Considers the situation facing Gary Gottlieb, president of Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), prior to the opening of BWH's integrated cardiovascular center. This case allows students to develop an appreciation of the strategic, financial, organizational, clinical, and physical aspects of integrating health care delivery around specific categories of disease. It provides an opportunity to evaluate BWH's approach to integration along all of these dimensions and to identify the nature of the tradeoffs that hospitals--specifically, academic medical centers--face as they attempt to create disease-specific models of integrated care. Finally, students have the opportunity to evaluate the degree to which integrated models of care can be developed within academic medical centers.
In late 2007, EcoSecurities had to decide whether to undertake a new Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) project in China. EcoSecurities was an aggregator of carbon credits and also invested directly in projects that produced carbon credits. Governments and firms required to cut their greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto Protocol could use carbon credits to fulfill part of their compliance obligations. As demand for UN-issued carbon credits rose, the UN approval process had become increasingly burdensome. The Ventilation Air Methane Project was an opportunity to break into a new sector with large potential, and the economics and risks of the project needed to be assessed.
Pat Pratt Cook joins Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) as the Chief Human Resource Officer after the Superintendent Dr. Bill Green convinces her that HR will take on a more strategic role in the District. Pratt Cook arrives to find an HR department dramatically affected by recent budget cuts and limited by a bureaucratic culture focused on the basic employment transactions. Furthermore, the MPS is in the middle of contentious teachers' contract negotiations,and Pratt Cook is expected to take a leading role. The MPS negotiating team secures a school-based hiring program, called "interview and select," and District administrators work with union leaders to implement the program. A new, collaborative union president is elected andPat Cook looks forward to better working relationships. However, with each success, Pratt Cook finds that new challenges emerge.
Brigham and Women's Hospital challenged a team of physicians to improve patient flow from the Emergency Department to Intensive Care Units (ICUs). One of the team members, Selwyn Rogers, Director of the Surgical Intensive Care Unit (SICU) at Brigham and Women's Hospital, encountered workarounds by two physicians attempting to transfer their patients to the SICU because the other ICUs were full. Reflecting on the wasted effort and confusion caused by the workarounds, Rogers sent an email outlining the situation to the team. His email generated a negative backlash and chain of defensive emails from involved staff who felt criticized.
This case includes structured interviews with four serial entrepreneurs about the way in which they built and used their boards in each of their companies and what they have learned through that process. These entrepreneurs were asked similar questions, such as "How do you build a board of directors in a venture-backed start up?" "What do you expect of the board and how do you ensure those expectations are met?" "What are the most and least value-added board activities?" "How do you manage the board?" "How does board composition change over time?" "What were your biggest surprises about boards?" and "What advice would you give first-time entrepreneurs?"
In April 2007, Zong Qinghou, founder of Hangzhou Wahaha Group and chairman of all its joint ventures formed with Danone, divulges details about Danone's plan to buy a 51% interest in Wahaha's non-joint venture subsidiaries and related entities that are owned or managed by Zong's family interests. The disclosure of what is supposed to be a trade secret sparks off a series of public accusations, followed by lawsuits by each partner against the other. On the one hand, Danone indignantly retorts that its takeover plan is grounded in a breach of its contractual interest by Zong. Danone alleges that Zong has been making many of the same products as the joint ventures have under the same "Wahaha" trademark through a parallel network of production facilities that he or his family own or manage. He also uses the joint ventures' distribution channels for selling them. On the other hand, Zong argues that the "Wahaha" trademark has never officially been transferred to the joint ventures and complains of Danone's lack of effort throughout. He also accuses Danone of attempting to monopolise China's beverage market by driving out national brands like Wahaha, which are part of China's cultural heritage and thus are the heart and soul of Chinese people. As a way of protesting, Zong resigns from his post as chairman at the joint ventures. Danone then appoints Emmanuel Faber, chairman of Danone Asia Pacific, as the new chairman, but the legitimacy of this appointment is denied by Wahaha. This case illustrates the conflicts in interests, practices and cultural values that foreign investors may encounter with their local partners when doing business in China. It also examines the dynamics of revenue sharing, control rights and contract enforcement between foreign and local partners.
Treadway Tire's plant in Lima, Ohio must confront strong job dissatisfaction and high turnover among its line foremen. The foremen are caught in the middle of an adversarial relationship between the union and management, and they must cope with the needs and interests of both. They also perceive limited opportunity for career advancement. Solving the problem requires rethinking the philosophy that guides workforce management and changing the Treadway culture that has grown up around that philosophy. Facing mounting pressure to reduce costs and increase productivity, director of human resources Ashley Wall must work quickly to analyze the root causes of the problem and provide an action plan to reduce turnover of the line foreman segment.
Year Up, a nonprofit job-skills training program for low-income, urban youth has run four successful programs in four cities for the past seven years. Now, after an ambitious capital campaign, the organization is poised to grow into a national program in an attempt to reach the 4.3 million disconnected youth in the United States, but will the organization be able to maintain high-quality results as it goes to scale?