個案總覽

Shashi Jaligama, Managing Director (MD) of GUS Education India (GEI) and his colleague, Nikhil Patwardhan, Senior Director, Client Services held a review meeting with the core team at the end of the workday on April 17, 2020. After the meeting, they looked back with pride on the high level of growth that had been achieved and the high-performance organizational culture they had instilled. However, they reminded themselves that they needed to adopt some initiatives to sustain the rate of growth as well as introduce systems and processes to support the next stage of growth while maintaining the organizational culture. They were concerned that the culture could get diluted with increase in the number of new employees, and their own inability to spare as much time in engaging with employees as they had done in the early stages. Both acknowledged that there were some signs of strain in customer and employee experiences, which needed to be addressed at the earliest. They also wondered if there was something more than culture that needed to be articulated to sustain the high performance as the organization scaled.

The COVID-19 crisis has revealed a great deal how national leaders cope with rapid change and make decisions with far-reaching consequences at a time of uncertainty. Not only have they struggled with the unpredictability of the pandemic but with the intricacies of intra-national and international politics. This case series examines in depth the diverging approaches taken by the leadership in five countries - China, France, Singapore, Sweden and the US - with the goal of exposing the common missteps and hurdles encountered during the months when the coronavirus crisis first emerged, challenging students (via group work) to reflect on the lessons learned.

Supplement for Case IN1684

Supplement for Case IN1684

Supplement for Case IN1684

Supplement for Case IN1684

In the summer of 2020, Jan Swartz, President of Princess Cruises, was persevering to lead her company back from the depths of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Diamond Princess, one of Princess Cruises' 18 ships was the site of one of the earliest large outbreaks of COVID-19 outside of China. The outbreak led to hundreds of cases, at least a dozen deaths, media scrutiny, government investigations, and legal proceedings. In early March 2020, Swartz made the decision to pause all global operations of her company, the first cruise company to do so. Six months later, how could Princess Cruises restart operations safely and profitably?

This case analyzes the situation faced by the judges who were choosing that year's World Coach of the Year in November 2010. The FIFA Award ceremony was to be held for the first time in January of the following year in Zurich (Switzerland). The voting period opened in the final week of October and lasted a month. As this was the first time the award ceremony would be held, the judges needed to make a decision that convinced the public and did not jeopardize FIFA's credibility. Hence, they needed to take into consideration aspects relating to the results obtained by the coaches, their personalities, their relationships with the players, and the type of players who had an influence on the three finalists' leadership characteristics. The key question was: who was the most complete leader and deserved the 'World Coach of the Year' award?

Supplement for case W20737

Supplement for case W20737

In the first of three mini-cases on workplace mistreatment, "Casual Fridays Gone Wrong," the vice-president of compliance for a collections company faced the dilemma of how to deal with a complaint about a manager's racist comments. In the second mini-case, "Dial 911-Health Care in Distress," a nurses' union representative at a mid-sized urban hospital needed to respond to a patient's threat to take his complaints about negligence to the media; he planned to identify the individual nurses he claimed had provided negligent care, in part due to his race. In the third mini-case, "A Toxic Academic Environment," formal harassment actions have been taken against Professor Marybeth Gasman, holder of an endowed chair at the University of Pennsylvania.

The sole owner of the Gusto 54 Restaurant Group (Gusto 54), which owned and operated nine restaurant concepts in Toronto and Los Angeles, had grown the restaurant group into a huge success story. In a competitive, low-margin industry, Gusto 54 outperformed its peers and consistently achieved its desired profit margins. Gusto 54's strategy was grounded in innovative growth, the use of technology, and empowerment of all employees to take an entrepreneurial approach to their roles. The owner had grown the company strategically, making business decisions based on her belief that her most valuable resource was having the right employees. She focused on building culture, hiring employees who fit the culture, and investing in the employee experience to retain them. She also made efforts to keep the leadership team lean and to include all members in decision-making. While Gusto 54's strategy had fuelled its present growth, in 2020, the owner was concerned about the impacts of rapid expansion. She wondered how to balance growth plans with the need to hire and retain top talent and maintain an engaged, motivated workforce. How could she scale up without losing the family-style culture her employees valued?

In this fictional case, Alex, a real estate developer, is at a crossroads in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. His company is a year away from completing a 700,000-square-foot commercial office complex in downtown Moscow, but construction has paused, and the economic future is uncertain. One of his partners, who's with a Russian company, proposes that they cut their losses and sell to a company in Kazakhstan. The other, a managing director with a large investment portfolio, thinks they can ride out the crisis. Alex has put six years into this project; now he must decide how to proceed. This fictional case study by Cody Evans and Chris Mahowald features expert commentary by Sheila Botting and Brian Patterson.

In this fictional case, Alex, a real estate developer, is at a crossroads in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. His company is a year away from completing a 700,000-square-foot commercial office complex in downtown Moscow, but construction has paused, and the economic future is uncertain. One of his partners, who's with a Russian company, proposes that they cut their losses and sell to a company in Kazakhstan. The other, a managing director with a large investment portfolio, thinks they can ride out the crisis. Alex has put six years into this project; now he must decide how to proceed. This fictional case study by Cody Evans and Chris Mahowald features expert commentary by Sheila Botting and Brian Patterson.

In this fictional case, Alex, a real estate developer, is at a crossroads in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. His company is a year away from completing a 700,000-square-foot commercial office complex in downtown Moscow, but construction has paused, and the economic future is uncertain. One of his partners, who's with a Russian company, proposes that they cut their losses and sell to a company in Kazakhstan. The other, a managing director with a large investment portfolio, thinks they can ride out the crisis. Alex has put six years into this project; now he must decide how to proceed. This fictional case study by Cody Evans and Chris Mahowald features expert commentary by Sheila Botting and Brian Patterson.

By 2020, Sangu Delle (MBA 2016) has already made significant progress towards his life-long goal of solving Africa's myriad and diverse challenges. At 33 years old, he is the founder and chairman of the for-profit Golden Palm Investments Corporation, CEO of Africa Health Holdings Limited, author of a book on entrepreneurship in Africa, founder of a nonprofit (Cleanacwa) that brings improved fresh water infrastructure to African towns and villages, and serves in numerous other volunteer and trustee roles. He believes that he needs to work at scale and across national borders in order to solve the problems that he has identified, but he cannot help but wonder: are his efforts simply too big and too broad? Would it make more sense for him to focus on just one (or a few) industries, causes, or geographies, and perhaps grow from there? Could he reasonably expect to have meaningful impact by going for scale right away?

Between 2017 and 2019, The Walt Disney Company (Disney) faced two major scandals that threatened to damage its family-friendly brand image. Disney's brand value decreased by 5 per cent from 2017 to 2018, although it remained the most valuable media brand worldwide. In November 2017, John Lasseter, Disney's executive producer, was accused of illegal sexual misconduct at its Pixar Animation Studios (Pixar). Following the allegations, Lasseter left the company in December 2018. Further, during the June and September of 2018, Rian Johnson, the writer and director of The Last Jedi for Disney's subsidiary, Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC (Lucasfilm), posted unprofessional, aggressive, and insulting responses on his personal Twitter account to fans who hated the film. In April 2019, Disney chief executive officer (CEO) Robert Iger announced that no new Star Wars movies written or directed by Johnson would be put into development. Why did Disney not take immediate action to address these two scandals? How should Disney mitigate the losses stemming from the two scandals and prevent them from happening again? What should Disney do to further grow its sustainably?

In 2017, Advaith Group was an Indian conglomerate with interests in various businesses including chemicals, infrastructure, and engineering. An advisor to the corporate communications group was employed on a contractual basis. Each year at the time of his contract extension, organizational politics were played out around the decision to renew the contract. The advisor was very good at what he did, but his behaviour with colleagues left room for improvement. The head of human resources had his reasons to stall the extension of the advisor's contract and tried different means to have his way, including sidelining him within the organization. A new recruit in corporate communications came into the company with hope and the ambition to be successful in the corporate world. However, she was unsure if she could achieve this goal under the current circumstances. The managing director was asked by the chairman of the group to decide on the extension of the advisor's contract, but he had to look at all possible angles before doing so.

On January 10, 2020, Samira Ahmed, a British Asian woman, won a landmark gender discrimination case against the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Ahmed's emphatic victory was a major setback for the BBC, which had been facing accusations of inequities since 2017, after it released the salary details of its top earners and a gender pay gap report showing major disparities in the way men and women were paid. Tony Hall, the BBC's director general, had pledged to close the gender pay gap by 2020 or sooner, assuring that work was already underway. Was Hall heading in the right direction to crack down on gender inequality? What could Hall do to be at the forefront of change on gender equality?

In 2018, the chairman and managing director of Teckwah Industrial Corporation Ltd. (Teckwah), sat in his office, looking back on the company's journey. Starting in Singapore as a humble producer of plain packaging boxes, Teckwah had evolved to become a multinational company providing a full suite of supply chain management solutions for international clients. As the second-generation custodian, the chairman and managing director first joined in 1979 and had been steering the company through various stages of development, including diversifying its business offerings, undertaking an initial public offering, and eventually expanding overseas. However, Teckwah still faced growth challenges. The chairman and managing director was considering his retirement and the possibility of taking a lesser role in the company's daily operations. With Teckwah's 50th anniversary near at hand, he pondered the dual challenges of business transformation and leadership succession.