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This is a fictitious case in which Universal Studios, a major US theme parks and resorts company, has to negotiate with China's central government to build its first theme park in the country. Students are divided into groups, and each student is assigned a role as one of the negotiators or as an observer. The topics covered in the negotiation include the new theme park's location, ownership structure, size, nature of theme zones, local employment and hospitality training programmes. The case allows students to experience the difficulties of conducting negotiations in a cross-cultural setting.

Ho Chi Minh Securities Corporation (HSC) was established in April of 2003. At the time, it was the 11th securities company to be founded in the Vietnam. From the outset, HSC provided a full range of securities trading and investment banking-related services. HSC was established to help restructure SOEs and to raise capital for development projects. That is, it was founded as a joint-stock company with the largest of the original investors being the Ho Chi Minh City Investment Fund for Urban Development (HIFU). In May of 2007, the Dragon Capital Group (Dragon Capital), a UK-based fund manager that had already established a foothold in Vietnam, took on just under 30% of HSC's shares. That change in ownership structure of HSC prompted a change in the composition of the board of directors and of the management team. The new team took a range of steps to strengthen the company and help distinguish it from rivals. They articulated a set of organisational values and took steps to shape an organisational culture. They shored up the financial foundation of the firm. They deepened and broadened the expertise embedded in different departments of the company. They introduced new products and services in order to penetrate new market segments. Despite a turbulent external environment, at the end of 2008, the team charted a strategy which called for HSC to increase market share.

"The case is set in mid-2009, about six months before the scheduled worldwide launch of Microsoft Azure. The group director of cloud computing for Microsoft India is mulling over the relative merits and demerits of launching Azure simultaneously in India with the rest of the world. Cloud computing is a paradigm shift in the information technology (IT) industry that fundamentally changes the way software and services are delivered to an end-user's desktop. Cloud computing enables shared resources - software, hardware and information - to be provided to consumers on demand, charging them based on usage. Azure is Microsoft's offering in this space, providing software and infrastructure as a service and also a platform to develop new applications on a pay-per-use model. Microsoft has always made its products available to users in the traditional license model, and Azure would be a paradigm shift not only in terms of technology but also in terms of the business model - from a one-time license fee and periodical maintenance contracts to a pay-as-you-use flexible model. The director had to decide whether the nascent Indian market was ready to adopt this new technology and business model. He also had to decide which segments of the Indian industry Microsoft Azure should target. There were a lot of reasons - presence of a strong IT development community, increasing IT adoption trends across Indian industries and presence of a very big potential customer base in terms of the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) - why the Indian market looked very lucrative. On the flip side, there were concerns such as poor current IT adoption, highly rampant piracy, low-to-average availability of infrastructure (essential to the success of Azure), such as electricity and broadband penetration in India, and the unique 'do-it-for-me' attitude of the Indian businessperson, which translated to significant initial costs in terms of time and effort required to increase awareness."

The case describes the challenges that Ultimate Fighting Championship faced as a result of regulatory opposition and loss of the license to operate. The genesis of the business idea, the subsequent growth, and the fall of the UFC are described. The case concludes with Lorenzo Fertitta deciding whether to invest in the company.

To work effectively in the global business arena, managers need a strong set of intercultural management skills. When dealing with clients, co-workers, and other stakeholders at home or abroad, managers with cross-cultural competence have a distinct competitive advantage in the multicultural marketplace. Although generally accepted as a valuable asset for doing business, cross-cultural competence defies easy definition. This study attempts to conceptualize the complex term from the practitioner's point of view. What does cross-cultural competence mean to global managers? From their perspective, which aspects of culture do business people need to understand? From the universe of cultural beliefs, values, attitudes, and country-specific information, what should an executive, with limited time, focus on to develop a basic level of cultural competence? This study asked Mexican managers what they needed to know about culture to do business with the U.S. In the process, they consistently identified certain basic components of cultural competence. Responses were surprisingly similar among the managers, indicating they had a clear picture of which cultural essentials were most important for global executives to learn. The results of the study reveal a working definition of cultural competence for global managers. This research also provides trainers and business educators a content framework for a short-term training program, based on the global managers' perceptions of cross-cultural competence.

Managerial decisions and behaviors in the international business arena have ethical implications across cultures and countries. The need for ethics and core values in business practice has been heightened by continued business scandals and ethical managerial lapses that have violated public trust. Global businesses can offer practical guidance and set ethical examples for others to follow by establishing corporate values beyond written business codes. Four key work values (Honesty, Fairness, Concern of Others, and Achievement) known to be present in businesses across cultures, are put forth as a baseline start for multinational corporation leaders. Offered is a process for making the core values unique to an organization, and for adopting and training managers in the use of core values. Presented is evidence of managerial implementation of the core work values, and managers' alignment of work values with organizational strategies. By addressing the values and principles of their workplaces, international businesses can achieve cross-cultural ethical practices, managerial alignment, and global social responsibility.

As the dynamic global business environment continues to force organizations to be agile and adaptive, international business (IB) education pedagogy is transforming. Building on previous literature describing gaps in IB pedagogy, as well as unaddressed stakeholder needs, we first use our institution-the United States Air Force Academy-as an example of IB program development. In examining our program's evolution, we develop five questions that may provide insight regarding more generalizable IB pedagogy trends. To assess this possible generalizability, we explore questions related to the development of our program using self-reported, publically-available websites of the top full-time MBA programs throughout the United States. Our questions focus on the role of foreign languages, study abroad opportunities, integrative courses, capstone/thesis projects, and faculty development. Our exploration indicates that these five questions are important not only for educators developing future programs, but also for students examining potential IB programs. Additionally, our research examines a sixth question focused on the development of competitive positioning and program differentiation in IB programs. We hope to motivate future inquiry into IB pedagogy, which could inform more effective means of improving IB education.

Appropriate for courses in operations management and process improvement. Hundreds of prospective students visit the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration throughout the academic year to interview for admission and gain a better understanding of the Darden educational experience. In anticipation of these visits, the Darden Admissions Office coordinates a typical schedule of events with the first-year (FY) and second-year (SY) student hosts, the faculty members who will be teaching the MBA case discussion classes that all prospective students will attend, Abbott Center personnel, and of course the prospective students.

In July 2007, Scripps Networks acquired Recipezaar, a user-generated recipe and cooking Website with a captive community of 2.3 million visitors. By September, Deanna Brown, president of Scripps Networks Digital, grappled with how to best integrate the recent acquisition into Scripps Networks Digital and its affiliated Website, FoodNetwork.com. Should monetization efforts trump the interests and aesthetic tastes of Recipezaar's members? Would restructuring the Recipezaar team dampen the enthusiasm of its five crucial employees and adversely affect the community they had built? What effect would a rebranding have on the community at large?

Professor Gupta faces three major problems in teaching cases: 1) his students, accustomed to lectures, don't know how to conduct a case discussion; 2) the students are using the Internet to discover the outcome of managerial dilemmas posed in the case; 3) he wants to share the theory he learned as a doctoral student, but can't figure out the appropriate way to integrate theory into the case-based discussion. He seeks advice, particularly about the students' use of the Internet.

Professor Gupta has imposed two new policies on his class, midway through the term: 1) No use of Internet to locate additional information on the company in the case; 2) an increase in the percentage of grades attributed to class participation. He meets with rebellion from the class members.

The Nokia case provides an opportunity to explore financial policy in a situation of broad strategic change. In recent years, Nokia, the world's leading producer of mobile phones, had seen its market share and profits eroded by rival products such as Apple's iPhone and phones featuring Google's Android operating system. In February 2011, Stephen Elop, the recently appointed president and CEO of Nokia, announced a broad strategic plan and partnership with Microsoft to correct the company's course and improve its competitive position. Analysts regard the next two years as a period of great uncertainty for the company. The CFO of Nokia must reassess the firm's financial policy in light of the plan and consider its effects on the potential need for external funds, and the appropriate mix and cost of the debt or equity financing that might be used to raise those funds. Nokia, like many technology companies, often carried high cash balances to preserve financial flexibility, but in 2008 and 2009 in response to the global financial crisis it had drawn down cash to historically low levels and experienced several downgrades of its debt by major credit rating agencies. Students must evaluate the tradeoffs between maintaining cash reserves and the need for external funds and work through the implications of financing the projected need for external funds with debt or equity.

Spreadsheet supplement for case UV5656.

The marketing mix that a manager may deploy can affect the sales of a product and can be categorized under the traditional four Ps of marketing (product, price, promotion, and placement). But the perennial question managers face concerns the combination of these different marketing mix variables that will give them maximized sales, highest share, lowest inventory, or maximized margins. Quite often, these questions are answered by historical data: for example, past sales or market share for different levels of expenditures on these marketing mix variables. In this note, we consider the design of models that allow managers to obtain robust price and advertising elasticity estimates.

This short case serves as an epilogue to the A case.

Pfeifer's Fine Olive Oil was formulated and positioned to serve as a heart-healthy, but slightly more expensive substitute for butter and margarine in cooking. With a narrow target market and growing product offerings and market potential, it was particularly important for Pfeifer's Fine Olive Oil to get the most for its limited advertising budget. The range of possible media for advertising its line of products was daunting. Would a media planning model (optimizer) that required executive judgments on several key inputs be helpful?

Volatility can emerge in any working group, particularly in a flat hierarchy with no established leader; add diversity and exhaustion to the mix, and a group is vulnerable to buckling under the pressure of its own goals. This fictional account of a contentious learning team at a business school dramatizes both the words and thoughts of the participants as frictions lead them to consider disbanding. It provides a means of discussing the nature of leadership among peers and in particular the critical but easily overlooked role of personal energy management--mental, physical, and emotional; even when the strengths of diversity are leveraged proactively, interpersonal interaction still requires a significant reservoir of positive energy, whereas its depletion can sabotage even the best of intentions.

The Darden School mailroom and the activities of its manager are analyzed using process mapping and waste identification tools. The note illustrates how one can observe and analyze a process for which opportunities to create process maps, evaluate waste and savings potential, and create stakeholder buy-in for improvements are identified. Lean tools discussed include process flowcharts, SIPOC, seven waste analyses, and stakeholder engagement. Students who undertake their own process mapping projects should complete a report similar to what was created for the Darden School mailroom.

This technical note, based on the more comprehensive note, "Eliciting and Evaluating Expert Forecasts" (UVA-QA-0734), provides a streamlined presentation of Brier and log scores as tools for assessing forecasting records among a pool of experts. The note is designed to be used in conjunction with a forecasting exercise.

This note explains the concept of work values, organizational culture and person-organization fit. Readers complete a personal values profile and an organizational culture profile to allow assessment of person-organization fit.