled in an MBA program to build her resume and her self-confidence. She faced a critical juncture in her career. Should she quit, transfer, complain to HR, or confront Dennis?

Through this case, the students will be able: to study how developments in the external environment impact businesses, in general, and banking sector, in particular, banks/banking, environmental management, financing/borrowing, government, political business risk and politics; to identify the politico-legal constituents of the external environment which significantly influence businesses; and to analyse the pros and cons of loan-waivers as a policy decision on various stakeholders including banks, borrowers, governments as well as the larger society.

The case is symptomatic of the dilemmas faced by the Indian bank employees, in charge of loan-disbursals, torn between seemingly contradictory demands from their top management and the governments.

The case is meant to be used in the course on “Business Environment” both at the UG and PG levels. It can be used along with the module on “External Environment and its Constituents” to augment students’ understanding of the “Impact of Political Environment on Business.” The case can also enrich the class discussion on the PEST (politico-legal/economic/socio-cultural/technological) framework for analysing the forces in the external environment acting upon a business.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 4: Environmental Management.

The primary teaching objective is to discuss the capital raising efforts of a firm under financial distress. It also provides supporting data to calculate cost of capital, DuPont/modified DuPont values and Altman’s Z-Score that can appropriately be incorporated into the discussion. Case-B provides information and data of the company’s recent performance and to changes in bankruptcy law in India. Overall, this case study provides ample scope to discuss, understand and provide the solution to the following key corporate finance themes as follows: 1. Analyzing accounting statements and examine potential earnings quality issue. 2. Predicting default and bankruptcy using qualitative analysis, financial ratios, traditional and modified DuPont models and Altman’s Z score model. 3. Examining the capital raising efforts of a distressed firm, which has already defaulted on borrowings. 4. To explore the impact of changes in regulation on the turnaround efforts of the firm as well as on the promoters of the firm.

Since 2005, Amtek Auto moved at a breathtaking speed with the goal of reaching $10bn in sales, from the current level of about $1.2bn. The group had acquired more than a dozen companies spending about Rs.5,000cr. ($850m) during this period primarily through borrowed funds. However, the market and business expansion was not happening as expected. The company’s capacity utilization was just about 40% (approx.) during much of this period. The mounting fixed costs of operation and debt servicing grew to the level of unsustainability, led the firm to default on its borrowing. Now the company had to quickly recapitalize itself to run its operations and retain the premier position in auto component industry. The company and its promoters were considering various methods of debt restructuring, asset sale and further equity infusion.

Introductory and elective level corporate finance.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 1: Accounting and Finance.

This case study is built from secondary data such as news articles, regulations and videos. Several drafts of the case study with a teaching note were tested in the classroom setting and shared in a case writing conference. The case was revised based on feedback from students and roundtable discussions from the conference.

Mrs Hsu, the Deputy Director of the National Taxation Bureau’s Nantou County Branch in Taiwan, faced a dilemma in June 2021. One of her employees, Mrs Chiang, had requested to return to work after taking several years of parental leave since August 2017. This long absence had put a strain on colleagues, who either had to cover for her or work with temporary replacements. While Mrs Chiang’s actions were legal and protected by her government employee role, her decision to take another leave immediately after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine raised eyebrows. Her peers accused her of using her frontline worker status to gain early vaccine access and other work benefits. Mrs Hsu, upon reviewing Mrs Chiang’s employment history, pondered her next steps concerning Mrs Chiang’s new leave request.

This case would be appropriate for a course in Human Resource Management, Organizational Behavior or Gender, Family and Work, especially with the topic of Employment Rights/Legal Protections (in HR), and/or Justice and Ethics (in OB).