Bayer CropScience in India (B): Value-Driven Strategy

This supplement to Bayer CropScience in India (A): Against Child Labor focuses on Bayer’s formulation of a value-driven strategy with three pillars: communication, implementation, and education.

This case works well with an MBA or executive MBA class. The case is ideally suited for core and elective courses on international business, global strategy and leadership, or sustainability. Students are challenged to apply their knowledge of international strategy to address the local and global constraints associated with the complex issue of child labor in a stakeholder arena rife with controversy and conflict. This case can be used either in a course on strategic management to emphasize the social side of strategy or in a course on global strategy to emphasize the ethical and leadership challenges of a multinational company in an emerging market such as India. The case demands that students reflect deeply on their own values and the extent to which they would go to honor those values. The case can also be used as a discussion point for more specialized topics, such as in electives and executive modules on corporate social responsibility or collaborating with NGOs. The objectives of this case are to:<ul><li>Understand the role of value-based leadership and value-driven strategy in grappling with a significant social issue, such as child labor, particularly in the context of global business.</li><li>Develop an in-depth understanding of the embeddedness of business and social issues in emerging markets, including both an appreciation of the difficulties of separating personal values from strategic responses, especially during times of crisis, and an understanding of the co-evolution of personal values and strategic responses.</li><li>Discuss the unique features of crisis management in multinationals when facing intensifying pressures from local and global stakeholders. </li><li>Explore the lessons to be learned regarding the nested, conflicting, and fine-grained processes of value-driven leadership that often differentiate effective and ineffective responses.</ul></li>

• Ethical Issues
• Crisis Management
• Corporate Responsibility
• Strategy Implementation
• Emerging Markets
• India