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Naked Retreats, a hotel management company that adhered to a localized brand positioning strategy, made its debut in the Chinese hotel market in 2007. To allow customers to experience the restorative effects of closeness to nature, it launched Naked Stables, the first resort in China to have obtained a Leadership in Environmental Energy Design (LEED) Platinum certification. The founder of Naked Retreats, Grant Horsfield, was a South African who felt deeply connected to nature. Horsfield subsequently launched a series of explorative projects related to holistic living, including catering, education, and a co-working space. While the brand had success in some areas of its brand extension, it experienced failures in others. In 2018, Naked Retreats must decide whether to continue its horizontal extension or to focus on its most successful projects.

The effectiveness of manufacturing and service processes can be measured in many ways. Some key measures include throughput time, throughput rate, cycle time, and inventory. In this brief exercise, we define the relationships among these metrics, focusing specifically on a concept called Little's Law and distinguishing among throughput rate, throughput time, and cycle time-hence the title.

This Harvard Business School case is about Harvard Kennedy School graduate, Phuc Huynh, who wants to establish Teach for Vietnam (TFV) in his home country and become an official Teach for All partner. It considers the concepts of giving back in one's career and the process of deciding whether to give up on a seemingly unattainable goal or whether to persevere and follow through on a dream, despite multiple obstacles.

By the time Dan Doctoroff, CEO of Sidewalk Labs, began hosting a Reddit "Ask Me Anything" session in January 2018, he had only nine months remaining to convince the people of Toronto, their government representatives, and presumably his parent company Alphabet, Inc., that Sidewalk Labs' plan to construct "the first truly 21st-century city" on the Canadian city's waterfront was a sound one. Along with much excitement and optimism, strains of concern had emerged since Doctoroff and partners first announced their intentions for a city "built from the internet up" in Toronto's Quayside district. As Doctoroff prepared for yet another milestone in a year of planning and community engagement, it was almost certain that of the many questions headed his way, digital privacy would be among them.

This is a standalone reading designed to introduce students to the shareholders' equity section of the balance sheet. The reading provides the formal definition of shareholders' equity and its four main components-contributed capital, distributions, retained earnings, and accumulated other comprehensive income.

In 2010, Anne Charpentier, director of the Montreal Insectarium, a natural history museum dedicated to insects, was mandated to metamorphose her museum, whose dilapidated facilities were bursting at the seams. Much more than the story of a simple renovation project, this case focuses on the extraordinary project management approach adopted by Charpentier. Soliciting the input of a host of experts, she spearheaded a co-creation process to help develop the specifications for the architecture competition that would determine the architectural and functional design of the new museum. Against all odds, Charpentier launched a two-year process involving the museum staff, other Montreal museums, world-renowned experts (in entomology and experiential design), as well as the general public. This case presents the details of the approach used along with the thoughts of the director and her collaborators throughout the collective design process. The end result was a program of museum experiences - the centrepiece of the specifications presented to the architects. The case also discusses the challenges faced by Charpentier and her team. The case is divided into two parts (A and B) - the first centres on the context of the museum transformation and the second on the development and implementation of the co-creation process.

In 2010, Anne Charpentier, director of the Montreal Insectarium, a natural history museum dedicated to insects, was mandated to metamorphose her museum, whose dilapidated facilities were bursting at the seams. Much more than the story of a simple renovation project, this case focuses on the extraordinary project management approach adopted by Charpentier. Soliciting the input of a host of experts, she spearheaded a co-creation process to help develop the specifications for the architecture competition that would determine the architectural and functional design of the new museum. Against all odds, Charpentier launched a two-year process involving the museum staff, other Montreal museums, world-renowned experts (in entomology and experiential design), as well as the general public. This case presents the details of the approach used along with the thoughts of the director and her collaborators throughout the collective design process. The end result was a program of museum experiences - the centrepiece of the specifications presented to the architects. The case also discusses the challenges faced by Charpentier and her team. The case is divided into two parts (A and B) - the first centres on the context of the museum transformation and the second on the development and implementation of the co-creation process.

An analyst at Vaux Gibson Inc., a fund that managed a portfolio of North American equities, was tasked with reviewing the fund's holdings of Under Armour Inc. (Under Armour) and providing recommendations for the fund's prospective investment strategy with the company. Under Armour had experienced significant revenues and bottom-line growth over the past three years, but this growth slowed significantly in 2017 and the company reported a net loss, resulting in the significant depreciation of its stock price. The analyst wondered if it was time to exit the investment, providing investors with an above-market return, or if there was still room for Under Armour to recover and grow.

Student spreadsheet for case W18648

Several psychological theories can help explain organizational behaviour, but many students are not exposed to the benefits that these types of concepts can provide. This note discusses a brief overview of some of the most relevant theories, which may help employees and leaders to better understand organizational behaviour.

A common assumption is that if we just put good people together, they will automatically develop into a strong team. Conversely, we assume that if we put a lot of low-performing people together, they will perform poorly. However, research tells us that it is not that simple. Teams are different from the sum of their parts, and they develop as they go. Scholars have been able to develop a well-accepted model that can help managers and employees build team effectiveness in the workplace: the input-mediator-outcome (IMO) team effectiveness framework. This note provides an overview of the well-supported IMO model of team effectiveness.

Wanda Cultural was one of the four pillars of the Dalian Wanda Group ("Wanda Group"), which had been China's giant of commercial properties. From 2005 to 2018, Wanda Cultural had gone through a number of strategic transformations and developed four major business sectors: films, sports, travel innovation, as well as children's entertainment & education. Through domestic and cross-border acquisitions and diversifications, Wanda Cultural had emerged from a domestic Chinese family-owned enterprise to become a world-class multinational corporation ("MNC"). As a pioneer in film industry investment in China, Wanda Cultural had succeeded in building a vertically integrated business model that spanned across different developed countries and secured leading market position in the world. When Wanda Cultural entered into other foreign developed markets and diversified into different industry sectors, both opportunities and threats for competing in the global environment exemplified. This case explores opportunities facing firms as they seek to develop and exploit core competencies by diversifying into global markets. In addition, it explores different problems, complexities and threats that might affect a MNC's international strategy and rationale for retrenchment. The case also explores business innovation strategies and its impact on global competitiveness and growth.

Focusing on the use of digital technologies in the retail sector in Hong Kong, this case describes the challenges confronted by the largest department store operator in Hong Kong, SOGO department stores. A traditional brick-and-mortar retailer with negligible e-commerce operations, SOGO has recognized the impact of technology in the retail sector. Just as its customers are influenced by technology in their daily lives, SOGO has been perpetually challenged in seeking the optimal ways to integrate technology into its daily operations, such as point-of-sale (POS) and customer relationship management (CRM) systems. SOGO needs to understand better the best ways to interact with its more than 500,000 loyal SOGO Rewards members, particularly the digitally-savvy younger customers. As a business case, this is not just a discussion about technology trends in retail, but about the strategic decision-making of an Executive Director of SOGO as she confronts the challenges and inherent costs to acquire new technologies and the resources required to train employees to use such technologies which would improve the company's interactions with its customers and drive growth. Furthermore, at the intersection of technology and customers is often data - data about customers' demographics (gender, age etc.), what items they are purchasing, how much they are spending, and what their likes and dislikes are. For SOGO, how could it leverage technology to utilize the extensive data it collects and maximize lifetime customer value?

In July 2017, CEO Kevin Tabb of Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center announced his plan to consolidate 11 Massachusetts hospitals under a common management structure. These hospitals collectively generated $5 billion in patient revenue and 25% of privately-insured hospital stays in the state. The merger would create a credible competitor to Partners Healthcare, the state's dominant health care provider, but would potentially reduce competition and raise prices. State regulators were assessing the merger, and Tabb needed to argue its merits.

In 2016, the managing director of innogy Consulting GmbH (iCon), an international strategic consulting firm based in Germany, had many reasons to be delighted. The company had risen to second place in an annual ranking of internal consultancies after successfully expanding into four new countries. He now pondered new challenges and directions for iCon, after having led RWE Consulting-the predecessor to iCon-since 2007. As an internal consulting department within the RWE Group (RWE) in Germany, the consulting unit mainly conducted information technology implementation and project management within RWE. Although the managing director had led the consultancy unit into new geographic markets and toward new external clients, iCon faced many challenges, including tough competition in the external management-consultancy market. How could iCon take steps to compete away from home?

Student spreadsheet for case W18653

This case covers the ten-year development of Shenzhen's innovation landscape from 2008 when China hosted the Summer Olympics and launched its nationwide 3G mobile network to 2018, which marks the 40th anniversary of the nation's economic reform. Specifically, it identifies the confluence of global and China-specific factors that transformed Shenzhen from a shanzhai (copycat) hub to startup haven, such as the rise of mobile internet and the adoption of automation in Shenzhen factories, as well as the "Made in China 2025" and "Chinese Dream" visions promoted by the government. The case discusses how the decades-old practice of shanzhai may not be a flaw but a feature crucial to Shenzhen's innovative vitality. It returns to the idea of innovation as a web to be woven, "layer by layer, with every business deal brokered among its firms, and with every inventive idea sketched out by its army of makers". It poses several questions revolving around the idea of shanzhai. Is it something so undesirable that it has to be exorcised from Shenzhen? Or is it the basis of which innovation, Shenzhen style, flourishes and spreads?