Michael Pirron was a health care services consultant who had always dreamed of starting a "Nonprofit Competitive Business" with a social mission. In 2006, he launched Impact Makers, a new hybrid entity that crossed the nonprofit/for-profit lines. Although it was a small business like many others (paying competitive salaries, bidding for work, providing professional services at market prices), Impact Makers had several unique components: It would contribute strategic consulting, and all profits, to charitable community organizations; there was no stock and equity ownership; it had a volunteer board of directors and its financial information was open to the public. The first two years saw some successes and some setbacks. Impact Makers faced the challenges of growth: how to get more customers, more revenue, and a more predictable revenue stream. How would Impact Makers raise investment capital with its unique organizational structure? And how would the company survive?

In 1999, P&G purchased-through the acquisition of Recovery Engineering in a $265 million deal-PUR Water Filtration System, a point-of-use water filtration system. The PUR water filtration system used a combination of the flocculant iron sulfate, an agent that caused particles suspended in water to bind and form sediment, and calcium hypochlorite (chlorine), a disinfectant. After acquiring the product, P&G began to develop and expand it. With the success of PUR Water Filtration System, Procter & Gamble Health Sciences Institute (PGHSI) and its partners created the Children's Safe Drinking Water (CSDW) campaign, which targeted developing countries, in 2003. PUR was distributed, often at no cost, to poor countries where the drinking water was not safe, and elsewhere during emergencies: the Asian tsunami, flooding in Haiti, or cholera epidemics in Africa, among others. Through the CSDW program from 2003 to 2007, P&G had provided the sachets at no cost, made no profit on PUR sales, and donated programmatic funding to some of the CSDW projects. Between 2003 and 2007, 85 million sachets of PUR, treating 850 million liters of water, had been distributed globally in emergency response or sold through social marketing projects. With the help of its various partners, PGHSI had made the product available in 23 countries. Procter & Gamble had finally entered the water purification business but had chosen to augment its commercial and retail sales by helping bring clean drinking water to developing countries.

The partnership between Abbott and the government of Tanzania continued to flourish. As a demonstration of Abbott's long-term commitment to Tanzania, in 2007, the Abbott Fund opened its first office outside Abbott headquarters in Illinois. The new office in Dar es Salaam, led by Divisional Vice President Christy Wistar, oversaw the expanding number of philanthropic projects in Tanzania. In June 2007, Abbott CEO Miles White returned to Tanzania for the third time and announced the Abbott Fund's future plans to modernize the 23 regional laboratories across Tanzania. By the end of 2007, the Abbott Fund had invested more than $50 million in Tanzania alone, strengthening and modernizing the health care infrastructure and systems countrywide. The Abbott Fund planned to continue its support of numerous programs and organizations that were working to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS and deliver effective care and treatment to HIV-infected patients. The Abbott Fund also supported programs that provided for the basic needs of orphans and vulnerable children in Tanzania and elsewhere in Africa and India.

In 1999, the 20-year-old AIDS crisis had ravaged many developing countries and, in particular, on the continent of Africa. Of the estimated 33.4 million people living with HIV/AIDS worldwide in 1998, almost two-thirds (22 million) were in sub-Saharan Africa, considered the "global epicenter" of the disease. Already 12 million had died, and life expectancy in the region plummeted from 62 years to 47. Chicago-based Abbott Laboratories had responded at the start of the AIDS outbreak by developing the HIV diagnostic test kit and then, later in the crisis, developed some of the state-of-the-art HIV/AIDS drugs. Abbott executives, led by new CEO Miles White, wanted to address the crisis in sub-Saharan Africa, but in a specific, efficient, and effective way. This case details the evolution of the AIDS crisis, Abbott Laboratories' HIV/AIDS drug production, and the company's efforts-in 1999-to find other ways to battle HIV/AIDS globally.

In 1999 and 2000, Abbott Laboratories' senior management considered a number of philanthropic options that could make a difference and define the focus for Abbott and the Abbott Fund's charitable programs. Although the cause was humanitarian, it was considered important that the programs align strategically with Abbott's leadership in the HIV/AIDS arena. The Abbott Fund officially launched the Program for Orphans and Vulnerable Children in June 2000. The program assisted orphans and vulnerable children infected and affected by HIV/AIDS as well as the communities that cared for them. They chose Tanzania as host for a pilot program, which involved updating the country's community health care infrastructure. Abbott partnered with Tanzania's Ministry of Health over the next five years to upgrade the facilities at Muhimbili National Hospital in Dar Es Salaam, the Tanzanian capital; build an HIV center comprising an outpatient clinic and counseling/support facilities; create a national HIV teaching center; and introduce pharmacy, health information, and management systems. The dramatic growth of the Abbott Fund HIV/AIDS programs suggested a strategic turning point for the Abbott Fund, transforming it from a domestic philanthropic program to one with a global focus, now aligned with Abbott's international business focus. By 2003, nearly $20 million from the Abbott Fund was being invested in its developing-world AIDS programs.

McDonald's Corporation, the behemoth of the fast food industry, has taken its share of criticism-even ridicule-over the years. The image of the company suffered as the public began to perceive its jobs as dead-end, unskilled, and unstimulating. The term "McJob," coined by an author in 1991, was slang for a low-paying job that required little skill and provided little opportunity for advancement. But in many ways, McDonald's Corporation defied norms, using a combination of promotion-from-within strategy and benchmark employee training programs to develop an abundant pool of human capital. The company was deeply committed to its employees who "started as crew" coming up through the ranks, receiving the necessary training at its own Hamburger University. This case tells the story of Jan Fields, who started at McDonald's making french fries and found herself 20 years later serving as executive vice president and chief operations officer at McDonald's USA.

This case explores the larger context of competition among Internet companies for market share globally, especially in the emerging Chinese economy, as well as concerns about advancing the core values of the company including user privacy. Specifically, it concerns the decision facing Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang when he is confronted with a request by the Chinese government to release the name of one of its users for alleged violations of Chinese law.

In the 1980s, the true effects of 100 years of asbestos mining in South Africa became apparent, as thousands of former miners and those who lived in the mining communities developed asbestos-related diseases (ARD), all fatal. The companies responsible-the British Cape plc, in particular-were all multinational companies based in other countries. This case, the first in four (labeled A through D, UV 1350 through UV1353), explains the history of asbestos mining in South Africa, the complicated relationship between the multinational companies and an apartheid and post-apartheid South African regime, and details the struggles and issues that many ARD-afflicted South Africans faced in bringing the multinationals to justice and seeking redress.

This case details the in-house discovery of WorldCom's fraudulent accounting practices and the ethical considerations employees faced during the investigation. In May 2002, Cynthia Cooper, vice president of internal audit for WorldCom, the second-largest telecommunications company in the United States, faced an extremely difficult decision. After months of sleuthing, initially not sure what they were seeking, she and two of her employees at the Clinton, Mississippi, WorldCom headquarters had discovered almost $4 billion in questionable accounting entries. The specter of the Enron collapse in the fall of 2001 still loomed large, and Cooper realized that the situation at WorldCom might even be a far greater financial debacle. If this fraud were revealed, much would be at stake: the company's credibility, the fate of thousands of employees, and pension funds loaded with WorldCom stock.

This case focuses on an employee in the asset management division of the Birmingham-based HealthSouth who suspects possible fraud in the company's accounting practices. A highly successful outpatient surgery, rehabilitation, and diagnostic imaging company, HealthSouth had been founded and was run by Richard Scrushy, whose generosity was legendary in Birmingham, Alabama, but whose autocratic and sometimes ruthless management style contrasted sharply with his charismatic, up-by-the-bootsteps entrepreneurial energy.

This note provides a brief review of the Muslim religion, including the geographical representation of its believers, a description of its basic tenets, and a sketch of its historical development. Also provided is a brief synopsis of the Prophet Muhammad, and a distinction is made between the Sh'ia and the Sunni faiths. The note was written to complement the teaching of any case that assumes knowledge of Islam.

This case presents the dilemma of a multinational oil and gas company, ExxonMobil, as it factors in the ethics issues related to the environment and cultural differences in deciding whether to proceed with building a pipeline in Chad and Cameroon, two of the poorest and most corrupt developing countries in West Africa. The many players in this project included the World Bank, which cofinanced the project and put restrictions into place that would hopefully prevent government corruption in both Chad and Cameroon and many environmental and human rights groups that warned of potential disaster. The case also covers the environmental and social analysis of the areas that would be affected by the pipeline.

This case details the rise of hard-disk storage manufacturer MiniScribe in the mid-1980s and the company's demise after executives manipulated the financial information.

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield were best friends and socially conscious entrepreneurs when they founded Ben & Jerry's Homemade in the 1970s in Burlington, Vermont. The company was well-known for being offbeat, quirky, and committed to socially responsible ventures and using organic ingredients in its products. When the company went public in 1984, most people bought the stock because they believed in the company's values and mission. In late 1999, the financial and economic world was quite different, and two suitors-Unilever and Dreyer's Ice Cream-appeared, both very interested in acquiring Ben & Jerry's. This case describes not only the background and history of Ben & Jerry's, but the factors involved in the founders' having to decide what course of action to take.

Case B describes the aftermath of Ben & Jerry's being acquired by Unilever. While there was public sadness and dismay over the socially responsible company appearing to "sell out," Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield tried to put it in the best possible light: "Under this new arrangement, Ben and Jerry's will be independently operated, our values will continue and we hope our efforts to make positive change will even expand. Unilever has contractually agreed to increasing socially beneficial activities as a percentage of sales every year. Ben and Jerry's will be doing more good than it does today."

Ruth Parks owns Top Resources, a temporary employment agency, with offices in Kansas and Missouri. She discovers an employee working at a big-box store. The employee is collecting workers' compensation (WC) for an injury she claims occurred while on assignment for Top Resources. The bigger picture paints Parks's concern that the temporary nature of employment agencies lends itself to greater risk of WC fraud. This case raises ethical issues concerning truth-telling, whistle-blowing, and workers' compensation. It raises questions concerning employee versus employer rights and the limited effects of regulations in adjudicating these claims.

This case, which can be used in conjunction with the other Monsanto cases, details Monsanto's efforts to introduce genetically modified organisms (GMOs) into Europe in the mid-1990s. Monsanto did not anticipate the European resistance and public outcry based on a number of factors, and company officials ultimately admitted their mistakes in the introduction process. Additionally, the case poses the basic question: How could Monsanto, in its role as a seed producer, have interacted with the international food-supply chain so that its primary consumers had a market outside the United States for their genetically modified crops?

This case presents the issues and dilemmas that Monsanto faced in deciding how to market its genetically modified products. It also covers patent issues, intellectual property, and licensing strategies.

This technical note, which presents an overview of the global water and food supply problem at the turn of the 21st century, is a good starting point for a discussion of the environmental and agricultural crises that exist throughout the world, and covers some of the potential solutions to these crises.