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Ethical Leadership: Ratan Tata
and India’s Tata Group
-- Debapratim Purkayastha
This case is about Tata Group, one of the leading business houses in India, a key emerging market. The group had a long-standing reputation for ethical leadership and was well-known for its corporate social responsibility and principles such as the ‘Tatas don’t bribe’ and the ‘Tatas don’t indulge in politics’. Under the leadership of Ratan Tata, the group carried forward this legacy and consolidated its businesses further in India while also acquiring a global footprint. India, like many markets in transition, was passing through a period when excessive power was concentrated in the hands of the political elite and their cronies. Despite operating in this market, the Tata Group had managed to build its empire emphasizing the twin pillars of ‘trust’ and ‘integrity’, so much so that these had become a key aspect of the Tata brand. However, in 2010, the group and its leader Ratan Tata, were dragged into the infamous 2G scam that broke out in India. Ratan Tata refuted these allegations and argued that he had not been able to expand more in his home country due to bureaucratic delays, arbitrary regulatory decisions, and widespread corruption in various sectors. The case study deals with one of the major challenges that organizations face in many emerging markets – corruption.
© 2013 IBS Center for Management Research. All Rights Reserved. For accessing and procuring the case study, log on to www.thecasecentre.org or www.icmrindia.org
Frontier Airlines (2006)
-- Vijaya Narapareddy, Gordon Von Stroh
and Maclyn Clouse
After serving over 87 million customers for 40 years, the old Frontier Airlines stopped operating in 1986. The old Frontier Airlines had once dominated the Denver hub until it started having financial troubles in the deregulated aviation industry. In July 1994, a group of old Frontier executives brought Frontier Airlines, Inc. (Frontier), a Colorado corporation, back to Denver International Airport (DIA). By 2006, Frontier became the second largest airline at DIA based on departures. It also offered flights to Canada and many resort towns in Mexico and, through Frontier JetExpress, provided low-cost regional flights. Frontier’s strategy of providing service at affordable fares to high volume markets from the DIA hub in leisure and corporate travel came under attack when, in 2006, Southwest Airlines entered the scene on its home turf. With mounting losses, Frontier’s Board of Directors had to decide on the strategic options available to them. The case provides the students an opportunity to decide the best course of action for Frontier.
© 2013 IBS Center for Management Research. All Rights Reserved. For accessing and procuring the case study, log on to www.thecasecentre.org or www.icmrindia.org
Tesco’s Exit from the United States
-- Indu Perepu
The case discusses the entry of the UK-based retailer Tesco plc (Tesco) into the US and its subsequent exit. Tesco entered the US in 2007 and operated through small format grocery stores under the brand name ‘Fresh & Easy’. The stores, positioned as a smaller and more convenient alternative to the US supermarket, sold fresh food, pre-wrapped produce, dry grocery items, and ready-to-eat meals. But American customers were not comfortable with some of Tesco’s practices like automated checkout counters, overemphasis on private label products, small assortments of products, and packaged ready-to-eat food. Within a few months of Tesco’s entering the country, the US economy found itself in the grip of recession, a fallout of the subprime crisis. With growing unemployment, people started to spend less and preferred to shop at hard discounters. Even after five years, Tesco’s US operations did not break even and continued running at a loss. At the same time, Tesco started to face a tough time in its home country. Investors said that Tesco had concentrated on the US and other international markets at the cost of its core UK business. Tesco then decided not to invest further in the US operations. In April 2013, it announced that it would make an exit from the US.
© 2013 IBS Center for Management Research. All Rights Reserved. For accessing and procuring the case study, log on to www.thecasecentre.org or www.icmrindia.org
Global Girlfriend
-- Vijaya Narapareddy and Nancy Sampson
On May 4, 2007, Stacey Edgar had a message on her answering machine. It was from one of the co-owners of The Greater Good, a company based out of Seattle, Washington. He was interested in acquiring Global Girlfriend and merging it with The Greater Good family of companies. Stacey was astounded at this unsolicited merger offer. Stacey had a Master’s degree in social work and enjoyed helping women and their families. Through Global Girlfriend, she was going to help economically disadvantaged women from developing countries to find a strong market for their products and assist them in earning a stable income to sustain their families and move out of poverty. The case describes the ethical dilemmas the founder faced during the three months following that telephone call. She was faced with making a tough decision very quickly as Greater Good imposed a deadline of August 1, the same year, to complete the merger deal.
© 2013 IBS Center for Management Research. All Rights Reserved. For accessing and procuring the case study, log on to www.thecasecentre.org or www.icmrindia.org
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