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Theo Chocolate, Inc. is a small start-up chocolate manufacturer struggling to establish brand recognition in the highly competitive branded gourmet chocolate segment. Theo's unique value proposition, of being "the only organic, Fair-Trade, bean-to-bar chocolate factory in the United States," drives its business. The company was started and operates under the premise that socially responsible business practices are cornerstones of its operations. Since its inception, Theo has built a loyal and growing following, especially in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Its first three years were spent building this customer base and forging a brand based on its value proposition and everyday business practices. However, despite steady improvements in all financial indicators, to date Theo had not been profitable - the company expected to break "into the black" in its fourth year. The case explores the challenges Joe Whinney and Debra Music (the Founder/CEO and VP of Sales and Marketing, respectively) face as they emerge from the first stage of the entrepreneurial venture. The key decision facing the company, and Debra in particular, is whether Theo can in fact afford to stay true to the strategy and value proposition that has defined its existence. It is trying to establish a unique brand in a marketplace that is dominated by large well-established competitors with significant resources at their disposal. It has not been profitable in doing so. The case provides students an opportunity to wrestle with very real issues that idealistic entrepreneurs face - compromising principles, brand-building, managing cash flow and planning for the future.

This is a best practice case. The WLGore is a very successful firm and the case describes in detail the culture of the enterprise. WLGore differs from the mainstream enterprise in a number of ways -strategy, structure, ownership, leadership, and operations. This case allows the participants to delve into each of these elements and see how they are all consistent and reinforcing one another. The main focus of the case is its "culture of innovation." Both "culture" and "innovation" are two items discussed and debated incessantly inside large organizations, but there is always confusion and clutter. This case was written with the sole purpose of shedding light and putting some concreteness around these slippery concepts. Please note that this case has been written entirely using publicly available material.

Companies are starting to recognize that even as they spend millions to acquire and analyze customer data, many of their employees lack the skills necessary to effectively use that data in making decisions.

When you work for an organization that proudly touts its pay-for-performance ethos, you can be sure you'll get a fair shake, right? Not necessarily. In explicit meritocracies, managers feel more at liberty to act on their politically incorrect biases, with the result that they shortchange women when handing out raises and bonuses.

Even as companies increasingly embrace corporate social responsibility, it remains controversial in terms of the bottom line. New research reveals an unexplored benefit: CSR activities can make a company more innovative and lead them to launch more new products.

When people imagine practicing a skill or sport during "lucid dreaming," the state in which a sleeping person recognizes he's in a dream and takes control of it, their performance in that activity improves in real life.

Innovation capabilities have long been central to U.S. competitive advantage, but the rate of innovative activity is increasing sharply in other countries. Some people see this as the greatest threat to America's economic leadership. The author is unconvinced.

Unemployment rates remain high in this sluggish recovery period, but many places in the United States require more and more workers to be licensed in order to offer their services or open a business. Two of the worst areas are health care and law.

The World Economic Forum surveys experts and industry leaders every year to see what risks concern them most. This year's results, compiled from the responses of 469 leaders, put chronic fiscal imbalances at the top of the list. Other leading worries are rising greenhouse gas emissions; terrorism; water-supply crises; and cyber attacks.

This case describes a newly promoted middle manager in a global, multi-cultural organization who is challenged by a number of factors in the workplace which are impacting her and her team's ability to perform to the expectations of her regional manager. While it would be easy to blame the new manager, deeper analysis in fact reveals that many forces are at work here in addition to her inexperience including communication of strategy and performance objectives, mismanaged team members, cultural inconsistencies, and a lack of leadership direction and/or skill from the very top to her supervising manager.

Integrative thinkers will not accept 'either/or' solutions. In general terms, Integrative Thinking means 'constructively using the tension between opposing models to generate a creative resolution in the form of a new model which contains elements of the existing models, but is superior to each'. However, it is not a one-size-fits-all operation. In this article, which includes examples from Walmart and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the pioneers of Integrative Thinking describe three types of 'integrations' that can lead to creative resolutions to problems.

Designing objects is pretty straight forward; but as the world's problems become more complex, the traditional design process is being challenged. Many of the products and services created today are more like complex systems than simple objects; and as systems evolve, so must systems design knowledge. The author, CEO of IDEO, one of the world's most renowned design firms, describes the shift away from creating 'blueprints' to solve problems, towards an acceptance of the evolutionary nature of today's problems. He describes six characteristics of this emerging environment, which include 'accepting the fact that design is never done.'

The Occupy movement that targeted Wall Street, Bay Street and other financial centers in the fall of 2011 was indicative of how a growing percentage of the population feels about business. And there's no end in sight, says the author, who has taught at leading business schools for her entire career: it seems like every time you turn on the news, there's a new investing or management scandal. Many people lay the blame for these kinds of failures at the feet of MBAs and the business schools that train them - and for good reason, she says. She presents three critical steps that business schools must take in order to transform their culture, and in doing so, transform the culture of business.

While the global issues of our time each present unique challenges, they have one thing in common: they require mass participation. Finding solutions to climate change, demographic shifts, the prevention and management of chronic disease, the provision of safe water supplies and food security -- to name but a few -- requires the pooling of diverse types of knowledge and resources and harnessing the motivation of billions of individuals and their communities. The author describes the emergence of 'participatory systems', which combine different types of knowledge and resources to provide a service or social solution. With their ability to attract mass enthusiasm and harness mass collaboration at low cost, she says, their time is now.

When faced with a problem to solve, most people jump immediately to focusing on solutions, devoting little time to why the problem exists in the first place. This is just one of the 'traps' of traditional thinking that the author describes. Another is pattern recognition, which can lead us to jump to conclusions much too soon. Regardless of the work we do, we must constantly fight the urge to act immediately and 'fill in the blanks' and instead, take the time to observe first and design second. In today's world, this will become increasingly important, he says, for the simple reason that the challenges we face are becoming more complex by the day.

Anyone who keeps up with today's news knows that examples of governance failures abound and that Enron was just the tip of the iceberg. The fact is, the responsibilities of a modern Board Chair have evolved significantly in the past decade, and so too must the individuals who hold the post. The author, a long-time director and governance expert, advises Chairs to pay attention to the four 'Ts': mobilizing Talent, building Trust, managing Tensions and investing Time. He provides several tools for achieving each, and concludes that it is high time for our 'organizational conductors' to take control of unscripted virtuoso players and lead their orchestras to more harmonious outcomes.

No man is an island, and neither is an organization. GE is just one of the leading firms that has embraced the fact that the challenges it faces -- in areas from healthcare to energy to transportation -- are too 'wicked' to be solved by GE alone. In an interconnected world, the key to solving complex problems lies in figuring out when-and whom-to ask for help. The authors describe six skills of 'open innovation' that enable you to add fresh insights, sharp perspectives and different capabilities to your existing processes and infrastructure, and drive innovation.

While problems of all shapes and sizes can benefit from creativity, the most complex of problems require solutions that are not only creative but span boundaries and organizations. The author has witnessed first-hand in his work at frog, where traditional organizations such as the State Department have embarked on initiatives to integrate design thinking into their programming. However, he has identified four obstacles that often come between creative approaches and large-scale implementations. He describes each obstacle and provides recommendations for moving beyond them. In the end, he says, design but one ingredient - albeit an important one -- in an overall strategy.

In today's environment, examples of work that is both complex and risky abound: delivering a large engineering and construction project; managing the response to a high-impact disaster; and providing medical care in the battlefield are but a few examples. This type of work requires multiple areas of expertise and often involves multiple organizations. The various teams that engage in risky work face high stakes -in financial, legal and reputational terms - and as a result, the role of trust in such contexts is critical. The authors define 'risky trust' and the particular challenges it poses. They then describe their research and the three elements of risky trust they identified, as well as four factors that leaders can embrace to facilitate trust in a risky context.

In an interview, one of the epidemiologists who helped eradicate smallpox talks about taking on five current global threats on behalf of the Skoll Global Threats Fund: climate change, pandemics, water scarcity, nuclear proliferation and Middle East conflict. He describes his early career and what it taught him about hope and collaboration. While he argues that our system is inarguably "breaking at the seams," the good news is, he remains optimistic about finding solutions.