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Bernie and Ruby Merwald live in Menlo Park, California during their retired ages when Bernie falls ill to dementia and Alzheimer's. This causes him to have significantly complex medical problems that result in familial conflicts, violence and avoidance of the doctor's orders. When Bernie has a heart attack on top of his failing health, siblings want to pull the plug, but their protective and isolating mother disagrees. Because of a California law, the mother is responsible for all medical decisions and continues to subject her husband to over-medication and worsening of his condition against the doctor's orders.

Can multinationals wield competitive advantage by aggressively hiring talented members of the excluded social group in each market? This is the subject of Siegel's global strategy research as well as the focus of this case study.

Legacy book publishers wrangled with ebook retailers over royalty rates, release strategy, and distribution rights as customer demand for cheaper ebooks eroded publishers' profitable print formats. E-readers like Kindle, as well as Apple's iPad that invigorated the digital book market is discussed. Also includes a general overview of book publishing including the K-12 and College market.

The purpose of this case is to introduce the topic of socially responsible investing from both the investor and investee perspectives. The students will walk away with an understanding of 1) how to evaluate a portfolio company on a social/environmental mission and on traditional financial criteria, and 2) what considerations should be top of mind for a social venture considering accepting an equity investment. Wes Selke is a portfolio manager at Good Capital, an investment fund created to increase the flow of capital to innovative nonprofit and for-profit social ventures that are using market-based solutions to solve problems of poverty, illiteracy, and inequality. In 2007, Good Capital is ready to make its first growth equity investment in a for-profit social enterprise and Selke is considering Better World Books as the firm's primary target. Selke must evaluate whether or not the firm is a financially sound investment and if its social and environmental missions can be preserved upon a liquidation event. If Good Capital proceeds with the investment, Selke must also rework some of Better World Books' current procedures, including fine-tuning the philanthropic giving strategy that is the main component of its social mission.

The purpose of this case is to introduce the topic of socially responsible investing from both the investor and investee perspective. The students will walk away with an understanding of: 1) how to evaluate a portfolio company on a social/environmental mission as well as on traditional financial criteria and 2) what considerations should be top of mind for a social venture considering accepting an equity investment. Wes Selke is a portfolio manager at Good Capital, an investment fund created to increase the flow of capital to innovative non- and for-profit social ventures that are using market-based solutions to solve problems of poverty, illiteracy, and inequality. In 2007, Good Capital is ready to make its first growth equity investment in a for-profit social enterprise and Selke is considering Better World Books as the firm's primary target. Selke must evaluate whether or not the firm is a financially sound investment, and if its social and environmental mission can be preserved upon a liquidation event. If Good Capital proceeds with the investment, Selke must also rework some of Better World Books' current procedures, which includes fine-tuning the philanthropic giving strategy that is the main component of its social mission.

Do investments in your employees actually affect workforce performance? Who are your top performers? How can you empower and motivate other employees to excel? Leading edge companies such as Google, Best Buy, P&G, and Sysco use sophisticated data-collection technology and analysis to answer these questions, leveraging a range of analytics to improve the way they attract and retain talent, connect their employee data to business performance, differentiate themselves from competitors, and more. The authors present the six key ways in which companies track, analyze, and use data about their people-ranging from a simple baseline of metrics to monitor the organization's overall health to custom modeling for predicting future head count depending on various "what if" scenarios. They go on to show that companies that compete on talent analytics manage data and technology at an enterprise level, support what analytical leaders do, choose realistic targets for analysis, and hire analysts with strong interpersonal skills as well as broad expertise.

These days more companies are inviting customers to help them design products. Now a few are taking things further and including their other stakeholders-employees, suppliers, distributors, and even regulators-in "co-creation" efforts, too. By focusing on improving the experiences of everyone involved, such firms are achieving breakthrough insights, lower costs, new revenues, and new business models. Consider how this worked at France's La Poste, which wanted to expand package delivery and banking services in light of a decline in its mail business. La Poste had three obstacles: unmotivated union tellers, customers disgruntled by long waits, and frustrated local managers, who felt caught in between. The company set some high-level goals and invited all three groups to decide how to reach them together. To get tellers' buy-in, La Poste gave them a say in their schedules. In workshops, the groups figured out when each office should be open and how its space should be configured. The results: a 50% decrease in waiting time, a jump in satisfaction for customers, soaring job satisfaction among tellers, and significant growth in package delivery and banking, despite the recession.

The CEO of a watchband manufacturer based in Seoul is considering opening a factory in the Kaesong Industrial Complex (KIC), a South Korean manufacturing zone in North Korea. Such an operation is appealing on several counts: The costs of labor are low, capital risk is also low because of South Korean government guarantees, and the KIC, as the largest area of economic cooperation between the two Koreas, could be a step toward a unified peninsula. But there are substantial risks as well, concerning South Korean employees' safety, the treatment of North Korean workers by their government, the human rights situation generally in the North, and the uncertainties of dealing with a volatile regime. Are the potential economic benefits worth the human risks? And should politics and national pride factor into the decision? Two commentaries accompany the case, one from Youssef Nasr, a former senior executive in the HSBC Group, and one from Ian Bremmer, the president of Eurasia Group.

The CEO of a watchband manufacturer based in Seoul is considering opening a factory in the Kaesong Industrial Complex (KIC), a South Korean manufacturing zone in North Korea. Such an operation is appealing on several counts: The costs of labor are low, capital risk is also low because of South Korean government guarantees, and the KIC, as the largest area of economic cooperation between the two Koreas, could be a step toward a unified peninsula. But there are substantial risks as well, concerning South Korean employees' safety, the treatment of North Korean workers by their government, the human rights situation generally in the North, and the uncertainties of dealing with a volatile regime. Are the potential economic benefits worth the human risks? And should politics and national pride factor into the decision? Two experts comment on this fictional case study in products R1010P and R1010Z.

The CEO of a watchband manufacturer based in Seoul is considering opening a factory in the Kaesong Industrial Complex (KIC), a South Korean manufacturing zone in North Korea. Such an operation is appealing on several counts: The costs of labor are low, capital risk is also low because of South Korean government guarantees, and the KIC, as the largest area of economic cooperation between the two Koreas, could be a step toward a unified peninsula. But there are substantial risks as well, concerning South Korean employees' safety, the treatment of North Korean workers by their government, the human rights situation generally in the North, and the uncertainties of dealing with a volatile regime. Are the potential economic benefits worth the human risks? And should politics and national pride factor into the decision? Two commentaries are attached to the case in R1010P and included in R1010Z, one from Youssef Nasr, a former senior executive in the HSBC Group, and one from Ian Bremmer, the president of Eurasia Group.

The Wikimedia Foundation has developed an approach to strategy formulation that can help firms align their activities with the interests of their communities.

Gazelle has pioneered a reCommerce intermediation model: it buys used electronics from consumers and resells them on eBay or to wholesalers. Going forward, its two main strategic challenges are: 1) deciding how much to rely on partnerships with large retailers for growth; 2) deciding whether to continue as a "merchant," i.e., buying and reselling goods (and thereby taking inventory risk), or to transform itself into a "two-sided platform" connecting sellers and buyers without taking inventory risk.

Are "wide-scale distribution" and "sustainability" mutually exclusive? This case explores this question through the examples of Honest Tea, one of the fast growing companies in the Ready-To-Drink market, and Coca-Cola. Honest Tea faces a challenging decision: whether or not to sell part of its business to Coca-Cola. Honest Tea desires to stay committed to CSR goals and maintain its niche market appeal; however, it needs to expand its distribution network to make a large impact in the mainstream market, grow profitability, and affect positive change by introducing healthy, sustainable products to the beverage industry. This case asks whether it makes sense for Honest Tea to scale up its organic and fair trade beverages, and if the partnership with Coca-Cola is the best move. The case focuses on business strategy, and promotes understanding of the complexities of a sustainable business and the challenges that arise while trying to maintain growth.

This note discusses how some firms (start-ups and established companies) maximize customer value and profits via their pricing processes. It is aimed at companies that compete on the basis of performance initiatives rather than absolute cost advantages and low price. It is suitable for use in courses or modules in Pricing, Entrepreneurial Management, Strategy, or Marketing.

The case describes two alternative elective course assignment procedures: Harvard Business School's lottery-based system and Kellogg Graduate School of Management's bidding-based system. The case has been designed to discuss the benefits and drawbacks of each system and their desirability (or lack thereof) depending on the context (the broader business system) within which they are implemented. The case also describes the draft used by the NBA to assign new players to teams. This allows for a discussion of whether a similar system may be preferable to lottery-based or bidding-based procedures to assign students to courses in business schools.

The learning objective of this case is to help students to recognize the interplay between intellectual property (IP) rights and corporate strategy. We do this by examining what is a fairly atypical circumstance today in which a single firm is able to secure what it perceives to be a frontier IP "estate" that blocks competitors from "practicing" in a significant part of the field. Those who elect to sign a license agreement must pay a high license fee and therefore help to fund the company's R&D. The company, meanwhile, must balance the immediate benefit of non-dilutive financing obtainable from the license fees vs. enabling a potential future competitor. The case setting is a lawsuit over a seemingly arcane issue: whether one of the co-owners of a key patent application is properly prosecuting the application. Understanding the issue requires students to progressively build up an understanding of some key aspects of U.S. patent law. Then by piecing together the strategy of the company and how it is driven by its IP position, students can understand why the litigation represents such a high stakes gamble.

Research using fMRI brain scans by a team of neurologists shows an intriguing connection between high-level strategic and tactical thinking.

Competitors from the developing world are rising fast. Will they come to rule the global economy? Not necessarily, say Insead's Black and Morrison, who argue that today's emerging giants look an awful lot like Japanese corporations in the 1990s. Japan's star has since fallen, and the country no longer dominates the Global 500 as it once did. Drawing on 25 years of research, the authors found that four factors drove Japanese firms' early export growth: strong corporate models and cultures; a domestic market isolated from competition; an agreeable labor force; and cohesive, homogenous leadership. But when the firms moved into foreign markets, those strengths became downfalls. Entrenched in their corporate ways, they were too narrow-minded to look for local insights, and they lacked leaders who had international knowledge. They were also unprepared for contentious overseas labor relations and the sophistication and expertise of their global competitors. To avoid Japan's fate, emerging giants must change their business models, reduce their reliance on protected domestic markets, learn to cope with diverse labor, and shake up their leadership.

At a time when ever-rising smartphone sales are driven as much by demand for devices that run must-have third-party apps as by the quality of traditional voice and data services, there is a myriad of challenges facing the software developer who is looking to choose which mobile development software platform to invest in. Written from the perspective of an established consumer bank that is about to commence development on its first downloadable application for mobile devices, the case surveys the state of the smartphone market in 2010 and considers the challenges of a platform landscape that includes significantly varying installed device base sizes, growth rates, application distribution models, and hardware device profiles. Focusing on Apple's market-leading iOS platform and App Store, for iPhones and other devices and on Google's developing Android OS and associated Android Market, the case considers potential benefits and pitfalls of each and touches on the reasons that other longer-standing platforms, such as RIM's BlackBerry platform, are less appealing to modern-day application developers.