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In 2010, the assistant general manager and head of strategic development at Lebanon’s BLC Bank attended the annual summit of the Global Banking Alliance for Women, a leading organization of financial institutions that drove the creation of women’s wealth worldwide. On her return to Beirut, she encouraged her bank to capitalize on the inclusion of women as a relevant differentiator from both a business and societal perspective. The result of research into the economic, demographic and social needs of the country was the launch in 2012 of the "We Initiative", a unique and comprehensive program dedicated to the economic empowerment of women in the Middle East and North Africa region. By 2015, the program’s success not only served the bank’s economic bottom line but also benefited the Lebanese economy and community as a whole and exemplified the bank’s sense of responsibility to its society.

This case is designed to be used with HBS Note: Industry Self-Regulation: Sustaining the Commons in the 21st Century, HBS No. 315-074.

A joint venture company that started its operations in 2004 in India was in the business of growing, processing and marketing fresh fruits and vegetables, both in India and abroad. As new market opportunities emerged in response to the growing demand for frozen products in the domestic market, the company launched frozen vegetables in the Indian market in 2011 and successfully established the supply chain covering contract farming, processing and distributing the product. The following year, the chief executive officer (CEO) of the company was reviewing the first year’s performance of frozen vegetable business as part of the annual business plan process. The business was still small and not profitable. The CEO had to decide how to scale up and make the business profitable.

Stephanie Collett sighed as she tried to focus on her laptop. It was late at night shortly before Christmas 2012, and she had spent hours trying to make the math work on a struggling apartment complex. Although she had no training or background in real estate, as a Stanford MBA student (2013), she was the best resource her family had to solve a complex financial dilemma. Her husband's grandmother had just passed away, leaving the family a portfolio of low-end rental properties scattered throughout the Los Angeles (L.A.), California, metropolitan area. One property in particular, an apartment complex located at West 92nd/94th Street, was behind on its maintenance schedule, as well as behind in payments on taxes and the mortgage. Collett's brother-in-law, Aaron Collett, had been working hard to bring the property back to profitability, but the bank was threatening to foreclose, and the Colletts had to make a decision. Should they pay off the loan and continue renting the property, which would require taking out a mortgage on the family home? Should they sell the property and use the proceeds to pay off the loan? Or should they just hand over the keys? Stephanie Collett was not at all sure how to go about valuing the property, but she knew two things: the West 92nd/94th Street complex was hemorrhaging cash, and the bank was preparing the foreclosure paperwork. Whatever they were to decide, they would need to decide fast.

In recent years, the critical function of expanding GCS Consulting’s information technology consulting business had lost priority as the managing director of the firm was increasingly preoccupied with World Bank engagements as an IT consultant. He was aware of the immense potential in new areas of consulting and changing business models. However, he was also conscious of the investment of time, effort and finances that would be required on his part to strengthen GCS’s marketing activities and build up a team of professionals well versed in newly emerging consulting areas such as social media, mobile, analytics and cloud computing. Should he promote GCS or move ahead as an individual IT consultant?

This case focuses on Pfizer, the largest research-based pharmaceutical company globally with sales of over $51 billion and operations in 175 countries in 2013. It introduces students to the field of green chemistry and discusses the business and environmental effects of such a strategy. While Pfizer has measured the benefits of green chemistry, communicating these externally has been challenging. In addition, manufacturers of generic drugs largely have not embraced green chemistry. As the first lead of Pfizer’s Green Chemistry team, the first of its kind in the industry, how will you prepare for a meeting with your team’s steering team to address progress and new initiatives? You will have to understand the complex market by, for example, identifying key drivers for other pharmaceutical companies, including generics, for adopting green chemistry. How should Pfizer communicate the impact of its sustainability efforts, including “greener” drugs, to the public?

In early 2011, the founder of REfficient, an asset recovery service based in Hamilton, Ontario, was thinking about how she should manage the rapid growth that seemed just around the corner. Founded in 2010 to help cable firms generate value from their stock of surplus equipment, REfficient, with no direct competitors in the Ontario market, had grown rapidly and had a list of corporate customers, two warehouses and five employees. The company was positioned as the efficient way for customers to recover value from their surplus assets; it would collect and inventory them, provide an online list and track the environmental impact of selling or discarding them. The company was now looking to secure a pilot project with the Ontario provincial government. Innovative in the "green" sense because of its innovative reuse, recycle or resell model, as well as its integrated carbon footprint estimator, REfficient was a good match for the program. But how would it deal with an increasingly large variety of items, given its limited resources and space?

The founder and president of Sport-Fresh was in the middle of a four-state road trip to meet his firm's U.S. distributors and sales representatives. He had just returned from an international trade show in Germany, and was eager to update his agents about the incredible response the company product Sport-Fresh, a disinfecting equipment spray, had received. But he was worried about the time commitment required to follow up on all the leads he had received, and juggle his normal workload at the same time. The president looked at the challenges and opportunities in front of him. He had built a growing brand and he felt as if he was at a crossroads. Sport-Fresh was the only disinfectant spray on the market; all of its other direct competitors were odor masking and perfume sprays. There was potential for growth, if he could find a way.

A North America-based representative of a major European airline has just received a letter from an unhappy customer detailing a very large number of service problems. A quick check had revealed that this premium-paying customer's complaints were all valid. A meeting is planned with the customer. Before this, the airline representative must decide (A) what to say in response, and (B) what, if any, compensation should be offered. Internally, there was a need (C) to resolve what their organization should learn from this experience, both from a subsidiary and parent company perspective, and the implications on their participation in the Crown Alliance. This case raises many important questions regarding service recovery, communications, and non-equity alliances.

FC Barcelona ranks as one of the world's most prestigious soccer clubs. Its legal status as a not-for-profit sporting club along with its collective ownership model and democratic structures set it apart from most other world-class teams. Since its founding in 1899, the club has had a rich history of sporting success tempered by recurring periods of financial instability. Its founder, Joan Gamper, made national identity a core element of his strategy for the club, turning it into a veritable symbol of Catalan nationalism. Despite the best efforts of the Francoist regime to "Spanify" the club, to this day it remains a powerful source of pride and national identity for the vast majority of Catalonians. After over a century of sporting exploits mixed with disappointments and internal conflict, the implementation of an aggressive strategy of modernization in the early 2000s has proved highly effective, as evidenced by the club's remarkable achievements on the field and its new-found financial stability. This case examines the evolution of this organization against the backdrop of the Spanish and Catalan socio-political context.

Leaders of the many Fortune 500 firms headquartered in Minneapolis-St. Paul have a long history of engaging collectively, and with educational, political and social leaders, to deal with important community issues. Focusing on the participation of leading CEOs in the 2008-2011 Minnesota Education and Learning Foundation's efforts to promote early childhood education for low-income children, this case series explores the nature of their engagement and source of their sustained commitment.

Leaders of the many Fortune 500 firms headquartered in Minneapolis-St. Paul have a long history of engaging collectively, and with educational, political and social leaders, to deal with important community issues. Focusing on the participation of leading CEOs in the 2008-2011 Minnesota Education and Learning Foundation's efforts to promote early childhood education for low-income children, this case series explores the nature of their engagement and source of their sustained commitment.

Leaders of the many Fortune 500 firms headquartered in Minneapolis-St. Paul have a long history of engaging collectively, and with educational, political and social leaders, to deal with important community issues. Focusing on the participation of leading CEOs in the 2008-2011 Minnesota Education and Learning Foundation's efforts to promote early childhood education for low-income children, this case series explores the nature of their engagement and source of their sustained commitment.

An Indian multinational, Bharat Forge Ltd. (BFL) achieved world-leader status in forgings by a series of acquisitions in Europe and the United States. The need to participate in growth markets and to be close to global auto majors led BFL to a joint venture with the China-based FAW Corporation. However, while moving towards growth and a strategy for international scope expansion, shifts in the environment took BFL on a path towards a more de-risked portfolio. Following the divestment of its holding in the United States, BFL needed to reexamine the continuance of its stake in the joint venture.

In 2012, an Indian multinational, Bharat Forge Ltd. (BFL) achieved world-leader status in forgings by a series of acquisitions in Europe and the United States. The need to participate in growth markets and to be close to global auto majors led BFL to a joint venture with the China-based FAW Corporation. However, while moving towards growth and a strategy for international scope expansion, shifts in the environment took BFL on a path towards a more de-risked portfolio. Following the divestment of its holding in the United States, BFL needed to reexamine the continuance of its stake in the joint venture.

Part (A) of the case is about how Shashank Nigam, CEO of SimpliFlying Pte Ltd, a company based in Singapore, searches for the corporate strategy and vision for his company. SimpliFlying was founded in March 2008, and was originally a blog, which commented on issues in marketing aviation. After thinking about how he could find a niche for his business, Nigam decided to sell his company's services by combining the three pillars of aviation, marketing and technology through social media. However, he recognised that he still needed to decide on the long-term positioning of the company - should SimpliFyling focus on strategy consulting, or strategy execution (agency) work, or both. At the same time, Nigam's company was also receiving calls from hotels to help them with branding projects. In the end, Nigam decides that the company should handle business that was related to aviation strategy only. Part (B) of the case covers a specific project that SimpliFlying is handling. By November 2011, SimpliFlying had developed into a reputed aviation market strategy consulting and training firm. Estonian Airline's social media loyalty programme was not only SimpliFlying's second major airline project, but also the first airline loyalty programme in the world to be driven purely by social media. Despite the challenging timeline - only eight weeks from conceptualisation to launch - SimpliFlying had managed to deliver beyond expectations. However, Nigam had to consider if the approach he had used was the best way to implement bigger projects going forward.

Juchheim Co. Ltd. was a confectionery family firm located in Japan. The chief executive officer and owner faced two important issues related to the future success of the firm: managing succession into the next generation and determining the company’s expansion strategy in the overseas market. Under the Japanese tradition of patriarchal primogeniture, the owner’s eldest son was the heir apparent and would take over the company. However, the market scenario had changed; new demographic and economic conditions had brought challenges that the company had never faced before.

Describes the formation and rapid growth of a drug testing company. The company needs to decide whether to enter the painkiller testing market, in addition to growing its drug treatment center business. The associated teaching materials provide students the opportunity to weigh the attractiveness of alternative mechanisms for financing the company's expansion.

Can a one-time incentive induce workers to commit to short- and long-term training to remain competitively employable? A one-time offer of $60 was given to workers who finished two courses within 4 months. It had a remarkable, positive effect on training participation during this period, and a sustained effect beyond it, but this only occurred when two psychological techniques were used to increase commitment to training and to shape perceptions of the incentive. These results have practical implications for companies and governmental organizations wanting well-trained workforces to sustain growth in competitive environments.

Because improved surgical care leads to better health outcomes, multiple groups of surgeons have developed metrics and tools for monitoring the availability and quality of surgical care. However, a critical barrier to monitoring quality in surgical care is the need to include a risk-stratification model to account for differences in case mix and patient comorbidities between hospitals. Researchers in developed countries use protocols for risk-stratification in surgical care, but staffing and resource issues have prevented researchers from using these protocols in low-income countries. To improve the quality of surgical care in Mozambique, a partnership was developed between the Universidade Eduardo Mondlane Medical School and the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, with guidance and support from the Mozambican Ministry of Health. The immediate priority of the research team was to define the epidemiology of surgical conditions and evaluate local capacity to meet that need at three pilot hospitals across the country. This case explores the process of implementing a risk-stratification model for low- income countries and challenges students to critique the model and set direction for future work.