This case contains two roles, one for each person in a two-party negotiation. They are relatively short in length and can be read in class just prior to negotiating. This learning activity is appropriate for teaching negotiation skills to a broad audience, including undergraduate and graduate business school students, adult learners, and in corporate university settings. At first glance, there is no immediate resolution to the negotiation. A couple is attempting to qualify for an apartment lease, and based on a percentage of guaranteed salary, they do not qualify. Students should learn that only by asking probing questions and seeking to understand more about one another's assets and interests can the landlords and potential renters identify a workable solution.
In May 2019, the management team of DuPont de Nemours Inc. (DuPont) was assessing whether to retain the business entity DuPont Sustainable Solutions (DSS) as part of the overall company, divest it to another consultancy firm, or sell it to the internal team through a management buyout. DSS was set up in the late 1960s as an in-house provider of safety and risk management services. Having established its credentials with the company's sprawling chemical plants worldwide, it soon became a mid-sized business in the operations consulting field, serving clients in oil and gas, mining and metals, and industrial manufacturing sectors worldwide. In 2019, the management team had to determine the best path forward for DSS.
In August 2019, the newly appointed chief executive officer of DSS was planning for his company's future. He had two main questions to address: Having emerged from the shadow of DuPont, how should his new company be reorganized into an independent enterprise? As a stand-alone enterprise, would DSS gain credibility among its clients and employees?
In September 2019, a marketing director at Multinational Beverage Inc. faced a dilemma: she needed to determine how to reverse the declining sales and market share of her Florida-based orange juice brand, Fresh Squeeze. While one potential solution was to move production to Brazil to take advantage of lower production costs, the marketing director also had to consider the effect this would have on Fresh Squeeze's brand image. Given industry dynamics, would becoming a low-priced competitor lead to the right positioning for Fresh Squeeze, or were Florida oranges the heart of this business?
This case study is based on a Hong Kong technology start-up, Morllex (Morllex is a disguised name of a real company), specializing in chemicals for the electronics industry. The company received substantial private funding, as well as funding from a government-backed incubation program, Hong Kong Science and Technology Park. The three founders encountered conflicts in various strategies, including relationships with the two non-executive shareholders, several key suppliers such as a marketing consultant, and a China sales agent. There were substantial pressures to build sales and marketing traction and ensure timely delivery of the product to distributors. Over two years, the three founders and two non-executive shareholders (all anonymized here) had nurtured Morllex from an award-winning concept to a market-ready product. Yet, the partners struggled to reach an agreement on some major decisions, such as whether to register the business in Shenzhen or Hong Kong. Also, the partners had an ongoing debate about whether to manage marketing and distribution in-house or to outsource it. One partner favored the former option while the other partners had a different point of view. These conflicts left the founders questioning the future of a company in which they had believed so strongly and invested so much time and energy. In this case study, students will play the roles of the founders and shareholders. The case is designed to set up conflicts among the players to teach students how hostile team dynamics can make inherently solvable problems intractable.
Technology silos can wreak havoc on strategic priorities and trigger a cascade of effects throughout an organization. When leaders focus on better communication, with special attention to difficult conversations, organizations can improve collaboration and unlock creative solutions to business problems.
On June 13, 1963, Valentina Tereshkova of the USSR became the first woman to fly in space on Vostok 6. Soviet leaders publicly espoused gender equity, but also sent Tereshkova on her mission in order to be the first country to send a woman to space, a milestone they reached before the U.S. did. Five Soviet women were in the initial group chosen to train as cosmonauts, but of the five, only Tereshkova would make it to space. The case explores why Tereshkova was selected from the group and her mission and subsequent career. It also discusses the successes of the women cosmonauts and astronauts in the Soviet and U.S. space programs decades later. By 2020, women remained a minority of space travelers, but the inclusion of both genders had become commonplace. Had women reached gender equity in space faster than on Earth?
This case describes the business career of Calouste Gulbenkian, a skilled intermediary who was able to secure 5 per cent of a vast oil concession covering much of the Middle East that was signed in 1928. Gulbenkian was an ethnic Armenian born in the Ottoman Empire, which was a large multi-ethnic empire covering large swathes of the Middle East and eastern Europe. Gulbenkian's career is set against the steady erosion of the Empire's sovereignty by Western powers, and mounting ethnic tensions. These trends reached their climax in the modernizing Young Turk Revolution of 1908, the Ottoman entry to World War 1 on the side of Germany, the massacres of millions of Armenians and other ethnic groups, and the creation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923. Against this background, Gulbenkian distanced himself from the family merchant business, became a financier in London, and formed a close relationship with Henri Deterding, the leader of the power Royal Dutch Shell oil group. After the Young Turk Revolution, he also worked for the new government, forming a company to exploit the oil resources of the Empire with him and Royal Dutch Shell among the shareholders, and securing a vast oil concession. These arrangements were disrupted by the war, the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, and the entry into the region of the United States government and oil companies. However, Gulbenkian survived numerous attempts to dislodge him and his shareholding was confirmed in the Red Line Agreement of 1928. The case provides an opportunity to explore the role of intermediaries in global business and more specifically, to show how the control of Middle Eastern oil ended up for a half a century in the hands of a small number of oligopolistic Western oil companies with no ownership by local stakeholders.
The case opens with Alain Bejjani, CEO of Majid Al Futtaim (MAF) Holding, anticipating on the Group's next phase in the multi-year transformation journey and reflecting on the initiatives he implemented to create the Group's growth-oriented culture. Founded in 1995, MAF Group was a regional conglomerate, operating shopping malls, and retail and leisure establishments across 12 businesses in 15 markets in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. The case describes the series of structural changes that Bejjani undertook since he became the CEO in 2015, how he transitioned the Holding company from a passive investor to a strategic architect model, and assumed ownership of the brand, culture, and talent across the entire organization for all its operating companies: MAF Properties, MAF Retail, and MAF Ventures. The case discusses the steps that the Group undertook-creation of the Leadership Institute, a new performance management system, investments in digital technology and analytics capabilities, and the launch of the School of Great Moments to instill a focus on customer experience. By November 2019, Bejjani recognized that the organization had evolved considerably in the past five years. He wondered about the next steps in scaling and ability to execute strategy. How much more could he push the organization to continue to change?
Set in December 2019, this case explores how P&G has applied data science and analytics to cut costs and improve outcomes across its business units. The case provides an overview of P&G's approach to data management and governance, and reviews the challenges associated with changing long-established work processes within the company. It concludes by exploring four examples of how P&G has applied analytics to its businesses.
In September 2019, a marketing director at Multinational Beverage Inc. faced a dilemma: she needed to determine how to reverse the declining sales and market share of her Florida-based orange juice brand, Fresh Squeeze. While one potential solution was to move production to Brazil to take advantage of lower production costs, the marketing director also had to consider the effect this would have on Fresh Squeeze’s brand image. Given industry dynamics, would becoming a low-priced competitor lead to the right positioning for Fresh Squeeze, or were Florida oranges the heart of this business?
This case follows Jason, a high school student who is looking forward to going to college. He is an excellent student and a basketball star, which allowed him to receive two full-ride scholarships: the first to play Division 1 basketball at Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) and the second to attend the University of Virginia (UVA). This leaves Jason with a huge decision to make. Should he attend Penn State and try to fulfill his dream of playing in the NBA, or should he attend UVA and fulfill his passion for engineering? To gain more information to guide his decision, Jason solicits advice from two of his mentors: his basketball coach, Coach Roberts, and his math teacher, Ms. Humphries.
Cinda Klickna, trustee of the State of Illinois Teachers' Retirement System (TRS), was preparing to vote in June 2019 on a proposed $75 million investment in a new fund being raised by First Light Capital (FLC), a midsized buyout firm. Illinois had been under financial pressure for some time, and TRS, the state's largest public pension, was seriously underfunded. In 2012, TRS's board began a plan to strategically increase its allocations to private equity (PE). By 2018, the target allocation to PE had reached 15%, well above the 10% average of other public pensions. The increase in PE was undertaken in an attempt to close the funding gap necessitated by insufficient state funding and the generally low-interest-rate environment. The strategy had not gone unnoticed, and many now openly questioned the higher risk and costs of these investments. In the face of this greater scrutiny, Klickna believed it was important that the pension's PE investments earn a satisfactory return, by looking to invest in funds that had upper-quartile returns and public market equivalents (PMEs) greater than one. This case is appropriate for courses that cover PE investments, such as those typically covering topics on venture capital or PE, or courses on asset management that include alternative assets. It introduces students to some of the commonly used PE performance metrics and the challenges associated with measuring performance for an illiquid asset class. Students are introduced to the Global Investment Performance Standards (GIPS) and their purposes and limitations in evaluating performance. Students are asked to calculate the gross and net since-inception internal rate of return (SI-IRR), DPI, RVPI, TVPI, and PME for the same pending investment in FLC Fund IV and compare how performance is assessed across these metrics. The case also discusses the push for greater disclosure in the PE industry as it grows in its influence and public investors seek to know more about its performance.
This case focuses on the rising trend of CEO activism, especially as it relates to business extending its impact on democracy. The case centers on the contentious political issues of gun violence, gun rights, and gun control. Students will follow the protagonist and develop strategies to support Walmart CEO Doug McMillon, who took a stance on gun control by reducing gun and ammunition sales after a mass shooting in 2019 at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas. Building on CEO activism, the case also focuses on further steps that corporations can take to influence public policy.
India's Economic Survey 2016-17 proposed a gradual implementation of the concept of universal basic income (UBI) as the fastest way of providing a long-term solution to poverty. Large-scale inequality and poverty, along with huge misallocation and wastages in the existing welfare schemes, made India a perfect ground for experimenting with UBI. Though the rapid expansion of Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile infrastructure was expected to smoothen the execution of UBI in India, there were looming concerns about implementation of the program, fiscal feasibility, and the questionable effectiveness of UBI's impact on poverty alleviation.
In December 2019, a member of a fantasy hockey league had to decide whether to trade away his top talent in exchange for draft picks in the following year's fantasy draft or to continue to compete for a position in the playoffs. If he traded his top players, he would forfeit his chances at competing for a championship; however, this move might put his team in a better position for the following year's fantasy hockey season. He had access to the league's historical data to help determine the likelihood of his team making the playoffs. He wanted to conduct an analysis to make an informed decision grounded by numbers.