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November 29, 2010, was “Cyber Monday,” one of the busiest online shopping days of the year, with the potential to approach $1 billion in online sales in North America. The chief designer of fashion company Donna Karan New York (DKNY) was facing a difficult situation. On this particular Cyber Monday, activists for the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) had posted simultaneous messages on DKNY’s Facebook page. Anyone viewing the page could not fail to discern the “DK Bunny Butcher” message. This action by PETA was the culmination of several years, beginning in 2005, of attempting to convince DKNY to stop using fur in its collections. This November 29 message was a sharp reminder to both DKNY and its Cyber Monday customers that, up to this point, the company had refused to stop using fur. It was available to be viewed by DKNY’s over 200,000 Facebook fans as well as millions of online Cyber Monday shoppers. The chief designer was unsure how to respond: on one hand was the desire to clearly explain the use of fur, but on the other was the desire to avoid escalating the publicity surrounding the matter. She needed an immediate strategy that would retain her brand’s image and protect future sales.

This note is meant to provide students access to some of the world's greatest speeches. It contains excerpts that span over 2,000 years of history, from Pericles' Funeral Oration to Stephen Lewis's Aids in Africa speech. An introduction by the author explains why future business leaders need to study such speeches.

The chief executive officer (CEO) of Social Media Group had to develop a social media campaign for ING Direct Canada, an online retail bank. The CEO had successfully developed social media campaigns for other businesses in the past but ING wanted the CEO to measure the success of the campaign. With little information available on how to determine the success of such strategies, the CEO set out to design one of Canada's first measurable social media campaigns.

Under pressure from the Rainforest Action Network to make their lending policies more sustainable, executives at the Royal Bank of Canada who deal with issues of corporate citizenship and sustainability must decide whether to continue financing companies involved in extracting oil from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada. The case asks students to consider the following questions: 1) Should banks lend to any business or industry the government deems to be sustainable? 2) What are the risks of lending to businesses some stakeholders deem unsustainable? 3) How should banks respond when pressured by an interest group? 4) How does a bank decide what is sustainable lending practice? This is a supplement to RBC-Financing Oil Sands (A), product number 910M15.

Under pressure from the Rainforest Action Network to make their lending policies more sustainable, executives at the Royal Bank of Canada who deal with issues of corporate citizenship and sustainability must decide whether to continue financing companies involved in extracting oil from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada. The case asks students to consider the following questions: 1) Should banks lend to any business or industry the government deems to be sustainable? 2) What are the risks of lending to businesses some stakeholders deem unsustainable? 3) How should banks respond when pressured by an interest group? 4) How does a bank decide what is sustainable lending practice? The supplement B case RBC-Financing Oil Sands (B), product number 910M16, is also available.

Under pressure from the Rainforest Action Network to make their lending policies more sustainable, executives at the Royal Bank of Canada who deal with issues of corporate citizenship and sustainability must decide whether to continue financing companies involved in extracting oil from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada. The case asks students to consider the following questions: 1) Should banks lend to any business or industry the government deems to be sustainable? 2) What are the risks of lending to businesses some stakeholders deem unsustainable? 3) How should banks respond when pressured by an interest group? 4) How does a bank decide what is sustainable lending practice? This is a supplement to RBC-Financing Oil Sands (A), product number 9B10M015.

Under pressure from the Rainforest Action Network to make their lending policies more sustainable, executives at the Royal Bank of Canada who deal with issues of corporate citizenship and sustainability must decide whether to continue financing companies involved in extracting oil from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada. The case asks students to consider the following questions: 1) Should banks lend to any business or industry the government deems to be sustainable? 2) What are the risks of lending to businesses some stakeholders deem unsustainable? 3) How should banks respond when pressured by an interest group? 4) How does a bank decide what is sustainable lending practice? The supplement B case RBC-Financing Oil Sands (B), product number 9B10M016, is also available.

The chief executive officer (CEO) of Social Media Group had to develop a social media campaign for ING Direct Canada, an online retail bank. The CEO had successfully developed social media campaigns for other businesses in the past but ING wanted the CEO to measure the success of the campaign. With little information available on how to determine the success of such strategies, the CEO set out to design one of Canada's first measurable social media campaigns.

This note is meant to provide students access to some of the world's greatest speeches. It contains excerpts that span over 2,000 years of history, from Pericles' Funeral Oration to Stephen Lewis's Aids in Africa speech. An introduction by the author explains why future business leaders need to study such speeches.

This case traces the attempt by the Liberal Government of Ontario, Canada, to introduce recycling fees on a large range of household products as part of the government's larger provincial waste management program. The Ministry of the Environment created an industry-funded, non-profit organization called Stewardship Ontario to oversee the regulation and collection of recycling fees in the province. In 2008, Stewardship Ontario began to levy recycling fees on a limited number of household products, fees that producers and retailers passed on to the consumers at the point of transaction. Ontario's consumers seemed to accept these fees as part of the cost of doing business in a province that was attempting to become a greener and less wasteful place to live. However, in 2010, Stewardship Ontario changed the fee structure on household products from a product-based to a material-based structure: products were now assessed a fee according to the kind and degree of material (chemical, metal, plastic) in the product. This change greatly expanded the number of products on which a recycling fee could be assessed, and it greatly complicated the fee structure for both producer and consumer. Consumers this time took notice of the new fees, and, objecting vociferously to the number of new fees and to the fee structure's lack of transparency, they called on the Minister of the Environment to scrap the program or at least to explain it clearly.

An operating manager who as an equity stake in Thamesford Logistics is preparing himself for what he believes will be a difficult conversation with Thamesford Logistic's chief financial officer (CFO) on a current project despite the fact that the operating manager has a legal dispute with the CFO on another deal. In the recent past, the operating manager and the CFO were partners trying to package and sell a mining project on behalf of the mine owners. The agreement between the two expired and the CFO continued to push the project ahead, cutting the operating manager out of the proceeds. A disagreement over the ownership of the success fee led to the operating manager's lawsuit against the CFO. Meanwhile, Thamesford Logistics is trying to acquire a rival in Montreal. This pending transaction requires the operating manager and the CFO to cooperate on the deal. The operating manager is thinking about how he should approach a meeting with the CFO, what he should say, what he would not say and what he wanted to achieve by the end.

The general manager, U.K. for Inglewood Instrument Co. (Inglewood) is sitting outside of his company's headquarters in Burnaby, B.C., waiting for a meeting with the founder of the company to clarify his future as the firm's general manager, U.K. The general manager suspects that the founder and the vice-president Business Development, are actively trying to find a replacement for the general manager, U.K. position. As the general manager is barely one year into a two year contract, he feels shortchanged by the fact that the opportunity, which he uncovered, is being taken away from him. He knows that he needs to strike the correct balance between fact-gathering and advocacy. He needs to uncover what the founder has in mind for his career at Inglewood. The general manager wonders how he should prioritize his issues and how he should approach the conversation.

An operating manager who as an equity stake in Thamesford Logistics is preparing himself for what he believes will be a difficult conversation with Thamesford Logistic's chief financial officer (CFO) on a current project despite the fact that the operating manager has a legal dispute with the CFO on another deal. In the recent past, the operating manager and the CFO were partners trying to package and sell a mining project on behalf of the mine owners. The agreement between the two expired and the CFO continued to push the project ahead, cutting the operating manager out of the proceeds. A disagreement over the ownership of the success fee led to the operating manager's lawsuit against the CFO. Meanwhile, Thamesford Logistics is trying to acquire a rival in Montreal. This pending transaction requires the operating manager and the CFO to cooperate on the deal. The operating manager is thinking about how he should approach a meeting with the CFO, what he should say, what he would not say and what he wanted to achieve by the end.

The general manager, U.K. for Inglewood Instrument Co. (Inglewood) is sitting outside of his company's headquarters in Burnaby, B.C., waiting for a meeting with the founder of the company to clarify his future as the firm's general manager, U.K. The general manager suspects that the founder and the vice-president Business Development, are actively trying to find a replacement for the general manager, U.K. position. As the general manager is barely one year into a two year contract, he feels shortchanged by the fact that the opportunity, which he uncovered, is being taken away from him. He knows that he needs to strike the correct balance between fact-gathering and advocacy. He needs to uncover what the founder has in mind for his career at Inglewood. The general manager wonders how he should prioritize his issues and how he should approach the conversation.

Bp's green re-branding efforts began officially with the unveiling of its new bp Helios mark, named after the Greek sun god. The new logo did away with 70 years of corporate branding, replacing the bp shield, long associated in consumers' minds with the strength of British imperialism. The Helios mark cost US$7 million to develop and was forecast to cost the company another US$100 million a year to integrate into marketing and operations over the next two years. At the logo's unveiling, the company's chief executive officer directed attention to the company's recent purchase of the solar energy company Solarex, an acquisition that made bp the world's largest solar energy company. The unveiling of the Helios logo was a formalization of a re-branding strategy that had begun to emerge the year before with the CEO's announcement that 200 new bp sites around the world would be powered in part by solar energy, through solar panels placed on the roofs of gas pumps, and his commitment to reducing bp's own carbon dioxide emissions by 10 per cent by the year 2010. From the start, however, environmental groups heaped scorn on bp's green re-branding. Greenpeace gave the company its Greenhouse Greenwash Award, given to the largest "corporate climate culprit" on earth.

A director within the leadership development program of a large multinational organization must decide how to manage a very difficult conversation she must have with her assistant director. The assistant director, who is older and more experienced (although less educated), interviewed for the director's position and didn't get it. The assistant director has never been happy reporting to her much younger boss, and has felt consistently left out of major decisions. The assistant director had confronted the director about her feelings and threatened to resign. How should the director handle this difficult conversation?

A director within the leadership development program of a large multinational organization must decide how to manage a very difficult conversation she must have with her assistant director. The assistant director, who is older and more experienced (although less educated), interviewed for the director's position and didn't get it. The assistant director has never been happy reporting to her much younger boss, and has felt consistently left out of major decisions. The assistant director had confronted the director about her feelings and threatened to resign. How should the director handle this difficult conversation?

A senior partner in a healthcare consulting firm has to decide what to do in the face of accusations from the chief executive officer of a major healthcare firm. The CEO, reading a prepared statement at a press conference, has accused the senior partner at Kohlberg Associates of a serious, unreported conflict of interest. The senior partner has to consider several issues, including if he should respond, how to respond, who to contact first, and most importantly, what he should say. Adding to his problem is the fact that he is in a state of shock and may not be in an optimum mental state.

Monsanto is a large chemical manufacturing company specializing in chemical products for agricultural use. This case explores the company's attempt from 2002-2004 to launch a version of genetically-modified wheat in Canada. It details opposition to the launch from farmers and environmentalists, and focuses on how these groups used communications to resist Monsanto's product launch.

A senior manager at Laurel Upholstery learns from an unexpected meeting with a former senior manager at the firm's Montreal factory that only managers of a certain origin - regardless of seniority or performance - were being promoted into top management positions. Although the former manager alleged he had no interest in pursuing the matter, he was frustrated enough to leave the firm, and indicated the matter seemed serious enough to warrant further investigation.