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By now everyone is familiar with the glass ceiling, the informal barrier that keeps women out of top positions. Newer research has focused on why women have a better chance of getting a top job when an organization is facing a crisis-a phenomenon called the glass cliff. Two recent studies suggest that women are more likely to be promoted into these perilous positions in organizations with a history of male leadership, partly because stereotypically female attributes, such as communication and team-building skills, are especially valued during turbulent times.

Consumers and businesses alike are flocking to sites like Groupon, the web-based social media service that offers deep discounts if a certain number of users sign up. But there's a weak link in the value chain: employees. Many businesses fail to anticipate how the rush of customers will affect staff, and if staff are unhappy, customers are apt to have a bad experience. You should prepare your employees when planning a special offer and compensate them for the lower tips and longer hours they typically endure.

What is the secret sauce for the ideal employee? Stanford Business School professor Francis J. Flynn believes that it's guilt. According to his research findings, guilt-ridden employees are hardworking high performers who get the big picture. In other words, they're leaders.

Technology itself has become the great general manager. It can monitor performance closely, provide instant feedback, and even create reports and presentations. That leaves people with general management skills in a very vulnerable position. They must make two crucial investments: the first in acquiring and building knowledge or competencies that are valuable and rare; the second in developing new areas of proficiency throughout their working lives.

Though all decisions involve opportunity costs, most companies don't factor them into their marketing messages. A few firms, however, have found that pointing out trade-offs to consumers is an effective way to influence their purchasing choices.

Many media strategists have been so busy bemoaning the demise of the TV commercial that they've failed to spot a new opportunity: People are combining TV watching and internet use in ways that could be highly valuable to advertisers. Research shows that multitaskers often take what they see in a TV ad and run to the internet, looking for more information. Smart advertisers will be a step ahead, waiting for them there.

The Brazilian government has just hired GCA to do the valuation of the pre-salt fields on their behalf. At this stage it is clear that Petrobras will go for an equity issue, but the conditions of it are not yet clear, as it depends on the negotiation for the transfer of rights for the new pre-salt oil fields. If successful closure is achieved on this negotiation, Petrobras will have to pay the government for the new pre-salt fields, in addition to getting external capital to support its investment plan 2010-2014. Learning objectives: The learning objectives focus on the approach to the negotiation.

Employers need not-and should not-wait for health care reform to be fully implemented. They already have the influence and the wherewithal to execute the single most effective reform strategy: prevention. That's what Johnson & Johnson has found as it continues to reap steady returns from its more than 30 years of investment in its well-honed employee wellness programs. Specifically, the company has made prevention efforts both effective and cost-efficient by targeting them to the health conditions that are the most devastating, cost the most to treat, and result in the greatest loss of productivity. It has ensured that its programs span the entire spectrum of wellness services. It has recognized the importance of personal, including financial, incentives for employees to engage in wellness activities. It has built a sustainable culture of health, starting at the top. And it has tracked progress by measuring real outcomes, not merely effort. The result of this comprehensive, multipronged approach: For every dollar J&J invests in workers' health, it gets a return of more than $4 in reduced health care costs, lower absenteeism, and improved productivity. From 2001 through 2009, the company avoided more than $21 million in health care expenditures. Numbers like those are hard to ignore.

Suitable for MBA, EMBA, GEMBA, and executive education programs, this field-based case offers an opportunity to use simulation modeling to evaluate an investment affected by prices, technical success, and yields from raw materials that are all uncertain in a global context.

Having diagnosed the situation, he made overdue investments in systems and brought in new blood from outside, instilling new discipline, capabilities and operational efficiencies. Over five years, he managed to transform this seat-of-the-pants operation into a much more robust company, while at the same time continuing to deliver solid financial results. He also repositioned the company for growth in markets where there was little serious competition. These were considerable accomplishments for which he gained belated recognition. Yet, there were nagging concerns throughout his tenure: doubts from analysts about where he was taking the company; criticism from former executives that he was killing the entrepreneurial culture; question marks over the morale of store employees; complaints about customer service; and public disapproval for his expanding remuneration package. These issues came to a head in his sixth year in the job and specifically at a badly misjudged annual meeting with shareholders. Ultimately, he stopped listening to dissenting voices, and made a dreadful blunder - from which his reputation never quite recovered. Learning objectives: The case covers four key leadership issues: 1) The complexity of leading a large company - and the 3 critical roles required of leaders - as strategists, architects and mobilizers. 2) The difficulty of transforming a successful organization - and how to make the case for change in such a company. 3) The need to manage one's own competencies - and the dangers of carrying certain strengths too far: e.g. when does demanding become intimidating and when does self-confidence become stubbornness? 4) The need to manage oneself over time - particularly in terms of maintaining one's ability to listen, as well as coping with disappointment and coping with criticism.

Swiss German Tobacco plans to introduce a new tobacco brand in the Czech Republic. The company has been operating in the country until 2007, when a currency crisis has taken the country out of a euro peg, and into a dollarization of the economy. The new brand is to be labeled "Matrix", as a glamour product targeted to a sophisticated segment, and competing with already established Kent Nanotek, manufactured by British American Tobacco. The question of whether to introduce the brand or not boils down to a valuation exercise, where the major inputs are: the expected demand for the product, driven by population growth; the prospects for tobacco in the country; and technical requirements in production and distribution. Participants are confronted sequentially with these challenges. Learning objectives: This is acapital budgeting and investment selection case, a comprehensive exercise of a Tobacco firm that designs a new brand, which is to be introduced in the market. It is a good illustration of the Free Cash Flow technique, used here for investment appraisal throughout a series of seven challenges.

Grower-owned Zespri is the sole exporter of New Zealand-grown kiwifruit outside of Australia and New Zealand. Facing growing international competition, Zespri invested in consumer branding and innovation, which has led to new types of kiwifruit that taste better and are protected with patents. Consumer response has been positive and Zespri has begun to grow kiwifruit outside of New Zealand in order to have the product on retail shelves year round. Is this the right strategy for the future?

This is a spreadsheet of the Exhibits for case 111-081, restaurant Valuation: O'Charley's and AFC.

The project manager for American Constructors Inc. (ACI) sat down with his team on September 24, 2009, to evaluate the progress of their building expansion project in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The team had been working on the World Outreach Church expansion project for over a year already and it was nearing completion. Originally scheduled for completion by March 2010, the project deadline was pushed ahead to December 14, 2009, at the request of the client, who desired to use the property for the Christmas season. In an effort to maintain the reputation of ACI, which had grown to be known as middle Tennessee's premier contractor, the project manager and his team needed to determine if the December 14 deadline was feasible. This case was designed for use in an undergraduate or MBA operations management or introductory project management course. Developed to aid instructors in facilitating discussions of key project management concepts, the case content allows for an analytical approach to covering the basic skills in planning a project, including precedence relationship, critical path, due dates, uncertainty (PERT tasks), crashing, etc. It can be used to teach students the use of MS Project or other project management software. It can also be used for a less analytic, more managerial discussion of project management. During the case discussion, the instructor can bring out points regarding what actually happened (included in the teaching note) that help round out the case discussion.

In early 2005, Martti Ahtisaari planned negotiations to end the decades-long conflict between Acehnese insurgents and the Indonesian government that had claimed thousands of lives. The "modern" phase of the insurgency by the fighters from the Free Aceh Movement that sought independence from Indonesia had persisted for some 30 years, claiming tens of thousands dead, countless wounded and tortured, as well as economic damage estimated by the World Bank at over $11 billion. In a few short days, Ahtisaari, former Finnish President and longtime diplomat active in some of the world's nastiest trouble spots, would see if he and his team could help foster an elusive accord between the bitter, distrustful parties to the conflict.

Describes Martti Ahtisaari's negotiating strategies and tactics along with the results of his efforts to end the decades-long conflict between Acehnese insurgents and the Indonesian government that had claimed thousands of lives.

The protagonist in this case is an analyst attempting to value Netflix, Inc., and check whether her recent buy recommendation at a price of $20.00 per share was still valid. Recent bad news had caused the price to drop and she needed to do her best to figure out what was the future for Netflix, and was it undervalued at $17 per share? Intended for MBA students, this case contains her discounted cash flow valuation and a set of assumptions (revenues per customer, retention rates, etc.) students can use to perform a valuation of the existing Netflix customer base as another approach toward judging the $17 stock price. There are two student spreadsheets available for this case (UV4342 and UV4343).

Established in 1991, Wilmar grew rapidly to become one of the largest palm oil companies in Southeast Asia, with revenue and net profits of US$23.9 billion and US$1.88 billion respectively for the year ended March 2009. It operated in the entire value chain of the industry, from plantations to processing, merchandising, shipping and distribution. As the third-largest listed plantation company in the world, it operated 300 processing plants and had an extensive global distribution network. Its products sold in more than 50 countries, including China and India. As the global demand for palm oil grew, environmental groups were concerned about the impact of palm oil industry on the social and natural environment, such as loss of forest ecosystems, environmental damage, soil degradation, pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. They were pressuring palm oil producers, including Wilmar, to take action to address these issues. By late 2010, Wilmar had two strategic initiatives to drive future growth. It was poised to acquire Sucrogen, Australia's largest sugar company with operations in sugar milling and refining, bioethanol production and generation of renewable electricity. It was also expanding into sub-Saharan Africa, where many governments were keen to support the development of commercially managed large-scale oil palm projects. However, as in Asia, palm oil producers and governments could expect to encounter pressure from environmental groups with regard to possible adverse effects. The challenge was to manage these initiatives and the environmentalists' demands for more sustainable operations.

The largest Chinese energy company is thinking about a cross-listing back into the mainland stock exchange, after seeing the valuation of comparable companies on the so-called A share market sky-rocketing. We discuss the cause and the consequence of investor sentiment on the cross-listing decision of firms, and the responsibilities of corporate managers to maximize existing shareholder interests through catering to such investor sentiment.