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Set in India in 2009, the case is about Tata Steel Ltd (TSL), a global top ten steel producer. TSL's launch of a convertible bond offering in exchange for its convertible alternative reference securities issued in 2007 was in response to shifts in environmental factors. An analysis of the offer allows a valuation exercise and an assessment of a capital restructuring decision considering the interests of the issuer and of the investors.

This case highlights the puzzlingly high rate of diarrhea-related child mortality in developing countries despite the existence of a simple, effective treatment: oral rehydration therapy (ORT). ORT treated extreme dehydration caused by diarrhea, which was a leading cause of death among young children in developing countries, particularly in Africa and Asia. Heralded in the 1970s as one of the most important medical advancements of the 20th century, ORT contributed to a reduction in diarrhea-related child deaths from roughly 4.5 million in 1980 to 1.5 million in 2000. Yet for reasons unclear to the global public health community, the mortality rate stalled at around 1.5 million, where it remained in 2010. In presenting the problem of diarrhea-related death, the solution represented by ORT, and the various factors potentially influencing ORT utilization, the case allows students to analyze the possible causes of low ORT utilization and potential measures to address them.

Fundescola is an educational reform introduced in Brazil in the first decade of the 21st century. It was introduced after Brazil's successful educational access reforms in the 1990s led to skyrocketing enrollment rates, leaving schools unprepared and under-resourced. This led to problems with education quality, especially in poorer communities and poorer states in the North-East. Fundescola was developed by the Federal Government and the World Bank in response. It blended decentralization of funds to schools with the adoption of various new management practices-like strategic planning-to make the schools more effective in providing education. The intervention was subjected to various World Bank evaluations and generally presented as a success. HKS Case Number 1928.0

This note provides an introduction to operational systems thinking using the language of stocks and flows and guided by a scientific method-based mapping process. Operational mental models link explicit cause-and-effect relationships to the dynamics (behaviors over time) that unfold within the system. Such mental models improve students' ability to mentally simulate how different interventions in a system will affect its long-term performance.

This case speculates how Japanese companies might implement IFRS, with particular emphasis on consolidation accounting.

The founding CEO of Triple Point Technology, Peter Armstrong, was considering the sale of the company. The company specialized in providing its clients with software used for transaction processing and risk management in various commodity markets. Triple Point Technology had grown substantially in its 13 years of existence and potentially was a source of a significant amount of wealth for its owners. The sale was prompted by a co-founder who wanted to sell his share of the business. The case explores the rationale for owners to monetize at least a portion of their company's value, the sales process, and compares two different offers from the perspective of the company's executives that will have a significant continuing interest in it.

Vaatsalya has created a no-frills, low-price model of health care to address medical needs in semi-urban and rural India. In India, 80% of health-care facilities are located in urban areas even though close to 70% of the total population resides in villages and small towns. Vaatsalya bridges this gap by creating a viable business model, making good quality health care accessible at affordable prices. The explicit objective of Vaatsalya's business is to provide primary and secondary care services in rural and semi-urban areas. It aims to become a leading provider of low-cost but high-quality health-care services in the country by expanding its network.

Venezuelan-based Chocolates El Rey processes some of the best cacao beans in the world, for use in premium products from Belgium and Switzerland. But so far its own brand of chocolate is relatively hard to find outside its home market, and consumers aren't willing to pay a price comparable with those of Belgian or Swiss products. Overcoming the perception that premium products come exclusively from certain geographies is becoming the marketing and branding challenge for emerging markets in the next decade.

Although extroverted leaders have important strengths, in certain situations an introvert may make the better boss. This research suggests that the extrovert's tendency to take over discussions may stifle the ideas of his or her subordinates; whereas introverted leaders tend to listen more carefully and show greater receptivity to suggestions, making them more effective leaders of proactive teams.

Don't reject those overqualified applicants out of hand. New research shows that overqualified workers tend to perform better than other employees, and they don't quit any sooner.

Ever wonder why you just "click" with some people? There's actually a neural basis for that feeling. In good communication, the listener's brain activity begins to mirror the speaker's brain activity. The stronger the resemblance, the higher the listener's comprehension. By studying this uniquely human phenomenon, we could learn how to change other people's minds-literally.

The modern workplace may have made progress toward achieving work-life balance, but many issues remain. They include stress on the job, the underutilized potential of working remotely, the division of labor at home, and pay equity for women.

Managers attempt to make sense of their environment and predict what will result from their decisions. The problem is that there's plenty of random noise in competitive environments, so rewarding or penalizing managers on the basis of outcomes is a mistake. This column offers four ways companies can create more effective reward systems, helping managers to make better decisions.

How the eight sales types perform, and how managers can get the most out of each.

When Brian Dunn became interested in social media, about five years ago, it was a personal interest, not a strategy. Now he uses Twitter and Facebook to connect directly with customers and employees, watch trends, and keep on top of the news. On Memorial Day 2010, after he tweeted a simple thank-you to U.S. service members and Best Buy employees in the reserves, Dunn heard back from a company product specialist that her fellow employees had put together a technology system (using a laptop, a webcam, and Skype) that enabled her and her three children to talk with their father, a soldier in Iraq. To Dunn, this was a moment of serendipity-and an illustration of how important his employees' work can be. Social media are absolutely core to his company's strategy, Dunn says, because the more people become involved with them, the greater the demand for connectivity and the PCs and mobile devices that deliver it. That's why Best Buy has a Twitter feed called Twelpforce, where customers can post tech problems and company associates or other users can post solutions. Dunn acknowledges that social media can have a downside-such as when his Twitter account was hacked in a particularly embarrassing way, causing a brief crisis at Best Buy-but he remains a committed fan.

When the world's largest financial institutions had to be rescued from insolvency in 2008, many experts laid the blame at the feet of corporate boards. But insufficient board oversight is a problem that had supposedly been solved in 2002. As the United States reeled from the blatant failures of corporate governance at Enron and WorldCom, Congress passed the famous Sarbanes-Oxley Act to prevent such failures from happening again. The new rules looked promising. The majority of a board's directors now had to be independent. And senior executives were required to conduct annual assessments of their internal controls for review by external auditors, whose work would be further reviewed by a quasi-governmental oversight board. By the time of the financial meltdown, most major financial institutions were SOX compliant-but that didn't stop the failures. More than 80% of collapsed banks' board members were independent, as were all members of their audit, compensation, and nominating committees. All the firms evaluated their internal controls yearly, and, in 2007, their external auditors' reports showed no material weaknesses. Neither did the reviews by the quasi-governmental board. So why were the SOX reforms so ineffective? In the author's view, it's because they merely added a new layer of legal obligations for governance without improving the quality of people serving on the boards or changing their behavioral dynamics. The author-formerly the president or chairman of two global financial firms, an independent director of several large industrial companies, and a longtime scholar of corporate governance-identifies three chronic deficiencies of boards: They tend to be too large to operate effectively. Members often lack sufficient expertise in the relevant industry. And few devote enough time to fully understand the complexities of the business. In this article, Pozen presents a new model for the corporate board.

Consumers today connect with brands in fundamentally new ways, often through media channels that are beyond manufacturers' and retailers' control. That means traditional marketing strategies must be redesigned to accord with how brand relationships have changed. In the famous funnel metaphor, a shopper would start with a number of brands in mind and then systematically narrow them down to a final choice. His relationship with both the manufacturer and the retailer ended there. But now, relying heavily on digital interactions, he evaluates a shifting array of options and often engages with the brand through social media after a purchase. Though marketing strategies that focused on building brand awareness and the point of purchase worked pretty well in the past, consumer touch points have changed in nature. For example, in many categories today the single most powerful influence to buy is someone else's advocacy. The author describes a "consumer decision journey" of four stages: consider a selection of brands; evaluate by seeking input from peers, reviewers, and others; buy; and enjoy, advocate bond. If the consumer's bond with the brand becomes strong enough, she'll enter a buy-enjoy-advocate-buy loop that skips the consider and evaluate stages entirely. Smart marketers will study the decision journey for their products and use the insights they gain to revise strategy, media spend, and organizational roles.

Companies today increasingly find themselves under attack from dissatisfied customers, disgruntled employees, and just about anyone who has a personal computer and an ax to grind. As many are learning the hard way, small-scale snipers in command of new-media and social-network weapons can inflict large-scale damage to a company's reputation-and fast. Blogs, tweets, text messages, online petitions, Facebook protest sites, and digital videos all represent potent new threats, and companies need to learn how to respond. Gaines-Ross, the chief reputation strategist at a global public relations consultancy, outlines six defensive tactics for companies whose good names come under assault. It's important to avoid a disproportionate show of force; to respond quickly, with instincts honed by advance training; and to empower the front line to meet message with counter message. Companies should not be afraid to "go rogue" themselves, and they should recruit and deploy supporters to serve as "force multipliers." Finally, they should muster their past credentials as they prepare to go into battle. It may never be possible to declare final victory in reputation warfare; the battle is ongoing. But by changing their mind-sets and adopting new tools, companies can protect their businesses from the worst of the reputation snipers' attacks.

Social technologies are helping-if not forcing-marketers to form new kinds of relationships with customers. But traditional brand management models don't account for these new kinds of interactions between companies and consumers. Brand marketers need to update their models to include "new-media ringmasters"-digitally savvy executives who move fast, understand how to integrate social media into corporate communications, and can organize cross-functional teams.