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The advent of superior connectivity and integration technologies is paving the way for flexible electronic partnering options. Such flexibility is essential if a company wants to attract a large number of partners (with varying connectivity needs and preferences) to its supply chain network. This article conceptualizes 12 electronic partnering options. It then discusses the various types of sensemaking and conversion challenges that companies encounter in developing this critical electronic business (e-business) capability and proposes a multi-pronged approach to effectively deal with them. This approach involves four distinct but synergistic campaigns of digitization--strategic congruency, organizational design, technology infrastructure, and relational campaigns. The utility of this approach is illustrated by examples of successful business-to-business (B2B) digitization initiatives.

Logistics services and their providers are helping intermediaries add value to Internet supply chains in ways that are not always immediately obvious. Thus, it is not surprising that there is confusion among academics and practitioners about how best to extract value from such services and providers. Reports the results of a study of the role and value of logistics services and their providers. Reveals that Internet sellers establish relationships with logistics service providers in order to extract value from the providers' network of logistical resources and better fill their customers' orders. Internet sellers establish these relationships to lower the costs they would incur if they attempted to carry out the logistics services internally. They also seek such providers in order to access strong networks that bundle many complementary logistics services among Internet sellers, their customers, and their vendors.

Customers have proven to be a precious source of new solutions in various product categories and, by becoming directly involved in the innovation process, they can help companies better anticipate market changes. The Web can greatly simplify these activities by making it easier to manage systematic interactions with a select group of customers at a low cost. However, empirical evidence regarding the actual diffusion of Web-based tools supporting collaborative innovation remains weak. After reviewing the past findings on Web-based tools for customer integration, this article presents an exploratory analysis of over 200 brand and corporate sites. It highlights the tools that firms mainly use and identifies some relevant industrial and firm specificities.

In December 2004, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) adopted a new standard of accounting for employee stock options (ESOs). This standard, entitled Statement of Financial Accounting Standards 123R, requires that ESOs be valued at the date of grant and expensed over the vesting period of the options. The signatories to this position paper strongly oppose this revision to GAAP because they believe that the expensing of ESOs is improper accounting that will result in the serious impairment of the financial statements of companies that are users of broad-based option plans. The case against expensing ESOs can be summed up in six simple statements: an ESO is a "gain-sharing instrument" in which shareholders agree to share their gains (stock appreciation), if any, with employees; a gain-sharing instrument, by its nature, has no accounting cost unless and until there is a gain to be shared; the cost of a gain-sharing instrument must be located on the books of the party that reaps the gain--in the case of an ESO the gain is reaped by shareholders and not by the enterprise; the cost of the ESO, therefore, is borne by the shareholders; this cost to shareholders (which, not coincidentally, exactly equals the employee's post-tax profit) is already properly accounted for under the treasury stock method of accounting (described in FAS 128, entitled "Earnings per Share") as a transfer of value from shareholders to employee option holders; and neither the grant nor the vesting of an ESO meets the standard accounting definition of an expense. These six statements lead to the conclusion that an ESO, while it may have an economic cost to shareholders, is not an expense of the entity that grants it.

Examines the extent of and challenges facing female entrepreneurs in developing countries. There are higher rates of female entrepreneurship in developing countries than developed countries, but necessity is often the main driver in lower income countries. Explores the challenges facing women arising from societal inequality, including lack of educational provision, and difficulties in securing funding.

The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is an NGO -headquartered in London and established by WWF and Unilever in 1997 to set up a certification and eco-labeling system for sustainable fishing. The case describes the MSC's initial and more recent challenges including the Tragedy of the Commons, a wide range of less willing stakeholders, and the complexity of certifying fisheries on sustainability criteria. It also outlines management decisions to meet at least some of the challenges: improved transparency and engagement with stakeholders, new governance structures and certification methodologies. Learning objectives: Participants should 1) see the challenges associated with the certification of sustainable business practices (in general and in fisheries in particular); 2) reflect on the institutional dilemma presented by the wide range of often conflicting stakeholder demands; 3) see the necessity to carry out strategic (i.e. focused) stakeholder engagement (find the most important allies) and establish effective governance structures.

The Festival by the Sea (FBTS) has been successful by all accounts except financially. As the General Manager reviews the recent performance of the festival, she also noted several challenges lied ahead. The events industry needs better educated professionals, ethical issues need to be addressed, temporary employees and volunteers need to be successfully hired and retained, and sponsors need to be attracted in order to cover the costs of the New Brunswick festival. The General Manager must determine how to ensure the viability of the FBTS.

Explores the Mozilla Foundation's decisions leading up to the launch of Firefox 1.0, including its default browser, managing corporate partnerships, managing product development, and moving toward a revenue-based model. Mitchell Baker, president of the Mozilla Foundation, is faced with a crucial question in the impending hours of the Firefox 1.0 launch. Firefox, the reincarnation of the Netscape Mozilla browser, has had tremendous success despite Mozilla's loss of the Browser Wars to Internet Explorer years before. After AOL acquired Netscape, the Mozilla team had been unsure of their future, but they recently gained their independence with a new independent, nonprofit foundation. What partners should Firefox include as their default search partners? Should this relationship be commercial?

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Provides a glossary of terms used in Harvard Business School's Innovating in Health Care, 2006, Course.

This note defines and discusses the measurement of corruption, describes corruption's principal effects on firms and societies, and discusses its relevance of to managers and to the efforts of firms to promote higher living standards throughout the world.

Supplement to case UV1296 Jeweler Peter Reines was intrigued by the diamond ring that had been dropped off by Ashley Gibson for his inspection. The center diamond was certainly more than three carats, the cut was old European, and the setting was exquisite. A friend with an impressive collection of antique jewelry, who came by the store, offered $30,000 for the ring. That offer translated into a maximum price to Gibson of $27,500 if she were interested in selling it.

In the summer of 2005, LinkedIn, a two-year-old start-up, was choosing between two options to monetize its 5 million business people network. Members could contact each other through trusted intermediaries on the network to offer or seek jobs, consulting engagements, expertise, and financing. The company had outpaced its competitors by building the most populous online business network, but it had little revenue to show its investors. The first revenue option entailed keeping the existing features unchanged and rolling out a bundle of eight new services for a monthly fee of $15. These services would be targeted at network members who had forged many connections, logged in frequently, and viewed the profiles of many other members. The second proposal involved changing a basic design feature of LinkedIn by allowing members to contact each other without intermediaries for a fee. Fewer members would avail themselves of this feature, but those who did would be willing to pay as much as $5-$15 per message. This option ran a substantial risk of alienating members and would prompt some to abandon LinkedIn.

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Jenny Chen, CA, CFA, CMC has been hired by Jane Wallace of High Performance Tire. Jane, who inherited the firm from her parents, had successfully run the company for many years. When she transferred the responsibility to her son William in 2001, he began to make several changes in order to expand the number of outlets, diversify the product offering, and cut costs in the company. In 2004, the company was having difficulties and Jane decided to become more involved in the family business once again. Jenny's task is to review and analyze the company operations and make recommendations.

In 1999, Pulsar's chairman and CEO, Jenny Jones appointed her daughter-in-law, Kyla Jacobs-Jones to run Caltron. Caltron, a calculator manufacturer, was fully owned by Pulsar. Caltron was facing stiff competition from abroad, and in 2001 members of Pulsar's board of directors began to put pressure on Jones to divest it. Jacobs-Jones was given two years to turn the unit around before revisiting the decision to divest Caltron. In 2004, Dan O'Shea, CA, CFA, a corporate financial consultant with KPMG has been hired to review and analyze the company operations and make recommendations.

Coolidge (CKC), a chemical manufacturer, is being sued for patent infringement. The plaintiffs are the patent holder and its sole licensee, who is also a CKC competitor. An analyst at CKC has done a breakeven decision analysis from CKC's perspective, balancing going to court with settling out of court, but no analysis has been done for the plaintiffs.

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The vice-president of operations must submit a valuation and recommendation to expand his plant to handle a doubling of sales over the next three years. Students will have to understand the process review for capital allocation in this large corporation in order to make their recommendation, as well as complete a discounted cash flow.

In December 2003 the management team at Saurer Twisting Systems (STS) was facing increasing competition in the critically important Chinese market. Local competitors in China were undercutting the price of Saurer's CompactTwister, which was manufactured in China, by over 50%. The company was considering the introduction of a lower cost machine targeted at Chinese and Asian customers, who would not buy its high cost machine. Margins were likely to be significantly lower on the new machine, and the new machine might cannibalize their high-end product. If the STS team did decide to introduce the new machine, it would have to make some difficult decisions about positioning, pricing, naming the product, and sales strategy. It was also not clear how their Chinese competitors would respond to the proposed new product.