Purpose Although considerable research has done on the role of knowledge in organizations, relatively little has focused on the availability of knowledge to related units of an organization. This purpose of this paper is to focus on the performance benefits of three types of knowledge resources: industry-, product- and market-based. Design/methodology/approach The archival sample consists of 4,882 commercial radio stations in the USA, each of which offer a specific format of programming within a well-defined geographic market. The authors contrast the effects of knowledge resources on the performance of stations operating independently or as part of smaller groups with those that are part of a national chain. Findings The results of this study provide strong evidence of higher performance for stations that are part of a larger chain because of access to greater pools of knowledge. Further, the authors find that although these performance effects are subject to diminishing returns, they are clearly amplified in highly competitive markets. Originality/value This study offers contributions to the knowledge-based view and intra-industry diversification studies by examining the positive effects the availability of knowledge can have for individual business units within a corporation. The results reveal that when individual business units have access to a greater degree of available knowledge, they are better able to compete against rivals in their respective markets.

Executive doctorates in management disciplines have witnessed strong and sustained growth in the number of graduates in the recent past, as opposed to traditional PhD programs, which have stagnated or decreased. As a result, there is a need to develop new curricula and learning models to teach these management executives and cultivate a practitioner-scholar mindset. To that end, we examine the application of several co-creative strategies to diagnose and reconfigure executive doctoral education. First, the study analyses current business models and educational practices of selected Euro-Chinese programs and shows how 12 constructs promote mentoring and coaching techniques appropriate for executive doctoral learners. The constructs direct a participative, learner-centered process. A second lesson includes developing an innovative delivery method by the local Chinese partner of international doctoral programs. The approach incorporates five components: a supervisor from an outside institution, Chinese academic mentors, a workshop on publishing for the Euro-China Research Network (ECR), a workshop on supervision, and student-led conferences. The final contribution uses case study research to show how the students lead and operate a knowledge-sharing project. The results show that the mentoring system's three novel components perform better than traditional approaches. The practice-oriented contribution emphasizes the change in responsibilities that management educators and researchers should consider while creating and promoting transformative educational experiences. This finding might alter how business schools conduct research and instruct about organizational phenomena – i.e., the knowledge creation and dissemination process. The theoretical contributions of this study include learning models for executive doctoral programs, appropriate curricula and pedagogy, and research-based insights on student engagement and learning.

Digital transformation is regarded as a way to solve business problems in an organisation. However, the impact on the company’s hidden costs should also be more precisely analysed. This research relies on the socio-economic approach to management to describe the impact of digital transformation maturity growth on hidden costs in a Chinese manufacturing company. This paper combines the case study research method with some quantitative techniques by conducting correlation analyses of staff turnover, low-quality work and occupational injuries and diseases. The results indicate that digital transformation maturity growth is correlated with the financial consequences of staff’s excess salary in terms of turnover and with non-production in terms of occupational injuries and diseases. Moreover, this study suggests that future studies should consider the impact of digital transformation maturity growth on these three factors in light of the corresponding contextual factors regarding organisational contexts and cultures.

This research addresses the ongoing concern with the limits of Artificial Intelligence (AI) from a talent management perspective in non-technological industries, as opposed to high-tech industries. It undertakes a review of both the consulting and academic literature and suggests ten research propositions for improving the success of AI in organizations. These propositions include the need to start with identifying organizational requirements rather than hiring technological AI employees, hiring AI managers rather than AI engineers, outsourcing rather than hiring AI labor, assigning ownership to operations rather than to AI engineers, enabling cross-boundary communication rather than fragmentation, promoting interdisciplinary teams, focusing on organizational benefits rather than on technology, enacting a transformational view rather than a static view, promoting empowerment rather than hierarchy, and focusing on organizational development rather than technology implementation. Overall, rather than the current practice of hiring AI talent, this research calls for an AI-enabled transformational change management.

This PDW is a response to the AOM 2022 call, “To what extent is there a need to create future institutions, relationships, systems, and processes that are different from the past?” (p. 1). First, practitioners from China will describe how to they face the problems related to digital transformation in their companies. Then, Academics will compare the potential responses of two methods: hidden costs /Socio-Economic Approaches to Management (SEAM) and Business Process management (BPM). This PDW is an invitation to collaboration and free exchange of ideas between AOM divisions. The goals and desired outcomes are to create a cross-divisional collaboration and to provide researchers with approaches and methods to evaluate the effects of digital technologies at the workplace of the future that can be used for further publications in academic journals. Through this cooperation between practitioners and academic, this PDW also intends to contribute to “Creating A Better World Together.”

DESRIPTIONThe primary subject matter of this case concerns decisions about business and international strategy in an industry with slowing growth, increasing competition, and customer power.Secondary issues examined include the strengths and weaknesses of internal operations, the role of company culture and history, and leadership.This case is appropriate for advanced undergraduate and graduate level students who have had exposure to strategic analysis and strategy formulation.The case can be used at different stages in a strategy course by focusing on different strategy concepts brought out in the case.Students should expect to spend two hours preparing for the case discussion.The case can be discussed in the classroom in one to one and a half hours depending on instructor preferences and discussion style.

In 2019, India's Internet users were expected to deliver double-digit growth, reaching 627 million, driven by rapid Internet expansion in rural areas. 1 This sharp rise is the result of increasing acceptance of online payment gateways, the critical mass of Internet users, the rising middle class with disposable income to spend, and most importantly, the widespread adoption of low-cost smartphones and data plans.India's e-commerce revenue is expected to jump to US $120 billion in 2020, growing at an annual rate of 51 percent, the highest in the world. 2 As a result, the number of e-commerce businesses has grown rapidly in India.Flipkart and Amazon are the two main players in the Indian e-commerce industry, each with a 30 percent market share in 2018. 3his case centers on Flipkart, analyzing and exploring its business strategies, ecommerce challenges, value-added differentiation, and, most importantly, its interaction with primary rival, Amazon.Observing the intense competition between Flipkart and Amazon, there remain a few important questions: Will Flipkart be able to keep up with the pace of Indian ecommerce growth?Will Flipkart be able to compete with or beat a giant such as Amazon?Who will be the leader of the Indian e-commerce industry?The case is rich enough for advanced and graduate students and has been developed to be used in a Business Strategy class, a Competitive Business Strategy class, a Globalization class, or an International Business class.The authors wrote the case in a style that overviews the situation, but intentionally avoids guiding students through specific application questions or any particular analytical framework.The case is designed to be taught in one to one and a half class hours and is expected to require one to two hours of outside preparation by students for reading and analysis. CASE SYNOPSISFlipkart was the brainchild of Mr. Sachin Bansal and Mr. Binny Bansal (not related), both alumni of the Indian Institute of

This case is primarily intended for use in the international strategy section of a business policy or competitive strategy course.It can be used as an overview of the many decisions and actions that an organization has to undertake to sustain a competitive advantage.This case can also be used to augment discussions of strategic analysis, globalization impacts, transnational strategy, specifically both in domestic and international markets and strategic formulation.This case study aims to present a complex and dynamic international e-commerce corporation, which has experienced rapid growth.Naturally, undergoing drastic corporate expansion comes with its share of challenges.The challenges discussed in the case provide students with the opportunity to analyze a complex system of issues and develop their own unique evaluations.The case is rich enough for advanced and graduate students and has been developed in a manner that will allow students to diagnose the root(s) of the company's issue(s) as detailed in the case, and then form opinions and suggestions for any strategy that the company should pursue.Students should expect to spend two hours preparing for the case discussion and then the case can be discussed in the classroom in one to one and a half hours depending on instructor preferences and discussion style.

Research has found that consumers can be heavily influenced by their social network when making a purchasing decision (Schmitt, Skiera, and Van den Bulte, 2011).Can this influence also change our mental accounting?To study this question more closely, we must examine this new media effect on mental accounting.It is not only important to expand the theoretical framework first proposed by Thaler (1985), but this question has real-world implications.As individuals have limited charitable budgets and charities are in desperate need of donations, it is important to understand which factors can contribute to changing a charitable givers mind.

The primary subject matter of this case concerns strategic management.Secondary issues examined include: Top Management Team (TMT), corporate strategy, geographical dispersion, mergers and acquisitions, organizational design, organizational change, and Resource Based View (RBV).The case has a difficulty level appropriate for advanced undergraduate and all graduate levels.The case is designed to be taught in one class hour and is expected to require two hours of outside preparation by students. CASE SYNOPSISThe case focuses on analyzing EatUp, which was a privately held, business to business (B2B), high margin, craft food producer with two sites.After 20 years of private ownership it was cash strapped and in need of capital improvements.It was sold to EQFunds, a private equity firm whose goal was to increase value and to sell the company in about 5 years for a profit.At the time of sale to EQFunds, EatUp had five Top Management Team (TMT) members, only two of which remained after the change in ownership.EQFunds immediately appointed five new TMT members including a Chairman.None of them lived near either of EatUp's sites.The new Chairman was faced with increasing the value of the company with a geographically dispersed TMT and an existing headquarters (HQ) site that was physically unattractive and of inadequate size to house the infrastructure required for the new growth strategy.His goal of increasing the value of the company necessitated larger office space for the required staff and a convenient location for the TMT to meet.He made an executive decision to search for a new HQ.The Chairman undertook a search for a new HQ, with five possible locations considered.He also pondered his alternatives to get the five remote TMT members to work from the same HQ.Where should the Chairman place the new HQ?How does the Chairman accommodate and manage his remote TMT to create the most synergy and value?The identity of the company, TMT members and the private equity firm have been changed in the case as a condition of use by the Chairman.One of the co-authors had first-hand experience with TMT and the Chairman of this company as well as its records and data.

This paper explores the effect of government regulations on mortality of health care organizations.Specifically, we study the effects of two government regulations, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act and the Certificate of Need Regulation, on the growth and mortality rates of hospitals in New York State.The hospital system in New York has gone through dramatic ecological changes as a result of both federal and state mandates.However, these regulations have negatively affected hospitals' growth and their mortality.The current literature on organizational ecology does not adequately explain the potential unintended negative consequences of government regulation.We used a population ecology approach to organizations to investigate this phenomenon.

Managing business processes and information technologies is perceived as impossible under the pressure of the competition and, particularly, the hyper-competitive environment. The result is that employees, starting with the salespersons, rely almost exclusively on social media and neglect corporate information systems. In China, the explosion of social media and especially Tencent WeChat for management is leading to new information technology tools for organizational transformation. This action research project finds that operationally social media serve all relational processes (CRM, BI, KM) as opposed to more transactional processes (PLM), that social media are perceived by operational employees as contributing to the most innovative dimensions related to hypercompetition, such as speed, new product development, new market development, flexibility and mass customization, and that social media are instrumental in strategic management innovations such as organizational learning or stakeholders. This paper describes the case of a Chinese financial company in Shanghai struggling against the failure of an ERP system and how an action research project clarified the impacts of technology, mostly the contribution of social media to BPM in hypercompetition

How to understand consulting issues related to the globalization in a hypercompetitive environment (Volberda, 1996)? Do the market forces (Porter, 1979) apply? How about the organizational lifecycle (Mintzberg, 1979)? Does transactional leadership apply (Bass, 1990)? Is the theory of Mintzberg (1979) sufficient to describe oppositions among departments? This paper is a case study describing the internationalization of a German company in China over a decade. The contributions of this research aim to highlight a few important theoretical shifts in hypercompetition. Firstly, in a hypercompetitive environment, the market forces are less relevant than the network model (Thomas, 1996). Secondly, the organizational lifecycle (Mintzberg, 1979) is less precise than hypercompetitive trajectories (Volberda, 1996). Thirdly, transactional leadership is less effective than transformational leadership in hypercompetition (Bass, 1990). Lastly, Mintzberg’s theory is not sufficient for describing the opposition among departments. These oppositions are better described by institutional logics (Berente and Yoo, 2012). Although the scope of this paper is limited to a single case study, yet this paper indicates research directions for management consulting. Indeed, the conflicting institutional logics among departments suggest more socio-economic and socio- material consulting approaches, such as organizational change capacity, storytelling or Socio-Economic Approaches to Management (SEAM), which are beyond strategy consulting and should be used in the context of hypercompetition.

This case is primarily intended for use in the corporate strategy section of a business policy or competitive strategy course.It can be used as an overview of the many decisions and actions that an organization has to undertake to sustain a competitive advantage.This case can also be used to augment discussions of strategic analysis, specifically both internal and external environmental analysis and strategic formulation.The case is rich enough for advanced and graduate students, and has been developed in a manner that will allow students to diagnose the root(s) of the company's issue(s) as detailed in the case, and then form opinions and suggestions for any strategy that the company should pursue.In doing this, students should consider the activities, history, and goals of the company as presented.It would be effective at the business strategy level, especially, to discuss the implications of industry life cycles, and at the corporate strategy level to discuss implications of diversification.The case also lends itself to discussions of strategic implementation and the effect of leadership on innovation. CASE SYNOPSISIn late 2016, Blackberry stock has been trading for less than $7.9 a share that is only a fraction of $139, which is a drop of 94% since 2008. 1 The competitive landscape shifted in recent years, and BlackBerry lost its strong position in the industry.The company faced a severe reduction in hardware revenues and mobile subscribers. 2BlackBerry Limited hired John Chen, a turnaround specialist, as its new CEO to get former dominating smartphone producer back to profitability. 3 Soon after joining the company, Mr. Chen formulated a turnaround plan that emphasized focus on corporate and government enterprises.This new plan significantly reduced the company's operating costs. 4 After Mr. Chen started turning the wheel, BlackBerry appeared to be stabilizing, but the sustainability of his strategy was still a big unknown.

This case conveys a situation that is complex, yet easy for students to relate to in a practical real-world setting. Toys-R-Us is in an industry that every student can understand and to which all students can easily relate. The company in the case is responding to industry changes occurring as a result of the E-commerce revolution; again, a technological change that students can understand and to which they can relate. Students can find issues within this case that has implications for the broad range of topics covered in a strategy class including: the general environment, the industry environment (Porter, 1980), internal environment resources and capabilities (Barney, 1991; Peteraf, 1993), value chain analysis (Porter, 1985), business level strategy analysis, and corporate level strategy. The teaching note was written for an undergraduate Strategic Management course and suggests ways to use these cases at two different points during the course. The case could be used as the initial case to set the stage for an undergraduate business policy and strategy course. In this setting, the primary learning objective for students is to begin to understand through case discussion some of the central topics and decision points that are part of a business policy and strategy course. Alternatively, the cases can be more specifically targeted use with the corporate strategy topic; helping students to understand the many issues associated with the decision to horizontally diversify. The learning objective in this application is more targeted to corporate strategy and specifically diversification issues including why firms diversify, how they can do it and how to analyze it in terms of relatedness (Rumelt, 1974) and potential synergies (Sirower, 1999).

INTRODUCTIONOn April 10th 2012, Starboard Value, a money manager that owns a 5.3% stake in America Online (AOL), sent a letter to AOL's board of directors applauding the sale of over $1B in patents to Microsoft and also warning them of an upcoming proxy fight for the election of directors to the AOL board. On the positive side, the letter applauded the patent sale as a big first step towards realizing the full value of AOL. Counteracting the applause, however, and serving as justification for the challenge of board composition, was the mention that the real problems of poor performing acquisitions and investments were still outstanding.When addressing poor performing acquisitions, the letter made specific mention of Patch, the local news service AOL bought in 2009. While the initial investment in Patch was small, approximately $7 million, AOL spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the service in the following years. According to estimates presented by Starboard Value, approximately $150M was spent per year on Patch since acquisition. The letter also describes Patch as an unproven and, thus far, unsuccessful business model that is draining valuable resources from the Company.1 What was it about Patch that made it a centerpiece of Starboard's opposition to AOL's acquisitions strategy? Was Starboard justified in challenging AOL's leadership on its unwavering support of Patch?The hyperlocal news market has served communities throughout the United States for many years. Most operations were weekly newspapers that evolved to blogs and news websites with the onset and growth of digital media. These operations existed mostly at a small scale on minimal budgets supported by local advertising dollars. Patch, along with efforts launched by The New York Times and Washington Post, has attempted to develop local operations with national support networks, capitalizing on economies of scale and revenue growth buoyed by the addition of national advertising dollars. Profitability has proved difficult to attain leading to a key question yet to be answered: Can a hyperlocal news operation find success operating on a national scale?The Patch Story Begins for AOLPatch was the brainchild of AOL's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Timothy M. Armstrong. The idea came to him on a Saturday morning in 2007. He was driving through his hometown of Riverside, Connecticut when he spotted a group of signs in the ground that advertised events around town. When he got home, he checked online and could not find a calendar of events for Riverside. Armstrong's first response was to call the editor of the local paper and suggest he build an events calendar for the paper's website. The paper's editor promptly replied, don't really need any help. We have a fine business.2 Armstrong's disagreement with this position prompted him to start a company around local news and event listings. He called it Patch.When Armstrong accepted the position of chief executive of AOL in 2009, he did so with the caveat that Time Warner acquire Patch and make it a centerpiece of AOL's portfolio. Time Warner agreed and purchased Patch in the summer of 2009 for $7M. Armstrong did not participate in the negotiations to purchase Patch and asked that his start-up investment in Patch be returned to him in the form of AOL stock. The acquisition was in line with AOL's strategy at the time: reinvent itself as a content provider beyond its legacy dial-up Internet business. AOL split from Time Warner in late 2009, promptly announcing that it would be investing $50 million in 2010 into the startup of the Patch.com network. After AOL split from Time Warner to become a public company, Armstrong handpicked the board of directors, so convincing them to approve investing heavily in Patch was not a difficult task. AOL spent another $160 million on Patch in 2011. By most estimates, the board allowed AOL to invest a total of $500 million in Patch between 2010 and 2013. …

INTRODUCTIONConsumer buying behavior has changed considerably with the substantial growth of the Internet. Word-of-mouth now often takes the form of online ratings made by users of a product. Online reviews of products are available for many products from hotels to books (Zhang et al., 2010) and a major source of information for product purchases (Liu, 2006). With this increasing availability of ratings, researchers have begun to use rating information, especially average user ratings, typically referred to as valence, in many ways. For movies, valence has often been related to sales with some finding valence predicts sales (Dellarocas u0026 Zhang, 2007) and others finding no relationship between the two (Chintagunta, Gopinath, u0026 Venkataraman, 2010).While it is possible this difference in results is due to differences in the movies considered (Purnawirawan et al., 2015), it is also possible investigators should not so quickly assume user ratings are reliable and valid sources of information or sites presumably measuring quality are valid for the same purposes. Further, as consistency across sites decreases, it can suggest low reliability which can lower the correlation between such ratings and criteria under investigation because the power to discover relationships is weakened (Nunnally, 1978, Traub, 1994) or it can suggest the validity of the ratings is not strong or the measures reflect different quality dimensions (Kline, 1993).These problems are, in part, due to the nature of online ratings. They are not collected in controlled settings and the rating scales used can sometimes be weak. None have been developed for the purpose of academic research. Though the focus of this study is on movies, these weaknesses can foster random measurement error and result in rating inconsistency and validity problems across database sources for books, computers, or any other product. Generally, there is very little research on the cross-platform rating consistency and validity of user ratings.PRIOR RESEARCHThe reliability of movie ratings has been a concern for quite some time and the results have varied. Cosley et al. (2003) found test-retest reliability to be relatively strong at .70 for 40 randomly selected movies rated by viewers over time, suggesting at least that users agree with their own ratings. Similarly, Amatriain, Pujol, and Oliver (2009) found strong test-retest reliability of .88 for 100 movies rated a second time at least 15 days from when first rated.Thus, it appears users agree with themselves over time, but this is not the same as two users agreeing across two different rating platforms. It is possible for individual ratings to be reliable in a test-retest sense, but for users to differ. For example, agreement between movie critics has been found to be quite weak by some researchers (Agresti u0026 Winner, 1997). Assessing the reliability of individual ratings is a good way for better understanding average ratings, but it does not assure the average ratings will be reliable or valid. And ultimately, they are the predictor of concern (Tett, Jackson, u0026 Rothstein, 1991)One method for assessing the reliability of average ratings is to check consistency across platforms. This type of research has been infrequent and shown varying results for movies. Plucker et al. (2009) found a low-moderate correlation of .43 between mean ratings by students and critics. However, they found a moderate correlation of .65 between mean student ratings and mean user ratings on both the IMDb and boxofficemojo.com sites.One factor that seems to affect the consistency of mean ratings across users is user experience. For students who rarely saw movies, their average rating showed a low correlation in the Plucker et al. study (2009) of .22 with mean critic ratings and .30 and .29 for mean ratings on the IMDb and boxofficemojo.com platforms, respectively. However, the correlation between mean student ratings and mean critic ratings increased to . …

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR TEACHING APPROACHESCase ObjectivesThis case is intended for use in a strategic management course. The case fits particularly well with a lesson on corporate diversification strategy or corporate growth strategies. The learning outcomes of this case are a better understanding of corporate growth strategies and the potentially negative effects of rapid corporate growth. After completing this case, students should recognize corporate growth strategies and the interconnection between strategic goals and market conditions, how scale impacts the effectiveness of an initiative, and the impact of ignoring scale effects, positive or negative, in strategic management.In terms of its length, writing style, and content, the case is appropriate for undergraduate juniors and seniors, as well as graduate students. The case was written in a style that provides the background and context of the business problem while avoiding presenting solution alternatives or strategic direction. The information presented allows the instructor to adjust the class discussion to accommodate students with a broad range of abilities and specializations. Specifically, instructors can engage students, including graduate students, to reason through a situation where uncertainty exists and speculation may be required.Suggested Position in Course: Market Analysis, Growth StrategySubject case can be introduced as a corporate strategy case involving a diversification opportunity (i.e. for AOL) but primarily can be considered an entrepreneurial strategy case, helping students to understand the various issues associated with implementing and managing a new business model in an established but changing industry. After completing this case, students should recognize the interconnection between internal resources, strategic goals and market conditions, how scale impacts the effectiveness of an initiative, and the impact of ignoring scale effects.On the surface, the case of AOL - Patch shows the challenges of growing a hyperlocal news web operation in a changing market landscape. However, there are lessons to be learned for any corporate diversification or entrepreneurial effort that involves the introduction of a new business model in an established industry. When viewed through this lens, the case is more representative of many online businesses that are challenging their larger, more established brick and mortar counterparts e.g. online retailers. AOL acquired Patch in 2009 and, within 3 years, expanded the operation to more than 800 sites nationwide without proving the profitability of the business model at any level. At the corporate level, AOL invested up to $300 million into the expansion of the Patch operation during this time period, with most of the expenses related to human resource acquisition. During this time, the hyperlocal news marketplace experienced intense change, mostly attributed to the decline of print media and the emergence of new distributors of local news. By the end of the case, after multiple years without profitability, the Patch operation was forced to reduce in size, laying off many workers and shutting down 30% of the Patch sites. However, this appears to have been a necessary albeit difficult learning opportunity to figure out the magic formula for success and sustenance. The company appears to have eventually figured out how to manage its resources more effectively to manage costs and differentiate/focus its offering (see Epilogue section).The case can be used to augment commonly used strategy textbooks such as Wheelan u0026 Hungeru0027s Concepts in Strategic Management and Business Policy (2014), chapters regarding corporate strategy formulation, and especially chapters regarding implementation and associated change; Davidu0027s Strategic Management: Concepts (2014), the chapter regarding types of strategies and the chapter on implementation, matching structure and strategy, and management of change; Dess, McNamara u0026 Eisneru0027s Strategic Management: Creating Competitive Advantages (2015), chapters regarding corporate-level strategy, entrepreneurship; and possibly as an augment to Grantu0027s Contemporary Strategy Analysis: Concepts, Techniques, Applications (2013), the chapter regarding the resources, capabilities and organizational structural decisions. …

CASE SYNOPSIS Starbucks entered the Indian market in October 2012 by forming a 50:50 joint venture with the Tata Group. The Indian Cafe market offered a lot of potential for the new Tata Starbucks alliance. While India was a nation known for its tea drinkers, sipping coffee and socializing at coffee shops was becoming increasingly popular. Domestic consumption of coffee had risen up 80% in the past decade. The joint venture appeared to be at the crossroads of an important strategic decision. It could either revert to a plan to grow its store count aggressively much like it did in the US. It is possible that this was the original intent. After all, the initial launch pricing had been set to be competitive with Cafe Coffee Day's (CCD) pricing (coffee drinks available for as low as Rs 100 (a)). Alternately, it could choose to embrace a premium-priced, niche approach similar to the one it had used successfully in other Asian countries like Japan and China. The premium offering would then cater to an older, business elite with higher spending power. This would result in less rapid growth with a cherry-picked list of high profile, business -friendly locations that could also allow it to build a premium brand with premium pricing. Would Starbucks and Tata under Davda's leadership finally be able to crack the code for sustained success in the competitive and complex Indian market? While Davda appeared proud of what the alliance had achieved at the 2014 Starbucks annual shareholders meeting, some critical strategic choices would need to be made to ensure the long term success of Starbucks in India. HOW TO ACHIEVE LONG TERM SUCCESS: THE MILLION RUPEE QUESTION Starbucks had had its eye on the large Indian market for a while. An attempt to enter the market in 2007 had failed due to complications with the Indian government and foreign direct investment (FDI) restrictions (b). The company had withdrawn its application then and was an eager responder when India's esteemed Tata Group knocked on its door with a partnership opportunity. A 50:50 joint venture was formed and Starbucks coffee was introduced to the Indian market in October 2012 with a generous initial investment of $80 million. (Bahree, 2012) In the 2012 annual report for Tata Global Beverages (c), the Board of Directors expressed a lot of excitement about the potential of the newly formed joint venture between the company and Starbucks. Through Tata Starbucks, your company offers the legendary Starbucks coffee experience, backed by the trust of the Tata name, to the Indian consumer, announced Cyrus P. Mistry, Chairman, Tata Global Beverages. (Tata, 2012) The Indian cafe market offered a lot of potential for the new Tata Starbucks alliance. While India was a nation known for its tea drinkers, sipping coffee and socializing at coffee shops was becoming increasingly popular. Domestic consumption of coffee had risen up 80% in the past decade. Given these encouraging trends, Starbucks CEO, Howard Schultz, believed that India could one day rival the company's successful venture in China. With its store count exceeding 40, the Tata Starbucks joint venture had clearly come a long way since it was kicked off in January 2012, but it was too early to celebrate. Continuing to succeed in the Indian cafe market would not be an easy task due to two key challenges--competition and profitability. The market was intensely competitive with multiple domestic and foreign players. The most formidable competitor was domestic giant, Cafe Coffee Day (CCD), which had already adopted a strategy of flooding the market with its cafes, closely mimicking what Starbucks had done in the US. Another critical challenge before companies was the ability to break even. High real estate costs and rental rates, along with competitive pricing pressures and India-specific cultural preferences, made it extremely difficult for coffee companies to recover their initial investments. …