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The case covers Bob Nardelli's 6-year tenure at Home Depot from 2000-2006. During this time, he posted impressive numbers as well as changed Home Depot's strategic orientation. He failed however to improve the company's share price. This difficulty, allied to Nardelli's pay package (negotiated at a time of economic euphoria when he was one of the two most wanted executives in America), severely strained his relationship with the company's shareholders. The case traces their deteriorating relationship through the lens of the annual general meetings. These were transformed from "lovefests" under his predecessor into increasingly fractious occasions - culminating with a disastrous meeting in May 2006 that indirectly led to Nardelli's resignation at the beginning of 2007. The case considers Nardelli's relationship with two key stakeholders - the board and the shareholders - as well as issues of self-management. At first view, this case can be read as a story of greed and weak corporate governance - an excessively greedy CEO/Chairman who manipulates the board into giving him high compensation and reducing performance pressures. While acknowledging some of these aspects, we are proposing a different take on the situation, focusing instead on the self-fulfilling and self-reinforcing nature of the dysfunctional dynamic between the CEO and the shareholders - and on the inability of the board to offset it. We concentrate on the psychological and behavioral processes that drove the parties toward a perfectly avoidable collision. Learning objectives: The core issue is Bob Nardelli's growing difficulties in dealing constructively with the company's shareholders - and their misunderstanding of his role (as a change agent) and motivation (assuming it is only about money). It is also a case about a board that does not understand how to help a CEO that it rates very highly. The case allows discussion of the role of the board in helping the CEO to overcome such problems.

In November 2006, Chris Michel left Military.com, which he founded in 1999, to start Affinity Labs, a global network of online communities. That month, Michel raised a Series A round of venture funding and established a partnership with Monster, which he had sold Military.com to. Within its first year of operations, Affinity Labs launched eight vertical portals including PoliceLink, NursingLink, TechCommunity, and IndiaOn. While the company was well ahead of its original plan to release four portals in 2007, Michel still faced a number of challenges. He had learned a great deal from Military.com and Affinity Labs' first launches, but in the case of each new community, was faced with how best to construct the vertical and attract a sufficiently large audience. While the model seemed highly scalable because each vertical used the same core technology, every sector had its unique features. In the fall of 2007, executives from Monster opened up a dialogue with Michel about selling the company or expanding their relationship. Michel wondered if the time was right to sell or if he should grow Affinity Labs further with the hope of creating a company that could command the high valuations seen recently by a number of social networking concerns.

Since its foundation in 1902, Bocconi has been a teaching institution with a dominant domestic presence. The case examines the currently unfolding attempt at transforming Bocconi University into a research powerhouse with the ambition to build a strong position among Europe's leading business schools. The case offers a detailed analysis of Bocconi's transformational journey, and illustrates the challenges of changing the mindset of a large portion of the faculty.

September 2007. For both founding fathers of the Happy Shrimp Farm, it had been a hectic three years. What started as a simple market research on co-siting for the Rotterdam Port Authority (RPA) in April 2004 had rapidly developed into an international multi-million euro business proposition that literally took over their lives. Their research had identified interesting business opportunities. RPA agreed to support them on a case-by-case basis, starting with the Happy Shrimp Farm. Initial challenges included getting a residual energy contract to heat the shrimp production ponds and external funding for the venture. Construction started in September 2006. With its energy recycling and urban revival themes, Happy Shrimp generated extensive press coverage. Greiner and Curtessi were already looking ahead: Could the concept be replicated in Germany and Canada? Could it be applied to seaweed production as well? How sustainable was sustainability as a business concept? Happy Shrimp International needed to take shape fast. Could they manage all this growth? And handling the multiple stakeholders was still a headache... Learning objectives: Managing multiple stakeholders in a sustainable project development. Understanding the economic drivers of cradle-to-cradle, recycling projects. Discuss sustainability as a business model.

This case provides students with a deeper understanding of commodity futures markets in general and natural gas markets in particular. It also provides an introduction to hedge funds and insight into the largest hedge fund collapse in history. Third, it introduces such concepts as liquidity risk, value-at-risk, spread trades and the use of derivatives. As of the case date, Amaranth had not publicly disclosed the positions that led to $6 billion in losses during the month of September 2006. The case was written using public information and provides key pieces of data to allow students to reverse engineer possible positions Amaranth may have held.

A service delivery failure in the Mount Rundle Hotel escalates into a full-fledged confrontation between hotel management and the customer. The hotel general manager has an inward focus and is more intent on managing internal company systems and processes than catering to customer needs. The delay in responding effectively to the service failure leads to the involvement of the Better Business Bureau of Alberta, the Banff Lake Louise Tourism Development Board and the Banff mayor's office.

Melco is a gaming firm based in Macau. Melco is planning an initial public offering (IPO) but receives a takeover bid from MGM Mirage. How much was the company really worth? Which route was best for Melco shareholders? Students assume the role of the investment banker advising Melco's chief executive officer on how to react. The case permits the valuation of the firm using discounted cashflow methods and relative valuation. Also, consideration of strategic issues, industry buyer versus IPO, potential synergies, ownership and control issues are involved.

Aurora Capital, a US Private Equity firm, contemplates whether to acquire Douglas Dynamics, the leading US maker of snow plows. Does a business that is highly dependent on the weather, and is seasonal, make a good LBO candidate? This case provides a good introduction to the LBO business. What are the characteristics of a successful LBO? And how do successful PE firms create value by acquiring such companies?

An early adopter of Enterprise Risk Management, energy giant Hydro One anticipated new threats and opportunities in an industry that faced climate change and carbon legislation, the deregulation of electricity markets, and the greater adoption of renewable technologies. CEO Laura Formusa felt Hydro One's risk profile had shifted, to the extent that she had to ask herself -- was the strategy tenable? The case provides a rich description of Enterprise Risk Management in action, and shows how Hydro One executives arrive at a shared understanding of the risk profile of the company. In the narrative a diverse group of managers (the chief executive, the chief financial officer, the head of the public relations and the chief regulatory officer) voice their views on the risks, collectively bringing a multiple stakeholder perspective to the risk profile. The case challenges students to define the problems and risks that the company faces, given its strategic objectives, its evolving risk profile, and the changing environment. The case also offers a discussion ground for defining the role of the chief risk officer, and the relationship between risk management, strategic planning and capital budgeting.

Greg James, a global manager at Sun Microsystems, Inc., sets out to meet with his entire 43-member customer implementation team spread across India, France, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States of America to resolve a dire customer system outage as required by a service agreement. Rather than finding a swift resolution to the rapidly escalating customer situation that motivated his trip, he finds himself facing distributed work, global collaboration, conflict and management issues that are threatening to unravel his team.

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As of 2007, there were very few examples of widespread measurement and reporting of health outcomes, a critical quality measure. In-vitro fertilization clinics have been required to report their patient's health outcomes since 1995. The protagonist of the case, Dr. James Goldfarb, faces a number of challenges. As the medical director of a nationally-renowned fertility program at the Cleveland Clinic, he must run an efficient and effective practice that draws patients from both the surrounding area and from around the world. As a leader of the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, he must contribute toward the continuing evolution of the practice of in-vitro fertilization and ensure that the outcome measurement system is creating proper incentives and delivering timely, accurate, and useful information to patients, physicians, and researchers.

eHarmony's CEO needs to decide how to react to imitations of its business model, encroachment by competing models and ascendance of free substitutes. The case provides four options to address these threats and asks students to choose one after they analyzed the company's strategy. The analysis begins with understanding of value proposition, as derived from failures of substitutes. It proceeds to examine industry structure and important differences across its different niches. Students can then analyze the essence of a focused differentiation strategy and understand the importance of costly strategic trade-offs. They can also estimate the size of eHarmony's competitive advantage over two other competitors before articulating threats to sustainability, all of which will help them choose one of the four options.

Studies the role of Cisco in setting current US accounting standards for acquisitions and goodwill. Students are asked to analyze an acquisition in the context of an ongoing political debate on mergers accounting.

Studies the role of Cisco in setting current US accounting standards for acquisitions and goodwill. Students are asked to analyze an acquisition in the context of an ongoing political debate on mergers accounting.

Tibal Fisher made a fortune selling trendy, inexpensive home furnishings to baby boomers. With that generation beginning to enter its sixties, he sees a huge opportunity in products for aging consumers. Focus groups and surveys confirm strong market demand for such items, and the media love the idea. So why is TF's NextStage, his new line of stores for older consumers, a disaster? Four experts comment on this fictional case study in R0807A and R0807Z. Donna J. Sturgess, global head of innovation for GlaxoSmithKline, thinks Tibal's research missed the subconscious associations in customers' minds-the deep metaphors that reveal people's true feelings about products. The solution: Find ways to generate positive emotional associations, as GSK has done with its weight-loss product. Alex Lee, president of household-products maker OXO International, says consumers are attracted by brands they associate with the type of people they'd like to be-not the type they are. TF's NextStage must avoid trying to get customers to "act their age" and using labels and positioning that call attention to their senior status. Yoshinori Fujikawa, a professor at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo, says certain businesses-those led by executives with a talent for sensing what their customers want-can forgo deep research into customers' feelings, at least in the short term. But over the long term, firms need to have an organizational capability to create a systematic method for discovering what's going on in customers' minds. Lewis Carbone, CEO of market research firm Experience Engineering, points out that customers often are unable to articulate their deepest feelings. That's why companies need to go to the trouble to work with them one-on-one to find out what's driving them toward-or away from-a brand.

Breitfelder and Dowling are two recent Harvard MBAs who have worked in fields typically chosen by alumni of esteemed business schools: strategy consulting, investment banking, you know the score. Ultimately, however, these promising young professionals decided to do the unexpected and enter human resources. They switched gears not to achieve work/life balance or avoid tough challenges but to get in early on a good thing, as any smart value investor would. HR sits, according to the authors, in the middle of the most important competitive battleground in business. Finding and retaining the best talent has become an increasingly vital competitive advantage, making HR a truly strategic function for any company today. Breitfelder and Dowling have seen this shift firsthand in their work at Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and MasterCard-and have had it confirmed by their colleagues and former classmates at other top-tier firms. Such companies recognize the real value of excellent, motivated employees and are investing time and energy accordingly; in the process, they are defining what the authors call "the New HR." This HR of the future has five characteristics: It, like a business school, promotes active learning; it serves as an engine for both savings and revenue; it hatches and harvests ideas across organizational boundaries; it makes big places smaller by connecting people intimately and often; and it focuses on the positive, moving beyond fixing problems and enforcing rules to enhancing employee engagement and capitalizing on people's strengths. If that's what HR is becoming, why wouldn't you go into it?

Despite their lofty job titles and impressive pay, many high-achieving executives feel professionally dissatisfied and unfulfilled. Looking back, they wish they'd accomplished more or even chosen a different career altogether. Often they feel trapped in their jobs. In this article, Kaplan, a Harvard Business School professor, examines why people arrive at this impasse-and offers them guidance on how to break through it and reach their full potential. That goal isn't about getting to the top, he says. Rather, it's about taking a very personal look at how you define success in your heart of hearts, and then finding your own path there. To discover your way, you need to step back and reassess your career, recognizing that managing it is your responsibility. Many people feel like victims when, in fact, most career wounds are self-inflicted. Taking control begins with understanding yourself: seeking frank feedback about your strengths and weaknesses from colleagues above and below you, and figuring out what you truly enjoy doing. That understanding-not other people's definition of success-should guide your career choices and goals. Next, it's critical to identify the three or four tasks central to your business and make sure you excel at them; otherwise, success is likely to elude you. Once you've chosen the right enterprise, you must show character and leadership. Great executives put the interests of their company and colleagues ahead of their own. They're willing to speak up, even to voice unpopular views. Many managers hit a plateau because they play it too safe. But those that identify their dreams, develop the skills to realize them, and demonstrate courage will find fulfillment-even if they hit bumps along the way.

Managing the tension between performance and people is at the heart of the CEO's job. But CEOs under fierce pressure from capital markets often focus solely on the shareholder, which can lead to employee disenchantment. Others put so much stock in their firms' heritage that they don't notice as their organizations slide into complacency. Some leaders, though, manage to avoid those traps and create high-commitment, high- performance (HCHP) companies. The authors' in-depth research of HCHP CEOs reveals several shared traits: These CEOs earn the trust of their organizations through their openness to the unvarnished truth. They are deeply engaged with their people, and their exchanges are direct and personal. They mobilize employees around a focused agenda, concentrating on only one or two initiatives. And they work to build collective leadership capabilities. These leaders also forge an emotionally resonant shared purpose across their companies. That consists of a three-part promise: The company will help employees build a better world and deliver performance they can be proud of, and will provide an environment in which they can grow. HCHP CEOs approach finding a firm's moral and strategic center in a competitive market as a calling, not an engineering problem. They drive their firms to be strongly market focused while at the same time reinforcing their firms' core values. They are committed to short-term performance while also investing in long-term leadership and organizational capabilities. By refusing to compromise on any of these terms, they build great companies.