The chief financial officer of an environmentally-focused company that makes all-natural plant fertilizer is considering the introduction of two new plant fertilizing products. The company is committed to being the ultimate eco-capitalist corporation and utilizes an environmentally friendly production process and packing from waste containers, such as recycled pop bottles. Students are expected to complete the following tasks for this case: 1) marketing analysis, 2) corporate size-up, 3) consumer analysis, 4) competitor analysis, 5) a statement of cash flows and interpretation, 6) ratios calculations and analysis, 7) differential analysis for each alternative and 8) income statement and balance sheet projections and interpretation.

The executive director of Invensis Technologies (P) Ltd. (Invensis), met with the chief operating officer and vice-president of human resources to address two major challenges that the company was facing. The first challenge was the increased pressure on Invensis to remain competitive and cut costs while providing premium customer service. Clients were expecting more every day from their business process operations. The other challenge was that of building an engaged and committed workforce. While the attrition rate in the information technology (IT) sector was low, it was high in the IT-enabled services (ITES) sector. The executive director wondered whether the company's structured approach towards working on an outsourcing project would help build credibility and differentiate it in the market place and how he could reduce the high attrition rate of ITES.

China's COFCO, the country's leading edible oil and food importer and exporter and its largest food manufacturer, had in its 50-plus years of operation undergone four stages of transformation and was about to embark on a fifth. The global agriculture system was undergoing major changes and the standard of living in China was increasing, changing the food consumption and dietary habits of the nation's 1.3 billion people. COFCO's management needed to decide how the company should transform to seize the opportunities in the industry and in China.

This case describes a number of situations in which important customers of a major electronics manufacturing firm (contract manufacturer) behaved in a manner that could be considered "ethically challenged." The case is told from the perspective of the EMS firm's ECO, who was personally involved in addressing these issues. Issues with three customers are described. All were a significant portion of the EMS firm's overall business. In one, a customer misled the EMS firm about its order receipts, leading to the EMS firm acquiring a substantial excess inventory that the customer was contractually required to pay for. The customer threatened to withdraw its future business if forced to make the payment. A second customer, facing a profit shortfall, demanded a payment for a "warranty problem." The EMS firm faced difficulties with a third customer related to a small R&D firm that it purchased at the customer's request, in order to serve the customer's engineering needs.

Cheung Yan, the chairperson and co-founder of the Nine Dragons Paper Holdings Company ("Nine Dragons") has been globally recognized as one of the foremost strategic business leaders of Asia. Cheung had started off modestly in 1990, by setting up a paper-recycling unit in the US, called America Chung Nam. This unit collected waste paper from the US and shipped it to China. By 1995, Cheung had recognized the huge opportunity for paper manufacturing in China, given its ever-rising demand for export packaging. With the support of her husband and brother, she returned to China and established Nine Dragons, which started off with two paper machines and made 600,000 tons of kraft linerboard per year. By June 2007, the company was a behemoth paper powerhouse, with 13 giant paper-making machines, about 8,600 full-time employees, US$1.4 billion in annual revenue and US$300 million in profits. With a huge expansion program in place, it was expected that by 2009, Nine Dragons would be Asia's top producer of packaging paper, and the first in the world in terms of production capacity. In a male-dominated industry of Asia, how has Cheung succeeded in being celebrated globally as a business leader? What are the qualities and abilities she possesses that have made her such an effective strategic leader?

A new study of private equity buyouts shows that, on average, U.S. acquisitions made in "red" (Republican) states deliver significantly higher returns than acquisitions made in "blue" (Democratic) ones.

The shareholders, who provide capital, have the most at stake in a company and the biggest incentive to ensure its success - so they should call the shots and reap the biggest returns, right? Wrong, says a professor at IMD. He argues that in today's firms, labor bears the most risk and provides the competitive advantage. Labor, therefore, should make the decisions and get the residuals.

A shortage of H-1B visas is preventing U.S. companies from hiring the foreign technical employees they need to fill their talent gap. Some firms are getting around the problem by seeking alternatives to basing employees stateside in the first place - and, in the process, are reaping other benefits.

The CEO of Chanel recalls her days as a young merchant, when she was taken to task by a powerful executive for not listening. Twenty years later, his words still profoundly affect the way she thinks about her company's products and interacts with customers, employees, and other stakeholders.

Short-term, virtual, and cross-cultural teams have become the new norm, but building trust among team members is particularly challenging. That has implications for how managers should motivate and reward them.

The CEO of the X Prize Foundation explains how offering cash jackpots for breakthrough innovations can help solve problems big and small in fields like space exploration, energy, and education.

Simple, inexpensive programs that teach managers to be more supportive of their direct reports' work/life issues can generate big returns in employee health and satisfaction, according to a multiyear study of hundreds of frontline workers and dozens of supervisors.

A number of small enterprises are affected-often in dramatic ways-by the increasing presence of MNCs in their home markets. Small enterprise often find themselves facing a very difficult set of choices as they consider whether and how they should engage with the MNCs. This article critically evaluates the strategies smaller enterprises are adopting in a globalizing world. The most effective strategy for globalization is through partnerships with local MNC subsidiaries-in their own backyard-which can then be leveraged to generate opportunities on a global scale. This analysis particularly emphasizes the need for small enterprises to use to their advantage the points of difference (i.e., asymmetry) between them and the MNCs with whom they partner.

The rise of social movements targeting multinational companies on issues of social and environmental responsibility has generated new global supply chain standards. Tied to the wide range of sustainability standards is the growth of partnerships between multinationals (MNCs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). However, these standards may unintentionally impose conditions that may exclude small-scale firms in developing countries from global supply chains, thus negatively affecting the poorest developing country producers, from what is known as the "bottom of the pyramid." This article examines how standard making and implementation resulting from MNC-NGO alliances can create conditions that foster inclusion and upgrading of small-scale producers in a supply chain. It demonstrates that including poorer producers from developing economies requires an active assistance approach to address the complex challenges of creating more responsible supply chains.

Information systems (IS) backsourcing is a business practice in which a company takes back in-house assets, activities, and skills that are part of its information systems operations that were previously outsourced to one or more outside IS providers. Backsourcing often represents a response to the problems with the outsourcing arrangement as well as to new opportunities generated by internal or environmental changes in the business situation. The problems are manifested in escalating costs, poor service quality, loss of control over outsourced activities, and a know-how mismatch on the part of the provider. Opportunities arise from internal organizational changes such as new executives and redefinition of the role of IS as well as environmental changes such as mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures. This article provides insights into reasons for backsourcing, possible responses to the problems and opportunities associated with it, and offers suggestions for managing a smooth transition to in-house operations.

What happens when small iconic socially oriented businesses are acquired by large corporations? Such mergers create significant opportunities for creating both business value and substantially expanded social value, but they also pose unusually difficult challenges because the merging entities are often strikingly different in philosophy and operating styles as well as in scale. This article examines three examples-Ben and Jerry's acquisition by Unilever, Stonyfield Farm by Groupe Danone, and Tom's of Maine by Colgate-to ascertain what is distinctive about the merger process and to analyze the elements critical to success. The article offers suggestions on how other companies considering similar arrangements might best manage the process of courtship, developing agreements, and executing effectively within the newly merged entities.

A silo is a metaphor for an organizational unit that has its own management team and lacks the motivation or desire to work with or even communicate with other organizational units. Organizations have a collection of silos that include product silos (business units defined by product or service offerings) and country silos (geographic silos defined by countries or regions). Today, communication and brand building involve a variety of fast-changing modalities that do not lend themselves to the silo world. Customers are demanding silo-spanning offerings and services. There is just too much at stake to allow silo interests to inhibit or prevent the effort toward achieving brand and marketing synergies across the organization. Recognizing that autonomous silo organizations are no longer a viable option, there are a host of firms that are developing, expanding, or energizing the corporate Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) position and creating or enhancing the supporting central marketing group. Efforts by a CMO and his or her team to gain credibility, traction, and influence represents a formidable task in the face of silo indifference or resistance. This article examines how silo barriers to the creation of great marketing and marketing organizations can be reduced or eliminated, leading to stronger offerings and brands and effective synergistic marketing strategies and programs.

Mark Landstad, relatively new to CliffBank's investment banking division, has a veteran teammate, Nicole Collins, who appears to be a reliable ally. However, when Mark needs her help in locating vital information for his part of a presentation they will be doing together, she feigns ignorance. During the meeting, Nicole produces the data out of the blue and wows the attendees with her analysis. Knocked off balance by the sabotage, Mark clumsily seeks advice from his boss, who is a brick wall when it comes to interpersonal dynamics. How should Mark deal with his backstabbing colleague? Three experts comment on this fictional case study in R0811A and R0811Z. Maggie Craddock, president of Workplace Relationships, classifies Mark as an anxious pleaser, one of four power styles identified by her firm's research. She surmises that Mark is actually sabotaging himself and recommends that he address his dilemma by first examining his own modus operandi. R. Dixon Thayer, former CEO of I-trax and himself once the victim of coworker sabotage, has empathy for Mark. However, he criticizes Mark's hasty, open-ended way of approaching his superior. Thayer lists four "rules for boss engagement" that Mark should follow, beyond proving that his sneaky colleague won't stop him from getting results at CliffBank. Deborah Kolb, of the Simmons School of Management, contends that Mark does not yet understand his division's culture well enough to know whether Nicole's behavior is the rule or the exception. Only by overcoming his political and interpersonal naivete, she argues, can he learn how to negotiate relationships in his new setting.

The next U.S. administration will face enormous challenges to world peace, the global economy, and the environment. Exercising military and economic muscle alone will not bring peace and prosperity. According to Nye, a former U.S. government official and a former dean at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, the next president must be able to combine hard power, characterized by coercion, and what Nye calls "soft" power, which relies instead on attraction. The result is smart power, a tool great leaders use to mobilize people around agendas that look beyond current problems. Hard power is often necessary, Nye explains. In the 1990s, when the Taliban was providing refuge to Al Qaeda, President Clinton tried - and failed - to solve the problem diplomatically instead of destroying terrorist havens in Afghanistan. In other situations, however, soft power is more effective, though it has been too often overlooked. In Iraq, Nye argues, the use of soft power could draw young people toward something other than terrorism. "I think that there's an awakening to the need for soft power as people look at the crisis in the Middle East and begin to realize that hard power is not sufficient to resolve it," he says. Solving today's global problems will require smart power - a judicious blend of the other two powers. While there are notable examples of men who have used smart power - Teddy Roosevelt, for instance - it's much more difficult for women to lead with smart power, especially in the United States, where women feel pressure to prove that they are not "soft." Only by exercising smart power, Nye says, can the next president of the United States set a new tone for U.S. foreign policy in this century.

"This war for talent is like nothing we've ever seen before," write the authors, who have spent decades studying talent management and leadership development. Recently they interviewed executives at more than 20 global companies to identify strategies for attracting talent in developing economies - where, they learned, brand, opportunity, purpose, and culture play out in particular ways. A desirable brand affiliation in conjunction with inspirational leadership appeals to eager young high potentials suddenly awash in possibilities. Opportunity should imply an accelerated career track - or at least a fast-paced acquisition of skills and experience. Purpose ought to benefit a job candidate's home country and express the value of global citizenship. A company's culture should be meritocratic, value both individual and team accomplishments, and follow through on promises implied in recruitment. The authors claim that emerging markets pose special challenges for foreign multinationals. For instance, talent strategies that work at home will probably need extensive tailoring to succeed in the developing world, and an overreliance on fluency in English may impede spotting talent. It's critical to develop a core of local talent and to embrace and leverage diversity. In the talent race, a local company that creates genuine opportunities and exhibits the desired cultural conditions will often win out over a Western multinational offering higher pay.