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Ponce de Leon (POL) is a four-party negotiation exercise in which a film studio is trying to sign a major actress to star in an upcoming movie. The negotiation centers around the different extrinsic and intrinsic motivations underlying each of these party's approach to the movie, and therefore to the negotiation. The exercise allows exploration of the risks of "monetizing" different types of extrinsic (e.g. pay, awards, status) and intrinsic (e.g. love of the work, values) motivation.

Gary Hirshberg and Stonyfield Farm is the story of one entrepreneur's vision and journey to create a market-leading, environmentally responsible business founded on the principles of product quality, organizational alignment and sustainability. A former environmental activist, Hirshberg built Stonyfield Farm, (an organic yogurt maker based in New Hampshire), up from a seven cow-operation into a business that in 2010 had $360 million in annual revenues. The narrative pays particular attention to the early, turbulent years of the yogurt company and the excitement and uncertainty of entrepreneurial life. The case also details the supple, innovative marketing the company created to expand its customer base, the means it devised to cultivate and maintain customer loyalty, and the strategies it employed to penetrate the highly competitive yogurt and dairy categories nationwide. Throughout, readers will encounter the challenges that Hirshberg, his colleagues and his family confronted as they (all) worked to create a business with a firm commitment to both sustainability and high quality--a commitment rooted in Hirshberg's dedication to spreading the "gospel" of organic production to consumers.

The case is about the San Francisco-based law firm, Paragon Legal, founded by lawyer and entrepreneur Mae O'Malley. Paragon Legal gave high-level attorneys the opportunity to have a flexible schedule and work 10 to 40 hours a week. This was in the context of an industry that typically required very long hours and had inflexible schedules and serious penalties for stepping out of the field for any length of time. Eighty-five percent of Paragon Legal attorneys were women with children, but the firm also attracted women and men without children who wanted to find a work/life balance. Paragon Legal lawyers were contract workers and received competitive compensation. In addition to discussing Paragon Legal, the case details the landscape of the legal industry, including challenges and pressures on all attorneys and the additional challenges for women. By the summer of 2010, Paragon Legal had become successful in the San Francisco Bay Area, and the question posed in the (A) case is whether the company should scale within the region and/or geographically. And if so, what would that look like? Other topics of discussion in the case include: the nature of contract work, entrepreneurship (and female entrepreneurship), and redesigning work for a better work/life balance.

The chief financial officer (CFO) of TELUS Corporation (Telus) has just been informed that Moody's, a bond rating service, has downgraded the firm's credit rating to one notch below investment grade. The CFO's challenge is to determine what specific actions, if any, to recommend to the firm's audit committee. First, this case facilitates a discussion on how changes in capital structure impact a firm's earnings, stock price and flexibility to carry out plan. Second, students learn about how bond ratings are set and how a firm's bond rating affects its bond yield. Last, by focusing on the situation faced by Telus during challenging market conditions in 2002, students learn how to manage relationships with investors while in the midst of change.

Casino owner considers whether to implode, complete, or do nothing with a 26 story vacant new building on the Las Vegas Strip. This case continues a series of pieces about the progress of CityCenter, an $11bn project in Las Vegas said to be the largest private construction project in the history of the United States. As in the prior observations of this project, issues around measurement of demand, architecture, construction, scheduling, and finance all interact. At the time of the case, court hearings have just started with a possible swing in the outcomes of $600,000,000.

Companies in every industry are attempting to reduce their use of chemicals, particularly synthetic organic compounds, where there is a perception of harm to human health or the environment. The industrial and commercial floor-cleaning equipment industry is no different, with many equipment manufacturers seeking to reduce their use of harsh cleaning chemicals such as petroleum solvents. But with every competitor pursuing similar greening efforts in a mature market, companies find it difficult to differentiate their offers to customers. Tennant Company chose to differentiate itself through a technology-driven business strategy based on chemical-free cleaning. Instead of reducing the use of harsh cleaning chemicals, or reducing the harshness of those chemicals, Tennant offered its customers a cleaning solution that used ionized tap water to clean and disinfect surfaces, thereby eliminating harsh chemicals altogether. The benefits to customers were numerous, including lower total cost of ownership and improved health and safety, while maintaining cleaning performance relative to conventional chemical-based products. This case helps to illustrate the challenge of profitably going beyond incremental "greening" efforts (aimed at doing less harm) to offer a disruptive step-change in environmental performance as the central argument for the company's value proposition.

A company seen as having a core business that is environmentally harmful by its very nature - in this case selling pesticides - faces unique challenges in its transformation to a sustainable enterprise. Even when innovation leads to new green products, processes, technologies and business models, the leadership of the company must cope with the daunting task of engaging employees and customers in the idea that green can be effective and profitable.

This case illustrates the process and challenges of designing a new product and then making it a reality. It examines a myriad of product development, manufacturing and launch challenges confronting entrepreneurs with resource constraints. It does this from two perspectives: that of a product designer and that of an entrepreneur and business owner. Thus, the issues are both creative and practical.

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This note describes the hybrid electic vehicle market, the results of different automaker strategies, and the environmental regulatory issues that can promote or inhibit market growth in the United States. Introduces students to the technologies and regulatory aspects of vehicles using alternative powertrains and fuels including hybrid electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids, electic vehicles, and deisel engines. Enable students to evaluate the success of the Toyota Prius, especially when used as an updated supplement to a case discussion of Toyota Motor Corp.: Launching Prius (HBS Case 706458).

The case illustrates how a leading German hospital group has invested deeply in the measurement of patient-level outcomes and costs, the foundations of a health care value framework. The company launches a pilot project to use time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC) for measuring the cost of total knee replacements. The costing project complements an existing initiative for comprehensive outcomes measurement. The combination of accurate measurement of outcomes and costs empowers local personnel - physicians, nurses, and administrators - to improve the value of care they deliver. It also permits benchmarking across the group's multiple hospital sites to identify best practices that can be shared. The case concludes with a decision on using outcome and cost measurement to inform the adoption of a new recuperative approach that promises to dramatically lower post-surgical length-of-stays.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 297-047

In January 2000, World Championship Wrestling (WCW)'s executive VP is faced with a challenging decision. He had been appointed the executive VP just three months ago, and was tasked with restoring the company to a profitable position. However, WCW's onscreen product was suffering; ratings for the flagship WCW Monday Nitro (Nitro) program had fallen to their lowest levels in nearly three-and-a-half years. WCW was losing its market leadership position, its viewing audience and even some of its on-screen talent to its major competitor, the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). The executive VP faced problems on a number of fronts: a talent roster low on motivation and morale, turnover among both the writing staff and company leadership, and a rapidly shrinking audience. Furthermore, the current instability in leadership meant that another major change would seriously impact the already-low morale among WCW's on-screen talent and support staff.

Bihar State Milk Cooperative Federation (COMPFED) had been marketing its milk and milk related products under the brand name of Sudha in the Bihar and Jharkhand regions of India for three decades. They operated through six unions and two dairies to process the milk collected from nearly 4,000 village level cooperatives. On the surface, COMPFED appeared to have a competitive advantage for its supply of milk since it maintained the largest network for milk procurement, which spanned a wide geography over these two regions and was unmatched by its competitors. However, due to various environmental forces, the ability to procure an adequate supply had diminished in the last two years, which negatively affected the overall profitability of the organization.The marketing manager of COMPFED had been facing a difficult challenge in serving the growing demand and maintaining profitability. Since he operated in an industry with high fixed costs, the declining supply of milk procurement meant lower sales. As a result, there was no opportunity to significantly lower operating costs to match the limited supply.The marketing manager thought of two reasons present in the external environment that contributed to this situation. First, a series of incessant floods had caused damages to grazing land and livestock operations in many of the villages that were the source for milk. Additionally, private players were disrupting the supply chain by offering short term higher payments to some suppliers/farmers on a case by case basis. These players did not face the same regulatory and hygienic guidelines that COMPFED did and operated outside the normal infrastructure. His options included two very different alternatives; trying to work with these agents or securing a process to minimize or eradicate their activities.

How do you make money when you tell your customers 'don't buy our stuff unless you really need it?'" This was the question that Yvon Chouinard, founder of the clothing company Patagonia, asked himself as he considered developing a new partnership with eBay in which customers would buy and sell used Patagonia gear on eBay rather than buy it new. As he considered this new partnership, Chouinard would have to balance the environmental priorities upon which Patagonia was founded with its financial well-being. This is a two-part case. Part A presents the decision which Chouinard is considering, while Part B presents the decision that Chouinard chose. The A and B cases were written by graduate students Allyson Johnson, Courtney Lee, Steven Rippberger, and Morgane Treanton, under the supervision of Professor Andrew Hoffman.

How do you make money when you tell your customers 'don't buy our stuff unless you really need it?'" This was the question that Yvon Chouinard, founder of the clothing company Patagonia, asked himself as he considered developing a new partnership with eBay in which customers would buy and sell used Patagonia gear on eBay rather than buy it new. As he considered this new partnership, Chouinard would have to balance the environmental priorities upon which Patagonia was founded with its financial well-being. This is a two-part case. Part A presents the decision which Chouinard is considering, while Part B presents the decision that Chouinard chose. This case presents the decision about a potential partnership with eBay that Yvon Chouinard, founder of the clothing company Patagonia, chose to pursue. The A and B cases were written by graduate students Allyson Johnson, Courtney Lee, Steven Rippberger, and Morgane Treanton, under the supervision of Professor Andrew Hoffman.

Foro Energy developed proprietary and patent-pending fiber-laser technologies that could disrupt existing processes and services for the exploration and production of oil and natural gas. These breakthrough laser technologies were protected by a strong intellectual property (IP) portfolio, which provided Foro with the flexibility to pursue a number of different business models. The market potential for oilfield applications was large, as global spending in the O&G E&P industry was expected to approach $600 billion in 2012.

The Schon Klinik is a private, for-profit German hospital group trying to establish itself as a premium health care provider in a competitive German market. The case details Schon Klinik's founding, its early focus on measurement and improvement, and the design and implementation of a system-wide structure for measuring and reporting actual health outcomes. The case details the care cycle for eating disorder patients and highlights the role outcomes measurement has played in improving eating disorder care over time. It ends with a discussion of Schon's innovative bundled reimbursement models and challenges the reader to explore how to develop new pricing and care delivery models that encourage integration of care around patient medical conditions. The case also discusses the German health care system, its regulatory constraints, and Schon's attempts to change the paradigm of competition in the sector.

Social media applications-including collaborative projects, micro-blogs/blogs, content communities, social networking sites, and virtual worlds-have become part of the standard communication repertoire for many companies. Today, with the creation of increasingly powerful mobile devices, numerous social media applications have gone mobile and new entrants are constantly appearing. The purpose of this article is to take account of this evolution, and provide an introduction to the general topic of mobile marketing and mobile social media. Herein, we define what mobile social media is, what it is not, and how it differs from other types of mobile marketing applications. Further, we discuss how firms can make use of mobile social media for marketing research, communication, sales promotions/discounts, and relationship development/loyalty programs. We present four pieces of advice for mobile social media usage, which we refer to as the 'Four I's' of mobile social media. Finally, we conclude by providing some thoughts on the future evolution of this new and exciting type of application.

Millennials have heavily influenced social media's evolution into an important source of product information. They are increasingly basing their product evaluations on information gathered from online reviews. Thus, companies targeting Millennials may wish to pay heed to online reviews. Which products are affected by Millennials' online reviews? Do the reviews tend to be positive or negative? Where do Millennial customers look for information amongst the plethora of online venues? As presented herein, a survey of 227 Millennials reveals that this generation is undeniably posting reviews online and being influenced by these reviews. Respondents show a definite preference for two online venues, Facebook and company websites, when voicing their opinions. Reviews are broken down by positive and negative comments, and how product categories fare for each type. Contrary to popular thinking, the respondents were more prone to post positive reviews than negative reviews. Males voice their opinions online significantly more often than females, and specific gender differences are observed by product category. Recommendations are provided for selling to Millennials by leveraging online reviews.