Asian Journal of Management Cases

The case portrays a macro-view of human resource management (HRM) at the national policy level. The case is imbued with concepts to promote responsible HRM, social and workplace inclusion of marginal groups. Set against a canvas of general rights and challenges of persons with disabilities (PWDs), the case showcases the Malaysian government’s initiatives spearheaded by the Social Welfare Department (JKM) to boost PWD employment in its public service. The case revolves around the case protagonist, Aleeya Tan, the head of assistant director of the division of PWD career development in JKM. Relatively inexperienced in PWD employment, Aleeya was tasked to oversee the progress of an affirmative policy on PWD employment that required every public department to employ at least 1 per cent PWDs in their workforce. The catch—the policy remained rhetoric even three decades after it was passed. Following Malaysia’s recent economic blueprint, the policy was once again resurrected and put under public scrutiny. The case describes personal, institutional, structural, legal and social problems faced by the protagonist to outline strategies to meet the policy overdue target. The case is suitable for postgraduate courses in HRM and/or Employment Policy in Masters in Business Administration. Case learners will acquire conceptual knowledge on the subject, problem-solving skills and develop positive values towards the PWD community.

Lost Charcoal at Textile Frontiers is an investigative negotiation exercise involving ethical issues. In this exercise, two participants are asked to do a role-play, representing the two individuals involved in the negotiation. Mr Javed Khan, an employee at Textile Frontiers, has stolen some important and confidential information and Mr Wasif Kamal, General Manager of Textile Frontiers and a friend of Khan, is investigating the matter. The ethical nature of the issue is compounded by the fact that Kamal had earlier hired Javed Khan after bypassing regular hiring checks and knew about the past wrongdoing of Khan. Kamal is tasked with recovering the missing information whereas Javed wants to sell the information for money without being discovered.

Kalpak Healthcare Limited (KHL), a large pharmaceutical company in the southern part of India, once faced severe sales force turnover in its Life Branded Medications SBU, popularly called the Branded SBU (B-SBU). It became an issue of highest concern to the top management of KHL; so they appointed a team of consultants from a premier management school in the region to study the issue and recommend possible solutions and strategies. Over a period of 6 months, the consultants conducted extensive research—studying internal company records, analysing the industry and external environment, gathering qualitative data through in-depth interviews (DIs) and focus group discussions (FGDs) among KHL employees and executing a division-wide quantitative survey labelled as Manpower Mood Meter (M³) among the field executives—and finally came up with recommendations.

The case is organized as two independent, successive ones—A and B. Case (A) describes the consultants’ engagement with KHL and ends with them pondering over the types of analyses to be done with the huge volume of data they had collected. Case (B) details the kinds of analyses they actually do and the inferences they draw. The set of recommendations the consultants finally make to the KHL top management is given in the epilogue of the teaching note. The critical value of this case lies in its ability to open up the students’ minds to the dynamic interplay of multiple factors—individual, managerial, organizational, industrial-contextual and historical—that holistically affect a phenomenon like ‘attrition’ in organizations. This could perhaps also be one of those rare cases that makes use of the principles of System Dynamics in a real, applied and combined context of marketing and human resource (HR) management.

Kalpak Healthcare Limited (KHL), a large pharmaceutical company in the southern part of India, was facing severe sales force turnover in its Life Branded Medications SBU, popularly called the Branded SBU (B-SBU). It became an issue of highest concern to the top management of KHL; so they appointed a team of consultants from a premier management school in the region to study the issue and to recommend possible solutions and strategies. Over a period of six months, the consultants conducted extensive research—studying internal company records, analysing the industry and external environment, gathering qualitative data through in-depth interviews and focus group discussions among KHL employees and executing a division wide quantitative survey labelled as Manpower Mood Meter (M³) among the field executives—to finally come up with recommendations.

The Case is organized as two independent, successive ones—A and B. Case (A) describes the consultants’ engagement with KHL and ends with them pondering over the types of analyses to be done with the huge volume of data they had collected. Case (B) details the kinds of analyses they actually did and the inferences they drew. The set of recommendations that the consultants finally make to KHL top management is given in the epilogue of the teaching note. The critical value of this case lies in its ability to open up the students’ mind to the dynamic interplay of multiple factors—individual, managerial, organizational, industrial-contextual and historical—that holistically affect a phenomenon like ‘attrition’ in organizations. This could perhaps also be one of those rare cases that makes use of the principles of System Dynamics in a real, applied and combined contexts of marketing and human resource management.

This case highlights the issues of employee turnover and retention in a Chinese private sector pharmaceutical company. It discusses the reasons of high employee turnover and the company’s approach to retention. While the case shows that individual–company fit and individual–work fit affects voluntary turnover, it also highlights the importance of financial and non-financial incentives and measures to improve employee retention. It also discusses issues of high-power distance and guanxi that are unique to China. Overall, the case brings to light different organizational choices and strategies to address employee retention.

The case is divided into two parts and an epilogue is provided to the students at the end of the discussion.

Case A discusses the protagonist Murtaza’s arrival in a hospital that is affected by a hidden power struggle between opposing parties. In an attempt to exercise his influence and improve the hospital’s operations, the protagonist introduces reforms and changes to the hospital’s processes. However, as a result of his increasing influence and knack for not respecting the status quo, he realizes that there are people in the management who feel threatened by his influence and plan to damage his status in the hospital. At the conclusion of Case A, he has been handed a letter that informs him of a disciplinary committee case against him on serious allegations of misuse of authority, torture and even sexual harassment. He is concerned that he has been set-up by his opponents, who have resources and credibility that might make it difficult for him to escape from this situation unscathed. Thus, in the given situation the protagonist weighs his possible options.

Case B concerns how the protagonist responds to his disciplinary committee case. Policy changes previously initiated by the protagonist and his alliance with the vice-president serve as important tools. They neutralize the resources that are used by the protagonist’s opponents in an investigation against him. In the end, the protagonist, therefore, successfully comes out of this situation unscathed.

The epilogue discusses how the protagonist’s initial alliance with the vice-president, in light of changing circumstances, begins to wither away, as a mutual opposition that they both once shared also begins to weaken.

The case is divided into two parts, and an epilogue is provided to the students at the end of the discussion.

Case A discusses the protagonist’s arrival at a hospital that is affected by a hidden power struggle between opposing parties. In an attempt to exercise his influence and improve the hospital’s operations, the protagonist introduces reforms and changes to the hospital’s processes. However, as a result of his increasing influence and knack for not respecting the status quo, he realizes that there are people in the management who feel threatened by his influence and plan to damage his status in the hospital. At the conclusion of Case A, he has been handed a letter that informs him of a disciplinary committee case against him on serious allegations of misuse of authority, torture and even sexual harassment. He is concerned that he has been set up by his opponents, who have resources and credibility that might make it difficult for him to escape from this situation unscathed. Thus, in the given situation the protagonist weighs his possible options.

Case B concerns how the protagonist responds to his disciplinary committee case. Policy changes previously initiated by the protagonist and his alliance with the vice-president serve as important tools. They neutralize the resources that are used by the protagonist’s opponents in an investigation against him. In the end, the protagonist, Murtaza; therefore, successfully comes out of this situation unscathed.

The epilogue discusses how the protagonist’s initial alliance with the vice-president, in light of changing circumstances, begins to wither away as the mutual opposition they both once shared also begins to weaken.