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The case focuses on an agricultural institute, ICRISAT (International Crops Research Institute for the Semi Arid Tropics), a part of international agricultural research consortium, CGIAR. Since its inception in 1972, ICRISAT has been a premier agricultural research institute with enormous international and national funding. Mismanagement and indifferent attitude of senior leadership at the top had resulted in multiple crises in organizational functioning and reduced funding by the donors. In addition to this, ICRISAT had to cope with an unfortunate chain of changes in leadership. ICRISAT had to undergo a difficult period of management changes and decline in the morale of the staff. The institute was facing daunting challenges when Dr. William Dar joined the institute as the director general. The case describes the various issues faced by Dar when he took over the reins of ICRISAT. The case also discusses his previous stints in various designations and the style of leadership displayed by him during those tenures. The case concludes by presenting the problem of revival of ICRISAT.

This case describes a newly promoted middle manager in a global, multi-cultural organization who is challenged by a number of factors in the workplace which are impacting her and her team's ability to perform to the expectations of her regional manager. While it would be easy to blame the new manager, deeper analysis in fact reveals that many forces are at work here in addition to her inexperience including communication of strategy and performance objectives, mismanaged team members, cultural inconsistencies, and a lack of leadership direction and/or skill from the very top to her supervising manager.

After the death of Umberto Agnelli in 2004, the Agnelli family, led by John Elkann, needs to decide whether to keep Fiat CEO Giuseppe Morchio. The Fiat Group is in a delicate financial position and John Elkann, the new family leader, is untested in this role. The stakes of this decision are high for both the family and the family business. The case describes the leadership and governance of the Fiat Group and raises questions on who should be involved in such decisions.

The Dutch professional service firm Schuberg Philis has within a few years grown into a well-known player in the Dutch IT outsourcing market and regularly wins high customer satisfaction marks. The growing workload and 100% promise to customers have increased the pressure on its non-hierarchical teams of engineers, as well as the hiring speed, which some fear could dilute their corporate culture. The three owner-directors must decide whether it is time to stop customer acquisition for a while to "get their house in order". At that moment, though, one of Shuberg Philis perhaps most important business opportunities so far arises.

In 2011, the PNC Financial Services Group announced the addition of $250 million to the $100 million that it had pledged to its early childhood education program, Group Up Great, in 2003. The case serves as an update to the "PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (A)" case, which outlined the design and implementation of the program and presented key challenges. The (B) case will show some of the program's responses to challenges like the strategic integration to Grow Up Great into the bank's business; the introduction of the program to new markets following the bank's geographical expansion; and the measurement of the programs' social impact.

A company seen as having a core business that is environmentally harmful by its very nature - in this case selling pesticides - faces unique challenges in its transformation to a sustainable enterprise. Even when innovation leads to new green products, processes, technologies and business models, the leadership of the company must cope with the daunting task of engaging employees and customers in the idea that green can be effective and profitable.

This case focuses on organizational transformation in an accounting firm in South Africa. The case describes how the impact of both globalization and the transformation that the country had undergone since the advent of democracy in 1994 steered StratAFin Inc. towards a process of building a new identity. The case describes how senior management realized the need for transformation based on the many new challenges that were being faced in the changing environment. Change was experienced at many levels within the organization: from the construction of a new building as a symbol of the change to corporatizing and growing the firm, changing the management structure, investing heavily in technology and human capital development, focusing on continuous improvement and driving major diversity transformation. The case offers insights into the many change drivers that had to be considered in the process, how the organization had to manage any resistance to change and the resultant need for flexibility during the process, and the importance of measurement of the many dimensions within a transformation process. The case concludes with the challenge of how the firm's leadership could ensure that the continuing transformation maintained its momentum.

A young entry-level employee starts work in the hotel industry in a Central East European country. The case describes her experiences and, through these, shows the HRM practices in the particular hotel in which she works. The issue here is not really that this employee should stay or leave, but rather finding out about the nature of HR operations in the light of ethics and sustainability.

The case is based on the crisis faced by Kingfisher Airlines during November 2011. It describes the paradoxical situation faced by the airline industry in India which experienced exponential growth in passenger volumes; but with the exception of IndiGo Airlines, all the airlines failed to make profits. However, in general, the low-cost airlines did better than the full service airlines. Other than the government-owned Air India, Kingfisher Airlines, a full service airline, was in the worst possible shape and close to bankruptcy during that period. Lack of cash forced the airline to cancel about 35 flights in a day in November 2011, disappointing customers, the only stakeholder group that was happy with the airline. This event brought the whole industry under public scrutiny. Using the stakeholder perspective, the case suggests that owing to an excessive focus on one stakeholder group, the customers; and the neglect of the other four stakeholder groups, namely, suppliers, employees, community and society, including government agencies, and also the owners or shareholders; the organization had nearly gone bankrupt. The top management has to chalk out a strategy that reengages with all the stakeholders to get them to support it during Kingfisher's struggle for survival and to put the airline on a track of recovery.

In India, air travel in the early twentieth century is mostly between major cities and has historically been driven by businesses. However, a set of relatively unused airfields exist in or near smaller cities, presenting a potential opportunity for generating air travel demand in these locations. This would require a thorough understanding of existing travel options and the design of an air travel offering that can successfully compete with these options. The three-part case describes a methodology to arrive at the appropriate new air travel offering and an assessment of the extent of potential demand in this context. In the first part (A), competing travel modes are examined and the attributes that are relevant to the design of a new air travel offering are identified. A choice-based conjoint experiment is designed and pilot data is obtained and analyzed.

In India, air travel in the early twentieth century is mostly between major cities and has historically been driven by businesses. However, a set of relatively unused airfields exist in or near smaller cities, presenting a potential opportunity for generating air travel demand in these locations. This would require a thorough understanding of existing travel options and the design of an air travel offering that can successfully compete with these options. The three-part case describes a methodology to arrive at the appropriate new air travel offering and an assessment of the extent of potential demand in this context. Inputs from part (A), which detail a pilot conjoint study, are used to refine the design and data is collected from a large sample for one origin-destination pair and presented in the second part (B).

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About 30 years ago, as its appliances business became less profitable, GE began moving manufacturing to low-cost countries in a combination of joint ventures and outsourcing. But competitors soon emerged in developing markets; shipping and materials costs rose; wages increased in China and elsewhere; and GE didn't control the supply chain. Finally, core competency was an issue: the company's most innovative appliance-design work is done in the United States, and at a time when speed to market is everything, separating design and development from manufacturing no longer made sense. Around 2008 GE came to the conclusion that outsourcing was outdated as a business model for its appliances business. It set about to build in-house innovation capability, lean manufacturing, and a new approach to labor relations in that business and others, creating thousands of jobs and investing billions of dollars.

The past three decades have seen American capitalism quietly transformed by a single, powerful idea--that financial markets are a suitable tool for measuring performance and structuring compensation. Stock instruments for managers, high-powered incentive contracts for investors, and the rise of alternative assets have dramatically altered the nature and level of incentives and rewards in our society, on both sides of the capital market. These changes have contributed significantly to the twin crises of modern American capitalism: repeated governance failures, which lead many to question the stewardship abilities of American managers and investors, and rising income inequality. When risk is repeatedly mispriced because investors enjoy skewed incentive schemes, financial capital is being misallocated. When managers undertake unwise investments or mergers in order to meet expectations that will trigger large compensation packages, real capital is being misallocated. And when relative compensation is as distorted as it has been by the financial-incentive bubble over the past several decades, one can only assume that human capital is being misallocated, to a disturbing degree. Awakening our monitors to their responsibilities and to the flaws of market-based compensation provides the best hope for correcting these imbalances and strengthening the U.S. economy for the challenges of this century.

John Cooper had spent the last five years working for Standard Holdings, an early stage business development and private equity arm of the Standard Group of Companies (Standard). The job was one he took immediately after graduating from business school, and he took the position of business analyst to capitalize on the chance to work with Alan Kirkpatrick, an accomplished and well-respected entrepreneur and founder of Standard. During his years at Standard, Cooper had benefitted greatly from Kirkpatrick's rich mentorship and devotion to the optimal development of professional relationships. Cooper grew the confidence to fully exploit his potential and subsequently was invited to participate in many unique experiences and developed relationships with all of Standard's key stakeholders. Cooper could not help but feel he was being groomed for a senior leadership position much earlier than expected. After receiving an interesting telephone call from a recruiter, Cooper wondered how to achieve his goal of career fulfillment and began by investigating other opportunities available to him within Standard and alternatively, incorporating his own independent consultancy.

John Cooper had spent the last five years working for Standard Holdings, an early stage business development and private equity arm of the Standard Group of Companies (Standard). Cooper had benefitted greatly from the rich mentorship that Standard's founder, Alan Kirkpatrick, provided. Cooper grew the confidence to fully exploit his potential and subsequently decided to leave Standard to incorporate his own consulting company. Before announcing his decision to Kirkpatrick to leave standard, Cooper was worried about the reaction he would receive. While saddened by the loss to Standard of Cooper's skills and talents, Kirkpatrick remained very supportive of the decision to leave and agreed to become Cooper's first client. Throughout the growth period of his new company, Cooper constantly reflected on the impact that Kirkpatrick's' influence had on his own decision-making. He ultimately realized the significant positive value that Kirkpatrick's mentorship had bestowed upon him when he returned to school for a master in business administration (MBA) and classmates would approach him for advice and compliment him on his professionalism and insights.