In the fall of 1999, Mike Moore, director-general of the World Trade Organization (WTO), anticipated that the WTO's talks in Seattle in December 1999 would focus on improving living standards around the world, bettering the environment, providing more resources for health and education, strengthening the global economy, and reducing the risk of future instability and crisis. He characterized the WTO as seeking to advance a new approach to international cooperation based on rules, not power-rules, to help manage the powerful forces of globalization to everyone's benefit, the weak as well as the strong. Instead, the Seattle meeting was sidelined by waves of protests as widely disparate groups voiced strong opposition to the WTO and, more generally, to free trade. Protests focused on the perceived impact of trade on the environment, jobs, human rights, and the balance of power between large economic powers and developing countries. Additionally, the dispute resolution policies of the WTO were placed in the spotlight. The protests gained very widespread exposure and put the WTO representatives on the defensive. As the protests intensified, President Clinton objected to the violent methods used by some protestors but expressed sympathy with their desire to have more openness and accountability for the WTO. After two days of protests, vandalism, and police enforced curfews, the meetings were suspended. This case describes the history of the WTO, the protests at the Seattle talks, the role of the Internet in mobilizing protesters, the WTO's dispute resolution processes, and the implications of the failed talks for the WTO and its opponents.

On Monday, November 16, 1998, the day before Daimler-Benz would officially merge with Chrysler, Dr. Kurt Lauk, head of Daimler-Benz' commercial vehicles division (CVD) reflected on the organizational changes he had directed over the course of the previous two years to make CVD more competitive in an era of industry-wide globalization. To unite an extremely decentralized organizational structure at Daimler, Lauk initiated a worldwide reorganization and the integration of the company's manufacturing operations. He encouraged individual units within CVD to look for collaborative opportunities that would enable the division to realize global scale economies. Although Lauk promoted a global perspective within CVD, he believed that the business units could compete effectively only if they were allowed considerable autonomy to respond to their own unique market conditions. Lauk was proud of the achievements resulting from these directives. However, pressing concerns overshadowed his satisfaction. Although the CVD was profitable overall, its Power Train Unit continued to lose money. In addition, Lauk was concerned about Daimler's progress in building adequate distribution channels in the Asian region. Finally, Lauk considered the impact of the merger with Chrysler on CVD and the general uncertainty concerning how a more centralized organization would affect the CVD.