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When the June 2016 referendum on the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union, or Brexit, resulted in a vote to leave, the managing director of the U.K. subsidiary of Italian coffee-machine maker Molto Delizioso, SRL, faced a scenario that affected many international firms and their subsidiaries. The U.K. subsidiary imported and paid for coffee machines in euros, but when it sold these items in the United Kingdom, the revenue earned was in pounds. The devaluation of the pound after the Brexit vote affected both the company’s revenues and costs and, therefore, its profits.<br><br>Molto Delizioso’s managing director had to decide what to do about pricing after the devaluation of the pound caused an increase in the cost of importing his gourmet coffee machines. If he kept prices the same, profits would go down significantly. Should he raise the prices he charged to the customer? And if so, by how much?

Shang Xia is a story of a female entrepreneur whose goal is to open the Chinese luxury-goods market to products proudly made in China. It is the story of a young Chinese designer named Jiang Qiong Er who was convinced that the craft of making luxury goods, which had been deeply rooted in ancient Chinese culture, could be revived by Chinese artisans working to her modern designs. By the sheer force of her convictions, the seasoned CEO of Hermès was won over to her business plan. The story starts in 2007, when Shang Xia was first born in a small workshop in Shanghai, and continues to the present day when the brand is expanding its footprint in other cities in China and the surrounding region. Although Shang Xia has not yet turned a profit since it opened its first boutique in Shanghai in 2010, Hermès is patiently convinced that the value proposition is sound and continues to own a 90% stake in the company.

Carvajal traces the 110-year history of one of Colombian's oldest family-owned firms from a small print shop to one of the largest paper product conglomerates in Latin America. Founded in 1904 by Manuel Carvajal, a Colombian educator and erstwhile politician, the company has contributed to Colombia's economic and intellectual development ever since. By the 1950s Carvajal was the leading printer and publishing house in Latin America. Although the company benefitted from state protection, a tradition of technical innovation was established - in 1958 it printed the first telephone directory for Bogotá on two-sheet offset press - and thereafter expanded into neighboring countries, diversifying into inter-linked activities. Throughout the 20th century the firm was led by descendants of the founder. In the 21st century, a non-family CEO was hired for the first time.

This case illustrates the key role played by a local distributor in the luxury goods industry in the Middle East. By partnering with the Chalhoub Group, western firms have built a competitive advantage across the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). While not typical of western luxury brands selling to global markets other than the Middle East, their alliances with the Chalhoub Group offer access to a vast network of 650 stores in prime locations in the GCC, many in new shopping malls. Chalhoub has retail outlets in 14 countries in the MENA region. Since its establishment in 1955, the Dubai-based Chalhoub has developed partnerships with Christian Dior, Sephora, Louis Vuitton, Fendi and many others. In so doing it has laid the foundations for the creation of own-concept stores, where it sells its own branded products.

Supplement to case 317052. Responsibility for working conditions in contract factories within the supply chain presents an ongoing challenge for managers and area of debate. Much of the debate approaches the challenge from the perspective of large global apparel brands. This case helps students take the perspective of a Bangladeshi contract factory that is part of the brands' supply chain, but must also deal with challenges in its own supply chain. The case leads up to the Tazreen factory fire of 2012, in which over 100 people died, and covers subsequent developments in Bangladesh and the apparel industry.

Supplement to case 317052. Responsibility for working conditions in contract factories within the supply chain presents an ongoing challenge for managers and area of debate. Much of the debate approaches the challenge from the perspective of large global apparel brands. This case helps students take the perspective of a Bangladeshi contract factory that is part of the brands' supply chain, but must also deal with challenges in its own supply chain. The case leads up to the Tazreen factory fire of 2012, in which over 100 people died, and covers subsequent developments in Bangladesh and the apparel industry.

In 2010, Martha Johnson, new Administrator of the General Services Agency (GSA), advanced the Zero Environmental Footprint (ZEF) initiative-a sustainability initiative to render GSA's activities environmentally neutral, agency-wide. She and her leadership team initiated a high-profile renovation project-dubbed the Extreme Challenge-at the agency's headquarters-one which sought to consolidate all GSA employee office space in the Washington, D.C. region into a single federal building. Doing so would require nothing short of a major organizational change effort within GSA, one which, if successful, could potentially serve as a model for other U.S. federal agencies looking to transform the way in which government employees organized themselves within modern office spaces. A year later, the agency approached a crucial moment in its evolution as a number of key leadership and organizational change questions needed to be answered: Could GSA execute on the vision put forth by Johnson's senior leadership team? Were the steps taken to date the right ones in setting the tone and preparing the agency for success? And what additional steps or strategies would need to be undertaken to ensure that the $5.5 billion investment in the Extreme Challenge would succeed, even as GSA pursued a longer-term vision of net zero impact through ZEF? The 13-min. video supplement includes 5 short segments exploring various aspects of the ZEF initiative. In it, Martha Johnson and her team describe their vision for the new office space and the challenges involved in changing the organizational culture at GSA. The videos also include footage of the old headquarters and examples of the new workspaces, as well some of the visual aids being used to increase staff engagement.

In June 2009, Martha Johnson was selected to lead the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), a federal agency headquartered in Washington, D.C that largely oversaw government procurement. After Johnson, a GSA veteran, was sworn into office in February 2010, she told reporters she was committed to holding the GSA to the highest ethical standards. In October 2010, ten months after she took office, four of GSA's Public Buildings Service (PBS) regions held their biennial Western Regions Conference (WRC) with the object of providing job skills training and encouraging the exchange of ideas among senior managers in the four regions. The conference, held at the upscale M Resort Spa Casino in Henderson, Nevada, just outside of Las Vegas, was dubbed "A Showcase of World-Class Talent" by GSA officials with the intention of matching the conference's theme to the Las Vegas location. In December 2010, just a few weeks after the conference ended, an investigation into the event was requested citing excessive expenses as well as possible employee misconduct. This case traces the investigation as well as the steps the GSA took during the following nine months to strengthen its leadership, improve organizational controls and address conference management. Case number 2087.0

In 2015, DeliverMeal was a Norwegian online food delivery firm, mostly present in what could be considered emerging markets such as those in Africa. Founded in 2010, the company had experienced extremely rapid international expansion. DeliverMeal followed a global strategy, and standardized processes and turnkey solutions were provided from the headquarters to the subsidiaries.<br><br>The local business development manager at DeliverMeal’s Ivory Coast subsidiary needed to make some decisions on how to react to three demands that had recently been passed down from corporate headquarters, all of which were at odds with the West African environment. How could the Ivory Coast manager meet her headquarters’ corporate expectations and still conduct successful business operations within the local cultural context?

Companies developing complex products face a crucial dilemma: the benefits of research and development (R&D) outsourcing such as lower costs, access to specialist knowledge, or shorter development lead times often have negative consequences for competence development due to the loss of opportunities for learning by doing. Having experienced the problems of outsourcing R&D, Fiat developed a novel organizational solution that offers new insights as to how firms can organize R&D to protect against innovation competence loss in R&D outsourcing.

The future organizational landscape may change drastically by mid-century as a result of widespread implementation of 3D printing. This article argues that global will turn local; mega (factories, ships, malls) will become mini; long supply chains will shrink; many jobs will be broadened to combine design, consulting, sales, and production roles; and large organizations will make room for smaller ones. "A once-shuttered warehouse is now a state-of-the art lab where new workers are mastering the 3D printing that has the potential to revolutionize the way we make almost everything." [President Obama, State of the Union Address, 2013].

By 2016, the Indian taxi market was beginning to move from the unorganized sector to the organized sector, as evidenced by the emergence of radio cab services (cab operators that hired salaried drivers and used call centres for bookings) and cab aggregators (e.g., Uber and Ola Cabs). Initially, the market had only a few players, but the competition turned fierce after the entry of Ola Cabs and Uber led to major disruptions. None of the aggregators had yet achieved a positive bottom line, but industry reports and a speculated compound annual growth rate of 25–30 per cent suggested a bright future for the industry, provided the stakeholders could strategically tap into the opportunities. <br><br>A small taxi firm, Kanika International Tour and Travel Pvt. Ltd. (KITT), needed to come to terms with its falling market share, difficulties in retaining drivers, and decreasing profitability. In light of the intensifying competition, should KITT and other independent players hold on to their business, or should they join the aggregators?

The minister of Haiti’s Department of Energy Security needed to prepare a presentation for the country’s prime minister that proposed a solution for transforming Haiti’s energy infrastructure. Haiti wanted to attract foreign direct investment that would spur socio-economic reform; however, the opportunities depended on a solid energy infrastructure providing reliable electricity to businesses, which Haiti did not have. Also, the residents of Haiti were in dire need of a low-cost, reliable energy solution that would allow them to move away from biomass and petroleum products, which were expensive and bad for the environment. How should the minister structure his proposal? What criteria would be required to support a strategy that considered the energy value chain, types of public-private partnerships, and need for socio-economic reform?

In December 2015, the head of supply chain management (SCM) at Las Vegas Construction Inc. was tasked with reducing operating costs by 25 per cent in order to deal with the fallout in Nevada’s construction industry from the global economic downturn. The SCM head had engaged the manager in charge of subcontracting to help with cost reductions. The subcontracting manager did find a way to reduce costs, but it turned out to be a questionable way. He had tipped off the three subcontractors with whom he had been working closely by providing them with confidential information regarding a target bid price for the labour sourcing process. When the bid prices were disclosed, even though Las Vegas Construction Inc. had reached its original cost savings goal, the SCM head had mixed feelings about the process. He wondered how to address this potentially unethical situation, and whether he should inform his superiors about it.

On April 15, 2013, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev placed and detonated two homemade bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three bystanders and injuring more than two hundred others. This case profiles the role the Massachusetts National Guard played in the complex, multi-agency response that unfolded in the minutes, hours, and days following the bombings, exploring how its soldiers and airmen helped support efforts on multiple fronts - from performing life-saving actions in the immediate aftermath of the attack to providing security on the region's mass transit system and participating in the search for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev several days later. It also depicts how the Guard's senior officers helped manage the overall response in partnership with their local, state, and federal counterparts. The case reveals both the emergent and centralized elements of the Guard's efforts, explores the debate over whether or not Guard members should have been armed in the aftermath of the bombings, and highlights an array of unique assets and capabilities that the Guard was able to provide in support of the response. Case number 2089.0

Reliance Industries Limited entered the Indian telecommunications industry by launching Reliance Jio Infocomm, which offered high-speed, fourth-generation data services. Its business strategy was to provide integrated access to information, entertainment, and commerce at high speed and low prices. Despite the competitive landscape and various other challenges, the company was optimistic that it could acquire 100 million customers in 100 days. This ambitious target could be achieved through consistent marketing offerings and efforts driven by robust analytics. Could the company's innovative business model revolutionize the industry?

Reliance Industries Limited entered the Indian telecommunications industry by launching Reliance Jio Infocomm, which offered high-speed, fourth-generation data services. Its business strategy was to provide integrated access to information, entertainment, and commerce at high speed and low prices. Despite the competitive landscape and various other challenges, the company was optimistic that it could acquire 100 million customers in 100 days. This ambitious target could be achieved through consistent marketing offerings and efforts driven by robust analytics. Could the company’s innovative business model revolutionize the industry?

As a Lebanese non-governmental organization, Arcenciel (AeC) had successfully created several sustainable development programs and projects that addressed the needs of marginalized populations in Lebanon’s society. At the same time, AeC based its activities on an economic strategy that guaranteed financial independence from donations and public funding. This social entrepreneur had been able to develop and adjust its strategy in a very challenging environment over the course of several decades, successfully bridging the gap between non-profit objectives and the necessity to be financially profitable. In December 2015, the organization was about to win a prestigious national peace award in recognition of its research and activities. Government institutions, municipalities, and individuals alike had recently sought AeC’s assistance in dealing with a waste-management crisis. Although this project represented a useful opportunity for AeC to communicate its vision, the co-founder wondered whether the organization was prepared to assume a larger role in Lebanon or, even further, to introduce its concept abroad. He needed to think carefully about AeC’s evolution as well as its past success factors and the possibilities for expansion.

In the summer of 2016, the general manager of IXSIR Winery of Lebanon (IXSIR)—a young winery in Lebanon that offered customers a new level of quality by producing wine from a mixture of grapes harvested from different terroirs—received news of a bomb striking Beirut. IXSIR had been facing challenges competing in the unstable and risky local market, and the general manager realized that the bombing signalled rougher economic times ahead and likely a decrease in wine consumption. He was concerned about how the political unrest in the country could negatively impact wine sales and started thinking about different ways to tackle the threat of an ongoing economic downturn. He also wondered how to mitigate a potential decrease in revenue. Should IXSIR pursue revenue-generating activities such as oenotourism or diversify into different products?

This case, set in the 1920s and 1930s, discusses Harvard Business School (HBS) Professors Elton Mayo and Fritz Roethlisberger and their contributions to management research at the School and the rise of the Human Relations Movement in management research. The case focuses on an overview of their research program at the Western Electric Hawthorne Works manufacturing plant between 1927 and 1932, known as the Hawthorne studies, and the resulting insights, publications, course development, and influence on colleagues and research methodology. Brief biographical details of Mayo and Roethlisberger are given, along with a synopsis of early research at HBS and the general history of management studies during the mid-20th century.