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The case describes a Turkish brother-sister team who are evaluating the option of acquiring and operating a franchise of a US bakery/cafe in Turkey. They are comparing this option to that of simply starting a similar business.

Taking advantage of Web 2.0's user-participation and social networking capabilities, social shopping intermediaries have emerged as a promising online liaison between merchants and consumers by offering group discount deals to price-sensitive customers and early technology adopters. Our study compares the two most popular types of social merchants-restaurants and healthcare services-in terms of seven key factors that influence a merchant's sales using a Groupon promotion. We find that these two types of social merchants show significantly different characteristics for successful promotions. Based on a new proposed lifetime value model for social shopping promotions, this study also discusses its applicability with an illustration of the model and presents guidelines for social merchants who want to achieve the maximum lifetime value from a social shopping promotion. Finally, we discuss implications of our study for social merchants and social shopping intermediaries.

This article examines the substantial growth of foreign direct investment into the United States by international (i.e., non-domestic) automotive firms over the past quarter century. Global macro-environmental factors influencing this investment are examined, as are the resulting impacts on numerous stakeholders including global automotive firms, consumers, and regional and state economies. The findings illustrate effective adaptive strategies that both automotive firms and economic development stakeholders follow in an increasingly global environment, resulting in significant economic, market, and quality-of-life benefits. The stakeholder perspective affords a more comprehensive view of globalization, forwarding a position counter to the protectionist viewpoint often espoused in business and popular culture.

It is clear that customer-to-customer contact through informal social networking and more formal company-sponsored platforms, such as discussion forums, is an increasingly integral element in building brand communities. There are many benefits to this interaction, such as nurturing brand champions and 'super users,' and reduced service costs through customer-to-customer solutions for product problems. However, there are also hazards inherent in these largely unregulated communities, such as the potential damage of widely spread negative information, which may be based on fact or on malicious intent. Herein, we summarize the results of several years of research examining these communities in an attempt to understand why they succeed, what benefits can be extracted from them, and-in particular-how negative information emerging in these environments can be strategically managed. Based on a series of quantitative and qualitative studies, we identified several key drivers of online brand community success (i.e., intervention, conversion, value creation, and harvesting) and the different combinations of community players who must collaborate to achieve such success. Delving more deeply into the issue of negative information management, we find that the topic being discussed (i.e., core versus augmented product) and the validity of the claim greatly influence a firm's appropriate strategic response. Throughout this article, we offer managerial guidance on the most effective ways to develop primary brand communities that encourage loyalty, purchases, and positive word of mouth.

Because federal law protects an employee's right to religious accommodation, managers cannot ignore the issue of religious diversity. The matter is far broader than simple legal compliance, though. Certainly, managers need to better understand the laws protecting employees' rights for accommodation and prohibiting disparate treatment, religious harassment, and retaliation. However, they also need to understand the various opportunities and challenges associated with acknowledging religious diversity. Concerning opportunities, research suggests that allowing employees to express aspects of their religion can enhance their work lives and, thus, the value they place on the organization. Furthermore, respect for religious diversity can encourage a useful mindset for communicating with other stakeholders in areas from advertising to the sports interests of salespeople. Since learning more about a range of faiths can lead to greater skills in working with diverse groups, we offer information on Prothero's God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World-and Why Their Differences Matter and on different religions' practices associated with death-related issues. In conclusion, we provide insight regarding the benefits of acknowledging religious diversity while respecting those who identify with no religion, and we do so without opening the door to proselytizing.

Rose Carpenter is a successful entrepreneur who is considering the personal implications of leaving the business she created to pursue her own interests.

This case describes a new venture attempting to bring early-stage entrepreneurial financing to Finland and other Nordic countries. Entrepreneurship is taking off in Finland, an area that historically has had little venture capital or high-growth start-up activity, but a gap remains for seed-stage financing. The founders are evaluating the best way to structure their private equity fund to reflect their own assets and abilities and the needs and resources of the entrepreneurial scene in the Nordics. The case evaluates whether to organize as an accelerator, a micro-VC fund, an incubator, a normal VC fund, or as a hybrid.

Most venture capital profits come from a small percentage of investments, despite high expectations for each investment made. As a result, a small improvement in selecting portfolio companies can make a substantial improvement in fund results. This case describes the venture capital deal sourcing and screening process. It does not describe the due diligence process in detail, but focuses on initial screening-identifying those companies that the venture capitalist will evaluate in more detail. After describing the sourcing and screening process, the case describes a fictional venture capital firm, and provides a number of incoming investment opportunities to be evaluated. Students are asked to play the role of an associate at the firm, and tasked with reviewing these opportunities and determine how each should be handled-should they be rejected, should they contact the entrepreneur for more information, or should they refer the opportunity to one of the firm's partners.

Navigauge, a start-up company that specialises in radio market research, has developed a tool that provides high quality, accurate and location-based radio market research. This pioneering technology in radio market research is captured in a positive, albeit reserved, article in the New York Times in September 2004. The use of this tool is in stark contrast to the industry standard in the US radio research market, where a panel of listeners kept diaries on which radio programmes they listened to each month. Navigauge has successfully completed a test of its new technology in 500 cars in test market and is now looking to expand. The case starts as the founders prepare to present their new business to secure a third round of badly needed venture funding. While the new technology is revolutionary, they have yet to sign up any customers. Readers are challenged to take this small business and turn it into a success across the US, and disrupt the car radio market research industry.

Smart grid companies such as Viridity Energy are finding profitable opportunities to help their customers cut energy bills and simultaneously get credit for greater environmental responsibility. But will consuming fewer dirty watts from fuel sources such as coal and natural gas be a sufficient objective for customers in the future? What will rising societal expectations, tougher environment regulations, and new distributed clean energy technologies mean for the ability of smart grid companies to engage new customers and differentiate themselves in an increasingly crowded field?

St. Mary Maternity Hospital, a nonprofit organization, had a mission to deliver healthy babies at normal weight and to offer medical care to expectant mothers regardless of their financial situation. This case demonstrates the value of staying focused on achieving a mission statement. To achieve the hospital's mission, it was important to identify factors that could affect the weight and health of babies. This case demonstrates how a few factors related to birth could result in insightful and actionable recommendations for doctors, administrators, and policy makers.

While uncertainty is rampant in today's economy, the authors argue that one thing is clear: public policy to increase innovation is generally not working, and this is due largely to confusion between the terms 'invention' and 'innovation'. While the terms are often used interchangeably, there are important differences in definition, intent and process. They describe these differences and argue that the focus must switch to a particular type of innovation: user-driven innovation. This type of innovation enables users to do something that they could not have done before and can also lower costs for users. They explain how to 'refresh' innovation policy to embrace user driven innovation, putting an end to inventors creating inventions that nobody really wants.

In an age of dwindling resources, our excessive economic paradigm cannot possibly survive. The author argues that it is time to stop seeing the world as it is, and to begin to see it as it could be. But before this can happen, we must change our notion of what constitutes success. He describes what would be involved in a 'renaissance of human values', touching on our nine core needs as humans and the roles of design and ecology. We will build a new civilization, he says, the way we built the current one: with incentives, social rewards and new ways of meeting our needs.

As the global economy continues to sputter, new businesses--and the jobs they create--are more important than ever. Here's a visual look at the factors in various countries that affect the entrepreneurial climate.

In an era of ever-changing technology, the challenge for a social entrepreneur is to cope with the fast pace of change. With a concern for the environment and energy conservation, the entrepreneur in this case became an entrepreneur with the development of a new product – a mechanical charger. His company, ideaForge, manufactured and sold two types of products: mechanical chargers and other conventional chargers such as bike chargers. The mechanical charger, an innovation of ideaForge, was a product that could produce electricity through mechanical operation. The sales of other conventional chargers were increasing, while the sales of mechanical chargers were decreasing.<br><br><br><br>The company faced two major challenges while running the business: how to market this innovative product to customers used to traditional mobile phone chargers, and whether the company should increase the product range or concentrate on existing products. The decision that had to be made was whether to sell only through distribution channels or through a sales force, or both. The young entrepreneur, along with his two cofounders, also had to make decisions on how to position and price their products in the market. With a changing market scenario, several initiatives and calculated risks would have to be taken if they wanted to develop new product offerings, such as laptop chargers and bicycle chargers, both of which would mean diversifying the business.

This case investigates issues of obsolescence and inventory control in a local sportswear company that is competing on the global stage with both multinational corporations and foreign, low-cost distributors. Athletic Knit, a family-owned company in Toronto, faces the need to balance peak-season demand during the third quarter of the year with the available knitting production capacity. Inventory, if it serves a purpose, can be an asset to a company, but too much inventory can be a liability. Trade-offs between capacity, inventory, and flexibility to meet custom orders must be met to support corporate strategy. Given the competitive nature of the industry, tighter inventory controls are essential, but the company must weigh endangering its reputation for fast responses to custom orders with managing inventory to prevent stock-outs and/or overruns of stock that cannot be sold.

Spreadsheet for case UV6514

In late 2008, a team from Intuit's office in Bangalore, India is evaluating an opportunity to launch a new venture that would use SMS to deliver crop price information to farmers in India.The case describes the structure of Indian agriculture and the problems experienced by farmers, who were often exploited by middlemen who entered into obtuse private arrangements with wholesale buyers. After five weeks of research, the team concludes that the opportunity warrants further exploration. The question is, what should they do next?

Chisholm University's new athletics director must reallocate the athletics budget in its entirety, balancing legal obligations with broader educational and financial goals. A committee appointed to work on this issue had failed to reach consensus due to disagreements about how to comply with Title IX, the law mandating gender parity in all educational offerings, including athletics. The athletics director has the facts organized into an optimization problem so she can systematically balance the tradeoffs and manage system demands or constraints.