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Recent failures such as the subprime mortgage crisis or the BP oil rig disaster are the result of failed corporate cultures, yet “corporate culture” is one of the most misunderstood terms in the business lexicon. After outlining common misconceptions about corporate culture, this article defines it as the collective belief systems that employees in an organization have about their ability to compete in the marketplace ethically, and how they act on those beliefs to bring value-added products and services to the customer in return for financial and business success. Far from being unimportant as it is often treated in the business world, corporate culture has a direct link to a company’s bottom line. Underperforming corporate cultures are categorized in the article as predatory, frozen, chaotic, political, or bureaucratic, while high-performing corporate cultures are categorized as service or new era. <br><br>A blueprint for building a strong corporate culture is proposed, which includes setting goals, prioritizing ethical conduct, creating a change-ready culture, incorporating flexibility, encouraging appropriate risk taking and innovation, identifying alternative critical success factors for managers, retaining innovative people and their ideas, identifying new qualities to be embedded in the culture, creating a democratic environment, and keeping the ultimate focus on the customer. Unfortunately, the change process is often blocked by bankruptcy, the exclusion of people from the change process, incremental responses to change, and poor attitudes. In the age of radical change, firms must develop a systematic change plan, identify change leaders, build a broad consensus for change, eliminate bias from the process, individualize change strategies, and go beyond the fads and “magic bullets.”

Based on the automobile sale model in the mainland of China, this business case describes Xiamen Honda 4S Shop’s current sales situation, marketing strategy and management. It emphasizes the dilemma faced by the company CEO — whether or not he will implement the plan proposed by the sales department to offer lifetime car care for customers who bought car insurance from the company. Deeper marketing management problems are also raised, such as how to distribute marketing resources, how to evaluate the marketing plan and its performance and how to raise company value when it supplies better value to the customers. This case can be used in marketing management for MBA students and senior undergraduates. It provides an opportunity to discuss the subjects of customer lifetime value and marketing budget management.

This case concerns the branding and marketing of a comic book series that started in the 1960s as an educational tool to make Indian children aware of Indian mythology, history and culture. By 2010, Amar Chitra Katha had around 500 titles covering a vast range of topics, but it was facing competition not only from international and indigenous comic book companies but from electronic media such as children’s games and shows on cable TV and the Internet. In November 2007, all the Amar Chitra Katha titles and Tinkle magazine were bought by Mumbai-based entrepreneur Samir Patil, who created ACK Media as an umbrella brand. The company tried to reach its audience through the launch of an online portal, the creation of DVDs/VCDs, sponsoring movies based on Amar Chitra Katha and placing comics on mobile phone platforms, etc. However, such actions were shifting the focus of the brand from books to electronic media. The shift was inevitable to maintain a stable position in the marketplace and to achieve growth, but the management wondered how it could and whether it should maintain its print presence in the marketplace.

Bio-Vert is a leading Canadian brand of eco-cleaning products manufactured by Quebec-based Savons Prolav. Run by a brother and sister team, Savons Prolav bases its products on their vision, which includes eco-friendliness, affordability and effectiveness. Demand for Bio-Vert’s phosphate-free detergents has increased dramatically since the 2007 blue-green algae bloom outbreaks in Quebec’s waterways and subsequent legislation restricting phosphate use in cleaning products. However, now that “green” cleaning products have become more mainstream, Savons Prolav faces the issue of how to adapt and grow in an increasingly crowded marketplace. This discussion considers how Savons Prolav can remain competitive in this difficult industry segment while maintaining its environmental focus.<br><br><br><br>This case highlights the pressures that an SME with strong environmental values faces in a competitive market. It includes a portrait of the cleaning products industry, consumer patterns with regards to eco-friendly products, and a background of the provincial socio-environmental event that triggered increased demand for green cleaning products in Quebec. Savons Prolav’s history, business model and core values are discussed along with potential growth options. Details on related industry, societal and marketing perspectives are provided to guide the reader through the advantages and disadvantages inherent to each opportunity.

The director of the Infection Prevention and Control Unit at the University Health Network (UHN), in Toronto, Canada, is working to reduce healthcare acquired infections (HAIs) by using a different way to communicate with hospital staff. Through positive deviance (PD), participants are gaining new perspectives to help identify the changes that are needed to reduce HAIs. The initiative has been successful at UHN. Now the director needs to figure out how to spread the success of positive deviance to more health care regions and facilities in Canada and the United States to improve patient lives and the quality of health care.

PowerPoint presentation for product 8B12A035.

Excel spreadsheet for students.

Partners in Nunavut Iron Ore Acquisition Inc. (Nunavut), an entity that had been set up to bid for control of Baffinland Iron Mines Corporation (Baffinland), are forced to respond to a rival bid. Baffinland owned the Mary River project, one of the most significant iron ore reserves in Canada, and had been trying to develop the project since 2004, but the number of prospective mining and financing partners declined following the onset of the global financial crisis in 2007. Baffinland’s share price tumbled as a result of its inability to move the project forward, falling from over $4.68 in October 2007 to $0.17 cents in 2008. In September 2010, sensing an opportunity to pick up an asset at a distressed price, Nunavut, backed by a private equity firm in the United States, had sparked a bidding war for Baffinland against ArcelorMittal, a Belgium-based steel company.

The Roaring Dragon Hotel (RDH), a Chinese state-owned enterprise (SOE), was under pressure to become a profit generating 5-star hotel due to the continued development of the Chinese market economy. As for many SOEs, the RDH was overstaffed, filled with archaic work practices, internal cliques, unsystematic production systems and a dysfunctional motivation system unrelated to performance. During modernization, a number of human resource management problems became increasingly evident; solving these problems had become a priority. In 2000, the RDH’s provincial government and stakeholders made their first attempt at modernizing the hotel by hiring a globally renowned company to undertake the upgrade. The disastrous outcome caused the provincial government and stakeholders to lose heart, momentum and motivation until six years later. A new joint venture owner and the RDH board recovered enough confidence to attempt modernization for a second time. They contracted Premium Hotel Services (PHS) to undertake the second attempt at improving operations. The PHS found the quality of older employees, increasing turnover of new staff and policies emerging from the continuing evolution of the Chinese economy were now presenting problems never confronted before at the RDH. How could the stakeholders solve these problems and have the RDH emerge as an internationally recognized five star, commercially viable hotel?

The case presents the sequence of events that occurred when a global leader in automated information management technology had to compete fiercely to retain one of its key customers. It presents the environment for B2B sales and the challenges facing the company in a fiercely competitive scenario. The case describes in detail the politics and personalities involved and the importance of relationships and optimism in making sales. It is intended to stimulate readers to explore situation restoration strategies for an existing technology provider that faces the emergence of a capable competitor. Discussion of such strategies involves ethical considerations and highlights the thin divide between ethics and diplomacy in selling efforts.

This case describes in rich detail the change challenge the director of pharmacy services at London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) faces in September 2011. She is responsible for implementing project HUGO, an acronym for Health Care UnderGoing Optimization. HUGO is a computerized system that requires a switch from paper and pencil to fully electronic patient records. This project is the most complex and comprehensive one that London area hospitals have ever undergone: the project includes a total of 11 healthcare organizations in London and surrounding region, with expected project costs in excess of $25 million. Implementing HUGO has the potential to save lives in the hospital, where critical errors are often linked to manual processes that involve multiple steps and people. Despite the strong reasons for implementing this project, the director expects significant resistance from nurses, doctors and staff who are used to their way of operating. It is clear that this change challenge involves not just the adoption of new technology but a significant cultural change.

The Himalaya Drug Company is interested in obtaining insights into how the lifestyle of consumers is associated with the use of face washes, especially of its own brand. As the population of India, which is primarily under the age of 35, becomes more affluent and self-conscious, personal grooming has become more important. Several brands have positioned themselves in the market according to various attributes and benefits. Himalaya wants to understand the impact of values and lifestyles both on the category of face washes and on the brands in this category. The case makes use of a consumer survey conducted in December 2011 that investigated the lifestyle of consumers and connected it to various face wash brands through the concept of laddering. Were the attributes and benefits of the brands associated with the lifestyles of the consumers? How were values associated with brand association? Himalaya hopes to obtain insights through these questions to discover how it can effectively compete with its competitors through branding association.

This case considers the hedonic goals that motivate consumers to make choices among various options that offer them unique experiences. As a birthday gift to his girlfriend Danielle, Jack presented two game-day options to watch the Denver Broncos. Option 1 offered seats with excellent views close to the action while Option 2 offered a more diverse experience including tailgating, souvenirs and concessions, but with seats more removed from the action. As a passionate Broncos fan, Danielle struggled to choose an option that would maximize her “Broncos experience.” Through class discussion from the point of view of both consumers and management, students will be encouraged to think more about what hedonic elements are important when making buying choices.

In April 2011, Sony’s PlayStation and Qriocity services were attacked by an illegal and unauthorized intrusion into the company network, compromising user account information. For five days, the corporation turned off both its PlayStation Network and Qriocity services while it conducted a full and complete investigation with the help of an external security firm. Although brief statements about the issue were posted on the PlayStation blog site, Sony did not publicly disclose the full extent of the security breach or the expected date when network services might return to normal, leaving many people speculating if personal or financial information had been illegally obtained. The timing was complicated by the imminent announcement of the launch of Sony’s first tablet computer. With its public statement, Sony intended to communicate key points of information about, explanations of and solutions to the network interruption. With over 70 million PlayStation Network and Qriocity service user accounts worldwide, customers, industry analysts, investors, consumer protection groups and government officials were all waiting for answers.

Damien Duff was worried. When he graduated from business school five years ago, Damien had had a plan — a good one. The problem, of course, was that plans rarely unfold as expected. Damien and his wife, Katrina, were now expecting their first child. As Damien wrestled with the reality of this news, he took a quick look at his financial plans. Damien knew his career was on track, but his debt load was much higher than anticipated and he hadn’t started his retirement portfolio as planned. With a baby on the way, he knew the expenses would only accelerate. What to do — pay off the debt, start a registered education savings plan, or postpone the retirement savings plan still further?

This six-part video case series features social entrepreneur Craig Kielburger as he faces pivotal moments in his life and the remarkable evolution of his organization. The primary dilemmas are strategic in nature and their solutions rely on leadership and social entrepreneurship. Students assume the role of Craig Kielburger in each case, which begins with a video set-up, followed by a short one- or two-page case and a discussion, and concludes with Craig describing what happened in a video clip. (This no-fee product consists of five of the six cases. Use product #9B12M031 to order the remaining case.)

Material requirements planning (MRP) systems have been widely used by manufacturing firms to maintain an optimum flow of inputs for the best production results. By using an MRP system, a firm can prepare a production plan that specifies the number of sub-assemblies that go into a final product along with the exact timeline of an order, from placement to completion. <br><br>In the case, an A-CAT employee is assigned the task of preparing an operating plan for the next eight weeks for a product. She has to decide how much to produce to be able to meet the requirements economically, taking into account the forecasted demand. The case examines the intricacies of procurement, warehousing, and processing costs of various material components by critically evaluating different techniques in practice. Using situational scenarios, the case presents lot-sizing techniques — including lot for lot, economic order quantity, least total cost and least unit cost — for balancing costs such as set-up costs, ordering costs, and inventory-holding costs.

The director of Lands and Economic Development in the Ministry of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) must make recommendations on how to handle challenges around a large farming company that leases land from First Nations communities in Western Canada. New Horizon Farms (NHF) has already leased over 180,000 acres from First Nations communities and plans to grow to one million acres. An immediate challenge is the leasing process whereby INAC must review and sign leases and receive lease payments, which are later turned over to the First Nations. The process slows the partnering process and the speed of cash flow to First Nations and many First Nations object to government control over their land on principle. However, without INAC involved, the leases are not legally enforceable, an essential factor for NHF and its public parent company. NHF provides leasing revenue but also training, employment, and shares in the company to the First Nations it partners with. On the surface it looks like a good opportunity, but it raises several questions for policy makers. Will NHF’s control of one million acres of First Nations land be seen as a form of economic colonialism? How does this kind of initiative fit with INAC’s and First Nations’ mandates to improve economic and social conditions among First Nations communities? How will the provinces and neighbouring communities perceive and react to the situation?<br><br>New Horizon Farms also needs to consider its long-term strategy. Will the operation meet its target of one million acres? What are the risks for the company? How should it approach the training issue now that funding has finished?

This case looks closely at the management of a branch of the YMCA in Boston during periods of growth and contraction and at the development of Wendy Zinn’s career, all in the context of the YMCA’s organizational culture. The roles of strategy, decision-making, leadership and organizational culture are described as critical both to the organization’s development and to the career development the organization affords. Social capital and networking skills are also critical success factors in the YMCA’s growth.

Pure Organic Food and Juice Bar (Pure) is a restaurant located in Collingwood, Ontario specializing in raw, organic and vegan foods. The company’s strategy is to tap into the growing demand for food that is associated with a healthy and more sustainable lifestyle. However, the difficulty of attracting customers in a small town with seasonal fluctuations in the number of residents/visitors, combined with competition from “green” products provided by competing restaurants and grocery stores and the lack of a focused strategy have resulted in weak profit levels. The co-founders are wondering what needs to be changed to tap into the lucrative mainstream market. Students are pushed to think about how Pure should change its strategy, what sorts of marketing approaches it should use and, most importantly, how the co-founders can tap into the mainstream market without compromising their original values.