This is an individual assignment, but students will benefit from teammates’ advice. The purpose of the this project is to enable our EMBA graduates to become highly proficient at identifying and analyzing business problems, finding and assessing evidence on a variety of topics, and developing and presenting persuasive, evidence-based recommendations. 

Case-Specific Questions (Chocolate Remedies)

• Should Anita and Mark have purchased a franchise when they started? What would have been the costs, benefits and issues to consider?
• Assess Chocolate Remedies’ current strategy and its marketing
• The current business model consists of three channels: retail, wholesale, and events (including kids’ parties, Girl Scouts, wine and chocolate, team-building and craft fairs). What channels would you choose and why? How would you monitor and measure the success of these channels? If you decided to withdraw from a channel, what impact might this have on the reputation of the business and/or revenue/profitability of the other channels?
• What should Anita and Mark do?
  1. Should they drop any channels? Should they introduce any new ones?
  2. Should they seek a partner? What type of partner could be sought?
  3. Should they sell the business? How much might they be able to sell the business for?
  4. Are there any other changes you would suggest?

An Evidence-Based Approach to Cases and Applied Problems

The evidence-based management (EBMgt) framework (e.g., Barends, Rousseau, & Briner, 2014; Briner, Denyer, & Rousseau, 2009; Briner & Rousseau, 2011) includes critical reflection on each of the following main components: ethics and stakeholder concerns, practitioner judgement and expertise, local data and experimentation, and principles and evidence derived from formal research (“scientific” or alternative approaches). This broad framework can be used to help analyze case studies and applied problems in any domain (Gamble & Jelley, 2014).

• Formal research: To what extent do existing theories, principles, and research evidence provide perspective on the situation at hand – g., its potential causes, consequences, and intervention strategies? How strong and how relevant is the existing knowledge?
  • In Bus 801, students are expected to conduct literature searches to find high- quality, relevant evidence to inform their analysis and

• Local data and experimentation: What evidence exists in the organization that is relevant to your deliberations? What is the quality of that evidence? What additional evidence is needed and how could you conduct a study to gather such evidence?
  • A Bus 801 case may include financial data or statistics from analyses of internal data/studies, which you may have to

• Ethics and stakeholder concerns: Are there legal, moral, or values-based concerns that need to be considered? Have you considered ethical decision-making approaches and tools that might help you resolve moral dilemmas? Have you considered the concerns of everybody who might be affected by the decision?

• Practitioner judgment and expertise: Do you (or does a protagonist in a case) have experience dealing with issues similar to those presented? How relevant is that experience in the present circumstances? How much trust can you place in the “expertise” that has been developed?
  • For a Bus 801 case, this component would normally be considered from the perspective of people described in the case (vs. your personal experience).