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The Paddle8 case is a short case that presents the idea for a new business in the global art market and asks students to evaluate whether it will work, given the structure and unique workings of the art market. Paddle8 is a New York-based startup that partners with well-known galleries to offer art works from their collections for sale on the Paddle8 website to carefully selected, globally-dispersed members. The firm aims to help galleries overcome their geographic limitations and to make art more accessible to a wide range of new collectors with the help of its technology platform. The question is: will this succeed in the context of the art market where exclusive access is a prime driver of value?

The case deals with an IT company born in Argentina in 2003 to provide software services to established companies in the developed world. After reaching sales of $57 million in 2010, the company ponders its next steps to achieve $500 million in revenues by 2015.

The co-founder of an Italian, design based bicycle manufacturer evaluates if reducing costs by outsourcing would impact its brand. The company was founded in 2005 in Italy by three friends and in its first five years, it had enjoyed steady growth and built a strong reputation for producing high-quality city bicycles, appreciated for their retro-look and style. Its country of origin had probably helped them exporting their products as their bicycles were 100% made in Italy and the Made in Italy label had a reputation of high quality, craftsmanship and creativity. Yet their profit margins were relatively low as their manufacturing costs were very high. Should they outsource their production? If so, to China or to Eastern Europe? Was there some other way to improve the profitability of the company?

Yoshito Hori, dean of the Graduate School of Management, GLOBIS University, was planning to launch a full-time English MBA program in September 2012. GLOBIS University was already offering successful part-time MBA programs in English and Japanese. The full-time English program was a necessary step to fulfill Hori's ambition to make GLOBIS the No. 1 business school in Asia, however it remained to be seen whether the school could attract international students who needed to relocate to Japan and compete with other world-class international business schools.

This case deals with supplier difficulties faced by WildChina - a travel service provider in China. WildChina is a classic case of a company that is trying to bring a local, within-country product to a market outside the country (in this case, travelers to China from around the world). In doing so, startups have to build competences to deal with local suppliers and global customers. The case describes the operations of WildChina, providing detailed information on how they evaluated suppliers to determine their appropriateness, given WildChina's customers. The decision in the case revolves around what the founder should do when faced with a supplier who is trying to bypass WildChina to reach customers directly - a common problem faced by intermediaries.

Park Hyeon-Joo, the founder and Chairman of Korea's earliest and largest mutual fund company, plans to expand internationally. After first offering emerging market funds to his Korean customers, the company then began selling local-currency funds in India and Brazil. Now he has to decide his next steps. Should he build on his emerging market expertise and focus his business expansion in developing countries? If so, where should he concentrate his efforts -- India, Brazil, China, or other countries? Or should he instead focus on expanding into developed markets through operations in New York and London?

This case is about a boutique chocolate manufacturer's decision to grow. Zotter, an Austrian company that was a pioneer in the organic and Fairtrade chocolate movement, uses the traditional confit technique to make premium hand-scooped chocolates in unusual and innovative flavor combinations. Having done many novel things to educate the market about the value of premium, organic and Fairtrade chocolate, Zotter consolidated its market position within the premium segment of the Austrian market for chocolate. The company only recently started to sell its product outside Austria. However, the time- and labor-intensive manufacturing process and the high prices of Zotter chocolates limit the scalability of the company, even though the founder desires to grow. While the founder has many ideas for the firm, it is not clear which path would be optimal for the kind of growth he desires. The case provides students an opportunity to discuss how entrepreneurs create markets for novel products, and how they can consolidate their position.

The case is about the decision to convert a not-for-profit organization into a for-profit company. STFC, which is part of a larger non-profit organization - the Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) - works to improve the livelihoods of very poor rural and urban women in India. It does so by translating traditional Indian embroidery skills into contemporary apparel and home furnishings that STFC then helps to market and sell around the world. Organized as a producers' cooperative, STFC is owned by its artisan-members. STFC is thinking of changing to for-profit status because it would enable faster and more sustainable growth by providing access to outside funds, and also allow the payment of dividends, which would further improve the women's livelihoods. The legal and financial implications of such a move aside, it is not clear that STFC would be able to withstand the changes such a transformation would entail. Most importantly, would an organization accustomed to taking decisions based solely on social benefit criteria be able to adjust to a for-profit mentality? And, would customers accept the change?

In today's innovation-driven economy, understanding how to generate great ideas has become an urgent managerial priority. Suddenly, the spotlight has turned on the academics who've studied creativity for decades. How relevant is their research to the practical challenges leaders face? To connect theory and practice, Harvard Business School professors Amabile and Khaire convened a two-day colloquium of leading creativity scholars and executives from companies such as Google, IDEO, Novartis, Intuit, and E Ink. In this article, the authors present highlights of the research presented and the discussion of its implications. At the event, a new leadership agenda began to take shape, one rooted in the awareness that you can't manage creativity - you can only manage for creativity. A number of themes emerged: The leader's job is not to be the source of ideas but to encourage and champion ideas. Leaders must tap the imagination of employees at all ranks and ask inspiring questions. They also need to help their organizations incorporate diverse perspectives, which spur creative insights, and facilitate creative collaboration by, for instance, harnessing new technologies. The participants shared tactics for enabling discoveries, as well as thoughts on how to bring process to bear on creativity without straitjacketing it. They pointed out that process management isn't appropriate in all stages of creative work; leaders should apply it thoughtfully and manage the handoff from idea generators to commercializers deftly. The discussion also examined the need to clear paths through bureaucracy, weed out weak ideas, and maximize the organization's learning from failure. Though points of view varied, the theories and frameworks explored advance the understanding of creativity in business and offer executives a playbook for increasing innovation.

Saffronart, a five-year-old online art auction company, leads the market for modern Indian art and now faces competitors in the market it created. Established in 2000 by the wife-and-husband team of Minal and Dinesh Vazirani, Saffronart.com is an innovative online auction firm that specializes in modern and contemporary Indian art. Having been the first firm to offer Indian fine art with authenticity guarantees in an auction setting that increased the transparency of prices, Saffronart succeeded in establishing the genre of modern and contemporary Indian art in the art world, and in creating a market for it. This market, and Saffronart's revenues, grew rapidly from 2000 to 2005. Saffronart's estimate was that the Indian art auction market would be worth $125 million in 2006, with their revenues being $45 million. While this success was gratifying, the firm and its founders faced new internal and external pressures; particularly worrisome was the entry of auction giants Christie's and Sotheby's into the market. The Vaziranis' main challenge now is to consolidate their leading position in the market they created in the face of the unpredictable cyclicality of the secondary art market and increasingly strong competitors.

Fabindia is a for-profit Indian retail company with the stated mission of providing employment to weavers and traditional handicraft artisans in rural India. Established in 1960 as an exporter of home furnishings, Fabindia has grown as a consumer-facing retailer of apparel, home furnishings, organic food, and body care products, and has plans to expand further. Given their mission, their supply chain is fragmented, geographically scattered, and unpredictable. Can they overcome these challenges and still grow profitably while staying committed to their mission?