Lawrence Kellner, recently named Board Chair for the Boeing Company, is faced with assessing Boeing's strategic and financial condition in January 2020 as recent events potentially threatened the aerospace firm's survival. The most visible issue was the global grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX airliner fleet. Boeing also faced safety issues, production delays, and cost overruns that affected the remainder of its commercial airliner business, resulting in negative 2019 earnings, total debt almost doubling in one year to more than $27 billion, and negative 2019 stockholder equity. Boeing also was suffering competitively as its main commercial airliner competitor, Airbus, sold more commercial airliners than Boeing in 2019. The case seeks causes for the current crises by examining Boeing's history since it 1916 founding, its engineering leadership up to its 1997 merger with rival McDonnell Douglas, and the board's decisions since the merger. The board's decisions are examined regarding repeatedly forgoing expensive new product development while increasing dividends and stock buybacks to appeal to investors, and the effects of these decisions on Boeing's product line, culture, and ability to compete with Airbus. Data is provided to support assessing the financial, cultural, and competitive dimensions of the current situation, determining the board's role in Boeing's current competitive challenges with Airbus, and assessing how the board decisions contributed to Boeing's cultural changes and current strategic position. Information is also included to support an assessment of Boeing's current financial position and a determination of the board's role in creating the current situation. Critical decisions for discussion and response include what potential actions Kellner may recommend the board take to address Boeing's short-term and long-term issues as the company and he prepare for the upcoming 2020 Boeing Annual Stockholder Meeting.

Monday, January 13, 2020, was David Calhoun's first day on the job as President and CEO of Boeing, Incorporated. Prior to Calhoun's first day, two separate Boeing 737 MAX planes had crashed, killing 346 people. In the wake of the second crash, all 737 MAX planes worldwide had been grounded. Something had gone terribly wrong with Boeing's best-selling airplane. Calhoun will need to investigate and evaluate Boeing's actions preceding and following the two crashes to identify a strategy that restores the company's reputation, repairs relations with its stakeholders, and returns the 737 MAX to worldwide service.

The learning objective for this article is to present the reader with some basic and intermediate strategies for teaching case studies in an online classroom environment. The authors draw upon their considerable experience to describe a number of classroom situations and provide tips, tools and techniques that the reader will immediately be able to bring back to their online classroom. The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the urgency to quickly develop skills for the online higher education classroom. The general outline of this paper is as follows: The authors begin with some preliminary considerations regarding how to set the stage for online case instruction. The authors then discuss some practical and pedagogical issues to consider as an instructor designs their online course. Next, the authors present a brief overview of some synchronous, asynchronous and hybrid online case teaching approaches. Academic integrity issues are discussed, as well as a brief debate regarding the future of online higher education.

It was Saturday, March 29, 2014, and Mary Barra, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of General Motors (GM), was reading a letter of invitation from the families of Chevy Cobalt crash victims to meet with her the following week. The timing could not have been worse. Barra was scheduled to testify before the U.S. Congress on Tuesday, April 1st regarding the recalls of 2005-2007 model year Chevrolet Cobalts. Just the day before, on Friday, March 28th, GM had announced a third Chevy Cobalt recall. In total, 4.8 million vehicles worldwide had been recalled in connection with an ignition switch defect. There had been fatalities. It was Barra's 10th week on the job as GM's CEO. On February 7, 2014, just days before Barra had become CEO, GM had informed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) that a problem existed with the 2005-2007 model year Chevy Cobalt. GM stated in its report to the NHTSA that the problem appeared to be centered on the vehicles' ignition switch. The ignition switch's "torque performance" on these vehicles had not met GM's engineering specifications. The switches were easily jostled, and when jostled, the switches would sometimes move out of the "Run" position, causing the vehicle to stall. GM further explained that, depending on the timing of the switch moving out of the "Run" position, the airbags would not deploy. A vehicle stall, combined with the vehicle's airbags not deploying, had been a lethal combination. Following the first Cobalt recall in January 2014 and the NHTSA report in February, events had escalated rapidly. Lawyers across the U.S. had organized a class action lawsuit against GM. The U.S. Justice Department and the NHTSA had launched investigations. The media response had been hostile.

On August 21, 2007, David Viniar, Chief Financial Officer of Goldman Sachs, received an e-mail from a trader in Goldman's Mortgage Department. In the e-mail, addressed also to Goldman Co-Presidents Gary Cohn and Jon Winkelreid, Joshua Birnbaum outlined a proposal for the firm to move from a net short position in subprime mortgage securities and derivatives to a net long position. Birnbaum claimed that the net long position would not only be profitable but also reduce Mortgage Department and firm-wide risk. This proposal came at a critical time for the subprime mortgage markets in the U.S. and around the world. Subprime mortgage originators such as New Century had filed for bankruptcy. Two Bear Sterns hedge funds that traded subprime mortgages had collapsed. The turmoil had also spread to global markets. Goldman Sachs, unique among New York investment banks, had anticipated the downturn in the subprime mortgage markets and had positioned itself to profit from the meltdown. Now, at a critical juncture, traders on the front lines of the subprime mortgage markets wanted to reverse Goldman's net short position and go net long. David Viniar knew that the decision to go long could not be taken lightly and would have major implications for the firm, the firm's overall levels of risk and possibly the firm's survival. Goldman's board of directors and key board members had been monitoring the firm's subprime exposure and would likely want to be consulted regarding such a consequential decision.

This case details the desperate negotiations in September of 2008 to prevent the failure of the New York investment bank Lehman Brothers. Following the collapse of the U.S. subprime mortgage market in February of 2007, a downturn in the global financial markets began to accelerate. Lehman Brothers, heavily exposed to the U.S. subprime and commercial real estate markets, began to experience increasing levels of distress. Looking for a merger to save the company, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer Richard "Dick" Fuld began to actively seek a buyer for the company. Rebuffed by several potential suitors, Fuld instructed his attorney to approach Bank of America about a deal. Negotiations between Lehman Brothers and Bank of America ensued and were encouraged by U.S. government officials. Talks between Lehman and Bank of America failed. After conversations with Barclays Bank about a bid for Lehman also stalled, Dick Fuld was isolated from the discussion and U.S. government officials began to directly manage the negotiations regarding the fate of Lehman Brothers. In a critical moment, U.K. financial authorities balked at a proposed deal to save Lehman. The Lehman Brothers board of directors was monitoring these negotiations and met four times over the weekend of September 13th and 14th. During the fourth meeting, a U.S. government official addressed the board and stated that a Lehman Brothers bankruptcy would be in the best interest of the nation. The Lehman Brothers board was now faced with a stunning dilemma: whether to further stall for time, vote against the expressed wishes of U.S. government officials, or acquiesce to the bankruptcy of the company.

In 2006, Hewlett-Packard (HP) admitted it had hired outside investigators to spy on members of its board of directors and journalists to uncover the source of several leaks of confidential board deliberations. The investigators used methods, including "pretexting" (using an assumed identity in order to access others' telephone records), which were possibly illegal and almost certainly unethical. This case uses company e-mails, internal reports, meeting minutes, and published memoirs and interviews to present various perspectives on HP's leak investigations, including those of its non-executive chairman, CEO, former CEO, board members, managers, and investigators. What problem was HP attempting to address? Did the board's behavior conform to accepted standards of good corporate governance? Were the investigation's methods ethical? What, if anything, should the company and its chairman, Patricia Dunn, have done differently? How could HP's new CEO, Mark Hurd, best assure effective governance and ethical behavior in the future?