In late 2001, Yahoo!'s new executive leadership team faces a decision. With online advertising revenues significantly off, the company has decided to explore new strategic businesses, including online recruiting. The team must decide whether to make a bid for HotJobs.com, already under contract to be acquired by TMP Worldwide, parent of Monster.com. The deal is currently under scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission. Given the importance of career listings to the company's new strategy, should Yahoo! make a move now for HotJobs or wait for the FTC's decision?

After weighing the pros and cons of making an unsolicited bid for HotJobs.com (an online recruiting company already under contract to be acquired by TMP Worldwide), the executive team of Yahoo! decides to make an immediate move rather than wait for the Federal Trade Commission to clear the pending merger. This case examines Yahoo!s process for formulating a bid offer with limited information about the target and details the course of the company's negotiations with HotJobs.

Two fictional travel companies, SCOUT and TravelPlanner, engage in competitive bidding to acquire a third party, Travelexis. This exercise consists of three roles, one representative from each of the three companies. It is based on the actual negotiations between Headhunter (represented by Travelexis), Yahoo! (SCOUT), and CareerBuilder (TravelPlanner).

Two fictional travel companies, SCOUT and TravelPlanner, engage in competitive bidding to acquire a third party, Travelexis. This exercise is consists of three roles, one representative from each of the three companies. It is based on the actual negotiations between Headhunter (represented by Travelexis), Yahoo! (SCOUT), and CareerBuilder (TravelPlanner).

Two fictional travel companies, SCOUT and TravelPlanner, engage in competitive bidding to acquire a third party, Travelexis. This exercise consists of three roles, one representative from each of the three companies. It is based on the actual negotiations between Headhunter (represented by Travelexis), Yahoo! (SCOUT), and CareerBuilder (TravelPlanner).

This case uses vignettes and statistics of the broader issue discussed in each vignette to explore some of the ways in which gender is played out in the struggle for power and control. Disenfranchised groups--those not allowed access to critical resources--have little access to power. In many countries, women represent one of these disenfranchised groups. Women around the world are disproportionately denied access to employment, education, religious freedoms, many traditional routes to business funding, collective action, and social welfare. The vignettes explore ways in which inroads to equality are being made on new, innovative paths. Even mainstream approaches to accessing critical resources are becoming more gender neutral. The vignettes and statistics are meant to be illustrative rather than exhaustive.

Plum Creek Timber Co. decides to go ahead with negotiations for a Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) on its Pacific Northwest properties. HCP represents a new form of public-private-sector collaboration and innovation to improve upon command-and-control environmental policy solution. Throughout the negotiation process, the company must manage several factors: identifying which native fish species to include beyond the bull trout, matching "best science" standards with cost-efficient conservation commitments, minimizing the regulatory burden while enhancing species protection, and fostering support and avoiding conflict with a range of interested stakeholders, from environmental activists to forest products executives.