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Research focused on Japan and America shows that a seemingly simple concept, the apology, is interpreted very differently by different cultures. Only by understanding such differences can executives use it as a tool for facilitating negotiations, resolving conflicts, and repairing trust--of increasing importance in today's global world.

Big banks have become too complex for boards to govern them effectively, writes a former top executive at Bank of America and Citigroup. Directors need simple tools to cut through that complexity, and Krawcheck suggests four: (1) Pay top executives with bank debt instead of just stock and stock options, to give them more incentive to worry about risk, (2) Pay dividends as a percentage of earnings instead of as a set amount, to preserve capital in downturns, (3) Ignore net interest income in judging bank performance, and pay much more attention to customer satisfaction metrics, and (4) Focus board attention not on the most troubled business segments, as is customary now, but on those that are using the most capital.

Roger Cahill has spent less than a year as head of the Mobile Division of BoldFlash, a flash memory component maker. On the corporate level, BoldFlash has adapted to an evolving and difficult marketplace, but the Mobile Division is struggling. The four groups within the unit refuse to work together, and the unit recently failed to capitalize on an important new product opportunity. To address the problems, Cahill has made a number of organizational and personnel changes since taking the helm. Facing low morale and eroding margins, Cahill is under pressure to meet his next challenge-reforming the product development process in an effort to save the Division.

The case examines smartphone maker HTC's 2006 decision to become a branded company. The case focuses on the cultural and organizational shifts HTC underwent to successfully make the transition from an ODM, founded in 1997, to a leading branded manufacturer (7% market share of smartphones in 2010), with the adoption of the tagline: "Quietly Brilliant." Significant challenges considered in the case include: transitioning HTC from a Taiwanese to a global firm, developing and maintaining a functioning global structure, building a sales and marketing force, and finding the right cultural balance between eastern and western capabilities.

MSPL Limited was an iron ore mining and processing company in India. Owned by the Baldota Group, it also had interests in shipping, pelleting, and wind energy. In January 2012, MSPL's businesses and operations were headed by Narendrakumar A. Baldota and his two sons. MSPL's main source of revenue, the Vyasankere Iron Ore Mine (VIOM), was one of the largest iron ore mines in the private sector in India. MSPL had been progressive and proactive in its approach to sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR). Many of its initiatives predated government legislation related to environmental, employee, and community issues. MSPL's policies towards environmental issues and local communities had been driven by the beliefs and vision of its founder and chairman, Baldota's father. Baldota expanded MSPL's initiatives related to the environment, employees, and communities. The case deals with the choices and decisions that Baldota had made regarding the numerous CSR and sustainability initiatives undertaken by the organization. Were there other initiatives that MSPL should have undertaken? Was it even necessary for the company to carry out CSR activities in the local communities?

This case series describes a general manager's decision of whether to fire an employee at a performing arts company. The scope of the case includes the organization of the company, the decision to hire the employee, his performance, and the decision to end the employment relationship. The general manager's selection practices are described, and two role-playing exercises are included.

Supplement for case W12021

FIS Consulting Services was a business process outsourcing company specializing in consulting and financial advisory for global clients. This case deals with an offshore project team in the United States that was characterized by intra-group competitiveness, poor leadership and resource sharing, poor coordination, and limited cooperation. At the outset, the team developed a one-sided focus on achieving a high performance appraisal rating rather than completing the project as a team. The team underwent an inadequate group development process, which was manifested in the team's immaturity. Poor leadership and lack of behavioural norms led the team to move forward with conflicting beliefs, structural inadequacy, lack of guidance, and low cohesiveness. These factors led to a decline in the team's performance and stood as obstacles to the project's progress. Furthermore, these events damaged the reputation of the firm. The human resources manager needed to take urgent measures to save the project team.

On June 30, 2011, Research in Motion (RIM) co-CEOs, Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, unexpectedly found themselves facing serious public scrutiny, not from competitors, market analysts or consumers, but from one of their own senior executives. In an attempt to have their voice heard, an anonymous senior level RIM employee addressed an open letter to both Balsillie and Lazaridis, however the letter was sent to the online technology news provider Boy Genius Report (BGR). Upon BGR verifying the identity of the source RIM employee, the full contents of the letter were featured in an online BGR article, which quickly spread into mainstream media. The contents of the detailed open letter, provided various candid criticism of RIM leadership, product development and employee culture. In addition, the employee also offered personal insight and outlined specific actions necessary for RIM to improve and expressed their desire to see the company regain its once dominant position as an industry leader. In a year during which RIM already faced pressures from a dwindling market share, failed product attempts and a sinking stock price, Balsillie and Lazaridis needed to figure out how to respond to the claims of the letter publically, but more importantly how to communicate to RIM employees internally.

Need an energy boost at work? Taking a short break won't revitalize you--unless you use it to do something job related and positive.

Leadership missteps are proliferating--perhaps because of the cognitive limitations of individuals. One antidote is multiple perspectives. Another is better information gathering. Gradually we are learning to tap the superior judgment of organizations.

Medupi, rising from the dry Limpopo Province bush veld, was the first baseload project built in South Africa in 20 years. It would be the largest dry-cooled coal-fired power station in the world and was developed by Eskom, which generated 90 per cent of Southern Africa's power, at an estimated cost of R125 billion. In spite of the worldwide concern about greener energy, coal remains the most popular power station fuel for South Africa, due to the country's vast resources of 224 million tonnes annually. The new capacity Medupi would offer was sorely needed. Regular and nationwide load shedding, due to a shortage of capacity, affected the entire country during 2007 and 2008 and all businesses were asked to turn off non-essential lighting and equipment, even during the day. It had been no mean feat to keep to a project schedule that involved various suppliers providing different packages at different dates and also required accommodating several interfaces during both the design and implementation of the work on site. Due to the massive scale of the project as well as the highly specialized civil engineering required for different sections of Medupi's construction, three companies joined forces to tackle the job, namely Murray & Roberts, Aveng and Concor. Murray & Roberts appointed Coenie Vermaak as project director at Medupi and at 34 the youngest project director in the group. The managers of the joint venture realized quickly that this would be "a project like no other." The three companies' different ways of working necessitated much more integrated coordination. For instance, employees from the different parent organizations had different job descriptions, were numerated differently, had different benefits, structures, processes and cultures.

Pak Elektron Limited was a prominent manufacturer of consumer home appliances, large distribution and power transformers, and switch gears for power companies in Pakistan. From 2007, the company had started the process of changing the information systems of the company. These systems had become outdated as Microsoft withdrew its support of Visual FoxPro, the platform on which all systems had been developed. The company decided that a Tier 1 ERP (enterprise resource planning) system with strength in manufacturing modules would be suitable. An ERP system was then selected and a firm was appointed as implementer in December 2009. The case describes the issues surrounding the implementation, including many unexpected events. It presents the situation as of the fourth quarter of 2011, after Phase 1 of the implementation had finished in December 2010 and the company had decided in March 2011 to dispense with the services of the consulting firm supporting the implementation. Pak Elektron Limited was facing a liquidity crisis and had to save costs even though there was insufficient corporate knowledge of ERP procedures. The staff was not comfortable with the ERP system and would not let go of the legacy systems and, as such, the project was in trouble.

Mike Lazaridis, co-CEO of Research in Motion (RIM), faced a situation of truly disastrous proportion. Earlier that week, service outages started occurring on RIM's popular BlackBerry smartphone devices, affecting over 30 million BlackBerry users globally. For a total of three days, RIM engineers worked around the clock to fix the widespread technical problems. However, with the company providing only brief comments to the public, many consumers and industry officials became increasingly frustrated. With the worldwide release of the new Apple iPhone 4S just days away, Lazaridis was presented with the additional challenge of how and if RIM should respond publically to help restore consumer and market confidence.

Mike Lazaridis, co-CEO of Research in Motion (RIM), faced a situation of truly disastrous proportion. Earlier that week, service outages started occurring on RIM's popular BlackBerry smartphone devices, affecting over 30 million BlackBerry users globally. For a total of three days, RIM engineers worked around the clock to fix the widespread technical problems. However, with the company providing only brief comments to the public, many consumers and industry officials became increasingly frustrated. With the worldwide release of the new Apple iPhone 4S just days away, Lazaridis was presented with the additional challenge of how and if RIM should respond publically to help restore consumer and market confidence.

On June 30, 2011, Research in Motion (RIM) co-CEOs, Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, unexpectedly found themselves facing serious public scrutiny, not from competitors, market analysts or consumers, but from one of their own senior executives. In an attempt to have their voice heard, an anonymous senior level RIM employee addressed an open letter to both Balsillie and Lazaridis, however the letter was sent to the online technology news provider Boy Genius Report (BGR). Upon BGR verifying the identity of the source RIM employee, the full contents of the letter were featured in an online BGR article, which quickly spread into mainstream media. The contents of the detailed open letter, provided various candid criticism of RIM leadership, product development and employee culture. In addition, the employee also offered personal insight and outlined specific actions necessary for RIM to improve and expressed their desire to see the company regain its once dominant position as an industry leader. In a year during which RIM already faced pressures from a dwindling market share, failed product attempts and a sinking stock price, Balsillie and Lazaridis needed to figure out how to respond to the claims of the letter publically, but more importantly how to communicate to RIM employees internally.

On the morning of September 19, 2011, the chief executive officer (CEO) of the online movie provider Netflix Incorporated (Netflix) became witness to growing public discontent and media criticism. The previous evening the CEO had announced on the company blog that Netflix would be splitting into two separate entities. With the proposed change, the Netflix DVD-by-mail service would be spun-out and renamed Qwikster. The move would leave the Netflix brand to focus on offering online streamed entertainment. This was not the first time Netflix had caused large scale consumer frustration, as a few months earlier in July 2011, the company had announced it would be increasing rates as much as 60 per cent. The result was a loss of over one million Netflix subscribers by September 2011, representing the first time the company had ever lost subscribers from one quarter to the next. Although the split into two separate entities could be seen as a good business strategy, Netflix did not follow through with a well-developed communication plan. Moving forward, both Netflix and Qwikster had become symbolic of a bad two-headed monster movie, with Netflix management in desperate need to develop better communications with disgruntled consumers, or risk losing additional subscribers and lucrative profits to a number of growing competitors.

In the first decade of 2000, major global innovator drug companies were acquiring or collaborating with generic drug companies. Daiichi Sankyo was the first major Japanese Pharmaceutical firm to test this 'hybrid' business model in early 2008 when it acquired a majority share in Ranbaxy, then the largest India-based generic drug company and a global generic drug manufacturer and exporter. At Ranbaxy, the acquisition was followed quickly by several leadership changes. Chairman/ CEO Malvinder Singh, the grandson of Ranbaxy's founder, resigned in May 2009; Atul Sobti who took over as CEO, resigned the following year citing differences with the Japanese company on the running of Ranbaxy. In early 2011, Ranbaxy President and Chief Financial Officer, Omesh Sethi also left the company. On the financial front, the Japanese firm booked a valuation loss of US$3.9 billion from the acquisition in the third quarter of its 2008 financial year and recorded a net loss of US$2.21 billion for that financial year. With the acquisition, Daiichi Sankyo was able to expand the scope of its global business and to lessen the concentration of its assets in Japan from 78.96% to 53.7% in 2011. However, in 2011, the Japanese firm had yet to reap the full benefits of its vision of a value chain based on an integrated hybrid business model. Was a transformational organizational change needed to realize this? The case study examines the cross-cultural challenges of integrating the two businesses as the leadership worked to implement the hybrid business model.

Daiichi Sankyo was the first major Japanese pharmaceutical firm to acquire a generic drug company. In early 2008, it acquired a majority share in Ranbaxy, then the largest India-based generic drug manufacturer and exporter. This case examines the cross cultural challenges in the post-acquisition task of integration.

The Wang Group was created by Alfred Wang in Hong Kong after fleeing China during the turbulence that marked the beginning of the communist regime. After successfully building up the diversified trading business and expanding to various other Asian countries, in 1995, the business was taken over by his second son, Charles Wang, a charismatic leader. Charles wished to create a more sustainable family business, tuned in to today's global trends, and run by non-family members. To this end, Charles hired an outside CEO to implement his vision after implementing a far-reaching corporate change program. The global economic crisis that started in 2008, however, caught the company halfway through the reorganization, and brought losses and the departure of the newly hired CEO. Charles Wang had no other option than to again take up the top job himself, and had to reconsider the path towards a sustainable future for the family firm.