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This case study is most suitable for a target audience of graduate-level students in leadership and/or change management classes. It will help students to apply a change management model to an existing problem/change and analyze its applicability, recognize different leadership approaches in practice and assess their appropriateness in different contexts and present key findings and ideas in front of an audience.

This case study examines the leadership of Dr. Mahmoud Khattab, CEO of B.TECH, during the turbulent times of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. B.TECH was founded in 1997 as a subsidiary of the Egyptian home appliances manufacturer Olympic Electric, to enter the retail market. The morning after January 28, 2011, the “Friday of Rage,” Khattab found the company’s stores looted and seized, and the employees panicked. The company leader was pressured to decide the next steps quickly. Everything was condensed into a dilemma of whether to keep the stores open but potentially risk employee trust and safety as well as the company’s assets – or close them but lose revenue, the ability to pay workers and the company’s market leader position. Students should also identify and reflect on the elements of leadership that contributed to a business success in a turbulent political environment. This case study highlights critical leadership and management decisions during an unexpected crisis that threatened the company’s operations and diversification efforts. Khattab acted almost instinctively, using the interpersonal and creative skills he had acquired while running a family business in his native Egypt and while occupying various leadership roles.

This case study is particularly suitable for classes on change management and leadership for university students at the graduate level.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS11: Strategy.

The purpose of this paper is to present hands-on techniques that could help achieve higher forms of cognitive work of Bloom’s learning taxonomy and progress toward self-actualization, the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. These results can be achieved by the combination of Apaydin’s 3A approach and integrative learning.

The results of the exploratory study of student self-inquiry are analyzed using content analysis method.

The results indicate that students who underwent through metacognitive instruction exhibit higher cognitive skills than the control group. These skills were manifested in more detailed and extensive responses, more long-term orientation, and higher thrive toward self-development. The study also identified significant gender differences.

Only two raters reviewed the categories. Increasing the number of raters would potentially increase the reliability and validity of this study. The data were collected in one university in one country. Similar studies conducted in different settings could produce different results. Since the control group was self-selected, it might lead to a performance bias in this group.

This research has practical implications for improving self-awareness and metacognition of the students. The addition of an unexpected self-applied perspective and application of Problem Solving Algorithm (PSA) to themselves enables the students to see the value of otherwise abstract concepts presented in the textbooks and forgotten immediately after the semester is over.

The students can be socially more prepared to become self-aware professionals and thus improve their career options.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study in the educational research which investigates the impact of implementation of metacognitive instructional techniques on student self-awareness and performance, which has immediate practical implication for student learning and success.

The expected learning outcomes are to understand key frameworks and tools for global leaders through the application of widely used theoretical frameworks on a written business case, understand the role of the leader in a team, apply theories of change to situations to anticipate courses of events and evaluate and apply relevant theory to assess a leader’s character and personality.

Hassan Allam Holding (HAH) was a family-owned Egyptian engineering, construction and infrastructure company managed by co-Chief Executive Officers and brothers Amr and Hassan Allam. HAH experienced significant growth and success, but eventually, it reached a point where its family governance structure could no longer sustain further growth. Amr and Hassan realized this and started planning to transition toward a corporate governance structure. In 2016, they managed to get the International Finance Corporation on board as an equity partner, and this helped propel the governance transition, but they still needed to find a way to convince the family to step back. This case study can help students understand the issues that may occur during a change within an established organization of any size. The case study considers the implications the change may have on the leader, his personality and his character and how it shapes the leader in question as an outcome. This case study has been designed to be used in one or two sessions and can be offered in management or leadership courses at an undergraduate or graduate level.

This case study is intended for graduate and undergraduate students studying a leadership or management course. It can help students comprehend the challenges of a family-owned business and how change is associated with such businesses. The case also considers how leaders are shaped by effectively managing conflict. This case can be considered as Level 1 on a 1–3 scale, as the full description of the situation is given in the case and the task of the students is to analyze the leader and his decisions using various academic concepts and theories (Erskin et al., 2003).

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship

This case study covers different concepts related to leadership. It should help students analyze business situations from a leader’s perspective. By the end of this case study, students would be able to understand the role and the characteristics of leadership during a crisis using the 11 dimensions of character framework, map leadership personalities using the HEXACO model to understand the effectiveness of certain traits in crisis management and apply theories of change management using the Satir and Switch models, in addition to Kotter’s theory of change.

Elsewedy Electrometer Group (EMG) was owned and operated by Emad Zaki Elsewedy as the sole founder and chief executive officer (CEO). EMG was a leading company in the meters industry in Egypt. The time span of this case study covered the period from November 2011, when Elsewedy’s health was deteriorating, to his early retirement in September 2012, and his comeback, two years later, in September 2014. In November 2011, against the backdrop of Elsewedy’s deteriorating health and subsequent early retirement in September 2012, EMG faced several challenges in achieving its vision that hindered its business growth. These arose after Youssef Salah, the former export director of EMG, was appointed as the company CEO. In Elsewedy’s absence, EMG faced liquidity problems, as the banks demanded that it repay all its debts. At the same time, the business suffered severe losses owing to its inefficient operations. Elsewedy decided to return to EMG in September 2014 to find a solution and help the business recover to ensure its continuity and sustainability. After taking a holistic view of the crisis at hand, he was faced with a dilemma and several questions: Was the company leadership effective? Would a change in leadership be required? How could he lead effective change in light of the current crisis? How could he ensure that EMG did not end up in a similar predicament in the future? This case was designed to teach leadership in crisis and change management in the metering industry.

This case study is intended for graduate and undergraduate students studying a leadership or management course. It can help students comprehend the challenges that arise when a large business undergoes a management transition during a crisis. The case study also considers how leaders are shaped by crises. This case study can be considered as level 1 on a 1–3 scale, as the full description of the situation is given in the case study and the task of the students is to analyze the leader and his decisions using various academic concepts and theories (Erskin et al., 2003).

Teaching notes are available for educators only

CSS 7: Management science

The purpose of this paper is to identify cross-country differences in socio-economic sustainability, which are operationalized as relative efficiency of economic and social impacts of hyperconnectivity (usage intensity of information and communication technologies (ICT) devices). The authors have a particular interest in the emerging economies because they enjoy outstanding growth rates and prospects for market expansion, and have undertaken significant economic reforms and, thus, should be expected to lead other two groups in the efficiency of transforming hyperconnectivity into sustainable growth.

The authors use canonical correlation analysis (CCA) to confirm the existence of a strong and significant relationship between hyperconnectivity drivers and socio-economic outcomes on a country level. The authors test the difference in efficiency of transforming hyperconnectivity into socio-economic sustainability among three groups of countries: advanced, emerging and developing nations using data envelopment analysis (DEA).

The findings indicate that indeed emerging economies were the most effective ones to use infrastructure and digital content followed by developing and advanced countries, respectively. However, relatively better affordability of technologies in the emerging countries did not produce as much socio-economic impact as compared with developing nations. Favorable legislative conditions and high individual ICT usage in advanced economies did not contribute much to socio-economic sustainability either.

One of the limitations of this study stems from the classification of the countries. World Economy Forum and International Monetary Fund resources are utilized for the economy categories, but their basis for classification of counties is rather subjective. Lack of existing comparative efficiency studies on a country level prevents effective benchmarking of the results.

Since the key vehicles of transforming technology into socio-economic impact are organizations, they should design and implement an appropriate organizational architecture which would facilitate this transformation in the emerging markets more effectively.

In a climate of increasing public accountability, governments have been increasingly urged to introduce good administrative practices and performance standards to enable efficient utilization of their resources and enhance social implications within and across countries.

Although the impact of ICT on macro-economic development has been previously studied, the efficiency of this impact was not. Using CCA as a complementary tool for DEA approach in this study constitutes a methodological contribution to existing DEA research, mostly done in the area of operations management. Using DEA on a country level is a novel approach which contributes to the realm of application of this methodology.

The purpose of this paper is to explain the process by which El Sewedy Company in Egypt decided to expand internationally by examining several modes of entry and choosing the best choice to expand in Russia and Kazakhstan.

The authors did several market analyses for each company to discover the external and internal environments. In addition, they weighted the advantages and disadvantages of each mode of entry to decide on the best mode to enter Russia and Kazakhstan.

The results confirm that the expansion for El Sewedy is challenging whether in Russia or Kazakhstan. Currently, El Sewedy's strategy is to deal through distributors to minimize risk; these distributors are mostly working in Kazakhstan given their easy connections and access there. The best solution for El Sewedy to expand is to trade high voltage and medium voltage cables in Kazakhstan as well as the trade of high voltage cables in Russia. Whether it is trading, exporting or a joint venture, El Sewedy's intentions are clear in its willingness to access the Russian and Kazakhstani markets, due to their richness and most of all their location as a central trade area in the region.

The comparison between Russia and Kazakhstan may appear very similar since both countries share almost the same circumstances and environment. Therefore, some of the information may be repeated twice to analyze both countries.

The results of this case study ensure the importance of analyzing the different modes of entry and doing a cost‐benefit analysis before deciding on how to expand in foreign market. Since circumstances and environments vary between markets, it is crucial to know all the details of the country in order to succeed in expanding in this foreign market.

This study explains a common case that happens in Egypt and every country whenever a company decides to expand. Usually, a company prefers a certain mode of entry over the other, but what is necessary is to follow what El Sewedy did, which is to evaluate all alternatives equally then decide on the best choice.

This paper aims to deconstruct the economic position of Turkey in comparison to its immediate neighbors, Central and South‐Eastern Europe (CSEE), and the Middle East, with a specific emphasis on Japanese Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).

Several determinants of FDI intensity identified in the extant research are used to conduct this comparative analysis. The data is based on the foreign subsidiaries of Japanese firms.

The results confirm the ambiguous position of Turkey. It enjoys a high Gross Domestic Product growth despite a relatively low openness to trade. From cultural and political risk perspectives it is closer to the Middle East than to CSEE. In spite of its location advantages, the institutional environment continues to be an impediment, preventing Turkey from realizing its full investment potential. Thus, Japanese investors choose to invest in CSEE economies, which are slightly closer culturally to Japan, and significantly less risky.

The descriptive nature of this study is due to a limited sample size. The comparison of a country with two regions might be too simplistic. Focus on Japanese FDI limits generalizability.

The results of this analysis confirm the importance of continuous market liberalization and political stabilization measures for attracting FDI. Government policies in the region should not only attempt to remedy local deficiencies but strive to create a comprehensive institutional framework.

This study contributes to the emerging market research in the region with paucity of data. Although comparisons among various European regions are common, such tri‐lateral analyses are rare.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess the benefits and drawbacks of the case method, one of the participative learning techniques, and its appropriateness for the Turkish cultural context. It offers an executable strategy for promoting this method in Turkey. Design/methodology/approach – The paper provides an analysis of a wide range of articles on organizational and classroom learning, strategic leadership, and Turkish cultural, educational, and institutional contexts. This is complemented by information from semi‐structured interviews with Canadian case method experts and Turkish educators and educational leaders. Findings – The Turkish cultural context provides more favorable conditions for implementation of the case method than that of the Western countries where it originates. For instance, Turkey has one of the highest scores of in‐group collectivism. However, a lack of focused leadership and appropriate motivation prevented the pioneers of the method from overcoming the inertia of the incumbent institutional structures. Research limitations/implications – Only one participative technique in one country is explored in this paper. Further studies may usefully extend this approach to other countries in the region with similar cultures. Practical implications – Recognizing the favorable cultural conditions for the case method, leaders of business education in Turkey can adopt this technique as an explicit strategy. Strategic alliances with expert case‐teaching schools will confer competitive advantage both to Turkish institutions and to their students. Originality/value – This paper focuses on implementation issues of an effective teaching tool within one country, thus making its analysis and recommendations both specific and executable. Although examples of case method research abound, this contextual anchoring is rare.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the transformation experience of contemporary Turkey, and to provide an introduction to the special issue and a review of the papers in the JMD special issue.

The paper portrays changes in Turkish business and management practices in recent years.

The paper argues that given the dynamic nature of Turkish economy, change is not an option but a required path for transformation and survival. Turbulence and anxieties, sometimes inevitably, distract or at best re‐orient the speed of change and transition.

The paper stimulates further work by management scholars to develop new perspectives and research agenda that will advance knowledge of the business and management practices in emerging countries.

This paper aims to provide an overview of the Organization Learning and Learning Organization concepts obtaining the perspectives of Professor Mary M. Crossan and presents an evolution of her immense contribution to the field over the past two decades.

A conversation with thought-leader, Professor Mary M. Crossan.

How different “character configurations” and “processes” enhance organization learning across levels in the organization.

The discussion with Professor Mary M. Crossan reveals her take on the evolution of the organizational learning framework and the significant role of the “Leader’s Character” in shaping organizational learning. Exploring this evolution provides the context and impetus to researchers and practice leaders to verify.