個案總覽

Landsbanki Islands, the oldest of Iceland's three major banks, faced a funding crisis in March 2008 as its home country spiraled into a financial crisis. The astonishing growth rate of Landsbanki and Iceland's other top banks during the previous few years begged the question of whether such expansion can occur without strategic missteps. As the crisis worsened, the bank's leaders were under pressure to keep the institution afloat. In this case students examine Landsbanki's history and financial data, the close connections between Iceland's major corporations and banks, and the country's monetary policies to consider the reasons for the collapse and what steps the bank's management should take.

The founders of Beleza Natural, a Brazilian chain of beauty institutes which specialized in products and services for women with curly and wavy hair, were at a key juncture for their venture; they had to decide how to consolidate their business model and growth. This case explores potential capacity investments in Beleza Natural's environment and the associated issues of workforce management. Students are asked to determine how these measures might improve Beleza Natural's operations and how the management team should prioritize the issues they face. Students learn the importance of selecting a process matching business strategy and marketing plans.

Student spreadsheet for CU50.

Mobius Motors manufactures and sells low-cost cars in the Kenyan market. The company strives to make the cars such that they are affordable, yet still perform well on Africa's generally poor road networks. The company has attracted a lot of attention from development and venture financiers, and has ambitious plans to expand throughout the African continent. However, Mobius's fleet of vehicle is still currently very small, and the company faces many strategic challenges on both the demand and the supply side of the business.

Protecting 'know-how,' or trade secrets, is a vexing problem for companies doing business in China. Primary threats to the disclosure of proprietary information include deliberate actions of current and former employees, as well as loss of trade secrets in the context of joint ventures or other business arrangements. Because China continues to be an important trading partner and its domestic market has tremendous consumer potential, many companies remain in China. With this in mind, what are the best practices firms should undertake to protect their trade secrets in China to prevent competitors from gaining an unfair advantage? Based on an analysis of Chinese trade secrets law, practical recommendations are offered herein. Although there is no way for employers to 'bullet proof' the workplace from a loss of know-how, carefully crafted policies consistent with current trends in Chinese law will advance arguments in support of trade secret protection.

In today's environment, timing is a critical part of business strategy. Nowhere is this truer than as regards managing intellectual property in an increasingly global marketplace. The creation and protection of intellectual property assets often depends on consistently taking the right legal action at the right time. The consequences of failing to do so can be disastrous but may only be felt at a later time or in other markets. The difficulty for business people lies in the fact that the time-sensitive aspects of intellectual property cannot be managed effectively by relying on intuition or resolving to see a lawyer when the need arises. This article provides a basic primer on the critical role of timing in identifying, creating, and protecting intellectual property assets. It discusses the most common types of intellectual property-patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets-and compares the role of timing in the creation and protection of each asset type. Most importantly, it summarizes the key issues of timing in the creation and protection of intellectual property.

Firms have increasingly been turning to cyber risk insurance in order to better manage cyber threats and any resulting legal liability from data breaches. But how useful is this tactic? Herein, I analyze the impact of cyber attacks on firms, some of the applicable U.S. law shaping private sector responses to data breaches, and the extent to which cyber risk insurance helps mitigate the cyber threat. Ultimately, I argue that firms must take a proactive stance toward managing cyber attacks-not only for their wellbeing, but also to enhance overall cybersecurity and help secure critical national infrastructure.

Although women make up nearly half of the workforce in the United States, the number of women who hold senior management positions in large U.S. firms continues to be disproportionately low. This fact raises concerns about individual fairness and equality of opportunity. Herein, we demonstrate that the use of strong mentoring programs holds great promise as a way to increase the number of women in senior management roles. An extensive study supports the mentoring program recommendation, as do examples of foreign firms which far more readily employ women in executive positions than do U.S. firms.

Through the examples they set, leaders do a great deal to shape-for good or for ill-the culture of the organizations in which they serve. Leaders thus serve in a teaching role. But in order to learn how to set positive examples, leaders must also be students who seek to learn what they can from others' examples. Employing as a jumping-off point a recent high-profile and multi-faceted scandal involving Penn State University and decision makers affiliated with it, this article explores a number of ethical decision making lessons to be learned from that scandal and considers how those lessons can be applied to a variety of decisions faced by corporate leaders. Along the way, the article addresses ways in which common human tendencies impair the quality of thinking and decision making. It also offers ways for improving thinking quality and enhancing the ethical nature of resulting business decisions.

Two partners acquired MC Tool in October 2007 for $5 million. The company was a machine shop that manufactured parts for a wide variety of applications in the energy, automotive and industrial equipment industries. In their first year of ownership, the partners focused on improving operations and enhancing sales with impressive results: sales doubled and EBTIDA increased by over 40%. But the "Great Recession" had an immediate impact in the fall of 2008 as customers cancelled orders and new sales became scarce. MC Tool's core business was cyclical and risky. The partners were considering transforming the business towards manufacturing more precise parts that would be less cyclical and less risky.

Students' Spreadsheet for ST5.

Founded in 1971 and acquired by CEO Howard Schultz in 1987, Starbucks was an American success story. In forty years it grew from a single-location coffee roaster in Seattle, Washington to a multibillion-dollar global enterprise that operated more than 17,000 retail coffee shops in fifty countries and sold coffee beans, instant coffee, tea, and ready-to-drink beverages in tens of thousands of grocery and mass merchandise stores. However, as Starbucks moved into new market contexts as part of its aggressive growth strategy, the assets and activities central to its competitive advantage in its retail coffee shops were altered or weakened, which made it more vulnerable to competitive threats from both higher and lower quality entrants. The company also had to make decisions on vertical integration related to its expansion into consumer packaged goods.

Before managers can solve problems or take advantage of opportunities that may arise in their businesses, they must frame those problems or opportunities. Typically, leaders identify and frame problems intuitively and without much conscious deliberation. Framing problems is more an art than a science. It is also profoundly linked with the way our brains work, especially the intuitive processes we use to make sense of the world around us. This technical note illustrates how this process unfolds and how one can find a better frame, thus discovering actions that actually work to solve problems.

Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC) is a well-known Canadian retailer of outdoor clothing and equipment. While it stocks a range of branded products in its stores, a key source of profits is its private label line of products, which spans the entire range of products offered at MEC. The challenge MEC faces is how to continue to develop and launch innovative private labeled products while recognizing that these private labeled products may be direct competitors of MEC's assortment of global brands. MEC needs to be able to develop its line-up without being seen as infringing on intellectual property or being too much of a "follower." In assessing how MEC can develop its line-up, students can review MEC's philosophy as a co-operative (in which it positions itself as being different from corporations) and its design philosophy.

Damien Duff was worried. When he graduated from business school five years ago, Damien had had a plan - a good one. The problem, of course, was that plans rarely unfold as expected. Damien and his wife, Katrina, were now expecting their first child. As Damien wrestled with the reality of this news, he took a quick look at his financial plans. Damien knew his career was on track, but his debt load was much higher than anticipated and he hadn't started his retirement portfolio as planned. With a baby on the way, he knew the expenses would only accelerate. What to do - pay off the debt, start a registered education savings plan, or postpone the retirement savings plan still further?

Madison Kryswada, director of alumni relationships at State University, assembled a 125-school data set to explore, in her words, "the drivers of alumni giving rate." The alumni giving rate contributed 5% to the increasingly important U.S. News & World Report rankings of U.S. colleges and universities. Wanting to understand the relationship between this variable and school characteristics, Kryswada gave her assistant a list of four well-formed questions to answer.

Spreadsheet for case UV6394

Bob Whelan developed an idea with partners that was a seed before his fellowship year and seemed to address a significant national challenge - college financing - with a creative concept and experience from his years in venture capital. His nonprofit was called 13th Avenue Funding and it provided equity as an alternative to debt for students to finance college. Since he first set out on his journey, he faced a lot of resistance and difficulty in scaling his non-profit aimed at enabling one million low income students to obtain a postsecondary education debt free. Whelan continued to persist and adapt to the changing environment.

Vitality Health Enterprises, a medium-sized firm that manufactures health and personal care products, has experienced six straight quarters of strong revenue growth. James Hoffman, the new Senior Vice President of Human Resources, fears that the chain of success is shifting the company's focus away from effective performance management. Recently, Vitality has been faced with increasing turnover among the company's talented research scientists that may be due to a performance management system that leaves top performing employees slighted by the practice of uniform ratings. In an effort to retain top employees, the company institutes a forced distribution model of performance rankings, moving from an absolute ranking system to a relative one. Hoffman and his performance management evaluation team must assess the practical and strategic effectiveness of the new system and present their findings and recommendations to the Board.

The case tells the story of the transformation of the corporate learning function at Nike Inc. and the creation and branding of the Nike U. It provides an account of the transformation plan that was developed by the newly appointed CLO Andrew Kilshaw and tracks the implementation process with its challenges and successes. It also outlines the key components of a learning brand of a multinational corporation. Learning objectives: Identify the key priorities of a new CLO. Outline the key components of a corporate learning brand. Identify ways in which learning creates value for an organization.