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Michael Lester, a consultant with Lachlan, was frustrated by his client's unwillingness to provide key data for an important presentation. Lester must decide how best to confront Nadine Robert, his client, knowing that his personal success and the reputation of his consulting firm hinge on his ability to build and sustain a strong relationship. How firm should he be with the client? What type of feedback would help this situation?

Ramesh Patel, a high potential employee, was excited to be named to the company's New Horizons Board, a select team responsible for producing recommendations for new products or line extensions for Aragon Entertainment. Patel's co-worker and friend, Jeremy Gibson was also named to the Board, and the two were assigned to work together on a sub-taskforce. Patel was frustrated by Gibson's lack of effort and support on the taskforce and decides he must confront Gibson about his behavior.

This note provides background on the complex issues regarding the supply and consumption of water and how this natural resource is at increasing risk, resulting in significant economic, political and environmental issues.

The international joint venture that successfully bid for $6 billion in contracts to build LNG trains on Nigeria's Bonny Island became entangled in a widening bribery and corruption probe triggered by an unrelated accusation against an employee of one of the JV partners. The (A) case discusses the JV's ""business as usual"" approach to doing business in the context of Nigeria's political culture and the involvement Albert ""Jack"" Stanley, the JV's alleged manager, in structuring and implementing an elaborate bribery scheme. The ""B"" case relates Stanley's actions after he became the subject of multiple investigations and was terminated by Halliburton, parent of the U.S. JV partner, for taking kickbacks. The ""C"" case details the resolution of bribery and corruption allegations against Stanley, several of his associates and the JV partners.

The case describes Albert "Jack" Stanley's response to actions initiated against him by the U.S. Department of Justice and the SEC.

Route 11 Chips, a regional potato chip company, is struggling with whether to reduce the number of flavors it markets. Additional flavors add operational cost, but management believes that some of the flavors are important to Route 11's brand image and that trimming the line might damage the brand. Route 11 has also taken a price increase recently and management is interested in finding out if there is additional room to raise prices. To analyze these issues in the case, students have access to five years of data on sales by flavor and package size as well as actual price and margin information (in a supplemental Excel spreadsheet).

Spreadsheet Supplement for UV5770.

This note discusses the technical and managerial aspects of pricing a product line. Product lines are multiple variants of essentially the same product, where individual products in the line may vary by quantity (size) or quality. The discussion takes the point of view of the manufacturer of the products rather than the retailer, but the implications of selling through a channel are also discussed. The note draws on the disciplines of economics and psychology to inform good marketing practice.

Daudnagar Organization for Rural Development (DORD) was determining how to expand its successful eye care hospital into gynecology services. The case lays out the financial and organizational risks and asks the student to evaluate the possibility of expansion given the economic and governmental constraints of one of the poorest parts of India.

Akhil Patel is passionate about his business idea: an innovative green technology fuel cell. He wants to dive in and commit to his startup, but his fiancée is much more risk averse, his parents don't approve of the startup, and Akhil has an enticing alternative offer from a prestigious consulting firm. Should Akhil follow his dream and become an entrepreneur? Or should he take the "safer" consulting job?

Infosys BPO, a 350-million USD BPO firm, is preparing a bid for a new customer engagement. In the process, it has to consider various issues such as resource planning, productivity improvement, pricing model, quality management, and human resource management. The case provides scope for carving a strategic growth path for the firm.

The case "Mother Earth - Great Design, Great Values" can be used in a Competition and Strategy course to illustrate a firm employing a focused differentiation strategy and to explore the growth and execution strategies employed by the firm. The case also has a specific focus on the bottom of the pyramid and can be used to study sustainability issues in electives pertaining to Corporate Strategy and the Environment and Social Enterprises. Besides this, the case can also be used in entrepreneurship and marketing courses. The case describes the journey of Mother Earth (ME) since its inception as a company that believes in social sustainability and aims at discussing the strategic challenges at the end of 2010. The focus at the beginning was to utilize market mechanisms to create demand for Indian craft both in India and globally. The export markets turned out to be inconsistent in terms of demand and the financial downturn further aggravated matters; hence ME shifted its focus to expand domestically. The focus was now on giving artisanal products a new contemporary identity with better design and increased utility. ME had achieved significant growth over the last couple of years but was yet to turn profitable. With investment from Future Group, the company is poised for rapid expansion in the local market with significant efforts on building the brand ME and what it stands for.

As of 2012, the Physician Payments Sunshine Act of 2009 requires medical device manufacturers to track any payments or gifts they make to physicians that are worth more than $10 and then starting in 2013 to report those that exceed a total of $100 per year to any given doctor. While a majority of doctors, academic medical centers, and pharmaceutical and device companies generally support the principle of greater transparency when it comes to physician-industry collaborations, many have raised concerns that over regulating potential conflicts of interest could be detrimental to the development and commercialization of new treatments. Particularly in the medical device industry, physicians play a host of essential roles that span commercialization and, more importantly, product development. Any requirements that negatively affect the willingness or ability of physicians to partner with industry have the potential to hinder medical device innovation because, by its very nature, it is incremental and doctor-dependent This note provides a taxonomy of the different roles physicians play in device innovation and identifies which ones are most susceptible to conflicts of interest that may not be well managed by today's institutions. It also makes recommendations on how to better manage conflicts without jeopardizing the ability of physicians and companies to collaborate for the betterment of patient care.

One Acre Fund, a young, international, nonprofit social enterprise--governed by friends of the founder--had grown rapidly since its inception. It now faces increasing demands for resources and key connections to major potential donors, expertise in going to scale, and managing expansion. The case presents this issue, which is commonly faced by new nonprofits, and how the organization, led by the board chair, seeks to resolve it through redesign of the board and major changes in board membership.

The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, focused on building the organizational capabilities of nonprofits that served the disadvantaged youth in the United States, has recently been named an intermediary in the federal government's new social innovation fund (SIF), which is intended to bring together public-private funds to help expand effective solutions across three issue areas: economic opportunity, healthy futures, and youth development. SIF intermediaries would be responsible for directing resources to innovative community-based nonprofit organizations that were seeing results. Edna McConnell Clark Foundation had long been a promoter of evidence-based accountability and grantmaking and saw the absence of an efficient capital market in the nonprofit sector as a major impediment to funding growth, increasing scale, and building the sustainability of successful nonprofit organizations. With its Growth Capital Aggregation Pilot (GCAP), Edna McConnell Clark Foundation had seen positive results in taking a "syndicate" approach to funding a select group of nonprofits. With it being named an SIF intermediary, Edna McConnell Clark was ready to build on its GCAP experience and continue to evolve a model that would provide, at increased efficiency, growth capital for successful organizations. The foundation hoped to build a capital aggregation approach that would serve as a model for philanthropy.

This note summarizes basic principles of tort law and is intended as background information for business students studying legal aspects of management.

In October 2008, President George W. Bush signed into law a requirement that certain private health insurance plans provide coverage for mental illness equal to coverage provided for medical-surgical illness as part of an economic stimulus package, capping more than a decade of advocacy in both houses of Congress by a bipartisan coalition of Congressmen and Senators for mental health parity. Through multiple changes in Congressional leadership, the coalition - including Senators Pete Domenici (R - N.M.), Paul Wellstone (D - MN), and Edward Kennedy (D - MA) and Representatives Patrick Kennedy (D - R.I.) and Jim Ramstad (R - MN) - remained consistent and employed multiple procedural, political, and negotiation strategies to increase the visibility of mental health parity and advance their cause through piecemeal efforts. The sixteen-year path of mental health parity from first introduction in Congress to eventual enactment is an example of the impact of personal commitment, personalities and personal relationships, and the importance of the committee structure, political party leadership, and windows of political opportunity.

The entrepreneurs had offered to purchase one Fabric Super-Store franchise; management had countered with vendor take-back (VTB) financing toward the purchase of two stores if the entrepreneurs would agree to buy and operate both locations. The VTB debt would be in second position to the bank in the event of a bankruptcy. The couple was convinced they could be successful franchisees with both stores, but were concerned with the high proposed interest rate on the VTB offer. While there was no penalty for early repayment (as in their secured bank loan), the bank had offered very competitive rates. After evaluating the financial implications of Fabric Super-Store's counter offer, it was clear that without an immediate and substantial increase in sales at both stores, the entrepreneurs would find themselves unable to operate the business due to the high financing costs. Although both parties were motivated to make a deal happen, some important roadblocks would need to be navigated in order to actually get it done.

The two entrepreneurs met with Fabric Super-Store's executive management team to present an offer to purchase the Kitchener store and a right of first refusal (ROR) on a second, nearby location in Cambridge. Upon consideration and rejection of the ROR, management responded with an intriguing counter-offer in terms of a "vendor take-back" offer (VTB). Fabric Super-Store offered vendor financing terms over three years provided the entrepreneurs purchased both locations. Somewhat complicating their decision to buy was discovering that the Cambridge location had machinery much newer and larger than that in the Kitchener store. Should Cambridge be sold to another party, it could threaten the success of the Kitchener store. The entrepreneurs concluded that they would either need to buy both locations, or pass on the opportunity completely. What to do?