Based in Saskatoon, Canada, Cameco was the world's largest uranium mining company. It had developed its policy for corporate social responsibility in northern Saskatchewan, where it had its major mining operations and where there was a large indigenous population of Cree and Dene Indians. Centers on whether the same corporate social responsibility policy can be applied to the company's joint venture with the Kyrgyzstan government to operate a gold mine in eastern Kyrgyzstan. Complicating the decision is a chemical spill that had occurred several months before; relations with citizens in nearby communities were at an all-time low. The joint venture's vice-president of human resources and corporate relations must decide which of the programs might be successfully implemented in Kyrgyzstan, what new programs might need to be developed, and how best to communicate company policy to the local community.

In the past, cheap, centralized power and efficient but expensive production machinery tipped the competitive advantage toward large companies. Now low-cost computing and communications are tipping the advantage to a new organizational form: the "value-adding partnership". VAPs are groups of small companies that perform different steps along the value-added chain. The partners share information freely and perceive the whole chain as one competitive unit. VAPs have the benefits of both large and small companies: focus and flexibility as well as coordination and sharing. However, VAPs require a delicate balance of power between partners: What happens if one partner tries to take over another?