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In November 2014, the Residence Services department at MacEwan University in Alberta, Canada, needed to replace a residence assistant who was exiting midway through the academic year. The new hire would have one semester of work for the current academic year and, with good performance, was expected to return for two semesters of work in the following academic year. One of the qualified applicants had a distinguishable disability: she used a wheelchair. On the one hand, it would be easier for Residence Services to not hire her because of the various potential risks, concerns, or expected difficulties that could arise with her employment. The primary concern was her ability to respond effectively to emergency situations. A secondary concern was the impact on operational efficiency and the need to adapt work and staff routines to accommodate the use of a wheelchair. On the other hand, it was not legal to discriminate against the candidate for employment, and Residence Services valued inclusive hiring practices. The decision to hire or not hire this candidate needed to be made very soon.

When the Meta Abo Brewery Company, Ethiopia's second largest brewery based in Sebeta, Ethiopia, was purchased from the government by UK-based Diageo PLC in 2012, sustainability of raw material supply, especially barley, was a key concern. At the time of the acquisition, the Meta Abo Brewery was importing all its malt barley. Diageo wanted to push local raw material sourcing to 70 percent. In May 2012, Paul Walsh, Diageo's CEO, attended the Symposium on Global Agriculture and Food Security hosted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, in collaboration with the World Economic Forum. During the symposium, Walsh signed a pledge to support the launch of the G8's New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition (see case Exhibit 2). In the same year, Walsh signed the letter of intent committing Diageo to invest US$1.5 million scalable value chain project to source barley for the Meta Abo Brewery from about 6,000 smallholder farmers with the potential to scale up to 20,000 metric tons per year by 2016. This would still not meet all demands for the malt barley required to produce the malt needed by the Meta Abo Brewery, but it was a step in the right direction in terms of increasing local content in a market computing for inputs. The goal was clear, but the implementation details had to be worked out. How would Diageo and Meta Abo Brewery implement this bold initiative to partner with 6,000 smallholder farmers to increase both quality and quantity of local sourced malt barley? They had experience working on development projects in Africa, but would those projects provide sufficient lessons learned for this challenge?

The case presents the dilemma of Vivek Gupta, director Sanmarg pvt limited as he contemplates the road ahead for the 70 year old Hindi daily-Sanmarg. Headquartered in Kolkata and catering to the Hindi literate of west Bengal, Sanmarg also came out with state level editions from Bihar, Orissa and Jharkhand. The 16 page daily newspaper had stayed constant in its offering and only lately had come out with an on-line version. Was this consistency a strength or did the customer seek variety? Was it time to reinvent the newspaper? Or would it be easier to tap the untapped potential of neighboring states? Digital new age media and English dailies eying the language market demanded quick action. Makeover or market expansion, what was the right path for Sanmarg?

Russia has emerged as a dominant player especially in the natural gas segment of the global oil and gas industry. Its position of power has been cemented over the last decade on a variety of fronts ranging from the execution of the first offshore project, the first LNG project, the first Arctic exploration program, and the emergence of global giants, namely Gazprom and Rosneft, that have exerted considerable influence in attracting global super majors to Russia. The case study explores the execution of the two major Sakhalin projects that were instrumental in establishing Russia's position as a pre-eminent source of natural gas. These projects were among the earliest ones on a global scale that involved multiple global partners and were executed in a forbidding part of the country, offshore Russia in the Sea of Okhotsk. Both development deals were struck when Russia was in the midst of significant economic chaos following the breakup of the USSR into constituent republics. This period in Russian history was marked by significant opportunities as well as significant risks.

Louise Dejan was a successful real estate developer operating throughout northeast England. The city council of her hometown of Newcastle faced a problem common to many areas: how to encourage private investment into less attractive areas. In August 2012, Newcastle's East Pilgrim Street neighborhood remained an eyesore, despite its great location between the city's Central Station and city hall. It was a natural place for Dejan to build a typical urban office building over street-level retail building. On a particularly attractive site sat an asbestos-contaminated building, which was a former home to the Bank of England. The costs of remediation had kept developers like Dejan away for many years. To encourage redevelopment, the Newcastle City Council had recently designated the East Pilgrim Street neighborhood an Accelerated Development Zone (ADZ). This gave Dejan access to Tax Increment Financing (TIF), a method by which public funds could be spent to encourage private sector redevelopment of designated parcels of land. After studying the details of TIF and the financial projections of a potential new development, Dejan had to decide whether she should be the first to redevelop property in this well-located but seemingly forgotten neighborhood.

Student spreadsheet for case KEL973.

In the 1980s and 90s, funds that attacked publicly-traded companies were known as 'corporate raiders', and their attacks were brutish. Fearing reputational risk, most asset managers steared clear of such nasty attacks. Today, these funds are called 'activists', and they have gained respectability, as their campaigns are often based on an alternative view of corporate strategy-developed with significant investments of time, talent and money. As a result, fund managers are now willing to listen, and senior executives need to accept the reality of this 'golden age of activism', where trillions of dollars-yes, trillions-are being mobilized to improve the performance of publicly-traded companies. The author presents three new realities that every director and executive must embrace to thrive in the 'new normal'.

Few people would argue that we live in a time of growing inequality and uncertainty. Societies are being challenged in ways we have not seen for decades-with nationalistic rhetoric and agendas from the far right and a deep distrust of business, globalization and technology from the far left. Many worry that such a polarization of public opinion and policy making could introduce new risks that deter investment-which is already far too low, judging by current interest rates-and undermine future prosperity. The authors, from The Boston Consulting Group, present a 'leadership agenda for shaping the future', consisting of six principles.

As evidence mounts that sustainability-related initiatives are key to a company's success over time, a growing number of investors are now paying close attention to environmental, social and governance ('ESG') metrics. That according to the authors, whose 2016 Global Executive Study showed that for a decisive majority of investors -more than 70 per cent of those surveyed- sustainability has become central to their investment decisions. With wide ranging examples from GE to Volkswagen to Mitsubishi, they show how leading companies are rising to the challenge.

Just because your workplace appears civil and quiet doesn't mean it is devoid of conflict. Across industries, teams composed of high-performing individuals are naturally subject to tensions and rivalry. The author, a contributing editor at Harvard Business Review, provides evidence that most workplace disagreements stem from one of three sources: different agendas, different perceptions and different personal styles. She explains these sources in detail and provides tools for working through them.

Renowned New York University Finance Professor Baruch Lev's book, The End of Accounting, makes some very bold statements about the current state-and future-of financial reporting. Rotman School of Management Professor Partha Mohanram responds to some of Lev's more provocative statements, covering topics including: cash flow vs. earnings; the role of intangibles; accounting complexity; and the way forward.

Most leaders recognize that in today's innovation-obsessed economy, they need to look beyond their own walls and collaborate externally with other organizations in their ecosystem to create new products and solutions. While the need for collaboration has been well-documented in the business-to-consumer (B2C) context, it is less so in the business-to-business (B2B) space. The authors show that, when done right, B2B collaborative innovation can generate benefits in four distinct areas, including decreased risk and increased trust. Based on their work with leading companies like BASF, Daimler and VentureMed, they describe the four 'traps' that collaborators face, and how to surmount them.

Every solution you come up with-no matter how perfect it first appears-carries with it assumptions, leaps of faith and implicit conditions for success. If these are not recognized and attended to, they can turn out to be the Achilles heel in your great idea. So says the former creative advisor to Toyota, in a wide-ranging interview about his latest book, Winning the Brain Game. He presents and describes what he calls 'the seven fatal flaws of thinking': leaping, fixation, over-thinking, satisficing, downgrading, not-invented-here and self-censoring. Using a wide range of real-life examples-from Procter & Gamble to Xerox to Apple-he also shows how to avoid these common thinking flaws.

Increasingly, it is possible to generate financial returns alongside positive social and environmental impact. This is the promise of an emerging investment approach called 'impact investing' that is gaining the attention of pioneering investors: big institutions, foundations and high net-worth individuals are moving quickly into this new market. However, in order to succeed, the authors say, impact investing must grow beyond these pioneers and reach a broader set of investors. They show what needs to happen by walking through Everett M. Rogers' five attributes of successful innovations: relative advantage over alternatives; compatibility with the values, experiences and needs of adopters; simplicity; trialability; and visibility. If impact investing can address its barriers-to-adoption, they conclude, it will be one of the breakthrough innovations of our time.

The most critical function of every executive team is to make decisions that benefit an organization in the long term. Most of us would imagine that the more domain experts there are in a particular group, the better: their collective knowledge of risks and opportunities in a particular industry will surely lead to effective long-term decision making. The authors show that this reasoning is flawed. They describe their research, which indicates that in certain circumstances, groups that are dominated by domain experts may exhibit three harmful tendencies that actually detract from effective decision making, including over-confidence and 'cognitive entrenchment'.

Thanks to the Internet, like-minded people can now organize with ease, and as a result, more groups and organizations are demanding a voice in issues of governance. The traditional, top-down model of governance-in which a few render judgments and the masses fall in line-is increasingly being rejected, and we are seeing an exertion of influence by people who feel excluded from traditional governance structures. Exhibits A and B: the Brexit vote and the unlikely triumph of Donald Trump. The authors describe a new approach to governance called 'Catalytic Governance'. By following its five steps, leaders can better engage stakeholders, find common ground, build trust, and frame and re- frame issues-ending up with a common plan from which to take collaborative action.

Since the flood of child migrants from Central America burst upon the southern United States in the summer of 2014-a vast rise in arrivals dubbed "the Surge"-Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) had been facing overwhelming demand for its legal services. Wendy Young, KIND's president, explained that the organization's primary mission was to ensure that no child appears alone in immigration court, but KIND also wanted to provide leadership, research, and advocacy to protect these "children on the move" from laws and practices that threatened their fundamental human rights. Ms. Young was facing a critical juncture in the organizational life of KIND: where and how should it focus its resources for greatest effectiveness in protecting child migrants? What limits must the organization set on its activities when facing an almost unlimited need for legal, social, health, and educational support of these vulnerable children?

Luigi Migliorini, CEO of Prysmian China, Frederic Grosse, CEO of Prysmian ASEAN and Frederick Persson, CEO of Prysmian Australia & New Zealand were discussing ways of increasing business in APAC. Prysmian is seeking to make the APAC region a second home market for the group. Previously, the APAC region had been neglected as Prysmian had concentrated on Europe. However, there are several challenges facing the management team. The tried and tested method of acquiring companies and streamlining their processes was difficult to replicate in APAC because competitors tended to be small and privately owned. Internally, the centralised decision-making structure made Prysmian slower than its competitors in providing quotes and rolling out products. Its scattered manufacturing plants worldwide also made intercompany transactions more important. Communications over product specifications and availability had to be made in a timely manner. Additionally, the diverse nature of individual countries and industries in APAC had resulted in niche product opportunities, but made operations more difficult. Still, APAC was a growth region and future infrastructure investments would require various types of cables. The three regional leaders had to devise a strategic approach for Prysmian to grow in APAC. Participants will learn that changing the culture of a multinational corporation is difficult but can be achieved by addressing the company's human capital in terms of talent, leadership, culture, and structure.

The Prysmian Group is a leading global cable manufacturer based in Milan, Italy. Although dominant in Europe and other areas, it has been struggling to improve its market share in the Asia Pacific region. Its competitors are small family-owned businesses that operate within their individual countries in the region. Unable to execute its strategy practised in other regions-of acquiring companies and streamlining their operations-in Asia, Prysmian management decides on a business strategy of improving cooperation within business units and becoming more customer-centric. The three regional leaders in APAC, Luigi Migliorini, CEO of Prysmian China, Frederic Grosse, CEO of Prysmian ASEAN and Frederick Persson, CEO of Prysmian Australia & New Zealand had just completed a strategy meeting in the Singapore office and all understand that the key to implementing the business strategy is its human capital. This case is targeted for participants who are interested in understanding the human capital challenges associated with implementing a business strategy for a multinational corporation. After the session, the students will be able to describe the challenges associated with change in a multi-national corporation, and determine how human capital can impact the implementation of strategy.

Back when the author was the CEO of Virgin Mobile, he accepted a challenge to live like a homeless person for 24 hours in New York City--with no money or credit card, no cell phone, just the clothes on his back. A few years later, when he was head of a division at American Express, he joined his leadership team in a variation on that experiment: They would spend an entire day trying to pay bills and transfer money the way people without bank accounts or credit cards have to. Those experiences increased his empathy for less-affluent people and his awareness of how difficult it is for them to manage and move money--and energized PayPal's new strategy after Schulman joined the company as CEO, in 2014. That strategy was to be a "customer champion" company and reorganize into just two groups: merchants and consumers. For merchants, PayPal would evolve its technology platform to enable more-intimate relationships with customers using mobile and software. For consumers, it would empower underserved citizens throughout the world to make more-secure, faster, easier, and less-expensive financial transactions. Within those two segments, the company has created or acquired a suite of products that target different markets, including Venmo for Millennials, Xoom for international digital payments, and PayPal Working Capital, which lends money to small businesses.