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When Mel Mathers, the chief sustainability officer of a food cooperative, the Independent Food Retailers Consortium (IFRC), was flooded in October 2019 with emails from animal rights activists demanding the cooperative sell only cage-free eggs and make a pledge now to do so by 2025, he had to prepare a brief and recommendation so IFRC's board of directors could make a decision on whether to pledge selling only cage-free eggs in its grocery stores. Should the cooperative make a public commitment, as requested by the activists, to transition selling only cage-free eggs in its supply chain or continue to offer its customers a choice among the different egg production systems? Mathers examined the organization's mission statement, its corporate responsibility statement, and its policies on animal welfare. He studied IFRC's financial materiality chart and was unsettled by the current materiality chart as to pointing a clear direction for his direction. Mathers began researching egg production systems. Mathers' research is described in the case and students see the tradeoffs about which that Mathers is learning. Mathers wonders how he can navigate the seemingly contradictory tradeoffs with IFRC's policies, animal husbandry science, environmental impacts, and responsiveness to the many stakeholders in IFRC's operating environment.

RJ Tuckerton, a graduate student, claimed in October 2019 that the student's privacy and other university rights were violated when a faculty member "outed" Tuckerton, who was gender transitioning. The protagonist in the case, John Schuler, was now faced with investigating Tuckerton's claims of university policy violations and a claim of retaliation for filing a complaint. The events of this case present the reader with claims made by Tuckerton, the statements by those alleged to have violated Tuckerton's rights, the statements of other witnesses, and with the university's relevant human resource policies. In studying the case, students will be confronted with an array of input, and will have to place themselves in the position of Schuler and determine if there are policy violations and make policy recommendations. The case presents an emerging issue in organizations-that of non-discrimination of transgender employees, and, with it, privacy and other protections asserted by an organization-and how an organization's policies are or are not responsive to employees.

Captain William Waverly was a member of the US Army's forces in Afghanistan, and was stationed in a post in western Kabul, beginning in late 2011. He was the commander of this post, one of the several bases in that city. US soldiers guarded the power plant located at this post. Waverly and his team also launched the security and stability operations from this location. For this latter function, the US Army always conducted security and stability operations jointly with the Afghan municipal police forces. To conduct these operations, the US government had supplied fuel to the Afghan forces to operate their armored vehicles for city patrols. However, to begin to ensure that the Afghan government was now developing and perfecting its own fuel acquisition, storage, protection, and distribution processes, the two-star US Army general in this region in Afghanistan ordered, in early 2012, all US units to stop providing fuel to the Afghan forces. The objective of this order was to make the Afghan government self-reliant on its own fuel procurement and protection processes. A few days after the order to stop providing fuel to Afghan forces, Afghan police armored trucks pulled into the post for a patrol and expected gas. A tense situation quickly developed. The head of the Afghan forces, Ghotai Sharma, upon learning from one of Waverly's sergeants that he was not getting gasoline that day, became upset. Sharma drew his pistol, started gesticulating and raised his voice. Sharma's troops swung their gun turrets from their armored vehicles toward the US soldiers and Waverly heard the familiar metallic click associated with Sharma's troops chambering an ammunition round in an AK-47 weapon. At the same time, he heard in his earpiece the chattering from his own US troops as they coordinated who was covering what target among the Afghan police should a firefight break out.

US Army Officer Captain Richard Swift was the newly-appointed commander of a 100-person Basic Combat Training unit, whose mission was to train brand new enlistees in the Army. Swift sensed malaise within his team of drill sergeants, who led the majority of the training. Swift was concerned that these instructors, with an average service of 13 years in the Army and multiple combat deployments, were no longer motivated to do their best and had lost sight of the importance of their work. He wanted to change this. He wanted to increase the sergeants' professionalism and motivation, as these drill sergeants not only taught the basic combat classes, but also were the first faces that recruits saw when beginning their Army careers. Unwilling to accept mediocrity or mission failure in turning recruits into soldiers, Swift arranged for a training consultant team to visit his unit at Fort Benning, Georgia in March 2016. He wanted the consultants to emphasize the importance of training, to underscore how drill sergeants could design and execute better learning modules, and to professionalize drill sergeants' work by having them consider metrics or measurements to evaluate their job performance as trainers. In April 2016, after the workshop's conclusion, Swift received the consultants' raw data as compiled from the pre- and post-survey instruments completed by his drill sergeants. Swift had to combine his own expertise as an Army officer with the workshop data to effectively lead change and improve the operation of his unit.

Roger Cosgrove had to make a decision on what to do with his employee, Jennifer Johnson, whom he learned had allegedly stolen $120,000 from his former business associate, Michael Libretti. He was conflicted by the ethical dilemmas this issue raised. In April 2011, Cosgrove had a chance meeting with Libretti at Libretti's place of business, Starbright Jewelers. Cosgrove and Libretti once operated Starbright in a joint operation but, because of changing economic conditions, dissolved their joint operation amicably in 2008. Johnson, who had worked for both men at Starbright, elected, at Cosgrove's request, to follow him to his new business venture, Silver Shine. She continued to work part time on Saturdays for Libretti at Starbright, to supplement her income. Cosgrove and Libretti had remained friends, and occasionally met to catch up on news. It was at one of these get-togethers that Cosgrove heard from Libretti the accusation of theft. Johnson had left her part-time job at Starbright in 2010 on her own accord. When Libretti subsequently hired a replacement for Johnson, he discovered through the replacement's efforts that Johnson stole about $120,000 from him from 2004 through 2010. After Libretti shared with Cosgrove this story, he asked Cosgrove what he, Cosgrove, was going to do, in Libretti's words, "with the thief who is working for you now." Cosgrove had to balance the competing needs of the many persons who had an interest in his decision. He wanted to protect his business, his reputation, and his customers from exposure to a potential thief. He wanted to protect his family's well-being and also to be supportive to his business associate, Libretti. Even so, he felt that taking action on Johnson was assuming she was guilty already, without benefit of any investigation. He sought advice from several sources, and was frustrated that there was no clear direction to follow.

. Maria Gonzalez, a unionized employee of Global Communications, was arrested in an off-duty incident involving drugs, guns, and possible pornography. The news account published the names of those arrested, including Maria, but listed her name as Yvonne Gonzalez. Maria, as she was known in the office, was a customer service representative (CSR) at Global. She had access to private information about Global's customers and was the point of contact for them. Gonzalez reported out sick following the arrest and her immediate boss, unaware of the drug bust and Gonzalez's associated arrest, simply thought this was a typical sick-day call-out. Subsequently and quite by accident, Gonzalez's managers learned that her absences were directly related to events at the drug bust. In turn, when she wanted to report back to work, the managers became concerned about what the appropriate course of action should be regarding Gonzalez's behavior. They were troubled by the potential customer and employee impact, as well as negative publicity that could tarnish Global's overall reputation.