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In 2017, a sports journalist based in Houston, Texas was confused about his editor's latest idea. His editor had emailed him the night before proposing an article on the best (and worst) Major League Baseball hitters of all time. The first step was to provide a list of the players that would be profiled. This meant finding the 10 best (and worst) batters. However, after ranking the players, could he quantify the probability that he ranked them incorrectly? Because the article was based on data, he had to justify his choices and he wanted his decisions to be based on sound statistical grounds.

Student spreadsheet for case W18610

This case examines the investment strategy decisions of a student portfolio management team in April 2017. The case is designed to provide a context for an introduction to the intuition of the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) and practical estimation methods. Students are invited to make investment recommendations based on the risk-return characteristics of a set of stock-investment alternatives. The case discussion surrounds the tension with respect to the relevant measure of risk and the method for estimating benchmark returns. The case equips students with the materials for estimating a CAPM-based benchmark for each security using market data.

Student spreadsheet for case UV7617

On the afternoon of Monday October 13, 2008, Hank Paulson Jr., the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, walked into the large conference room across the hall from his office in the Treasury Department. Joining him were Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Timothy Geithner, Chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporate Sheila Bair, and the Chief Executive Officers of nine of the largest banks in the United States. This distinguished group had been brought together by the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Financial panic was pushing the U.S. and European financial systems to the brink of failure. Paulson hoped his meeting with the bank CEOs would be a turning point. U.S. financial markets were closed for Columbus Day, and Paulson was planning to announce the latest government actions to stabilize the financial system before markets reopened on Tuesday.

Pittsburgh's mayor had been among the first to welcome self-driving vehicles, but was now one of many needing to react after a pedestrian fatality involving an autonomous Uber in Arizona. He had originally preferred to roll out "the red carpet" instead of the "red tape". Now he found himself needing to balance technological advancement and the city's economic trajectory against public health and safety concerns and, simply, citizens' fears. Post-Arizona, should he allow AV firms to double down on experimentation? When it came to testing new technology, how safe was safe enough?

Israel-based startup providing actionable air pollution data wrestles with which markets and customers to focus on.

Shield AI's quadcopter - with no pilot and no flight plan - could clear a building and outpace human warfighters by almost five minutes. This was not to say that it was better than the warfighters or would replace their jobs, but it was evidence that autonomous robots deployed in this fashion could keep up with the pace of operators, serve as a force multiplier, and help protect civilian and service member lives. But was it evidence that the Shield AI team should ask their newest potential customer for a contract 50-60 times more than their only two contracts to date? Would asking for what a system of coordinated, exploring robots really cost - $50 to $60 million - scare off their U.S. government customer? No one would blink if Lockheed Martin, Boeing, or other large defense companies proposed a $60 million effort to do the same, but would it make Shield AI, barely two years past founding, look arrogant, ignorant, or both?

Supplement to case 118030.

Following a contentious presidential race, Donald Trump's 2016 election destabilized America's status quo. Academics, journalists, politicians and the public at large examined why Trump had won. Many Americans, inside and outside the government, asserted that a state-led Russian disinformation campaign had influenced the election's outcome. The leaders of major social media companies, including Twitter and Facebook, also conceded that state actors had gamed their platforms to influence American politics. Trump himself made conflicting statements, while Russian politicians asserted that American elites had rhetorically weaponized the issue of election interference to justify an unwillingness to work with their country internationally. It was hard to parse where reality ended and political rhetoric began. Post-election, the future of U.S.-Russia relations remained unclear, and the United States grappled with how to regulate cyberspace. Analyzing the 2016 election and its aftershocks helps students confront interrelated questions about business regulation, international relations, cultural identity, strategic communications, political will and the Internet. The case encourages students to consider the boundary between narrative and reality and examine subjectivity, objectivity, and power in the public and private sectors.

In April 2018, Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg was called to Capitol Hill to be the star witness at congressional hearings intended to examine Facebook's "breaches of trust" with its users and "larger questions about the fundamental relationship tech companies have with their users." Zuckerberg admitted that his company faced "a number of important issues around privacy, safety, and democracy" but emphasized that his company was "idealistic and optimistic...focused on all the good that connecting people can bring." This ethics case (A) explores some of the issues Facebook has faced since 2014, the criticism it has come under, and its responses. These issues include the "emotional contagion experiment;" privacy issues; fake news; Russian interference in US elections; the "Cambridge Analytica" scandal; charges of bias through targeted ads; and accusations of liberal bias and censorship. The second part of the case (B) then describes some of Facebook's policy responses to these issues, including tweaking the algorithm; developing and deploying new AI tools; changing its mission; and communicating with the public.

In April 2018, Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg was called to Capitol Hill to be the star witness at congressional hearings intended to examine Facebook's "breaches of trust" with its users and "larger questions about the fundamental relationship tech companies have with their users." Zuckerberg admitted that his company faced "a number of important issues around privacy, safety, and democracy" but emphasized that his company was "idealistic and optimistic...focused on all the good that connecting people can bring." This ethics case (A) explores some of the issues Facebook has faced since 2014, the criticism it has come under, and its responses. These issues include the "emotional contagion experiment;" privacy issues; fake news; Russian interference in US elections; the "Cambridge Analytica" scandal; charges of bias through targeted ads; and accusations of liberal bias and censorship. The second part of the case (B) then describes some of Facebook's policy responses to these issues, including tweaking the algorithm; developing and deploying new AI tools; changing its mission; and communicating with the public.

The case is designed to help undergraduate and graduate students, as well as participants in executive education programs recognize the differences between six leadership styles identified by the work of Litwin & Stringer (1971) and further popularized by Goleman (2000), Goleman, Boyatzis, & McKee (2013), and Korn & Ferry (2017). The case presents employee descriptions of their superior's behaviors that are indicative of one of the six leadership styles: directive, visionary, affiliative, participative, pacesetting, and coaching. The vignettes, each describing a typical application of a particular style, can be used in class for the purpose of developing students' leadership style diagnostic skills, as a group discussion material, or as test material for post-class examination.

This case follows Amira Rashad as she founds BulkWhiz, a Dubai-based buy-in-bulk grocery delivery platform. Following its launch in September 2017, BulkWhiz experiences rapid growth of 30 percent per month in the United Arab Emirates. Despite this initial success, Rashad finds herself at a critical juncture just nine months later, with a number of internal and external negotiations awaiting her. First, she is eager to convince her Chief Technology Officer to come on-board full-time, and needs to finalize details on his transition and compensation. Second, she is wrestling with how to expand her business beyond the UAE market. Finally, she is seeking series A fundraising, to fuel the company's growth. How should she approach and sequence these negotiations, and what obstacles might loom?

In 1984, when the Boston Beer Company's Samuel Adams Boston Lager was first sold, founder Jim Koch had helped ignite a craft beer movement by making small-batch premium beers in an era of industry consolidation. By 2018, Boston Beer was a publicly traded company that continued to distinguish itself as a craft brewer while brewing millions of barrels per year and managing a diverse product portfolio including ciders and hard seltzers. That year, new CEO hire Dave Burwick faced a range of questions: (1) How to manage a company with a board chairman (Koch) whose name was synonymous with the company, and who continued to hold decisive voting control in the company's dual-class stock structure, (2) How to balance Boston Beer's commitment to craft beer quality with an increasingly sprawling portfolio, and (3) What specific changes to make to company operations to increase efficiency while maintaining focus on quality.

Since its founding in 1990, Shenzhou International Group Holdings Limited evolved from a small clothing manufacturer to a world-leading apparel supplier, serving well-known sports and leisure brands such as Uniqlo, Nike, Adidas, and Puma. Over the previous 10 years, the group experienced explosive growth. Yet, in an age of increasing consumer expectations, could it rely on existing models to achieve greater success? Comments made by the US president about reviving his country's manufacturing industry encouraged many firms to invest in building factories in the United States. Despite being a traditional labour-intensive manufacturer, the company wondered if it should consider setting up a factory in the United States as part of its future strategic plans. If so, would the challenges outweigh the opportunities?

As retail shopping has changed with the rise of e-commerce, Target Corporate, one of the largest retail stores in the United States, made the strategic decision to invest in developing a core data science and technology team to remain competitive in its physical and online shopping experiences. The company hired a team of technologists who initially worked at enhancing the company's digital and mobile solutions, but soon began influencing the company's physical retail locations. The case explores the opportunities and challenges of competing against retail behemoths such as Amazon and Walmart, while integrating digital and physical cultures.

Brian Patterson was the lead developer of a large office project in Moscow when the global financial crisis hit. His project, which had looked like it would be jaw-droppingly profitable just months before, was suddenly thrown into turmoil, and he faced trouble on all fronts. His local development partner wanted to sell in order to shore up its failing balance sheet, his world-class anchor tenant suddenly reneged on its pre-lease agreement, the contractor was running months behind schedule, and the project's bank was looking for any excuse to pull the construction loan. Just months earlier, the project pro forma had projected hundreds of millions of dollars in profit. Suddenly there were serious questions around whether the project could even be completed. And if it could, what rent and cap rate values could be assumed to determine if it made sense to continue development? Patterson needed to make some assumptions to determine whether or not to accept a sale offer that had been drudged up by his local partner. And if he decided to turn down the sale offer, he needed to find a way forward through a maze of (i) diverging interests amongst his partners and (ii) project development problems. As the economic and financial system faced global turmoil and threatened collapse, Patterson had to decide whether to keep developing the project - at significant risk to both the project and his personal career - or to sell for a modest profit and live to fight another day.

The case presents a decision point in the development of the California-based Chopra Center from the considerations of the center's Chief Operating Officer. The center was founded in 1996 by the physician and author Dr. Deepak Chopra in partnership with Dr. David Simon with the goal of bringing the insights of a 5,000-year-old Indian healing tradition to modern medicine. Two decades on from its founding, the center is confronting important structural questions about its portfolio of customer offerings, the role that digitization of programs and marketing will play and how these questions will be informed by the center's commitment to its founding values.

Organizations need to focus on how blockchain can be used to support their unique strategies. Without this focus, they risk investing in initiatives that don't provide meaningful value.