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Our Daily Bread was a small boutique bakery, producing a variety of daily and specialty breads. The company had excess capacity and was considering several options to increase revenues by entering the wholesale bread production business. The case allows students to perform process analysis in a multi-product setting with seasonal demand and evaluate the impact on capacity--as well as the profitability of--potential wholesale orders. The case also enables analysis of the option to purchase new equipment.

Todd McKenna, a third-year associate at an investment banking firm, confronts his boss. His boss had told him he would be the top paid associate at the firm, and McKenna finds out that this isn't true. He approaches his boss to find out why he was lied to.

Sophie Wong, president and CEO of North East Medical Services, a health care organization dedicated to serving the underprivileged Asian American community in San Francisco, must decide how to reposition the organization to serve patients from multiple income levels without compromising the mission of the clinic. Wong must reconcile issues surrounding divergent stakeholder preferences and beliefs about the quality of service offered at the clinic.

R.K. Krishna Kumar, managing director and head of Taj Hotel Group, has to decide whether to reexamine a promotion decision. In an attempt to deliver a level of service quality that met global standards at the Indian hotel chain, Kumar had introduced new personnel management systems at the company. As a result, a committee was now responsible for deciding which managers should be promoted to senior positions at the company. Taj's COO, one of the more respected executives at the company, requested that a committee decision be overturned. Kumar must respect the committee's choice or indulge his popular manager's request to reexamine it.

Marilyn Winn, head of human resources at Harrah's Entertainment, must make a recommendation to the company's president and CEO about whether the existing bonus payout program is effective at motivating employees or whether it should be revised and/or replaced. A recent downturn in economic conditions led Winn to wonder whether customer service payouts were the most efficient way to make Harrah's a service-driven and customer-driven company.

Avon has always sold its products through a large independent direct-selling organization. However, it is now considering whether it should sell directly to the consumer. The company's independent representatives number 500,000 in the United States alone. Yet, there seems to be potential for Avon to grow their business on the web in new and different ways. What benefits might Avon reap from using the Web to improve its relationship with its customers, with its representatives, and between the representatives and their customers. Includes color exhibits.

How should WellSpace, a venture capital-backed purveyor of alternative health services, expand? Although it was nearing breakeven in its first location, the right business model remained unclear.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 503016.

This exercise is designed to help students identify patterns of trust within their network of work and/or personal relationships. The exercise examines three types of trust (coomunication-based, contractual-based, and competence-based), and is intended to help students gain insight into their own propensity to trust others, as wellas their perception of the trustworthiness of the important people with whom they interact most often. The exercise is a self-assessment tool and may be used with MBA and executive audiences.

In 2002, Nomura, though long the market leader in Japan, lacked global presence and was beset at home by strengthened local competitors, Wall Street firms that were taking the best deals, outdated systems, controls, and staff skills. Was Nomura still a player to fear? Could it be?

A group of international business majors from a large Boston-area university traveled to Spain, France and Germany for a yearlong period of study and work. Some of the students described their initial impressions and reactions to living and studying in another country and functioning in another language. Topics discussed include adapting to life in Europe (including language, pace of life, personal space, smoking, local food, sexual norms, personal appearance, and government and bureaucracy), being away from family and friends during the holiday seasons, academics (including differences in learning and teaching styles), and language. The objective of the case is to help undergraduate students who will be living, studying, and working in another country to prepare for their experience. Supplement cases, The European Experience (B), product 9B02C032, discusses the students finishing their academic term and preparing for their work placement and The European Experience (C), product 9B02C033, follows the experience of one student on his co-op work assignment.

After completing their exchange semester, the American students felt that they had gone beyond being mere tourists. However, for most, the reality of spending a term in Europe had turned out very different from their expectations. This supplement to the European Experience (A) case, product 9B02C031 continues the discussion as students finished their academic term and prepare for their work placements. This case is the second part of a case series used to help prepare North American undergraduate business students for international exchange programs. See also European Experience (C), product 9B02C033.

Follows the experience of an American exchange student studying in Spain, as he embarks on a co-op work assignment with a major international manufacturing company. This supplement is the third part of a case series that is used to help prepare North American undergraduate business students for international exchange programs. Supplement to The European Experience (A), product 9B02C031, and European Experience (B), product 9B02C031.

QuickMedx has created a chain of small kiosks, located in drugstores and shopping malls in the Minneapolis area, that cater to patients with a limited range of very simple primary care conditions. Service is rapid and cheap and patients wait only a few minutes to be seen. The kiosks provide an alternative to the primary care physician's office and the emergency room. Clinical care itself is highly standardized and is delivered by nurse practitioners whose decisions are governed by detailed protocols. The company is now considering its expansion strategy. Should it increase the number of kiosks or widen the currently restricted range of conditions treated?

Describes steps taken to implement and manage a successful employee mentoring program at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. A cultural change at the bank provided the context out of which the program grew. The case describes the development of the program, highlighting design principles key to the program's success and its implementation and initial results after nine months. Program manager Amy Rubinstein and executive sponsor Jack Wixted considered how to expand the successful program to include more employees while maintaining the key aspects that contributed to the program's success.

Supplements the (A) case.

This case can be used in management of international business courses to illustrate the analysis of market attractiveness, the importance of fit between firm capabilities and market requirements, and the effects of multimarket competition. It describes the international expansion challenges facing EAC Nutrition, the infant formula division of a Danish conglomerate, in early 2002. Growth in EAC's core markets of Thailand and Malaysia has stagnated and EAC is contemplating three expansion options: entry into India, geographic expansion within China, and product line expansion in existing markets.

Discusses selecting investors and avoiding board-level conflicts of interest in start-ups. Using the "term sheet" in third-round financing as a negotiation over future governance and control rights. A rewritten version of an earlier case.

Retaining talent is an issue for any company whose success relies on the creativity and excellence of its employees. This is especially true for Cirque du Soleil, the spectacularly successful "circus without animals," whose 2,100 employees include 500 artists--mimes, clowns, acrobats, gymnasts, musicians, and production professionals. Managing a company full of creative people is a juggling act in itself, between keeping its artists happy and pursuing a successful strategy for attracting more business and talent.

This case examines a bank's ability to manage its credit exposure to a particular client using credit default swaps.