Charles "Charlie" E. Merrill was a visionary who opened the door to investing for the masses in America. The "financial supermarket" strategy, which Merrill conceived in the late thirties, revolutionized the brokerage and financial services of his time and is widely recognized as one of the most important strategic innovations in the history of the financial sector. This case opens a window on the genesis of Merrill's strategic insight. It focuses especially on how Merrill came to identify the analogy (banking as supermarkets) that led him to see his industry through a very different lens than most of strategic leaders at competing firms.

Jim Golden wants to radically change how catastrophic trucking accident lawsuit claims are handled by his trucking company. He wants to "do the right thing" for both the claimant and his company. Golden is a former litigator with 16 years of experience defending corporations in wrongful death lawsuits. After becoming disenchanted with the traditional "deny, delay, defend" method of litigation, which is aggressive, adversarial, costly, and drags the process out for as long as possible, Golden decides to re-think how he practices law. Golden wants to introduce a "negotiation counsel" approach to claims where his company is at fault. Initially, he is unsure of specific tactics, but envisions non-adversarial, communicative, and problem-solving interaction. He believes that if all parties involved in a claim engaged in a joint problem solving manner (rather than as a win/lose contest), practical, just, and emotionally satisfying agreements can be reached much more quickly.

This note briefly describes compensation and incentive issues in one of the major US professional sports leagues, the National Football League (NFL). It first provides some background information on the labor market for players and the salary cap, and then describes incentive issues facing players and their agents.

iBasis examines the development of a long-term relationship between equipment manufacturer Cisco and start-up iBasis, a voice-over-internet wholesaler. Questions arise for iBasis founders as to how best to build a beneficial relationship with the much larger partner. How aggressive should they be in their pursuit of specialized equipment designs from Cisco? How should they protect their own intellectual property? After several years of market success, and several relationship defining mechanisms (from informal to a memorandum of understanding to specific equipment contracts), the partnership is tested with the dot-com bubble bursting. Not only is the relationship at risk, but iBasis' very survival is in question.