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CEMEX grew through acquisitions from a Latin American to a global company under the leadership of a CEO who believed in the importance of a "one enterprise" culture and benchmarking against world standards. As the CEO ponders an acquisition that would double the company's size and take it to new geographies, he wonders if the right capabilities are in place for what should be changed to manage the integration process effectively.

Personal computer game maker Blizzard filed a lawsuit in 2002 against the developers of the bnetd project. The bnetd project was a volunteer effort of game enthusiasts and programmers frustrated with difficulties encountered playing Blizzard's personal computer games on its 24-hour Battle.net online gaming service. Via reverse engineering of Blizzard's software, the bnetd developers created and disseminated a free open source software program that mimicked the Battle.net playing experience while improving on some of its deficiencies. Blizzard, one of the world's most successful PC game publishers and a part of international media conglomerate Vivendi Universal, charged the bnetd developers with breach of contract and various counts of intellectual property infringement. The defendants maintained that U.S. law, in an effort to spur innovation in the United States, protected their activities. Describes the events leading up to a court-ordered mediation session between the two parties in October 2003. Students are asked, as business managers, to determine the legal and non-legal alternatives available to Blizzard and the bnetd developers, and to decide which strategy to pursue from each party's perspective.

When Robert Labatt took over ezBoard's helm in 2004, he faced a quandary: How to turn the company's essentially free information product into a paid product that would earn enough revenue to satisfy ezBoard's increasingly impatient investors. At the time, the largest hosted online discussion board company in the United States barely broke even. Among other things, Labatt had to develop a new revenue strategy for the company. Explores Labatt's options, focusing in particular on issues surrounding the introduction of an effective subscription model and pricing strategy. After providing the necessary background, asks readers to determine what they would do if they were in Labatt's shoes.

In the early 1990s, the Turkish telecommunications firm, Netas, established joint ventures in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan as miniature replications of Netas's own experience on the receiving end of technology transfer with Netas's 51% owner, Northern Telecom. This case explores the issues involved in technology transfer to countries even less developed than Turkey.

The Turkish general manager of a successful telecommunications equipment-manufacturing joint venture between the Canadian company Northern Telecom and local partners in Turkey reviews the solutions to a crisis in 1989 and wonders whether the company will be able to handle another problem situation following Turkey's local elections in 1993.

This case considers the future challenges facing the Northern Telecom joint venture in China with Tong Guang Electronics. Asks how well the start-up and transition have been managed and whether the right foundation has been laid for the future.

This case continues the story of the joint venture in China between Northern Telecom (Nortel) of Canada and Tong Guang Electronics of China. It shows how North Americans learned to operate in a very different cultural environment in China and provides an opportunity to identify and assess requirements for managing change in a different cultural setting.

After U.S.-based Foote, Cone & Belding (FCB) and Publicis of France established an international advertising alliance in May 1988, alliance leaders set out to merge offices in Europe. They were confronted with a particularly tricky situation in Germany, which, if handled poorly, could have harmed BMZ, a highly regarded agency in Dusseldorf that FCB had acquired six months earlier. The case looks at how alliance managers resolved the dilemma by forming a second agency network in Europe; how that network, which was composed of advertising agencies from six European countries, was working; and how agencies from different cultural backgrounds were dealing with diversity. May be used with FCB and Publicis (A): Forming the Alliance and (B): Managing Client and Country Diversity.

COMCO Martech was a new breed of joint venture for COMCO Holding, a mid-sized Swiss-German company that had grown over a five-year period through tie-ups with small, start-up companies. Whereas a typical COMCO venture provided services to a large German retailer, was based in a German-speaking country of Europe, and granted COMCO Holding clear management control, COMCO Martech was managed on a 50-50 basis with an American partner, was active in Eastern Europe, and supplied decontamination services to non-retail related clients. The venture got off to a rocky start. This case looks at the difficulties that arise in managing cross-boundary collaboration; the characteristics that promote compatibility between partners; and the factors that account for successful international partnerships.

Discusses FCB and Publicis, partners in a global advertising agency alliance, working together with their clients to provide excellent service. May be used with FCB and Publicis (A): Forming the Alliance and (C): The German-Led Network.