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An Australian business professor has just arrived in China with a group of students, when one of the group members comes down with the H1N1 virus. The entire group is hospitalized or quarantined. The professor, who is also the tour director, must determine how to deal with the crisis, and quickly. This case is designed for use in a crisis management course, or in an early class in an international management course to illustrate the sorts of differences one may confront in international settings.

In late May 2009, Albert Bohemier, CEO of Survival Systems Limited (SSL), located in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, paced the deck of the training pool at Survival Training Simulation Theatre wondering how best to transition the company to new leadership. During the past five years, attempts at succession planning had been unsuccessful. As the leader of the company for over 25 years, Bohemier was ready to retire, but there were many aspects of succession planning to consider. Bohemier's personal criteria for incoming leadership were threefold: it had to be good for SSL's existing clients, a positive move for the company as a whole and good for the current team.

An intern has completed her summer internship as Brussels and Bradshaw (B&B), an investment bank in Toronto, Ontario. She now faces her final performance review where she will be told whether or not she has been offered full-time employment following her graduation. After a grueling summer during which she received little training, no formal mentorship and worked tireless 100 hour weeks with no praise, she was frustrated, hurt and bitter about the experience. Despite enjoying finance and the actual work, the intern is unsure whether taking B&B's offer is a good idea, should B&B extend her the opportunity. Despite it being one of the most prestigious banks in the world, she had seen little to no improvement in the abusive approach of her superiors. As she walks to the business department manager's office, she reviews whether or not she should bring up the unresolved issues that transpired during the summer, the mounting frustration of working in teams that gossiped and did not respect her work, and finally her inability to understand why she had been treated so poorly despite her diligent work ethic. On the one hand, the intern could bring up such issues and try to explain herself before the business department manager decides whether or not to extend her the offer. Or, she could listen to the review and continue to take full responsibility for the problems which were not her making in the hopes that it might make her look more mature and professional and potentially aid her in obtaining her full-time offer.

The case describes existing performance management systems at a leading business school in India, the National Institute of Management (Central India campus) (NIM (CI campus)). The institution, which ranked among the top 20 business schools in India, is facing critical issues of attracting and retaining faculty members. The director of NIM (CI campus) has implemented a unit based performance measurement and incentive system that has worked favourably and enabled the institute to recruit top academicians. However, the management committee believes that the system has outlived its utility and desires to replace it with more robust systems that are less vulnerable to misuse. The faculty members, however, support retention of the existing system. The key teaching objective of this case is to understand performance management systems from perspectives of different stakeholders and develop a framework that meets all objectives of performance management. The case enables users to understand all steps in performance management and examine shortcomings at each stage. The role of incentive systems both as a tool to enhance individual performance and as a management control mechanism is also discussed. The case provides users an opportunity to evaluate the strategic significance of performance management. The case is to be used along with Performance Management at the National Institute of Management (Central India Campus) (A) No. 9B08C020.

Ho Tak Kee was originally a professional publisher and printer that started in the 1950s in Hong Kong. Having faced static performance for decades, the founder and grandfather of the family decided to close the printing department. This pushed his youngest son, On-ping, to a critical decision: whether and how to continue the family business. Under pressure, On-ping turned to his son John for support but the request put John in a difficult position of choosing between a professional career and the family business. As a young man without much life and work experience, John had to go through a personal development process to shape up as a leader in order to make the family business thrive again and keep the family together. Case (A) is from John's point of view as he is making his decision and is intended to stimulate students to look at a family business from a third generation's perspective. Case (B) starts with John's decision to join Ho Tak Kee.

This case describes the efforts of the management team at Tomasso Corporation, located in Montreal, Quebec, to manage various economic and personnel issues during the economic downturn of 2001. As the situation at Tomasso worsened, the president wondered how to turn the company around. The management team wondered if there was a way to balance the human and economic issues by adhering to a theory that the chief executive officer had developed over 10 years.

The vice-president of the Bank of London was stunned to hear that the union representing clerical workers was initiating a complaint of gender discrimination in starting salaries. The vice-president had believed the Bank of London was actively promoting diversity and inclusion as a natural part of its culture; additionally, the senior leadership team understood how vital diversity and inclusion were to organizational effectiveness and growth. The vice-president was wondering what the accusation of discrimination was costing the Bank of London, and how to manage perceptions both inside and outside of the organization. To determine this, he wanted to understand if discrimination had in fact occurred and analyzed the following factors between male and female job-holders: beginning salary, time at current job, education and experience.

Beijing EAPs Consulting Inc. (BEC) is a rapidly growing consulting company whose number of employees has increased from six to 16 in just one year. BEC has adopted a new project management system, using project managers to coordinate several employees from various departments. Due to the heavy workload, most employees must work on multiple projects. Collaboration between projects and department managers is not very smooth. The chief executive officer must decide how he can improve the collaboration efforts across the company's different departments.

T.J., an undergraduate at a business school, was upset to find a group mate's contribution to his group project containing plagiarized and poorly paraphrased content (also without any citation as to source in some instances). T.J. and four others had to work with K.C., the errant group member, on three group projects that together made up 30 per cent of the final mark for the course. In particular, T.J. was upset by the shoddy corrections provided by K.C. when his error was highlighted. T.J. was also appalled at K.C.'s nonchalant attitude towards plagiarism and the group projects, especially after discovering that K.C. had done the same on their first group project. T.J. felt strongly that the matter should be brought up to the course professor but two of his group mates disagreed, fearing that the group harmony would be adversely affected, thus jeopardizing their last group project, which carried significantly higher weight at 20 per cent. The remaining two group mates did not seem to consider the matter a serious one. T.J. wondered what the right thing to do would be. This case was written for use in the introductory class to a business ethics course. However, it has potential for use in lessons on negotiation, conflict resolution and team dynamics. The case is based on an actual occurrence but names have been changed to provide anonymity. The subject of plagiarism and a poorly contributing group member to group assignments is one that resonates deeply with students pursuing any course that emphasizes group work as a necessary component of the course assessment. The case has practical relevance to the working world inasmuch as the incident can occur in that context. Apart from being a useful opener to any course on ethics, the case also serves as a good reminder to students about plagiarism. It provides opportunities for clarification and discussion on what exactly constitutes plagiarism and the professors'/universities' stand on the matter.

A college student, Sarah James, attends a Mexican university (INI) for the summer to develop her language and cross-cultural capabilities. At the end of a successful semester, she e-mails the director of international recruitment for the Mexican University - with a copy to her major professor back in the United States - complaining about the treatment she received from her host family. She appears to have alienated all parties involved as she makes her exodus. The reader must decide how Professor McGill should respond. McGill had been attempting to build a relationship with the administration at INI in hopes of sending more students there for cross-cultural and language training. The reader must also evaluate Sarah's complaints to determine if they are a result of her own inflexibility or whether the host family was inappropriately screened or prepared. Will the remedy be found in having better policies governing host families or in having more culturally-attuned students?

The QiLing Research Hospital (QiLing), located in Beijing, China, headed by Dr. Tien Tzu, CEO, is in a partnership with the China Research Network (CRN). This partnership was formed in an effort to mutually benefit both parties in terms of becoming a leader in health-care quality standards and creating more effective health-care techniques. Due to the intertwined nature of this relationship, the acquisition of human capital for specific positions within the hospital requires CRN to provide the candidates. Dr. Tien Tzu is increasingly concerned that CRN's hiring conditions are hindering QiLing's potential - specifically referencing the latest batch of candidates CRN has provided to fill a key spot in the neurology department. She is aware that the right people are the key to maintaining QiLing's growth and loyalty and has analyzed how the candidate selection process, overall compensation, and job retention efforts affect the quality of the human capital pool. She is entertaining thoughts about overhauling the process for the benefit of QiLing, and is unsure how CRN will respond to any proposals she might make.

With the elimination of many repetitive jobs due to increased automation and off-shoring, workplace motivation has changed significantly and more employees consider their work to be meaningful. Extrinsic rewards, usually financial, played a dominant role in the past, when jobs were more routine. Yet intrinsic or psychological rewards have gained importance, including an employee’s sense of meaningfulness, choice, competence, and progress. Intrinsic rewards benefit employee self-management by increasing concentration and motivation, and predicting retention. Yet older motivational models, which stress financial rewards, continue to influence many managers. After describing his research on motivation and the new importance of intrinsic rewards, the author outlines seven steps for building a high-engagement culture: 1. Begin with a meaningful purpose. 2. Build intrinsic motivation and engagement into management training and executive coaching. 3. Focus conversations on meaningfulness, choice, competence, and progress. 4. Engage “the middle.” 5. Measure intrinsic reward levels. 6. Provide missing building blocks for intrinsic rewards that you need to bolster. 7. Adopt a change and implementation process that is itself engaging.

WestJet Airlines had achieved a lot. The airline had taken to the skies only 13 years earlier, with three airplanes flying to five destinations. Now, with a market value at more than $2 billion, the carrier had more than 70 Boeing Next Generation 737s, employed 7,000 people and had played host to more than 12 million guests. WestJet's ambition was to become the dominant airline in Canada by 2013 and one of the five most successful international airlines in the world by 2016. Achieving these goals would mean continued expansion in the WestJet organization. How could WestJet continue to build a high engagement culture as it experienced high rates of growth? In April 2009, in light of the company's rosy predictions of further growth and success, WestJet's pilots seemed dissatisfied with elements of the new contract offer. The leadership team had met a crossroad.

Transkin Income Fund provided freight transportation services in Canada and the United States. In mid February 2009, in response to a sharp fall in demand for transportation services due to the economic crisis, the chief operation officer had suggested that each of his six freight divisions and six support divisions and the corporate division should all implement a salary rollback. The chief operating officer (COO) believed that a strong message needed to be sent to customers, shareholders, banks, owner-operators, drivers and suppliers that Transkin was being proactive by taking action internally to ride out the crisis. Two of the 13 general managers resented the COO's plan. The two dissenters were from Transkin's two most profitable divisions; they were also the most senior executives. Both had their own reasons to resist the COO's idea. The COO wondered how he should respond to both dissenters - he wanted the support of every general manager for the salary rollback.

If the participation of labour in management decisions leads to a more responsive, better-run GM and Chrysler, then this economic recession will have yielded a proud legacy, proof that management-labour cooperation really does work. This author believes that the time has come for such cooperation to roll down the assembly line. He also suggests tried and true work practices that will create efficiencies, and in the end, build an enduring trust.

The "vision thing" is still with us, but while leaders insist in having a compelling vision, the fact is that many - both the leaders and the visions - leave people standing still, unmoved. A leader who engages stakeholders when developing a vision will, in the end, articulate one that resonates strongly and impels people to act.

The case describes existing performance management systems at a leading business school in India, the National Institute of Management - Central India campus (NIM CI campus). The institution, which is ranked among the top 20 business schools in India, is facing critical issues of attracting and retaining faculty members. The director of the NIM CI campus has implemented a unit based performance measurement and incentive system, which has worked favorably and enabled the institute to recruit top academicians. However, the management committee believes that the system has outlived its utility and desires to replace it with more robust systems that are less vulnerable to misuse. The faculty members, however, support retention of the existing system. The key teaching objective of this case is to understand performance management systems from the perspectives of different stakeholders and develop a framework that meets all objectives of performance management. The case enables users to understand all steps in performance management and examine shortcomings at each stage. The role of incentive systems, both as a tool to enhance individual performance and as a management control mechanism, is also discussed. The case provides users an opportunity to evaluate the strategic significance of performance management.

The human resources manager at the Alice Saddy Association (Alice Saddy), a non-profit agency in London, Ontario, Canada, supporting people with developmental disabilities who lived independently rather than in group homes, informed the executive director that some of the support workers believed that the current organizational structure caused confusion, slowed decision making and created potential risk for the people served by Alice Saddy. The executive director agreed that there were some problems related to the structure of the organization. However, the structure reflected the mission of Alice Saddy and changes were likely to be resisted by the management team for that reason. The executive director had to decide how to proceed.

A director within the leadership development program of a large multinational organization must decide how to manage a very difficult conversation she must have with her assistant director. The assistant director, who is older and more experienced (although less educated), interviewed for the director's position and didn't get it. The assistant director has never been happy reporting to her much younger boss, and has felt consistently left out of major decisions. The assistant director had confronted the director about her feelings and threatened to resign. How should the director handle this difficult conversation?

After 10 years of rapid growth, the Chinese Athletic Vancouver Association (CAVA) was threatened with a leadership vacuum. To deal with the recent loss of their president, the vice-president had to devise a plan that would sustain CAVA's benefit to the Vancouver Chinese community, by locating and developing leaders who could carry this organization forward. As the vice-president was expected to assume the president's role at the end of 2005, he needed to develop and implement leadership and succession planning strategies for CAVA.