個案總覽

SAPMER SA was a Southern Ocean fishing company started by three Réunion Island entrepreneurs with one ship in 1947. The company grew from an entrepreneurial venture to a corporate acquisition, then back to a beloved family business not expected to make much money. But in 2006, SAPMER SA tested the waters with a new tuna venture. The venture was successful, but the company saw a better long-term opportunity in occupying a niche position. SAPMER SA launched a strategic rebirth with a five-year plan to develop a new segment: super-frozen tuna fishing and processing in the Indian Ocean, addressing premium Asian markets in sashimi, tataki, and tuna loins and steak. SAPMER SA's strategy resulted in strong performance, but in early 2013, when examining the financial records and the terms for purchasing newly acquired ships, the owner could see challenges ahead. To manage the challenges, the owner needs to know the reason for the improvement in return on equity, what potential problems could be identified from a DuPont analysis of the financials, and what bottlenecks to anticipate in the coming years.

Since 2013, Mastercard CMO M. V. Rajamannar (Raja) had transformed the firm's marketing by using unique experiences, digital technology, and social media to intensify linkages not only with cardholders but also with Mastercard's direct bank and merchant stakeholders. Building on its influential but dated "Priceless" advertising campaign, Raja refocused Mastercard on four "Priceless Possibilities" that engaged cardholders directly in unexpected and sometimes unique opportunities reflecting their passions. The result was increased brand differentiation and deeper collaborative ties between Mastercard and its bank and merchant partners.

This case introduces CEO activism, a phenomenon in which business leaders engage in political or social issues that do not relate directly to their companies. The case uses several examples to describe why business leaders are engaging in CEO activism, and the potential benefits and drawbacks: (1) how Angie's List's CEO responded to the state of Indiana passing a controversial religious freedom law; (2) how Duke Energy's CEO supported pending U.S. legislation addressing climate change, and (3) how Chobani Yogurt's CEO publicly supported refugees. Students are then provided with the situation faced by PayPal CEO Dan Schulman after North Carolina passed House Bill 2, which Schulman perceived as discriminatory against LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) individuals. Students are asked to consider whether Schulman should engage in CEO activism, and if so, how best to approach the situation. The (B) case provides an update on Schulman's decision.

Supplement to case 617001.

This case explores the development of a business plan for a mobile health application for diabetes care. The case depicts a student team excited about the opportunity to improve the care of patients with diabetes by contracting an app. They go through a rigorous evaluation of the FDA regulations, the existing market, and potential commercial competitors to try and identify a market opportunity. Since diabetes care involves behavior change, the case then moves to an exploration to concepts from behavioral economics that could help build a sustainable platform for the app. In the end, the case questions ask the team to decide on a basic business and financing strategy if they want to go forward, or offers them the opportunity to "fail-fast" by quitting at this stage.

The future organizational landscape may change drastically by mid-century as a result of widespread implementation of 3D printing. This article argues that global will turn local; mega (factories, ships, malls) will become mini; long supply chains will shrink; many jobs will be broadened to combine design, consulting, sales, and production roles; and large organizations will make room for smaller ones. "A once-shuttered warehouse is now a state-of-the art lab where new workers are mastering the 3D printing that has the potential to revolutionize the way we make almost everything." [President Obama, State of the Union Address, 2013].

While Porter and Kramer's Creating Shared Value (CSV) works well as a management framework to address "win-win" business and society issues, it leaves managers ill-equipped to legitimately manage issues where they face the prospect of "win-lose" or "lose-win" social engagements. For legitimacy, managers need to bolster CSV with ethical frameworks-specifically, norm-taking and norm-making frameworks. Managers can be better positioned to create shared value through CSV+, a multipart framework built around CSV and augmented by ethical frameworks.

In 2003, Mawlyngot Tea Growers' Cooperative Society (MTG), a village cooperative in Meghalaya, India, was spearheaded by a local teacher who wished to lift the village's people up from poverty, transform their lives, and improve their economic condition. The cooperative started with just a few farmers from the village, but by the end of 2013, the village was growing tea on nearly 90 hectares of land, involving almost all 45 households of the village. Although MTG was a successful model of cooperation for income and social well-being, competition was increasing in the tea market as local players and big multinationals expanded their offerings in the region. In competing for market share, MTG did not want to compromise on its farming practices, which were 100 per cent sustainable and organic. MTG also wanted to build its brand. The cooperative needed to reposition and grow to expand its capacity, sales, and market presence, but the founder was uncertain how to proceed.

In 2013, Brett Peiser, CEO of the charter school management organization (CMO) Uncommon Schools, is reassessing the non-profit's strategy. For nearly 10 years, Uncommon had fulfilled its mission to bring high-quality education to students in low-income, urban areas using a "network of networks" structure, where regional networks of charter schools operated independently, guided by Uncommon's shared beliefs and practices. The autonomy built into the structure had allowed teachers and school leaders to develop innovative and effective practices that could then be rolled out throughout the network. But in the 2012-2013 school year, this strategy comes into question when students take the first standardized test aligned with the more rigorous Common Core State Standards. While the test results show that, on average, Uncommon's students still perform well compared to their district peers, they also reveal a disparity in achievement across the schools and regions. The case gives students the opportunity to assess the benefits and challenges of Uncommon's strategy so far, determine the best way to address the inconsistency in academic achievement, and consider the best way to consistently scale excellence.

Catalant, founded in 2013 as an online marketplace where MBAs could bid on consulting projects posted by small- to medium-sized businesses, had expanded by 2016 to provide Fortune 1000 companies with access to over 35,000 independent experts. The founders envisioned extending their matching solutions to help enterprises staff projects with a mix of current employees and external experts, hypothesizing that the "future of work" would involve more flexible employment arrangements. They debated how much to invest in new functionality versus improving their existing marketplace, and how to pitch their evolving strategic vision to investors.

The case describes how A. Lange & Sohne became one of world's leading watch companies. Its obsession with quality and innovation were behind its initial rise in the 19th century and, after a 40-year involuntary hiatus under the East German regime, again at the end of the 20th century. In 2016 its current CEO Wilhelm Schmid and the heads of product development and production have to decide on how to price its innovative watch collection and how to grow the Glashutte-based watchmaker.

This Reading combines conceptual frameworks and research-based knowledge to provide practical guidance about how to lead organization change. The Essential Reading outlines key choices leaders must make when managing a change and the common traps that can cause a change effort to fail. It is organized into four sections, each building on the last to provide a roadmap for change that is effectively tailored to the organization and the situation: 1) Diagnosis: Why is change needed?; 2) Design: What sort of change is called for?; 3) Delivery: How can change best be implemented? Who will most likely be affected? What skills and support do leaders need as they manage the process?; and 4) Evaluation: How can the impact of the change be assessed and measured? The Essential Reading closes with a brief discussion of how new practices such as crowdsourcing, open innovation, and social media campaigns are speeding up change in many industries and altering change processes. The Supplementary Reading presents four real-world examples of organizational change in companies (Amazon, Lenovo, Salesforce.com, and Boeing) and a brief overview of stakeholder analysis.

Tequila Patrón was one of the most successful tequila marketers in the United States. Patrón needed to grow and in Mexico, the second largest market for tequila, the brand was perceived as American. What portfolio and branding strategy would best serve Patrón to conquer the Mexican market? Furthermore, what would expanding in Mexico imply for the company's marketing operations?

In 2015, a nutritionist and dog lover developed a new canine energy bar called K9FuelBar. This product was made of all-natural, non-genetically modified, organic ingredients. In doing some investigation, the product's developer realized there could be a small, but sufficient, market to make her product commercially viable. At this point, she needed to evaluate and decide on the best method of distribution for her product. She identified multiple distinct options, each with different qualitative and quantitative issues to consider. The owner of K9FuelBar needed to decide which option to pursue and to develop an overall market communication program to support her product.

The minister of Haiti's Department of Energy Security needed to prepare a presentation for the country's prime minister that proposed a solution for transforming Haiti's energy infrastructure. Haiti wanted to attract foreign direct investment that would spur socio-economic reform; however, the opportunities depended on a solid energy infrastructure providing reliable electricity to businesses, which Haiti did not have. Also, the residents of Haiti were in dire need of a low-cost, reliable energy solution that would allow them to move away from biomass and petroleum products, which were expensive and bad for the environment. How should the minister structure his proposal? What criteria would be required to support a strategy that considered the energy value chain, types of public-private partnerships, and need for socio-economic reform?

In December 2015, the head of supply chain management (SCM) at Las Vegas Construction Inc. was tasked with reducing operating costs by 25 per cent in order to deal with the fallout in Nevada's construction industry from the global economic downturn. The SCM head had engaged the manager in charge of subcontracting to help with cost reductions. The subcontracting manager did find a way to reduce costs, but it turned out to be a questionable way. He had tipped off the three subcontractors with whom he had been working closely by providing them with confidential information regarding a target bid price for the labour sourcing process. When the bid prices were disclosed, even though Las Vegas Construction Inc. had reached its original cost savings goal, the SCM head had mixed feelings about the process. He wondered how to address this potentially unethical situation, and whether he should inform his superiors about it.

In January 2017, Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, was surrounded by controversy. The election of Donald Trump as the next president of the United States in November 2016 had triggered a national storm of protests, and many attributed Trump's victory to fake news stories served up on Facebook's Trending News Feed. Zuckerberg was unapologetic. The word that came to define this spread of misinformation was "post-truth," which became so widely used in 2016 that Oxford Dictionaries coined the term "word of the year." Did Trump have Zuckerberg to thank? Facebook had sparked many controversies during its short lifespan. By 2017, it had grown into the biggest social networking group in the world, with 1.8 billion people. Was this just another challenge along the way, or were the issues more fundamental?

As the case opens in 1999, several key leaders at BlackRock, Inc.- then a relatively small asset management firm -- are trying to convince CEO Larry Fink and others that the firm should begin to offer Aladdin -- its proprietary analytics and trading platform -- to other asset managers. While some members of the senior team saw "selling our systems" as an opportunity, others likened it to "selling weapons to the enemy" or "giving away the crown jewels." What should Fink do? The case provides an overview of the asset management industry, the beginnings of BlackRock, and details around the Aladdin platform. This case includes videos.

CIC creates "entrepreneurial ecosystems," renting out office and co-working space to start-ups and related companies and providing basic business needs like wi-fi and legal advice. Founder Tim Rowe refers to the CIC as "innovation infrastructure," bringing together money, talent and ideas in one place. Founded in Cambridge in 1999, CIC has since grown to become one of the largest concentrations of entrepreneurial activity in the world and has expanded to multiple locations across the Boston area. Rowe envisions taking this model to cities across the world, and CIC is in fact about to open a new branch in St. Louis, their first location outside greater Boston. He is concerned, though, because one month from opening day, CIC still has a lot of empty space and few clients signed up. Rowe and his team have to consider how to quickly bring in more clients before opening day, and, more broadly, whether the CIC idea will work outside the Boston/Cambridge area.

On March 7, 2013, ThyssenKrupp Group CEO Heinrich Hiesinger was shocked to receive a resignation letter from Gerhard Cromme, chairman of the company's supervisory board. Hiesinger had been CEO since 2010. Early in his tenure, ThyssenKrupp incurred massive losses from disastrous steel investments and faced allegations of colluding with other companies to fix prices in its railway steel operations. As a result, Hiesinger had been forced to dismiss three executive board members, one for violating company policy. After a supervisory board member also was dismissed for violating company policy, the company's offices were raided in an investigation of price-fixing in steel contracts to the automotive industry. Cromme had been sharply criticized by shareholders and analysts as an impediment to the cultural, strategic, and governance changes Hiesinger was trying to make to address the scandals at ThyssenKrupp, but for months he defiantly had resisted calls for his removal. With no warning, he resigned without naming a successor or creating a plan to select one. Now that he no longer needed to deal with the distractions created by Cromme's presence, Hiesinger was free to finalize a plan to address the defects in ThyssenKrupp's governance.