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This paper uses financial report information to analyze the accounting results of the COVID-19 vaccine development for Johnson & Johnson (J&J). This paper also uses stock price information to analyze the market reactions to the COVID-19 vaccine development and the state of clinical trials for J&J.

This instructional case investigates the interaction between J&J and the COVID-19 vaccine. This paper uses information from financial reports to analyze the accounting results of the COVID-19 vaccine development for J&J. This paper also uses stock price information to analyze the market’s reactions to the COVID-19 vaccine development and the state of clinical trials for J&J.

This case has been used in both undergraduate and graduate levels to highlight the application of accounting theories to practice and improve the understanding of financial statements, especially when Covid-19 has affected the global economy. Under this new context, students could explore new ideas from accounting aspect.

The case aims to investigate the interaction between J&J as a pharmaceutical company and COVID-19. It provides a context in which to discuss the consequences of COVID-19 vaccines from several financial perspectives, such as stock prices, accounting policies, earnings and cash flows:

LO1: Understand the responses of stakeholders to J&J’s COVID-19 vaccines.

LO2: Understand the accounting policies that J&J and its competitors follow regarding COVID-19 vaccines related to revenues, R&D expenditures and government funds.

LO3: Apply Ball and Brown’s theory to the impact of COVID-19 vaccine development on earnings quality of J&J and its competitors.

LO4: Assess the importance of COVID-19 vaccines in management decision-making through dividend policy and management compensation structure.

Upon completion, successful students will be able to examine the importance of digitalisation as a competitive tool in business management; use a suitable theory to justify the need for an organisation to engage in e-commerce; develop suitable strategies/solutions to challenges faced by a business organisation in the world of digitalisation of business; explain the way data analytics and digitalisation can affect business strategies and marketing functions; and identify and explain various considerations in the internationalisation of business.

MR.D.I.Y. “The Malaysian Sweetheart” is a case about a home improvement company that has transformed itself from a regular hardware shop into a favourite home improvement retailer in Malaysia. The case looked at the influence of e-commerce and digital transformation marks a rethinking of how an organisation uses technology, people and processes in pursuit of new business models and new revenue streams, driven by changes in customer expectations around products and services. Such transformation has indeed created opportunities and challenges for business organisation throughout the globe in their pursuit of staying competitive for MR.D.I.Y. even though they are considered the largest home improvement retailer in Malaysia. The case also introduces the students to the Uses and Gratification Theory that underpins the e-commerce business model. The management of the company is concerned about its future given the rising competition and gloomy economic conditions.

The target group for this case is undergraduate students. Specifically, it is suitable for those in the field of Entrepreneurship taking e-commerce/small business management/entrepreneurship courses. The main purpose of this case study is to assist students in critically examining how a small business evolved from a tiny neighbourhood shop to become a household name at the national level and eventually emerged as the largest home improvement company locally and abroad. Specifically, the case can be applied to topics like Retailing in Electronic Commerce, Innovative EC Systems, Social Commerce and Launching an Online Business, which all are related to the courses on E-Commerce, and this case is also suitable to any other contemporary business management module. Additionally, educators can use this teaching case as a tool in an executive programme for senior, middle and lower managers to shape their thoughts and attitudes toward managing a contemporary retailing business. With this case, it is hoped that students would be able to understand and decide wisely if they encounter similar circumstances in the future.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

Nina, a 30-year old Asian Indian female, joined Morris University in the fall 2006 semester after completing her doctorate. She was an instructor and course designer at this historical black institution in a rural town in the southern part of the US. Ninety percent of the students and staff of Morris University (MU) were African-American. MU was committed to the objective of educating African-American youth and the concept of “students first” was one of its core institutional values. Nina's experience teaching an organizational learning course was very unpleasant. Her student evaluations were poor with harsh comments about her and the course. Nina was asked by the department head to prepare a teaching improvement plan for herself.

The main data used to develop this case were remote, synchronous interviews with the three characters in the case. The authors conducted two interviews with the main character in the case, Geoff Brown, specifically: (1) an initial 30 min interview to determine the fit and focus of the case and to help create the interview protocol for the full case interview (this initial interview was conducted on March 12, 2024); and (2) an hour-long interview to ask targeted questions to fully develop the case narrative (this interview was conducted on March 28, 2024). Geoff Brown was also involved in reviewing drafts of the case, approving the final version of the case and reviewing the assignment questions in this instructors’ manual (IM).

This case focuses on Geoff Brown, Executive Director at Alberta Chicken Producers (ACP), which is a not-for-profit organization in Alberta, Canada, that is responsible for representing 250 regulated chicken producers. Brown is grappling with what to do with the remote/hybrid work policy at ACP. Part of the impetus for reconsidering this policy was the comments from ACP’s long-tenured Office Manager and Executive Assistant, who had been asking Brown to bring this policy forward to a staff meeting for discussion throughout the past year. Brown now feels ready to move these discussions forward but is unsure of how to proceed and what the best practices would be to ensure that the policy in place for remote work is beneficial for work engagement, individual and organizational work performance, work–life balance, employee relationships and fairness perceptions.

The target audience for this case is undergraduate and graduate students taking a course in the disciplines of human resources management or organizational behavior. This case will be especially relevant for a human resources management course when studying the topics of employee benefits (e.g. work–life balance), health and safety (e.g. stress) and work design (e.g. telecommuting), and this case will be especially relevant for an organizational behavior course when studying the topics of motivation (e.g. fairness), communication, organizational culture and decision-making.

The technical reports released by the National Transportation Safety Board, along with secondary data in the form of available public data, such as news reports, interviews and memos, were used to round out the synopsis of the case study.

This case explores the events that led up to the crash of United Airlines Flight 717 (for anonymity), in Sioux City, Iowa, on July 19, 1989, and the subsequent investigation. The case uses secondary sources to highlight the positive team interactions between the pilots that led to the crash landing not being as catastrophic as it might have been with 185 survivors in an extreme crisis scenario. The teaching note focuses on the importance of cognitive bias, psychological safety and teamwork in a crisis situation, and practical recommendations for managers at all levels.

Organizational Behavior at the undergraduate and graduate level. Leadership and Change at the graduate and graduate level.

Pebble Technology Corporation (Pebble) was an early entrant into the smartwatch industry. Pebble’s Founder, Eric Migicovsky, began thinking about creating a smartwatch in 2008 while still an undergraduate engineering student. After selling about 1,500 prototype watches, he was accepted into Silicon Valley’s prestigious Y Combinator business start-up program. Finding it difficult to attract investors, Migicovsky launched a crowdfunding campaign that raised a record-breaking $10.27m on Kickstarter. The case concludes shortly after Apple’s unveiling of its soon-to-be-released Apple Watch. The case provides an opportunity to evaluate Pebble’s various strategic options at the time of Apple’s announcement.

The authors observed over 30 h of video and audio recordings of speeches, interviews and other events involving Pebble’s founder, other Pebble executives, investors and competitors. These recordings are all publicly available. Whenever possible, the authors also reviewed the Twitter feeds, Facebook sites and personal websites of Pebble’s top executives over time. Similarly, the authors followed Pebble’s official website, corporate blog and Kickstarter campaign websites. The authors also drew from numerous media reports. Due to the public nature of the data, no company release is provided nor has any information been disguised in any way.

The case is designed for both undergraduate and graduate students for courses in strategic management.

The case is based on data collected from in-depth interviews, and from company, third-party and regulatory–agency documents. In addition to prior conversations over several years between the company founders and the lead case writer, there were several rounds of interviews in 2023 with the surviving founder and in-depth interviews with eight of the company’s key managers. Company documents reviewed included bylaws, organization charts, profit and loss statements and staffing statistics, all from founding to sale. Also reviewed were documents and evaluations of company operations and performance produced by the merger & acquisition firm that handled the company’s eventual sale. The company owner insisted on complete disguise of the company and all its members and prohibited disclosure of detailed proprietary financial data.

At the strategic level, this case is about how the unique, complex and changing healthcare environment created opportunities and threats to which a women-owned and run start-up company, Aloe Health (AH), had to respond to become and remain successful. At the personal level, the case illustrates what it takes for an entrepreneur and leader having clinical but no real business acumen to start, expand and turn around a company and ultimately position it for a successful acquisition, continually learning and adapting along the way.

The case describes how two women who were friends for many years started up a home healthcare company later in their lives and grew it into the largest women-owned business of its kind in the USA. Based in the Southwest USA, an area with many factors conducive to success, they navigated the many complexities of US Medicare regulations to create a fully-integrated home healthcare company providing unskilled personal care, medically skilled homecare and end-of-life hospice services to thousands of clients. The case provides background on the founders and the home healthcare industry context, and details the steps taken to start up and build the company into a fairly successful enterprise; one of the largest of its kind in the region. The (A) case ends with one of the founders facing a crisis brought on by the death of her co-founder and the revelation of some significant organization dysfunctions, leaving her unable to profitably exit the company and unsure of whether she would be able to turn things around. The students are tasked with making recommendations for what she should do next.

The (B) case brings events up to fall 2023, describing the steps the surviving founder took to transform her leadership style and the company’s systems and culture, and to navigate the due diligence process associated with preparing for an (ultimately very successful) acquisition. It also shares the owner’s “lessons learned,” and briefly notes the current state of the acquired company and the many AH employees that it continues to employ.

The case provides ample information for students to appreciate the company’s strategy and the challenges of operating in the highly regulated health care industry. However, it is probably even better suited to illustrating the “soft” issues of new-venture management, such as the tendencies of founders to overload themselves by micro-managing their growing venture and not adapting to expansion, and for those with clinical backgrounds to focus on caring for patients and employees while overlooking business essentials and organization systems. It also illustrates how business partnerships among strong-willed individuals can produce dynamics in the founding team similar to a “marriage,” with affection and complementary talents, yet also tensions. It further illustrates the process of a successful turnaround strategy, and the “due-diligence” challenges of preparing for an acquisition.

This case has a range of course applications at multiple education levels. Although it is probably best suited for graduate and executive-level programs, it can also be selectively used in undergraduate classes, particularly if populated by upperclassman. It is ideally suited to courses on entrepreneurship and on healthcare management. For an entrepreneurship course, it could be positioned mid-way through the semester, after covering topics relating to the entrepreneurial mindset, founding teams and business models. It can be used to get the class focusing on competitive issues and the challenges of starting up a company in a highly regulated environment, on entrepreneurial founding-team characteristics and management tendencies (e.g. micro-management control tendencies), on transition issues from start up to growth stages and on exit strategies.

We believe this case is also well suited as a teaching exercise for students pursuing healthcare management studies in baccalaureate and graduate programs (MBA, MHA, MHS) in which instructors wish to broaden student exposure to a real-world scenario that focuses on entrepreneurial behavior in a healthcare setting (a topic of increasing interest to healthcare practitioners and managers given the current trend toward provider formation and ownership of health facilities). Here, the case may be used to focus on the complexities of the healthcare industry, the key differences between various healthcare service business models and on the challenges that technically (clinically) trained professionals often face when trying to manage a healthcare business. Ideal placement of the case would be in a capstone course, after students have been introduced to their functional coursework in topics such as introduction to management, organizational behavior and leadership, financial management and strategic thinking. The case also challenges students to apply knowledge obtained in specialized coursework in healthcare systems and policy, industry regulation, as well as healthcare reimbursement methods.

The case also may be used in organization behavior courses to focus on team, cultural and leadership issues and in strategic management courses to focus on strategy implementation. In addition, there are enough family business themes in the case (even though Aloe is not actually a family business) to use it in a course on managing family businesses.

The teaching case study is based on a (real-life) complex organizational and strategic context, and several bodies of literature may be used to interpret, analyze, explore and discuss alternative solutions. Among several relevant theoretical basis are (educational) leadership, strategy, institutional change, organization, practice orientation of education and organizational learning. The Instructors’ Manual gives suggestions as to how the case may be used in teaching and gives references to relevant literature.

The teaching case study is based on participatory action research. The narrative of the case is based on empirical observations in form of a research diary recording events, dialogues and discussion with colleagues and organizational leaders during a five-year period. The case study is based on real proceedings. But, the narrative is generic, and names are anonymized, and organizational contexts and events are disguised. Any similarities to real institutions are coincidental.

The case tells the story of Birk Grimson (PhD), a professional who returns to academia after many years of business practice in the private sector. He is struck by how different the work ambience is in academia and how bureaucracy and a rigid organizational structure seem to quell innovation, resulting in resistance to systematic learning, organizational development and strategic change.

The teaching case study is appropriate for business, organizational or administrative students at master’s, PhD level or executive education. For students with other disciplinary educational backgrounds (such as engineering, education or health care), some basic knowledge of organization and management or alternatively relevant experience is recommended.

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

Management scholars and researchers have long been concerned about the impact and relevance of their work. Here we chronicle the teaching, research, management, and personal leadership development lessons that have arisen from a collaborative, decade-long relationship between three management faculty members and the senior management team of a major Norwegian-based global shipping and logistics company. This relationship grew from the creation of a teaching case in 1997 to many years of productive and meaningful work together, including the development and delivery of the all-conference Plenary Session at the 2006 Eastern Academy of Management Meeting, held concurrently with the annual CASE Association Conference. At the 2006 Plenary Session, each of the authors expressed powerful personal and professional development through their collaboration over the years, which is summarized in this article. Reflections, lessons and future research directions are provided.

The primary learning objectives/outcome of case discussion is to apply design thinking principles to design innovative and socially responsible strategies that promote financial sustainability for organizations serving unique societal needs. The secondary learning objectives/outcome of case discussion is to gain a deeper appreciation for the potential social impact of their innovative ideas and understand the complexities and ethical considerations in social entrepreneurship, especially when working with individuals with special needs.

The case study describes the challenge facing Anil Kumar Kundra, the founder and trustee of Autism Ashram and Autism Guardian Village in Hyderabad and Gujarat, an organization that provides shelter and care for individuals with autism and residential facilities for their parents. Autistic individuals often lack social skills and may face challenges in reading, writing and communicating. In addition, they may experience behavioral issues, making it difficult for them to obtain employment or run their own ventures, resulting in a lifetime financial dependency on their guardians. In August 2023, Kundra, in pursuit of sustainability, aims to empower autistic individuals in the ashram to attain financial independence. He envisions Autism Ashrama as a self-sustaining entity, no longer dependent on contributions from parents. The dilemma facing Kundra is the need to identify innovative ideas that will enable these autistic individuals to contribute to revenue generation. The challenges faced by autistic individuals in their day-to-day lives make Kundra’s decision-making complex. While he acknowledges the challenge, he firmly believes that a handful of transformative ideas can bring about a revolutionary shift in the ecosystem for autistic individuals, rendering this business model truly sustainable. The case study invites students to help Kundra identify innovative ideas using design idea techniques, such as the Stanford d.school model.

This take-home assignment is suitable for both undergraduate and postgraduate students and is designed to explore the integration of sustainable business practices and design thinking in a real-world context.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 7: Management science.