個案總覽

Amazon was one of the first entrants in e-commerce. Under the leadership of founder Jeff Bezos, Amazon had expanded beyond books to manufacturing and selling a wide range of products and services globally. Bezos had built a customer-centric culture that permeated all aspects of the company. As Amazon continued to grow and expand into new business areas, would it be able to maintain its culture and practices? How much of Amazon's success depended on the cult of Bezos? As the company continued to diversify beyond Bezos's immediate oversight, what could Amazon do to ensure that it stayed relentless?

In 2017, Constellation Brands, the U.S. based beverage company, acquired a 9.9% equity interest in the Canadian marijuana company, Canopy Growth. In 2018, Constellation announced a subsequent investment in Canopy-taking its ownership interest to 37%. However, Canopy's performance had been volatile and net losses had increased since the investment. In an effort to get into the cannabis market early, had Constellation Brands been too early?

Athena Bancorp was founded in 2016 by Beth Daniels, a banking professional with 15 years of experience in the industry. Daniels took advantage of what she perceived as a gap in the market caused by recent industry consolidation, a decreasing industry focus on branch banking, and tighter lending standards. Athena has an aggressive growth goal-"to grow to 15 branches, with loans and deposits increasing by threefold over the next five years." However, the bank's operating philosophy centers on a high-touch approach, and it relies on dedicated, highly-capable employees who are willing to work long hours. Burnout is setting in at the branch level and morale is declining. Daniels and her leadership team are struggling to hire enough employees to execute this strategy. The case illustrates a company whose success is driven primarily by its human resources (HR) strategy. It also highlights the opportunities and challenges of operating a service business with a high performance/high commitment culture. The case can be used to discuss topics such as leadership, management, organizational culture, strategy, motivation, and entrepreneurs. It is recommended for upper-level undergraduate students or MBA students in courses focused on organizational behavior, general management, human resource management, leadership, or entrepreneurship.

The case provides details on Canada Mortgage Housing Corporation's strategy, organizational design, culture, and people practices and how they fit together to support CMHC's goals.

In 2019, ESL Investments' $5.2 billion offer to purchase Sears Holdings out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy, was accepted, despite opposition from the company's unsecured creditors and other parties. ESL, which was led by Eddie Lampert, had acquired a stake in Sears following its 2005 merger with. Kmart. Lampert was chairman and CEO. During Lampert's ownership, Sears and Kmart shrunk their store base from 5,670 to 687 stores, and over 200,000 employees lost their jobs. Some attributed Sears' woes to a challenging operating environment, others argued that Lampert's actions over the last decade benefitted himself and other shareholders at the expense of other Sears stakeholders. Was a sale of the company to ESL the best outcome?

Spreadsheet supplement for case 419007.

Since its founding eight years earlier, Hidrovias do Brasil ("Hidrovias"), an integrated logistics provider serving corporate customers exporting products from South America via the Atlantic Ocean, had grown to 900 employees and $253 million in annual revenues. Hidrovias was founded by the Brazilian private equity firm, Pátria Investments, who had built the business from the ground up, forging and nurturing relationships with customers, investors, government entities, and suppliers. As Bruno Serapiao, Hidrovias's CEO pondered next steps for the company, he considered: What had been the key drivers of Hidrovias's success to date? What were the major challenges? And, what was the best path for the company going forward?

Are a salesperson's struggles her own fault or the result of a problematic job design? Anna George works as a salesperson at Verona Group, a company that designs and wholesales high-end women's apparel. She had spent nearly 20 years in sales with another fashion label and was well regarded in the industry. Verona Group hired her to bolster its small but growing presence in the western United States. In her first two years with the company, however, George has missed her sales targets and received mixed scores from customers in Verona Group's annual customer service survey. When Emilio Chao, the head of Verona's sales force, looks at George's performance review and discusses George's situation with Catherine Edwards, Verona Group's head of human resources, he wonders whether the company should give George additional support that would help her be more successful. Or is George not a good fit for the company?

Cowen Inc.'s broker-dealer, Cowen and Company, LLC, boasted a number of analysts who had made prescient stock calls on the basis of creative data analysis. Now Cowen Inc. had opened a new subsidiary, Kyber, which would attempt to monetize new data science products. Robert Fagin, head of research, had to consider what Kyber's risks were, even as the unit opened the possibility up for new revenue streams. How could Cowen continue to exploit its competitive advantage with data?

In 2016, a trial began to determine the future of Sabine Oil & Gas Corporation's $3 billion chapter 11 reorganization plan. The plan called for first and second lien secured creditors to receive new claims representing approximately 98% of the reorganized company's enterprise value, leaving unsecured creditors, owed $1.4 billion, to recover less than two cents on the dollar. The plan had the support of the secured creditors, but unsecured creditors were strongly opposed. At the heart of the unsecured creditors' objections to the plan was a dramatically different view on valuation. How much were Sabine's oil and gas reserves worth today? How much were they worth at the time Sabine filed for chapter 11? And, based on these valuations, what was a fair recovery for Sabine's creditors?

The case analyzes the equity market value of Tesla Motors, the electronic car company founded and led by Elon Musk. Wall Street analysts are wildly divided on the future growth prospects for this company, and analysts' one year share price targets range from $160 to $500. The case explores in detail the valuation case made by two analysts covering Tesla, one a bull on the stock and one who is bearish. Students are asked to consider the arguments and the analytical approaches employed by each. Is Tesla a good investment or not?

In 2016, electric car manufacturer Tesla announced that it was making an offer to acquire solar panel manufacturer SolarCity in an all-stock offer worth $2.6 billion in Tesla stock. Tesla's co-founder and CEO, Elon Musk, believed that the merger would generate significant cost and revenue synergies, based on his vision of the future of transportation, energy storage, and a "green" economy. However, most Wall Street analysts were highly skeptical of the deal, voicing concerns that the merger would burden Tesla with excessive debt, and that Musk was using the deal to advance his personal interests (at the expense of public shareholders) and bail out Tesla. Concerns were raised over possible conflicts of interest, given that Musk owned over 20% of the stock, and sat on the board of directors, of both companies. The viability of the merger was also questioned given that neither Tesla nor SolarCity had ever been profitable.

Following the announcement of the merger of the Turkish Economic Bank (TEB) and Fortis Bank AS, Varol Civil, TEB's CEO, is faced with the task of executing the merger of these two entities. First, all parties must agree to the economic terms of this merger; a process that is challenging due to the complex ownership structures of these banks. Second, Civil and his team must find a way to combine the operations of the banks. With meaningful overlap between the two franchises the potential for cost savings and synergies is significant. However, the risks involved are also significant.

In a career that spanned over 30 years, Maggie Wilderotter served as CEO of two publicly traded companies and served on 32 corporate and nine association and non-profit boards of directors. As CEO of Frontier Communications, a U.S. telecom company with over $25 billion in assets, Wilderotter executed three major acquisitions, transforming the company's business mix and more than doubling its size. This case explores Wilderotter's career, examining the personal characteristics that made her such a successful executive and board member. The case also looks at the turning points in Wilderotter's career; the decisions she made and the way in which she built her skills.

The September 2008 bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers was the largest in U.S. history. In 2007, Lehman achieved record earnings. What happened? Who is to blame?

Evan Siddall, newly appointed CEO of Canada Mortgage Housing Corporation, a governmental organization focused on the residential housing market, is charged with leading change at the organization. The case follows this process of change step by step and looks at the challenges Siddall faces. After two years of leading change Siddall questions: should he continue to push forward with a change agenda? Or should the organization pause and catch its breath?

Molly Langenstein, Macy's executive vice president for fashion and new business development, and members of Macy's senior team were rethinking the company's approach to serving millennial customers, customers born between the years of 1980 and 2000. To tackle this challenge, a dedicated Millennial team was created. The team looked at the preferences of millennial consumers and how those consumers were served by existing retailers. The team moved on to formulate a new market strategy. To date, the team has seen some improvements in sales and market share in its millennial apparel business, but they believe that additional opportunities exist. Was the Macy's millennium strategy working? What should they do next?

Spreadsheet supplement for case 216006. In May 2013, senior managers of GSO Capital Partners, an $80 billion credit-oriented investment firm owned by The Blackstone Group, are considering what to do next with their investment in the senior secured debt of Eastman Kodak Company. Once a great company and an icon of American business, Kodak had fallen on desperately hard economic times as its traditional business of manufacturing cameras and photographic film had all but disappeared with the rise of digital photography, causing its annual revenues to plummet from $13 billion to $6 billion, and its stock price to fall by 95%, between 2003 and 2011. Having taken various positions in Kodak's debt during the previous four years, GSO is now faced with a major decision. Under the company's recently proposed plan of reorganization, secured creditors were to be given 85% of the company's common stock, but unsecured creditors objected to the plan. Now, six months later, GSO has brought an amended plan to the table, under which it would commit to backstop a $406 million equity rights offering that would be made directly to all the unsecured creditors. This offer might bring the objecting creditors on board, but could also require an additional large capital commitment by GSO, which was already heavily invested a highly troubled business that many viewed as a "melting ice cube."

In early 2013, CEDC, a large publicly-traded producer and distributer of vodka and spirits in Eastern and Central Europe, has suffered significant declines in its financial performance, is at risk of defaulting on its debt, and is under pressure from its largest shareholders to give them control of the board and to restructure its debt to avoid bankruptcy. The largest shareholder, billionaire Russian investor Roustam Tariko, has proposed an out of court exchange offer for CEDC's publicly traded bonds and investment in CEDC's stock that would give him full ownership of the company. If the exchange offer fails, the company will file for prepackaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States.

It's August 2014 and John Chambers is expected to announce his retirement after 17 years as CEO of global technology giant Cisco Systems. Under Chambers's leadership, Cisco has grown from $2.2 billion in annual revenues and under 4,000 employees to revenues of $46 billion and more than 66,000 employees. With Chambers's retirement imminent, Cisco's board of directors must design a detailed succession process that will allow a smooth transfer of power. What type of selection process should the board members use? Which qualities should they look for in potential candidates? Who should the board select for their shortlist of final candidates? In addition to exploring the history of Cisco, its current market position, and profiles of potential candidates, the case provides an overview of different types of succession planning processes.