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Examines the implications of Whole Foods' CEO's anonymous message board postings including its potential impact on the company's proposed merger with Wild Oats.

Dr. John Mendlein, CEO of Adnexus Therapeutics Inc., (Adnexus), a private biotechnology company, must decide whether to pursue acquisition talks with Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) after a successful six month collaboration or continue with Adnexus' planned IPO.

In Differences at Work: Sameer (B) HBS Case No. 9-609-054, Sameer leaves the firm at the summer's end without confronting his employer about the jokes and wondering whether he made the right choice. Later Sameer's former employer calls him to apologize for their behavior after discovering an email that Sameer wrote describing how offended he felt by the jokes. Accepting the apology, Sameer decides to take a full time position with the firm but reflects on how his own inaction at the time of the incident was a missed opportunity to educate his fellow colleagues.

In Differences at Work: Sameer (A) HBS Case No. 9-609-053 Sameer, an Indian Muslim, is a summer intern in a small, predominantly Jewish firm. Prompted by a conflict in the Middle East, members of the organization make a number of anti-Muslim jokes. Sameer wonders whether he should surface his discomfort; he otherwise enjoys the firm, and is hoping to be given a full-time job offer following his internship.

This case describes how a company improves resource efficiency and process quality in its manufacturing process by developing a waste by-product into a new product. The case describes how CCP cleans production equipment between batches using styrene, which becomes a costly hazardous waste. Having worked on minimizing waste for the past 20 years, CCP believed it could not reduce the use of styrene without risking product quality. Instead, CCP was exploring the development of a by-product from its "rinse styrene," but faces uncertainty regarding the operational, financial, and environmental implications of doing so. This case contains data to support quantitative analyses of financial, operational, and environmental issues including some basic life-cycle analysis (LCA) calculations that focus on greenhouse gas emissions.

In June 2003, Harvard University and MIT announced an unprecedented partnership to create a biomedical institute, The Broad Institute. The culture of the Broad centered on science, and those involved considered it to be at the edge of the scientific frontier. In just four years the Broad had made many important scientific contributions to the bio-medical field. These included understanding genetic alterations in cancer; building an RNAi Consortium to better understand the role of every gene in the human body; creating an integrated database that mapped the connections among drugs, genes, and diseases; and cataloging inherited genetic variations of Type 2 Diabetes. Opportunities for additional important scientific advances beckoned but would require both funding and physical space. The Broad Institute's leaders, including Altshuler, Director of the Program in Medical and Population Genetics, and Golub, Director of the Cancer Program, needed to decide how big was too big. How many projects could the Broad productively support? What happened when the Broad outgrew its physical space? Altshuler and Golub knew that the Broad had made tremendous strides in the past year. It had minimized barriers and attracted many young scientists who viewed the Broad as an exciting place to do research. That success made the question of how to balance the priorities of growth and the preservation of the culture that had made everything possible all the more important.

Spreadsheet Supplement for case 108038

"Wal-Mart's Use of Interest Rate Swaps" recounts Wal-Mart's use of interest rate swaps to hedge the fair value of its fixed-rate debt against changing interest rates. This case provides students with a foundation for understanding the use of and accounting for more complex derivatives. Specific issues raised include: (1) the financial statement impact of hedge accounting, (2) motivations for using derivatives, including the potential role of accounting standards, and (3) the degree to which financial statement and MD&A disclosures are sufficiently informative about the risks associated with financial instruments.

In Differences at Work: Emily (B) HBS Case No. 9-408-046 Emily considers whether to file a formal complaint with her Human Resources department about the emails but ultimately decides to confront the culprits herself, beginning by sending an email to one of her colleagues. He immediately apologizes.

Differences at Work: Jenny (A) HBS Case No. 9-408-017 is set in Amsterdam. Accompanied by her boss, Jenny is pitching a marketing engagement, but the prospective client keeps making comments about how attractive he finds her.

In Differences at Work: Emily (A) HBS Case No. 9-408-014 Emily, a private equity analyst, reads disturbing, sexually focused emails written about her by work colleagues and acquaintances after they all attended a work-related social event. Emily debates what she should do.

In Differences at Work: Jason (A) HBS Case No. 9-408-016 Jason is a member of his firm's recruiting team, which has a mandate to create a more diverse workforce. When the group decides to interview a candidate based on the candidate's race, Jason wonders whether they made the right decision and how, in general, diversity goals should be achieved.

In Differences at Work: Emily (C) HBS Case No. 9-408-047 describes how the original email author apologizes to her acknowledging that his behavior was extremely inappropriate. While Emily accepts the apology, she still forwards the email on to her boss with a note saying that she felt after reading the email that she could not remain quiet. Her boss never responds. Later, after Emily has left the firm, she asks her boss about his inaction.

In Differences at Work: Jason (B) HBS Case No. 9-408-049 Jason decides that his firm should have a more articulated position that everyone in the firm understands about why diversity benefits the firm instead of pursing diversity because it feels like the "right" thing to do.

In Differences at Work: Jenny (B) HBS Case No. 9-408-050, we learn that Jenny's boss is woman who thought the entire incident was funny. Jenny wonders whether to confront her boss about her discomfort with the situation.

In Differences at Work: Erica (B) HBS Case No. 9-408-048, Erica discovers that both she and the client are African-American. She reflects on why she has been invited to attend the dinner.

In Differences at Work: Martin (B) HBS Case No. 408052 Martin leaves the firm partially because of the incident but he does not tell his firm the reason for his departure.

In Differences at Work: Ben (C) 9-408-044 Ben shares the remark with his bosses who let Ben decide whether to report the incident to Human Resources. He decides not to, but several years later he still regrets his inaction.

In Differences at Work: Will (A), HBS Case No. 9-408-013 is set in London. Will, a gay man, must decide how to react to a senior colleague's question that assumes he is heterosexual. In the rest of Will's life, he does not keep his sexual orientation a secret.