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A university instructor mulls over the idea of partnering with six of his students to start a new business that would provide all-in-one starter kits for first-year university or college students moving into residences across Canada. To help with his decision-making process, the instructor wants to evaluate the product and the group's marketing strategy; he also wants to project the new venture's financial performance for the first three years of operations.

The owner and president of a craft brewery and restaurant had just finished reviewing the company’s mid-year results, which revealed some operational capacity issues and a limited marketing budget. As a result, the owner wanted to focus on each of the company’s product lines and their contribution to the business to determine how to allocate marketing costs. Alternatively, with the company’s continued growth, the owner wondered whether the brewery would be better off investing in expansion to increase its current and long-term brewing capacity.

The owner and president of a craft brewery and restaurant had just finished reviewing the company's mid-year results, which revealed some operational capacity issues and a limited marketing budget. As a result, the owner wanted to focus on each of the company's product lines and their contribution to the business to determine how to allocate marketing costs. Alternatively, with the company's continued growth, the owner wondered whether the brewery would be better off investing in expansion to increase its current and long-term brewing capacity.

Juan Antonio Jimenez is the new Executive Director of the Toliza Museum of Art located in Spain. Jimenez is concerned that the museum lost money in 2008 and wants to understand what the financial results for the current year (2009) are likely to be. The museum has an extensive collection of contemporary and classical art which are shown as Regular Exhibits. The museum also hosts travelling Special Exhibits made up of items loaned by other galleries for a short period of time. The case asks students to use variance analysis to examine the causes of the 2008 losses based on the current cost allocation and to do a straightforward revenue projection based on a scenario where concessionary ticket prices are increased. The second half of the case uses activity based costing to reallocate costs and examine whether the Special Exhibits were profitable in 2008.

Variance analysis is widely used in budgeting and managerial accounting, and is a required skill to be taught in any introductory budget course. The Kalamazoo Zoo is a short, amusing case for use in teaching variance analysis. The case is best taught after students have already learned the basics of variance analysis, using a standard text. [Recommended material is "Variance Analysis and Flexible Budgeting," Harvard Business School Publishing, Note 9-101-039, c 2000, and the on-line HBS tutorial on variance analysis]. The Kalamazoo case may be used as a short homework assignment or an in-class group exercise. In the case, students must determine why the Zoo is losing money. Using variance analysis, students can examine the impact of the Zoo's successful animal breeding program (which has produced a higher number of animals) and the quantity of food the animals are consuming. From this simple premise, the case can be used to discuss the revenue and expenditure implications for the Zoo, and to discuss how further variance analysis is necessary to fully understand the drivers of financial performance. The case also allows for a discussion of simple budget options that would enhance revenues and/or decrease expenditures.

Sebastien Bazin was now in charge of Accor, the world's largest French hotelier, a CAC 40 company with 3,600 hotels in 92 countries and a market cap of €10 billion. Previously as the European head of Colony Capital, one of the largest private equity groups and the largest shareholder of Accor, Bazin had since 2005 relentlessly pushed an asset-lite strategy from his perch on the Accor Board in the face of vigorous opposition from employees, senior management, and some Board members. Accor's stock price underperformance and the continuous fight over the strategic direction of the company had created turmoil and turnover in the C-suite and on the Board. After multiple CEO exits, and a failure by the Board to identify the next CEO in 2013, Bazin's offer to resign from Colony and assume the CEO position at Accor was met with incredulity from friends, alarm from Accor employees, and applause from the stock market. But would Bazin be able to deliver on his promises to investors and employees to pursue an asset-right strategy? Was an asset-heavy hotelier viable in today's economic environment? Could the market understand and appropriately value such a firm and what could be its disclosure strategy to ensure a fair valuation of the stock? How long would it be before he could deliver on his promises and show fruit from the restructuring?

Students are tasked with questions related to leasing accounting in this exercise.

The president and CEO of a commercial group must assess his options after his company's recent acquisition of a small hauling company. This new company transported construction materials and aggregates from one location to another. After a few successful years of growth in the hauling business, the CEO wondered whether the new company should expand into the excavating business. He needed to evaluate the health of the current operations from a profitability and cash-flow standpoint. If the expansion into excavating were to be pursued, he needed to decide how it would be financed, while still remaining self-sufficient.

The president and CEO of a commercial group must assess his options after his company’s recent acquisition of a small hauling company. This new company transported construction materials and aggregates from one location to another. After a few successful years of growth in the hauling business, the CEO wondered whether the new company should expand into the excavating business. He needed to evaluate the health of the current operations from a profitability and cash-flow standpoint. If the expansion into excavating were to be pursued, he needed to decide how it would be financed, while still remaining self-sufficient.

The Ethics Advisory Committee of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) provides training and support for member Chartered Accountants to help them deal with difficult professional situations. Members can seek help through through call centers and in person meetings with accounting experts in the field to discuss how to best handle difficult situations. In addition, the Ethics Advisory Committee meets regularly to identify new issues that raise questions for professional standards. This case examines professional standards for ICAEW Chartered Accountants and a number of challenging ethical situations that members have faced.

This case introduces students to the topic of mergers and acquisitions. At the time that Microsoft purchased aQuantive there was a mixed reaction by analysts and investors on whether this transaction would increase shareholder value. Ultimately the transaction turned out to be a colossal failure, and Microsoft received a substantial amount of bad press. This case allows students to discuss firm's grow strategies (through mergers and acquisitions vs. organic growth) from both an economic perspective and through the accounting lens. The case offers an opportunity to introduce accounting for mergers and acquisitions, i.e., purchase price allocation rules, and other specific accounting issues associated with mergers and acquisitions in the internet advertising setting.

The case describes Shanghai's decision to abandon growth of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as its primary metric of measuring success. Within this context, the case presents the historical roots of GDP and how the measure is calculated. Moreover, the case discusses the prominence of GDP as a measure of economic success. After a discussion of China's and Shanghai's use of GDP growth targets, the case discusses Shanghai's past successes and failures. Specifically, the case describes the enormous economic growth that Shanghai has experienced alongside significant economic, social, and environmental failures such as the inefficient use of resources, pollution, and growing inequality. The case concludes with the decision to abandon GDP growth as a measure of success and opens questions about what this means for Shanghai and China. Moreover, the case raises the question of what alternative metrics measuring success might look like.

"Thin political markets" are the processes through which some of the most complex and critical institutions of our capitalist system are determined-e.g., our accounting-standards infrastructure. In thin political markets, corporate managers are largely unopposed-because of their own expertise and the general public's low awareness of the issues. This enables managers to structure the "rules of the game" in self-serving ways. The result is a structural flaw in the determination of critical institutions of our capitalist system, which, if ignored, can undermine the legitimacy of the system. This article provides some ideas on how to fix the problem.

The case describes the decision of Omar Selim to set up Arabesque as an independent organization and how he organized Arabesque to use both financial and environmental, social and governance (ESG) data in order to deliver performance for its clients. Supplement to case 115021.

In 2012, Abu Dhabi National Hotels had been struggling and the performance of the company had significantly declined, especially that of its main hotel business. Net profit had been decreasing since 2009 and, with this shrinking profitability, shareholders were losing confidence in the company. The share price of the company had also deteriorated and was expected to decline further. With the drop in net profit year after year, investors were very concerned about the company’s performance and the direction of its future growth. The company had five business segments — hotels, retail services, catering, transportation and holding — and a deep analysis of the company’s performance areas and plan to improve these were needed.