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On Wednesday, May 29, 2002, the board of directors of Renault-Nissan BV (RNBV) met for the first time to discuss the state of the alliance between Renault SA and Nissan Motors-two of the world's largest automakers. RNBV was a 50/50 joint venture company established in March of that year to oversee the strategy of the alliance and all activities undertaken jointly by Renault and Nissan. The new company would "steer alliance strategy and supervise common activities on a global level, while respecting the identity and culture of each company and not interfering in operations." Executives at both companies believed much had been accomplished in the first three years of the alliance. Nissan, under Carlos Ghosn's leadership, had improved its finances dramatically and was rapidly reemerging as a major player in the global auto industry. Moreover, the alliance partners were in line with their initial forecast of $3.3 billion in cost savings and synergies promised by 2002, according to their internal reporting. As the board prepared to meet, Louis Schweitzer and Ghosn believed the alliance faced difficult challenges ahead. To what extent would the two companies be able to realize further savings and synergies, particularly in the areas of manufacturing and additional sales? How should the RNBV board address issues that had surfaced as employees of the two firms worked together across disparate corporate and national cultures, functions, and geographies? Ultimately, would the two firms be able to strike a balance between deepening their alliance while "respecting the identity and culture of each company and not interfering in operations?"

Sun Hydraulics, 32-year-old global hydraulics engineering and manufacturing company headquartered in Sarasota, Florida; confronts tough choices due to the economic downturn in 2001. The company leadership debates how to maintain profitability and reduce labor costs without destroying the company's innovative culture, which is based on horizontal management and has no defined corporate hierarchy. This case includes an overview of the company's history, from its founding in 1970 to its IPO in 1997, and asks students to step into the shoes of Allen Carlson, Sun's president and CEO, to recommend specific cost-cutting actions.

DuPont Canada manufactures and sells the raw materials that are used to produce brand name home renovation and home decorating products, including fabrics, carpets, countertops, and paints. To develop relationships with consumers and acquire information on their purchasing needs and purchasing patterns, the company launched a web site that offered decorating idea and product information through a virtual home. After 12 months, the company's project team must decide whether the project was a worthwhile investment and whether they should invest in the second phase. In making their decision, they need to identify the performance metrics to use in estimating the return on investment. They also need to determine whether to pursue revenue generation through the sale of advertising space or online sales through the web site. Finally, the project team must assess whether their value chain partners would be willing to invest in the second phase of the project.

Charts the collapse of Enron and examines the role of various parties, including senior management, the board, and the auditors. Also looks at complex structures and accounting policies used to inflate both revenues and profits artificially and to conceal these from shareholders and others. Brings out key learning points on risk management, corporate governance, ethics, and controls of a complex enterprise.

Designed as an overview of all aspects of the strategy process: industry analysis, positioning, dynamics and sustainability, and scope issues of corporate strategy, including vertical integration, horizontal diversification, and location issues. Ice-Fili is the largest ice cream producer in Russia in 2002, but is facing strong competition from Nestle despite its success over other multinational competitors. Contains detailed exhibits, allowing deeper analyses.

The great U.K. retailer fell on hard times in 1998. In 2001, a new CEO was recruited who appears to have succeeded in turning around this world-renown company. This case examines the steps he took (strategic, structural, and recruiting key people) and highlights a series of fundamental questions that remain. Can the company regain its premium retail brand given the new competition and given the breadth of market segments that it addresses under one roof? Are the new approaches to sourcing and segmentation sound? Should the firm seriously consider reentering the international retail markets?

Philips is a major science-based multinational that has been restructuring since the early 1970s. This case provides an historical perspective on earlier efforts as well as a detailed description of the one pursued under Cor Boonstra, CEO from 1996 to 2001, that reorganized Philips from a product-country matrix structure into global product divisions. Closes with Boonstra's successor, Gerard Kleisterlee, facing the challenge of defining his own agenda for the company.

During the Fall of 2000, while stock market conditions were rapidly deteriorating, Interbrew, the world's second largest brewer, succeeded an impressive 14.1 billion euros initial public offering on Euronext Brussels, raising 3.25 billion euros to refinance its recent 3.6 billion euros acquisition of UK's second largest brewing company, Bass Brewers. However, at the time of the IPO, the acquisition of Bass Brewers was still under review by the British Government. On 3 January 2001, barely five weeks after it had gone public, Interbrew was hit with the verdict that it had to dispose Bass Brewers to an approved buyer. The stock market reacted in state of shock, wiping out 4 billion euros or 25% in shareholders' wealth. This whole set of circumstances creates a unique opportunity for students to analyse the appropriateness of Interbrew's IPO, its timing and its offering price of 33 euros. The case lends itself extremely well to discussions on the following aspects on an IPO for a large privately held company competing in a consolidating industry: (1) what does going public involve?; (2) why do companies go public?; (3) when should companies go public?; and (4) how do you price the shares of firms going public?

The case discusses how Terra Lycos is reshaping itself during the economic slowdown by diversifying its revenue stream and attempting to start selling products once offered for free. As a portal, Terra Lycos' products were, by nature, mainly information based. Can Terra Lycos succeed in transforming its products from free to pay?

In the summer of 2000, Bob Embry, the President of the Abell Foundation, asked two consultants to evaluate the performance Career Caravan, a job-to-work transportation program that his foundation was helping to fund. Career Caravan took low-income residents of West Baltimore to jobs in suburban Howard County, Maryland. The idea was that good jobs were more plentiful in the suburbs than in the central city, but that Baltimore's public transit system did not serve dispersed suburban employment centers well and many inner city residents did not have driver's licenses or own cars. But Embry was concerned that "reverse commute" programs like Career Caravan were expensive and did not do away with the need for costly job training to make the clients, many of whom had never been employed before, "job ready." HKS Case Number 1695.0

On October 21, 2001, a postal worker from a mail sorting facility in Washington, DC, died of inhalation anthrax-a disease virtually unseen for a century. The next day, a second employee from the same facility died. Fear of anthrax had already infected the public: media workers in Florida and New York City had contracted the disease. In addition, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) had received an anthrax-laden letter, his staff were all on antibiotics, and the Senate and House of Representatives buildings had closed for anthrax tests. This new threat re-ignited a sense of public panic. Virtually overnight, the United States Postal Service (USPS) found itself at the eye of a national security and public health storm. This case discusses how the USPS dealt with the anthrax crisis. HKS Case Number 1692.0.

In the hours and days following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks which destroyed New York's World Trade Center towers, New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani distinguished himself, in the view of many, for his style of leadership. A combination of resolve, reassurance, courage, and compassion appeared to rally the city and the United States. Although not long before he had been under fire for aspects of his mayoralty, the post 9/11 Giuliani won national and international acclaim as a leader. This case recounts the details of Giuliani's response such that students of effective public leadership can analyze both Giuliani's decisions and style as examples. The case combines a written account of Giuliani's career, his often-controversial pre-9/11 tenure in office, and a detailed description of his, and New York City government's response to the terrorist blows. The written case is complemented by a video exhibit that combine real-time footage of Giuliani during the immediate aftermath of the Trade Center attacks, as well as reflections by key New Yorkers on his leadership approach and its qualities. The case provides fodder for discussion of those personal and institutional characteristics which came into play during an extreme crisis management situation. These include Giuliani's personal and political behavior, his heroes and role models, as well as New York City's emergency management system and how it was deployed. There is a teaching note available for this case (1681.2). HKS Case Number 1681.0

Karen Barton, Zendal Pharmaceuticals' senior vice-president of human resources, was livid when COO Dave Palmer slashed her executive education budget by 75%. Without funding, there could be no in-house leadership development program, which was to be the first step toward a full-blown Zendal University. Palmer was not against bold initiatives, but sales were down 26%, and there was that $300 million debt Zendal took on when it acquired Premier Pharmaceuticals. As a result, Barton's budget wasn't the only one being cut. Palmer added that it wasn't clear what the return on investment of her proposed program--or any of her current ones for that matter--would be. Barton's analysis had been woefully short on quantitative benefits. Figuring ROI for people isn't the same as calculating the payback from a machine, Barton complained to friend and ally Carlos Freitas, head of the medical devices division. But Freitas disagreed: "If you want dollars, you have to show how you fit in with [management's] plans. You must be willing to fight for resources with the rest of us." She knew Freitas was right. She needed to make the case that doubling her budget was a smart move even in tough times. The question was, How? In R0305A and R0305Z, four commentators--Susan Burnett, an HR executive at Hewlett-Packard; Mike Morrison, dean of the University of Toyota; Noel M. Tichy, professor at the University of Michigan Business School; and David Owens, vice-president of Bausch & Lomb's corporate university--offer advice in this fictional case study.

Karen Barton, Zendal Pharmaceuticals' senior vice-president of human resources, was livid when COO Dave Palmer slashed her executive education budget by 75%. Without funding, there could be no in-house leadership development program, which was to be the first step toward a full-blown Zendal University. Palmer was not against bold initiatives, but sales were down 26%, and there was that $300 million debt Zendal took on when it acquired Premier Pharmaceuticals. As a result, Barton's budget wasn't the only one being cut. Palmer added that it wasn't clear what the return on investment of her proposed program--or any of her current ones for that matter--would be. Barton's analysis had been woefully short on quantitative benefits. Figuring ROI for people isn't the same as calculating the payback from a machine, Barton complained to friend and ally Carlos Freitas, head of the medical devices division. But Freitas disagreed: "If you want dollars, you have to show how you fit in with [management's] plans. You must be willing to fight for resources with the rest of us." She knew Freitas was right. She needed to make the case that doubling her budget was a smart move even in tough times. The question was, How? In R0305A and R0305Z, four commentators--Susan Burnett, an HR executive at Hewlett-Packard; Mike Morrison, dean of the University of Toyota; Noel M. Tichy, professor at the University of Michigan Business School; and David Owens, vice-president of Bausch & Lomb's corporate university--offer advice on this fictional case study.

Karen Barton, Zendal Pharmaceuticals' senior vice-president of human resources, was livid when COO Dave Palmer slashed her executive education budget by 75%. Without funding, there could be no in-house leadership development program, which was to be the first step toward a full-blown Zendal University. Palmer was not against bold initiatives, but sales were down 26%, and there was that $300 million debt Zendal took on when it acquired Premier Pharmaceuticals. As a result, Barton's budget wasn't the only one being cut. Palmer added that it wasn't clear what the return on investment of her proposed program--or any of her current ones for that matter--would be. Barton's analysis had been woefully short on quantitative benefits. Figuring ROI for people isn't the same as calculating the payback from a machine, Barton complained to friend and ally Carlos Freitas, head of the medical devices division. But Freitas disagreed: "If you want dollars, you have to show how you fit in with [management's] plans. You must be willing to fight for resources with the rest of us." She knew Freitas was right. She needed to make the case that doubling her budget was a smart move even in tough times. The question was, How? In R0305A and R0305Z, four commentators--Susan Burnett, an HR executive at Hewlett-Packard; Mike Morrison, dean of the University of Toyota; Noel M. Tichy, professor at the University of Michigan Business School; and David Owens, vice-president of Bausch & Lomb's corporate university--offer advice on this fictional case study.

The leading company in express airfreight shipments is seeking to maintain its superiority in an increasingly competitive global market place. The case describes how FedEx has used information technology to enhance the reliability of its service and add extra features for customers. It also describes the company's efforts to improve service quality in the U.S.A., including new measurement techniques, training, and "internal marketing". With the company facing a profit crunch following its merger with Flying Tigers, the senior vice president customer service seeks to maintain investment in the ongoing quality improvement program.

Discusses the impact of the Internet on the music industry from 1990 through 2003. Discusses the technology, new business models, and record companies' moves. Provides the necessary background to discuss such matters as well as to assess the strategies of the five major record companies--Sony, BMG, Warner, EMI, and Universal. Ends with the question of whether the music industry will survive and with arguments from both camps.

Describes the history of Energis, one of the United Kingdom's major alternative telecommunications network service providers (altnets). Tracks the company from its birth as a diversification move by the National Grid, the U.K.'s leading electricity distributor, through its dramatic growth, buoyed partly by the Internet boom, to its ultimate collapse. Illustrates the impact of major exogenous regulatory, technological, and demand shocks on an organization and highlights how these can be exaggerated by endogenous factors such as strategy, organizational structure, and systems.

Describes the complex operations of the cruise industry. Positioned between luxury cruise lines and mass market lines, Celebrity struggles to find ways to create customer loyalty and increase profitability.

In 1997, Lyle Hubbard, CEO of Gardenburger, a producer and marketer of veggie burgers and meat alternative products, had called together his executive team to discuss Gardenburger's advertising strategy, which until then had consisted mainly of print ads in food service trade publications, trade shows, off-invoice promotions with distributors, in-store sampling, and radio advertising. When Hubbard arrived at Gardenburger, he had wanted to create a rapidly growing, highly profitable company by taking veggie burgers from a small health food niche to the consumer mainstream. He believed that key to achieving this strategy was establishing national distribution in the largest channel, the grocery channel (which Gardenburger had only penetrated 30% by the beginning of 1996); innovating with flavor variety (but generally focusing on the veggie patty vs. expanding into other meat alternatives); and creating broad consumer awareness and trial.