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In January 2007, Metro do Porto, a light rail network, entered into an interest rate swap agreement with Banco Santander Totta on a notional principal of €89 million. The intent was to reduce the interest costs that Metro do Porto was incurring. This was a complex swap agreement that brought immediate benefits to Metro do Porto but proved catastrophic in the long run. Two years after the swap commenced, a “snowball clause” in the swap agreement took effect, increasing Metro do Porto’s liability beyond 60 per cent per annum at a time when market interest rates were low and expected to drop even lower. It was unclear whether the company entered into this agreement out of ignorance, political pressure, or both, but the end result was a lawsuit. Students are expected to analyze the terms of this swap and decide whether the swap constituted good practice from a risk management perspective and whether Metro do Porto should have been able to anticipate the possible losses.

In April 2015, Bharti Airtel — India’s largest telecom provider and a leading global telecommunications company — launched Airtel Zero, an open marketing platform that would allow Airtel customers to access mobile applications with zero data charges. Application developers would pay Airtel to join the platform, but would in turn attract more users to their products. Immediately after its launch, Airtel Zero was subjected to severe criticism on the grounds that it violated the net neutrality principle, which advocated that content should be available to customers without any form of prioritization. Subsequently, in support of net neutrality, Flipkart — a prominent Indian e-commerce company — pulled out of the platform. Was Airtel Zero a potential threat to net neutrality? With the pending decision of the government of India on the regulatory framework for over-the-top (OTT) applications and services, would Airtel Zero stand out as a viable platform?

In 2011, four Canadian non-profit organizations have a mandate to prevent injuries and face similar and worsening problems. Each organization is spending an escalating amount of time fundraising to support its operations. Key stakeholders are expressing confusion because injury prevention is a crowded space and many non-profit organizations are seeking both dollars and partnerships. Most troubling, the four non-profit organizations are struggling to assess whether they are actually making a difference by preventing injuries and saving lives. The leaders of the four organizations must decide how to proceed — and whether the best solution is offered by collaborative or competitive strategies. Use role play supplements 9B15M122A.

Four role play supplements to 9B15M122.

In 2014, the general manager of the established and successful Hong Kong-based company Hung Fook Tong, which produced and sold herbal teas, wondered how his company could profitably expand to mainland China. After Hung Fook Tong’s recent initial public offering on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, its shareholders’ equity had tripled. The initial public offering committed Hung Fook Tong to expanding its business in mainland China; however, that market posed many challenges, in part because it represented a far larger market. The general manager knew it was critical to determine a suitable and successful expansion strategy.

For over five years, the third generation (G3) of Valley Pulp & Sawdust Carriers, Ltd.<br>had been laying the foundation for the professionalization of the family firm. However, it was met with resistance from the second generation (G2). G3 had no ownership in the family business, and no true leadership role. At the management meetings, only four votes counted—the four votes of G2 members who were shareholders of the business. G3 members needed a commitment and clarification regarding their roles and future in the company. The question was how to approach G2. The G3 cousins knew that the challenge for them to garner G2’s respect and to have G2 understand G3’s roles and contribution to the family business would be nothing short of daunting.<br><br>This case series also includes Valley Carriers (B): Working on Versus Working in the Business 9B16M096 and Valley Carriers (C): Restructuring the Governance of the Family Firm 9B16M097.

This is the second case in the Valley Carriers series, which also includes Valley Carriers (A): Establishing Status in a Family Business 9B16M095 and Valley Carriers (C): Restructuring the Governance of the Family Firm 9B16M097.

This is the third case in the Valley Carriers series, which also includes Valley Carriers (A): Establishing Status in a Family Business 9B16M095 and Valley Carriers (B): Working on Versus Working in the Business 9B16M096.

<p>Nissan&rsquo;s Strategy in Operations Management&nbsp;</p> <p>Nissan's resilience strategy&nbsp;in&nbsp;international&nbsp;business&nbsp;had been considered an exemplary response to the triple disaster in Japan in March 2011. The Japanese automobile industry made their respective recovery efforts to resume production and delivery of vehicles after suffering damage from an earthquake, tsunami, and a nuclear crisis, but it took months before they could reach pre-disaster levels of operations. Nissan's resilience practices,&nbsp;operations management,&nbsp;and supply chain disruption management were acknowledged as superior to those of their peers and were appreciated by experts and analysts. Nonetheless, it took Nissan more than a month to resume production, and each day of lost production cost Nissan $25 million.&nbsp;</p>

In 2014, the chief executive officer (CEO) and owner of Pak Sweets was worried about diversity issues in his organization. The sweets-making factory, once a one-room business and now a full-fledged factory in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, was highly dependent on blue-collar workers. Each production process required workers with diverse skills, so the company hired employees from different provinces of Pakistan, representing multiple ethnicities. The ethnicities were fundamentally diverse with different languages, cultures, and codes of conduct. As the company grew, conflicts increased between employees of different ethnicities. This everyday minor problem turned into a major challenge when it caused property damage, financial losses, and a decline in productivity. Pak Sweets was unable to meet demand, and the company’s reputation was at stake. The CEO believed that firing the troublemakers was not an option; it would only address the problem temporarily and might result in union strikes and lockouts. The CEO needed a plan to resolve the ethnic-based conflicts in the factory and their negative impact on the company.

It is easy to blame corporate fraud and financial-sector misconduct on a lack of morals. But framing the issue of businesses behaving badly strictly as a morality problem is problematic because it leads to solutions — ranging from expanded compliance programs and codes of conduct to compensation claw-back clauses — that aim to install and strengthen moral sensibilities for the purpose of positive behaviour modification. And these have proved largely ineffective. Ivey research has shown that it would be far more productive to interpret misconduct and misbehaviour in the business sphere as a failure of judgment caused by weaknesses in dimensions of character. This is because while most leaders aspire to have better judgment, many resist suggestions that they are morally flawed and see solutions that teach ethics and morals as condescending. The development of the Ivey Leader Character model, a framework currently being deployed across a wide variety of organizations, has opened the door to reframing misconduct and misbehaviour in business as a judgment issue. The dimensions in the Leader Character Framework are habits of behaviour that can change over time, for better or for worse. Leader character must be present wherever there is a competitive/strategic requirement for strong competency. Ultimately, strengthening leader character will positively influence and change an organization’s culture and (potentially) industry context.

In May 2015, a managing partner in an Australian venture capital firm faced a major dilemma. As one of five partners, he held the deciding vote on whether his firm, KTN Capital, would take an entrepreneur’s idea for a solar-powered water filter and build a new company around it, or instead, invest in the entrepreneur’s company. The venture capital firm would not be doing anything illegal by taking the entrepreneur’s idea because the entrepreneur had not properly protected his intellectual property through patents, but the decision-maker was struggling with the ethics of that choice. To further complicate the situation, the entrepreneur was very difficult to deal with, and the investment firm was facing pressure from the fund’s investors to find investments that would yield big returns. The managing partner had many business and ethical considerations to factor into his decision, and it seemed there would be no easy choice.

Sprint Corporation, a major U.S. wireless carrier, had been losing customers and suffering financially since its merger with Nextel in 2005. Sprint was also ranked the lowest among major U.S. carriers in terms of network speed and data performance. But a new opportunity emerged when the SoftBank Group acquired Sprint in 2013. The new chief executive officer (CEO), appointed in August 2014, publicly gave himself three to five years to turn around this major telecommunication company. The new CEO had a plan; however, he faced many challenges. Sprint had national brand recognition, but customers demanded improvements in network quality and service reliability, and the turnaround plan needed to be implemented in a capital-intensive industry with a saturated market. The optimistic CEO admitted that he faced the biggest challenge of his career. Would he be successful in turning around Sprint’s fortunes in this competitive industry?

In 2011, after decades of the eye-care needs of India's semi-urban and rural population being largely ignored by both government and commercial enterprises, the corporate team of Drishti established two eye hospitals to address these unmet needs. However, Drishti faced some tough challenges in expanding its operations. Given that Drishti’s hospitals were located in semi-urban and rural areas, attracting and retaining highly-trained professional staff was very difficult. Drishti also needed to consider the implications of accessing equity capital to pursue its social goals. With its business model showing positive results, should Drishti opt for rapid growth or achieve slower growth by using internally generated funds? In the pursuit of financial goals, would Drishti need to compromise on any of its social goals?

In 2010, the recently appointed chief executive officer of VOSS Water (VOSS), a Norwegian luxury bottled water company, had been given an opportunity to take the brand in a new direction. He knew that take-home retail markets represented a huge opportunity for growth for a company that was used to selling its water in on-premises, luxury locations such as resorts and restaurants; however, the company’s past attempts to grow into the retail space had produced dismal results. VOSS’s new leader understood that he would have to work hard to unite his team behind his vision. How could he learn from the steps of his predecessors and use hindsight to create an opportunity for the luxury water brand?

In 2010, when India opened up its defence sector to private manufacturers, Armada India set up a factory in West Bengal. However, the factory faced issues of low productivity, delivery delays, and high rejection rates. A quirky new general manager of maintenance applied Buddhist philosophy to his human resource management practices. The workers, who until then had felt unimportant, now felt happy and engaged as they adopted the manager’s ideas, which appealed to their local psyche. Strong results were seen in terms of improved production, productivity, and morale. However, senior managers had significant global expansion plans and were wary of this general manager’s unorthodox management style. They hired a highly qualified, U.S.-educated human resource (HR) executive who scoffed at the “unsophisticated” practices of the manager and sought to change them, despite their success. What was the manager to do? Was the new HR executive justified in trying to impose more traditional business methods?

Ed Williams Mens Wear, a family-owned retailer of high-quality men’s clothing, had a single location in Calgary, Alberta. The store had been very successful for over 20 years. The founder’s son was planning to take over the business, but he had concerns about the company’s aging market and was looking to grow and/or diversify the business. Available options included opening another location, expanding the store, or changing the product offering. Competitive conditions in the Calgary marketplace were heating up with the entry of a number of higher-end American retailers. The founder's son needed to evaluate all the alternatives in order to carry Ed Williams Mens Wear into the future.

The owner of a designer handbag company, 442 McAdam, found she could no longer manufacture in-house the quantity of handbags required to meet existing orders. Manufacturing would need to be outsourced, and the owner would have to choose between a local manufacturer and an overseas manufacturer. Local manufacturers offered the same quality as overseas manufacturers but charged higher prices. International manufacturers, while offering lower prices, required larger minimum order quantities. Regardless of the manufacturing option she chose, the owner wondered whether the minimum levels of inventory she needed to order could be sold within the upcoming six-month style season.

The Boeing Company, one of the dominant players in the aerospace industry, aimed to construct a supply chain architecture that was effective both domestically and globally, while simultaneously building its capacity to enter into agreements with small and diverse suppliers. A top executive at Boeing, who was responsible for both corporate supplier relationships and small business liaisons, needed to determine the approach that would yield the most optimal results for the company. Should she adapt supply chain principles to incorporate diversity, or should she view supply chain management as one element in an overall drive to increase diversity at the company?

Swedish camera manufacturer Hasselblad was founded in 1841. The brand reached new heights in 1969, when astronaut Neil Armstrong used a Hasselblad camera to take the first photos on the moon. For decades, Hasselblad was renowned for making the world’s best high-end, medium format cameras for professional photographers. Faced with the paradigm shift from film-based to digital imaging, the company launched digital cameras and also diversified into the luxury digital camera market through a strategic partnership with Sony. On November 5, 2015, Hasselblad announced a minority stake investment by Shenzhen-based DJI, a global market-leader in aerial camera photography. Changes to Hasselblad were inevitable. Was Hasselblad poised to take its core competency in medium format photography to the next level?