MBA Education Research Articles

When elephants fight: South African washing powder wars

Learning outcomes An understanding of the competitive landscape and consumer dynamics of an emerging market, especially how a small local company learns to take on and deal with global players. Similarly, embeddedness within a market leads to increasing the competitiveness of local brands as they understand local consumers better than international ones. Local brands are also more likely to use home-based and innovative marketing strategies. Case overview/synopsis Bliss Chemicals, through their flagship brand, MAQ washing powder, captured market share from global multinationals during a price war. Nevertheless, their competitive landscape and their customer base are dynamic; the company cannot afford to rest on its laurels for long. The case provides insight into the marketing activities of both large and medium enterprises in an emerging market. It also demonstrates the type of marketing activation that engenders strong consumers’ response. Complexity academic level The case can be used in undergraduate, MBA and executive education courses on marketing, consumer behaviour, bottom of the pyramid or international marketing courses. It could also be used in business strategy courses on market entry, dealing with stronger competitors, price wars and doing business in Africa. Supplementary materials Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes. Subject code CSS 8: Marketing

Comprehensive Approach to Meaningful Continuing Professional Development

Mrs. Caples: Director, Continuing & Professional Education, The Medical College of Wisconsin, Office of Continuing & Professional Education, Milwaukee, WI. Correspondence: Linda D. Caples, MBA, Continuing and Professional Education, The Medical College of Wisconsin, Office of Continuing and Professional Education, 8701 Watertown Plank Road, RPC, Suite 125, Milwaukee, WI 53226; e-mail: [email protected]. Disclosure: The author is a member of the Society for Academic Continuing Medical Education. The author declares no conflict of interest.

Fair to Whom?

The head of an R&D unit in a high-tech firm in India faces a tough decision about whether to recommend firing and replacing or investing even larger amounts of time and resources into training employees who have come up through India's “reservation system.” Similar to “affirmative action” policies in the United States and Brazil (where the focus is on race), the reservation system in India is meant to counteract inequalities resulting from the historic oppression of “lower” castes in the country. The question faced by the protagonist in this case is whether and how a middle manager can address problems in her team that result from much larger, systemic problems in her country.The case is designed to surface and explore students' instinctive decision-making tendencies around a complicated problem. Thus, it is short enough to be read and responded to in class. Students are assigned readings and assignments related to the case after class discussion in which they are encouraged to reflect on their initial responses.The case is quite flexible and would work in any course that deals with leadership, ethics, difficult conversations, decision-making, organizational behavior, human resources, and related topics. It is appropriate for a range of levels and audiences, including undergraduate, MBA, and executive education. Excerpt UVA-OB-1261 Nov. 5, 2018 Fair to Whom? Anaya Deshpande stared at the blank screen in front of her. Scattered around her desk were several depressing reports on her unit's projects, a glowing newspaper article on her high-tech, global employer as a model company for India, and an internal memo reiterating the top management team's belief that it was the company's unique culture—one focused on unwavering commitment to world-class quality work, high ethical standards, and manifest desire to help Indians build fulfilling careers and upper-middle-class lives—that had been and must remain its core differentiator. The contrast between the company's general performance and external reputation, and the situation she was facing in her own role, could hardly be starker—or more paralyzing. Deshpande was angry and scared. She knew she had to do something, but none of the obvious options were attractive or tenable. Upon becoming the head of one of the company's major internal R&D units 18 months ago, Deshpande had inherited a number of PhD-level employees whose core job functions were research, data analysis, and report writing. Her elation and optimism about what her unit could accomplish had faded relatively quickly as she received report after report revealing underwhelming progress on almost all of her unit's projects. Looking into the issues more closely, Deshpande found that, of the 15 researchers working for her, 12 lacked anything close to the level of sophistication in theorizing, research design, and data analysis to which she had been exposed during her schooling in the United States. The employees' work revealed gaps and flaws in their understanding of the existing knowledge base and logical scientific reasoning, reliance on a narrow set of relatively simplistic analyses, and writing that ranged from amateurish to indecipherable. . . .

Work-task types, stages, and information-seeking behavior of strategic planners

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine information-seeking behavior (ISB) of strategic planners in enterprise across different work-task types and stages.Design/methodology/approachA case study was conducted in a pharmaceutical company in China, labeled as T Company. One of the authors worked in the department of strategic planning of this company as an intern. The data were collected via participant observation and unstructured in-depth interviews. Open coding was performed to analyze the data.FindingsFour work-task stages were identified: project preparation, gathering, discovery and presentation, and strategy formulation. The results indicate that work-task types, work-task stages, and strategic planners’ work role or position affect their information needs, source selection, and seeking process. Task complexity, task familiarity, and task goal are of the most important task attributes that directly shape strategic planners’ ISB. Work role determines the extent to which strategic planners can access the information of the company. Internal information has priority, but external information is also important when internal information is not sufficient; both are equally important for strategic planning projects. Social media has been a very important channel to access, disseminate and share information. Workshops are an important approach to producing final project reports. Face-to-face discussion and information exchange play a critical role in the formulation of new strategies.Research limitations/implicationsThis is a case study with data collected from only one company in China. Some of the results may not be generalizable. However, it adds new knowledge to ISB research in enterprise, informs people how to provide better information services for strategic planners, and informs MBA education for students’ better information-seeking skills.Originality/valueThough myriad studies on ISB, little research has been done to examine strategic planners’ ISB from a business context, especially taking into account the effect of work-task types and stages.

The transfer of management knowledge to China: building learning communities rather than translating Western textbooks?

The economic reforms in the People’s Republic of China have begun to open up this very large market. However, a major impediment to quicker or more substantive growth has been the paucity of experienced Chinese managers. In response, there has been a very rapid growth in business and management education in China, especially in MBA education. Given that management as a discipline was not previously taught in China, much of the knowledge base for this education has been imported from the West. However, it is argued that the linear attempt to transfer explicit management knowledge from the West to China is based on false assumptions about the nature of knowledge and so is unlikely to be effective. Instead a community model of knowledge is presented, which suggests that there needs to be an interaction between Chinese and Western ideas, which will benefit all parties.

Overheard at the Office

Note: This case contains language that some people may find offensive. It is left exactly as it was spoken in the real situation portrayed precisely because it is pertinent to how the situation affected those involved.“Overheard at the Office,” based on a true story, presents the case of an African-American woman who works as an accountant for the league office of the team owners of one of the four major US professional sports. One day, she is yelled at offensively by a team owner, who mistook her for a players' union employee, perhaps because the players and their union staff are predominantly African-American, in contrast to the majority white team owners and their staff. She has to decide whether and how to respond.The case is designed to surface students' instinctive decision-making tendencies. Thus, it is short enough to be read and responded to in class. Students are assigned readings and assignments related to the case after class discussion in which they are encouraged to reflect on their initial responses.The case is quite flexible and would work in any course that deals with leadership, ethics, difficult conversations, decision-making, organizational behavior, human resources, implicit bias, and related topics. It is appropriate for a range of levels and audiences, including undergraduate, MBA, and executive education. Excerpt UVA-OB-1212 May 10, 2018 Overheard at the Office Laura Cooper, an African-American woman in her twenties and a recent graduate of an elite MBA program, worked in the league office for the team owners in one of the four major US professional sports. Her role was accounting-focused—for example, she helped to comprehend the financial position of each team, and of the association as a whole, in order to do things like establish team salary caps (as a percentage of total revenue). In this role, she traveled around the United States to the different team headquarters with the players' association auditor, Noah Jarrold (who was also African-American), while he checked the accounting books of each team. Thus, while Cooper and Jarrold visited teams' headquarters together, they were employed by different parties representing different interests in the audit. The players' association functioned as a union for all players, collectively bargaining for pay and benefits. Its staff was predominantly African-American, as were most of the players, in contrast to the majority white team owners and their staffs. Jarrold worked to ensure that the team owners were not hiding revenue or otherwise manipulating the calculations in ways that would hold down the players' salary caps. Cooper's role, on the other hand, was to make sure both sides adhered to the collective bargaining agreement and to protect the integrity of the business as a whole. As an observer of the audit, she ensured, for example, that Jarrold was not counting inappropriate revenue toward the salary cap. She was also there to raise any red flags back at headquarters, if necessary, about the audits. . . .

Dangote’s expansion: driving African capitalism

Subject area Doing business in Africa, strategy, leadership. Study level/applicability The case is intended for use in MBA and Executive Education courses in Strategy, Business in Africa and Leadership. Case overview This case study examines the growth of the Dangote Group in Nigeria and its ambitious expansion across Africa. Driven by the visionary leadership and energy of founder, President and CEO Aliko Dangote himself, the rise of the Dangote Group also represents the changing geopolitics of the African region. A true conglomerate, the company dominates every niche in which it operates. Best known for its cement, Dangote is also active in sectors as diverse as pasta, real estate and steel. It has expanded into the oil industry and is building a refinery in Nigeria, an oil-producing state that imports most of its fuel requirements because of inadequate refining capacity. The Dangote Group serves as an example of true African capitalism, representing the new and somewhat nuanced style of doing business in Africa, which involves undertaking capital intensive projects; using unique methods, management approaches, technologies and innovations; leveraging state connections for business advantage; and understanding the growing need for local partners or local content in new markets across the continent. Expected learning outcomes Students should gain insights into various business strategies in Africa, contextual leadership intelligence and the role of institutions when doing business in Africa. Supplementary materials Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes. Subject code CSS 11: Strategy.

Learning Not to Diversify: The Transformation of Graduate Business Education and the Decline of Diversifying Acquisitions

Once a preferred strategy, corporate diversification into disparate lines of business has gradually declined in the U.S. over the past several decades. We argue that changes that occurred in a closely related domain—graduate business education—are important in understanding variation in de-diversification across firms. Building on a historical account of the transformation of business education, we explain how the rise of financial economics and agency-theoretic logic in business education changed students’ views about diversification. Nearly 20 years later, these MBA graduates rose to top decision-making positions and put the brakes on diversification. Using data on CEOs who ran 640 large U.S. corporations from 1985 to 2015, we show that CEOs who earned an MBA before the 1970s actively pursued diversification, whereas the next cohort of CEOs, who had been exposed to agency-theoretic logic in financial economics, refrained from it. We also demonstrate that the degree of managerial discretion moderated the effect of the CEO’s MBA education. Our study shows that institutional change in one domain (i.e., business education) contributed to change in another domain (i.e., corporate diversification), albeit with a considerable time lag.

A Transformed Model of Brand-building for B-schools: An Indian Perspective

MBA education in India is facing the same challenges as business. Upheaval of technology, changing customer expectations, global competition, online courses and societal responsibility are the major concerns. Failure to adapt to these challenges will question the academic contribution to business practice. Business school (B‐school) branding is crucial to distinguish the services provided by one B‐school from another. Considering the importance and relevance of adapting to the changing market forces, the purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual model of brand‐building for Indian B‐schools. A range of published literature related to the topic is thoroughly searched. The paper examines the viewpoints of various scholars with regard to the role of a student in a B‐school. The services marketing perspective is analyzed and the gaps are identified through a robust literature survey. Based on the literature survey, an riginal conceptual model for brand‐building for B‐schools is proposed. Some B‐schools have adopted certain branding activities, but extant literature review reveals that B‐schools in India do not practice an organized holistic approach to branding activities. The proposed conceptual model is stage one in the process of understanding what goes into building a B‐school brand. Stage two would empirically test the proposed conceptual model of brand‐building. The proposed model is holistic, considering the role of important stakeholders such as students, faculty and corporate. This conceptual model will help B‐school management to understand the role and importance of branding B‐schools. It will provide an insight into the various parameters on which a B‐school brand has to be built.

An Empirical Study on the Effect of MBA Education in China: Comparison between Capital Market Performance and Social Responsibility Performance

From the perspectives of capital market performance and social responsibility, this paper empirically tests the effect of MBA education in China. The research shows that, on the one hand, the current problems of MBA education in China are mainly reflected in the following aspects: weak integration with the reality of Chinese enterprises, insufficient teachers, inadequate selection mechanism for students, less coordination between quality and quantity, and lower social recognition; on the other hand, the effect of China’s MBA education is more reflected in the performance of social responsibility, and the company’s social responsibility is better performed after the CEO received the MBA education compared to the Growth Enterprises Market (GEM) listed companies where the CEO didn’t receive MBA education, but the company’s performance in the capital market doesn’t show any substantial difference. The research in this paper broadens the research scope of MBA education in China, and has certain reference value for understanding the actual effect of MBA education.

Tackling Low Completion Rates—A Compare.Com Conundrum (a)

In 2016 Andrew Rose, CEO of Compare.com, an online price comparison website for car insurance shoppers, faced a troubling problem. Completion rates for the site's detailed online questionnaire were at an alarming low. Site visitors, increasingly accessing the site on mobile devices, were proving they did not have the time or incentive to answer the site's requisite questions and thus were dropping off the site before purchasing policies from the site's partner insurance carriers. As Rose and his management team struggled to lift the completion rates, they narrowed their options to three potential solutions. A task for Kyle Brodie, a summer intern, was to design and run an experiment that could yield valuable insights from an estimates display, including which customer groups, if any, responded best to the estimates, and where the estimates should be included in the questionnaire. In the A case of the series, readers are faced with selecting the best solution for lifting Compare.com's completion rate. In the B case, readers must design an experiment to test the selected option, and decide on the location and content of an estimate display test. In the C case, readers are presented with the design implemented by Brodie and a summary of the results of that experiment. They must then figure out the implications of those results for Compare.com.This case was originally written for an MBA marketing class examining Marketing Analytics. It would also be suitable for similar classes in undergraduate, Executive MBA, and Executive Education programs. Excerpt UVA-M-0947 Rev. May 17, 2018 Tackling Low Completion Rates—A Compare.com Conundrum (A) Car insurance is an interesting space. It's the one product I'm aware of where both the buyer and seller hope it's never used. Trying to change consumer behavior around it is doubly interesting and doubly tough. —Andrew Rose, CEO, Compare.com In March 2016, Andrew Rose, CEO of Compare.com (Compare), was looking for a simple solution to a relatively troublesome problem. Compare, headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, was an aggregator of insurance—primarily automotive—that allowed customers to acquire a list of real-time available quotes from affiliated insurance providers. The offering was totally unique in that customers were given actual monthly quotes, as opposed to estimates, after completing a questionnaire. Rose saw a huge opportunity for Compare to leverage its accurate price offering to compete with the larger companies in the auto insurance space. . . .

International Accreditations as Drivers of MBA Education Improvement

Business schools in China are now under great pressure to implement continuous improvement and quality assurance to remain competitive in a globalized higher education market. Drivers for quality improvement include external pressures such as supranational organizations, national government, marketization, and globalization. As a symbol of excellent quality of management education, MBA international accreditations play an important role in quality improvement of MBA education. A case study based on GWMBA (MBA of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies) is presented to demonstrate this impact. Future challenges include the risk of standardization and institutional isomorphism and the balance between globalization and localization.

Management Background, Intellectual Capital and Financial Performance of Indonesian Bank

This research aims to determine the effect of management background which proxy by accounting education background, MBA education background, Chinese ethnicity and intellectual capital (VAIC) on conventional banks’ financial performance (ROA) in Indonesia. The Population consists of all conventional banks listed on Indonesia Stock Exchange period of 2012 to 2015. Using purposive sampling method to screen the data, the final sample for this research is 140 data that consists of 39 banking companies. This research used Eviews7 software to conduct panel data regression analysis. The results showed that accounting education background and Chinese ethnicity are not significantly affect financial performance. Meanwhile MBA education background and VAIC are significantly affecting financial performance (ROA).Keywords: management background, VAIC, ROA, banking.

MBA education at the University of Debrecen and its further development towards Double Degree Programmes

University of Debrecen is the oldest higher educational institution in continuous operation in Hungary based in the same city. MBA training at Debrecen Agricultural University was initiated by 0257-91/1 Tempus Joint European Project Grant. The project was coordinated by the Netherlands Institute for Management (RVB) Maastricht. Participating institutions include University College in Dublin, Agricultural University in Wageningen and Debrecen Agricultural University. Minimum requirements established were a BSc (or equivalent) degree, an English certificate of language proficiency and one letter of reference from work supervisors or former teachers. Application requirements included a completed application form, Curriculum vitae, a certified copy of degree(s), an official copy of language knowledge certificate, a letter of recommendation and the receipt of registration fee payment. The academic year began on 1 September 1991, and project studies were carried out in small groups. Practical experience that had been gained before enrolment was taken into account and after the successful completion of the requirements students were granted MBA degrees.
 JEL CODE: I21, I25

Understanding the Motivations: a Qualitative Analysis of Israelis Holding a Bachelor's Degree who Pursue an MBA Abroad

Motivations for study abroad have been studied mostly from a quantitative point of view. This study attempted to understand those motivations through qualitative methodology, by getting "into the heads" of international students using a multiple case study approach. Participants were 15 Israeli Hebrew-speaking graduates. Data sources included in-depth interviews with the students, a business professor, as well as official program documents. Findings show that while intrinsic motivations recur in the data, that are in essence the selling points of an MBA, stressing experience and gaining knowledge and skills, the dominant motivations are instrumental and at times even fantastic and extreme, although presented implicitly in the discourse. All these motivations reflect a mismatch between students’ perceptions of MBA education and the actual reality of getting a graduate business degree abroad, which has serious ramifications for students' learning experience and the way in which efforts and resources are prioritized.

Global Protection Corporation: Message from the Middle

A middle manager at a large company is unable to get her engineering customers and corporate bosses to see eye to eye on a public relations decision, and now her corporate boss seems to have totally misinterpreted her intentions. Suitable for MBA or executive education classes, this field case is a composite of actual experiences and fabricated elements. The case addresses a scarcity of material on the unique dilemmas faced by middle managers. Excerpt UVA-OB-1001 Rev. Mar. 31, 2014 GLOBAL PROTECTION CORPORATION: MESSAGE FROM THE MIDDLE “I think it is high time you slow down and consider your role and responsibilities in this organization.” The moment she read the first line of her corporate boss's e-mail, Amanda Barnard, communications manager for integrated services at Global Protection Corporation, knew she was in trouble. She had suspected that her original e-mail might stir the pot, but she had not been prepared for the boiling water in which she found herself. The business was on the brink of a major technology launch, and it was her job to make the world aware of it. Yet she was unable to get her engineering customers and corporate bosses to see eye to eye on taking the announcement public, and now her corporate boss seemed to have totally misinterpreted her intentions. As middle management, wasn't she supposed to route visions to a more concrete destination, to draw a clear roadmap? What did he think she was doing wrong? Why couldn't he appreciate her role and position? Global Protection Corporation . . .

Kulicke and Soffa Industries, Inc., in China: Transferring Knowledge (a)

While much of the work on outsourcing to China focuses on the low cost and its tradeoffs, this case examines in depth the interaction between human capital and a firm's cost and capabilities. Suitable for the MBA, EMBA, GEMBA, and executive education programs, the case presents a manufacturer of semiconductor assembly equipment looking to achieve growth in its wire bonding tools segment—in particular, capillaries and dicing saw blades—through geographic expansion. At the time, it manufactured capillaries in Yokneam, Israel, and blades in Santa Clara, California. In the A case the team is charged with designing and opening a new facility in Suzhou, China. Expanding operations to China meant cost savings, and it was where K&S's market had expanded. But it wasn't clear whether it made sense to move the capillary process, the dicing blade manufacturing, or both. And if K&S did move to China, should it keep the Israeli- and American-based factories open as well? And once those decisions were made, what exactly would the knowledge transfer look like? Excerpt UVA-OM-1410 Rev. Mar. 28, 2013 KULICKE AND SOFFA INDUSTRIES, INC., IN CHINA: TRANSFERRING KNOWLEDGE (A) Shay Torton, a general manager for Kulicke and Soffa Industries, Inc. (K&S), and Ilan Gilboa and Shlomit Drori, from K&S Israel, were members of a committee put together in early 2002 to manage the firm's expansion processes. K&S, a manufacturer of semiconductor assembly equipment, was looking to achieve growth in its wire bonding tools segment—in particular, capillaries and dicing saw blades—through geographic expansion and entry into new markets. At the time, it manufactured capillaries in Yokneam, Israel and blades in Santa Clara, California. The team, mindful of the substantial expense involved, had been charged with designing and opening a new facility in Suzhou, China. The strategic shifting of manufacturing to more cost-effective areas had been well researched (see Exhibit 1 for an economic comparison of different regions). The city of Suzhou was chosen for several reasons: its proximity to several K&S customers and to Shanghai, relative low cost of living, ability to manufacture six days a week, abundant worker supply, and low labor costs. An 80 square-kilometer industrial park offered a reliable infrastructure, plentiful public transportation, and an easy one-stop government approval service. Much conversation at the senior executive-level was about the possibility of transferring both capillary and dicing blade production to Suzhou. . . .

Team Conflict: The 'Chatty' Accusation at the Customer Support Call Center

This case is used in Darden's core Leading Organizations course and is appropriate for MBA, Executive MBA, GEMBA, and executive education programs. The manager of a baby product company's global customer support center observes friction among her staff about the only non-American on the team, whom the others accuse of increasing their call response rate time—thus effectively lowering their pay. When conflict arises on a multicultural team, to what extent can it be attributed to cultural differences and when should a manager become involved? Excerpt UVA-OB-1046 Rev. Jun. 30, 2014 TEAM CONFLICT: THE “CHATTY” ACCUSATION AT THE CUSTOMER SUPPORT CALL CENTER In a rare moment alone in her office, Jennifer Ames reflected on the past 10 years of her career at BabyProduct Corporation (BPC). She could easily chart her successes: She had taken on challenges and produced results where her colleagues had failed; she had increased the diversity of the work force in every unit she had led; she had successfully launched new products and developed several new markets. In fact, just a few months before, Ames had been part of a team that had led a highly successful launch of several BPC product lines into the Latin American market. That success and the ensuing demand for its products drove BPC to centralize customer support in a call center in Austin, Texas—and to create Ames's new position: senior director for global customer support. Ames had studied other call-center models and created a team of four as a prototype for customer support. She had a goal of scaling up as the business expanded. But as she sat in her office, looking at the latest financials and mentally reviewing the events of a disturbing meeting earlier that morning, she saw the failure of her prototype looming large. The call response times were on an upward trajectory that would quickly plunge her budget into the red if the trend continued. Even worse, only one short month into her new position, Ames was worried that her team was stonewalling her. She was deeply troubled by the interaction she had just observed: there was friction among her staff members that was dividing them along American-versus-non-American lines. . . .

Management Background, Intellectual Capital and the Financial Performance of Indonesian Banking

<p>This research aims to determine the effect of accounting education background, MBA education background, and the proportion of Chinese ethnic as well as intellectual capital measured by VAIC method on conventional banking financial performance in Indonesia. The population in this study is the entire conventional banking companies listed on Indonesia Stock Exchange that has been operating over the range of 2012-2015, so we get a sample totalling 29 companies. This research used Eviews 7 software to conduct panel data regression analysis. The results showed that accounting education background and Chinese ethnic are not significantly affecting financial performance. Meanwhile MBA education background and VAIC are significantly affecting financial performance (ROA).</p>

Kulicke and Soffa Industries, Inc.: Designing a Supply Chain Network

Supply chain network design choices and the challenges in implementing and understanding how alternatives influence firm performance are key management skills that can be applied to the case of a global company, Kulicke and Soffa Industries, Inc. (K&S), and its expansion strategy. Suitable for the MBA, EMBA, GMBA, and executive education programs, the case explores the decision to expand the company's tool bonding capacity in order to manage its growth. The question becomes whether to grow current operations in Yokneam Israel or seek alternative sites. And if it was decided to seek a location outside of Israel, where exactly should the company go?