個案總覽

An effective and highly motivated executive at 3DP Incorporated, a company that specialized in manufacturing objects with three-dimensional printing, often told his friends that he thought he could be the next Steve Jobs. He wanted to take advantage of the "next great opportunity" to change the world by producing and marketing his own creations. However, his inability to deal effectively with his subordinates, peers, and superiors, as shown by instances of abrasive behaviour throughout the cases, contributed to his eventual downfall.

In February 2019, Cognizant Technology Solutions (Cognizant), an American information technology (IT) outsourcing company, was ordered to pay a total of US$28 million in penalties to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the US Department of Justice. Certain payments relating to facilities in India were allegedly made improperly and in possible violation of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). In April 2019, Brian Humphries took over the role of chief executive officer at Cognizant. What could Humphries and Cognizant do to recover and to prevent future incidents of corruption?

This case explores the organizational practices of GitLab, an "all remote" company with more than 1,000 employees located in 59 countries. GitLab solves the challenges of employees working in an online-only environment by relying extensively on asynchronous modes of coordination. The case presents a set of prototypical situations to show how this is achieved: the onboarding of a new member, internal modes of dividing and integrating tasks, and modes of internal and external communication. With plans to go public in the year that COVID-19 is spreading around the world, Gitlab has attracted the attention of several investors. But can the core ingredients of its thriving "all remote" organizational design withstand the pressures of a sudden expansion of the workforce and stronger market scrutiny and competition? And what can organizations in other sectors learn from its approach?

Dennis L. Via, was a retired four-star U.S. Army general and one of the world's foremost experts on logistics, crisis management, supply chains, and maintaining a state of readiness at all times. As he reflected back on his career and leadership experience during the COVID-19 pandemic, he considered: What are the most important leadership qualities in responding to a global pandemic? Beyond a grasp of science and logistics, how important were character traits such as empathy and integrity in the task of leading frightened populations through uncertain and dangerous times? And how could leaders-of nations, armies, businesses, families-prepare for inevitable, yet unpredictable, crises?

In part A of the case, Melissa Law was offered a position as a human resources operations manager only a few weeks after completing her final course in a graduate industrial relations program at a prestigious Canadian university. She was ecstatic when Elias Ferenc, the person she would report to, offered her the position. Her enthusiasm, however, was quickly deflated when Elias expressed his reservations about hiring her. He worried that she would rely to heavily on her formal education rather than getting to know her new work environment and the employees that she managed, many of whom had significantly less formal education than she did. Melissa had to make a quick decision about the job offer. How would she respond to Elias? In Part B of the case, after Melissa accepted the position, she was challenged with making changes in a workplace where the staff members were much older, with much lower formal education. How would she relate to employees that would be reporting to her?

Supplement to case W20642 In part A of the case, Melissa Law was offered a position as a human resources operations manager only a few weeks after completing her final course in a graduate industrial relations program at a prestigious Canadian university. She was ecstatic when Elias Ferenc, the person she would report to, offered her the position. Her enthusiasm, however, was quickly deflated when Elias expressed his reservations about hiring her. He worried that she would rely to heavily on her formal education rather than getting to know her new work environment and the employees that she managed, many of whom had significantly less formal education than she did. Melissa had to make a quick decision about the job offer. How would she respond to Elias? In Part B of the case, after Melissa accepted the position, she was challenged with making changes in a workplace where the staff members were much older, with much lower formal education. How would she relate to employees that would be reporting to her?

On October 8, 2019, Blizzard Entertainment Inc. (Blizzard), a subsidiary of one of the world's largest video game companies, banned a popular player from participating in future video game tournaments for one year and stripped him of his winnings-a response to a dramatic political statement that the player had made during a post-game interview at a Blizzard event. The immediate response was a flurry of angry fans who used social media to protest Blizzard's actions and call for a boycott of its products. Some of Blizzard's employees had staged a walkout and US politicians were accusing the company of censorship. For six days, the company said nothing. Blizzard had an upcoming product launch in days and a massive eSports convention in just two weeks, and the CEO needed to do something. He needed a crisis communications plan for the short-term to address a number of stakeholders.

In August 2018, a recent Canadian business school graduate was excited about starting her dream job at a global financial consulting firm headquartered in the United Kingdom. However, on her first day, she learned from discussions with co-workers that newly hired women (including herself) were offered lower salaries than men who were newly hired for the same positions. She later learned, in an onboarding session, that the company had a strict policy prohibiting pay discussions among employees. The new employee faced a difficult decision in considering what to do next: What were her responsibilities and options? How could she expect the human resources department to respond? Could her choices possibly put her or her colleagues at risk?

Senior Change Manager Fredrick Martin and the UVA HR leadership team are tasked with the implementation of Ufirst, a project that will merge more than 70 HR programs and 11 distinct HR offices in both the academic division and the health system into a single, seamless HR operation. Ufirst will also leverage new technology that will enable HR self-service for approximately 30,000 employees. It is an ambitious and complex project for the university, and the first in a new strategic effort to streamline university operations to make them more efficient, less costly, and best in class. Martin brings with him experience as a change manager in a corporate environment. Academia presents novel problems because of its complex governance structure. Change in the academic context requires buy-in from many different stakeholders; they could also choose to "opt-out," which could prolong decision-making and derail implementation. Martin and his team must also contend with the complex regulations that govern hiring and workforce management. Martin needs to figure out how to support this necessary change to a new culture, in which HR professionals are strategic partners with the people they serve rather than transactional experts. In order to revitalize HR, Martin and his team must demonstrate to a large university community the power of collaboration and integration. The case can be taught as a stand-alone discussion on change implementation, or as a discussion focused on managing crises that often emerge from such large-scale change initiatives. The case set is also conducive to a sequence of two 85-minute classes, or two parts of one three-hour class. The videos in this B case, "Crisis Scenarios," provide instructors with additional content for the latter discussion.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Michael Solomonov and Steven Cook had begun to wonder whether it might be time to rethink their opportunistic approach to the expansion of their small restaurant empire in Philadelphia, CooknSolo. The pandemic, however, caused an abrupt and intense change of focus-the goal was no longer expansion, but survival. Solomonov had overcome much in his life, including addiction and the death of his younger brother; these experiences had given him the perspective to take on great challenges in his career, the COVID-19 pandemic being the greatest challenge yet. As the economy cautiously started to reopen in June 2020, how should Solomonov and Cook proceed? How should they think about their business in terms of survival through the duration of the pandemic and set themselves up to come back even stronger in the post-pandemic world?

Rosalind Fox, the factory manager at John Deere's Des Moines, Iowa plant, has improved the financial standing of the factory in the three years she's been at its helm. But employee engagement scores-which measured employees' satisfaction with working conditions and enthusiasm about their work- have remained lackluster. As the first Black female factory manager to lead the plant, Fox considers how to build stronger bonds with her staff, who are mostly white men. The case describes how Fox took charge and established her credibility while building and nurturing a diverse leadership team. In addition to discussing Fox's current role, this leadership case chronicles Fox's career trajectory from her college years in Missouri through her time at Ford Motor Company and later, rising up the ranks at Deere & Company. The case discusses the pressure Fox has felt to assimilate into the dominant white male cultures and figure out how much of her authentic self to bring to work.

In 2005, Vineet Nayar, the former CEO and Vice Chairman of HCL Technologies, and his wife, Anupama Nayar, committed $100 million of their personal wealth to found Sampark Foundation - a grant-making philanthropy with a mission to transform learning outcomes for 20 million children in rural government schools by 2025. By 2013, it was clear that Sampark was never going to reach 20 million children by writing grants. Vineet stepped out of the corporate world and over the next six years, applied the lessons he learned about leading change at HCL to transform Sampark into a "disruptive design shop" that leveraged frugal innovation and a "Teachers First" model of change to revolutionize India's primary education system. By 2019, at $1 per child per annum, Sampark's 130 employees had touched the lives of over 7 million students and 200,000 teachers across 90,000 public schools - unprecedented scale in the Indian education context and evidence that their "Teachers First" strategy was working. Demand for Sampark's program was growing rapidly and Vineet now had the opportunity to reach 50 million children. Vineet had always believed in the transformative power of technology and had to determine whether Sampark could transition to a "Digital First" model.

In 2005, Vineet Nayar, the former CEO and Vice Chairman of HCL Technologies, and his wife, Anupama Nayar, committed $100 million of their personal wealth to found Sampark Foundation-a grant-making philanthropy with a mission to transform learning outcomes for 20 million children in rural government schools by 2025. By 2013, it was clear that Sampark was never going to reach 20 million children by writing grants. Vineet stepped out of the corporate world and over the next six years, applied the lessons he learned about leading change at HCL to transform Sampark into a "disruptive design shop" that leveraged frugal innovation and a "Teachers First" model of change to revolutionize India's primary education system. By 2019, at $1 per child per annum, Sampark's 130 employees had touched the lives of over 7 million students and 200,000 teachers across 90,000 public schools-unprecedented scale in the Indian education context and evidence that their "Teachers First" strategy was working. Demand for Sampark's program was growing rapidly and Vineet now had the opportunity to reach 50 million children. Vineet had always believed in the transformative power of technology and had to determine whether Sampark could transition to a "Digital First" model.

This case discusses the evolution and role of India's nuclear regulator - the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB). It examines the need for a regulator in the context of India's nuclear energy programme, its roles and responsibilities, and issues / concerns pertaining to its independence and transparent decision making. The case focusses on key questions such as: What is a regulator or a regulatory agency? Why are regulators important, specifically within the nuclear sector? What is meant by the independence of a regulator? What are the types of regulator independence? How are these ascertained?

When Kathy Fish, Procter & Gamble's Chief Research, Development & Innovation Officer, and a 40-year company veteran, stepped into her role in 2014, she was concerned that the world's leading consumer packaged goods company had lost its capability to produce a steady stream of disruptive innovations. This, coupled with intensifying competition from more agile, digitally-savvy direct-to-consumer companies, convinced Fish that P&G needed to renew its value proposition. She believed it was essential that all 100,000 employees see innovation as their job, and that all aspects of the consumer experience-not only the product itself-be "irresistibly superior." But making this change would require wholesale transformation, which was challenging because P&G's business units had decision-making rights for their businesses. Thus, when she launched GrowthWorks, an initiative to bring lean innovation to scale at P&G, Fish designed it to be business unit-led and corporately-supported. Fish and her team tackled challenges as they emerged along the way, such as the need to adapt career systems. Fish took a "pull" versus "push" approach and it caught on like "wildfire," eventually producing a portfolio of over 130 projects, and momentum that led P&G to headline the Consumer Electronics Show for the first time. While progress indicators were strong, the business units still struggled to incubate innovations, and Fish feared that unless P&G's overall innovation performance management and reward systems changed, the new approach to innovation would not take hold in a sustainable way. Fish grapples with whether to take a more "push" approach and add innovation metrics to the business unit presidents' annual scorecards, which typically focused on short term deliverables.

On June 13, 1963, Valentina Tereshkova of the USSR became the first woman to fly in space on Vostok 6. Soviet leaders publicly espoused gender equity, but also sent Tereshkova on her mission in order to be the first country to send a woman to space, a milestone they reached before the U.S. did. Five Soviet women were in the initial group chosen to train as cosmonauts, but of the five, only Tereshkova would make it to space. The case explores why Tereshkova was selected from the group and her mission and subsequent career. It also discusses the successes of the women cosmonauts and astronauts in the Soviet and U.S. space programs decades later. By 2020, women remained a minority of space travelers, but the inclusion of both genders had become commonplace. Had women reached gender equity in space faster than on Earth?

This case study is based on a Hong Kong technology start-up, Morllex (Morllex is a disguised name of a real company), specializing in chemicals for the electronics industry. The company received substantial private funding, as well as funding from a government-backed incubation program, Hong Kong Science and Technology Park. The three founders encountered conflicts in various strategies, including relationships with the two non-executive shareholders, several key suppliers such as a marketing consultant, and a China sales agent. There were substantial pressures to build sales and marketing traction and ensure timely delivery of the product to distributors. Over two years, the three founders and two non-executive shareholders (all anonymized here) had nurtured Morllex from an award-winning concept to a market-ready product. Yet, the partners struggled to reach an agreement on some major decisions, such as whether to register the business in Shenzhen or Hong Kong. Also, the partners had an ongoing debate about whether to manage marketing and distribution in-house or to outsource it. One partner favored the former option while the other partners had a different point of view. These conflicts left the founders questioning the future of a company in which they had believed so strongly and invested so much time and energy. In this case study, students will play the roles of the founders and shareholders. The case is designed to set up conflicts among the players to teach students how hostile team dynamics can make inherently solvable problems intractable.

This case contains two briefs, one for each person in a two-party negotiation. They are relatively short in length and can be read in class just prior to a mock negotiation. This learning activity is appropriate for teaching negotiations skills to a broad audience, including undergraduate and graduate business school students, adult learners in a variety of settings, and in a corporate university.

Spreadsheet supplement for case UV8076 and UV8080.