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On May 30, 1787, the second day of the Convention held in the Pennsylvania State House, six states voted "aye" and one "nay" to the proposal to establish "a national Government ... consisting of a supreme Legislative, Executive and Judiciary." In that moment, delegates who had gathered merely to revise the Articles of Confederation agreed to abolish it. In that moment, James Madison earned the title of Father of the Constitution, although he had not even introduced the proposal.

A French executive with Michelin is expatriated from Clermont-Ferrand to South Carolina. Initially confident in his leadership skills, the protagonist learns quickly that many aspects of leading a team are quite different in the American environment. Although he ultimately succeeds, Chalon initially struggles to understand the different culture in which he is working and adapt his style accordingly.

A French executive with Michelin is expatriated from Clermont-Ferrand to South Carolina. Initially confident in his leadership skills, the protagonist learns quickly that many aspects of leading a team are quite different in the American environment. Although he ultimately succeeds, Chalon initially struggles to understand the different culture in which he is working and adapt his style accordingly.

The lean initiative detailed in the (A) case, UV1079, had reached a precarious stage. Despite an optimistic business forecast, there was a disturbing trend developing: the Machine and Systems division of Wausau Equipment Company (WECO) had failed to sell several harvesting systems to customers previously thought to be reliable buyers. It also appeared that the competition was making important inroads in what was traditionally "WECO country." The first wave of improvements made by the eight teams with regard to quality, productivity, and cycle-time reduction was not yet having any impact in the field. Team member enthusiasm to re-engage in the next improvement cycles had waned, yet some managers, supervisors and team leaders voiced strong support for the lean initiative. Pressure to cut costs was growing, and the lean initiative was increasingly seen by some as unnecessary and even wasteful. If the lean initiative were restarted, what could be done to ensure that it was effective and sustainable and what areas of the enterprise should be included? The president of WECO had to develop an agenda for the coming staff meeting, where he hoped to guide discussion toward the future of the lean initiative at his company.

This file contains slides that show the elements chosen by the senior management and consultants to re-engage and re-launch the lean journey at Wausau Equipment Company, following its original failed implementation and necessitated by implementation and acceptance problems at the management level.

Bear Stearns & Co burned through nearly all of its $18 billion in cash reserves during the week of March 10, 2008, and an unprecedented provision of liquidity support from the Federal Reserve on Friday March 13 was insufficient to reverse the decline in Bear's condition. Federal Reserve Chairman Benjamin Bernanke, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and New York Fed President Timothy Geithner were intent on limiting the impact of Bear's problems on the wider financial system. James "Jamie" Dimon, Morgan's Chairman and CEO, was in frequent contact with these regulators over the weekend of March 14-16, negotiating possible scenarios for the rescue of Bear, without which would force it to seek bankruptcy protection when markets opened on Monday. Late on Sunday afternoon, March 16, Bear's board accepted Morgan's offer to purchase Bear for $2 per share, an offer that would not have been made without significant government assistance. There was hope that the Bear rescue would help avert the far-reaching spread of damage into the larger financial world that many policymakers viewed as likely to follow the failure of a major investment bank. This case examines a seminal event in the financial and economic crisis that began in the summer of 2007, and provides background for better understanding the full scope of the crisis as it was revealed during the summer and fall of 2008. It was written to address two sets of issues. First, it provides the opportunity to understand the corporate finance issues of capital and liquidity, and of firm valuation. Second, the case allows for the exploration of aspects of a firm's internal and external governance, as well as the challenges of navigating through a crisis when faced with compelling pressures from competing stakeholders.

Bear Stearns & Co burned through nearly all of its $18 billion in cash reserves during the week of March 10, 2008, and an unprecedented provision of liquidity support from the Federal Reserve on Friday March 13 was insufficient to reverse the decline in Bear's condition. Federal Reserve Chairman Benjamin Bernanke, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and New York Fed President Timothy Geithner were intent on limiting the impact of Bear's problems on the wider financial system. James "Jamie" Dimon, Morgan's Chairman and CEO, was in frequent contact with these regulators over the weekend of March 14-16, negotiating possible scenarios for the rescue of Bear, without which would force it to seek bankruptcy protection when markets opened on Monday. Late on Sunday afternoon, March 16, Bear's board accepted Morgan's offer to purchase Bear for $2 per share, an offer that would not have been made without significant government assistance. There was hope that the Bear rescue would help avert the far-reaching spread of damage into the larger financial world that many policymakers viewed as likely to follow the failure of a major investment bank. This case examines a seminal event in the financial and economic crisis that began in the summer of 2007, and provides background for better understanding the full scope of the crisis as it was revealed during the summer and fall of 2008. It was written to address two sets of issues. First, it provides the opportunity to understand the corporate finance issues of capital and liquidity, and of firm valuation. Second, the case allows for the exploration of aspects of a firm's internal and external governance, as well as the challenges of navigating through a crisis when faced with compelling pressures from competing stakeholders.

Yieldex CEO Tom Shields was hired by the company's technical founder, Doug Cosman, in October 2007. One of Shields' top priorities is finding a vice president of engineering to manage the company's software development efforts. Shields and Costman disagree about the ideal profile of the new hire. Shields found a candidate that he likes, and he wonders about the implications of hiring the person against Cosman's wishes.

The B case examines the shifting dynamics as Intel and Microsoft assert their dominance over the box makers. By 2001, Compaq was toppled as the world's largest PC maker. Intel remained the world's largest processor maker and Microsoft remained a software giant. But a company founded in 1984 by a University of Texas student had taken its place as a powerhouse in the "Wintel" value chain. That company was Dell. See the A case (UV1011) and C case (UV1013).

Dell clung to the top spot among PC makers in 2006, when it shipped just over 38 million computers-only about 20,000 more than rival Hewlett-Packard (HP), which acquired Compaq in 2001. HP also reported gains in the fast-growing laptop segment, mostly at the expense of Dell. After HP and Dell, the next three largest PC makers in 2006 were all based outside the United States: Lenovo of China (which purchased IBM's PC division in 2001), Acer of Taiwan, and Toshiba of Japan. Analysts observed that competitors had found ways to duplicate much of Dell's operations. See also the A and B cases (UV1011 and UV1012).

Dr. C.V. Chen learned that one of Lee and Li's senior legal assistants had illegally sold a client's shares in a Taiwanese company and sneaked out of Taiwan with over NT$3 billion. Lee and Li took several actions to minimize the impact of the situation on the firm, its clients and its employees. Now Chen began to review the events and the actions taken. Although he knew that the worst was behind, he also knew that a great deal of work needed to be done in order to ensure the reputation of the firm would remain intact in the future.

Bill Smith is informed by his general contractor that a key component of the Aria Resort is going to be delayed. Aria is the centerpiece of CityCenter: a $9 billion complex and a bet-the-firm decision for MGM Mirage. Smith must make a decision as to whether to force the general contractor to complete construction or to have the MGM Design Group take over this piece of the construction. The case also looks at the economics of the CityCenter project and discusses the organizational underpinnings needed to make a massive construction process a success.

In this first in a series of cases on organizational network analysis (ONA), Vic Gulas, the new head of IT at the engineering consulting firm MWH Consulting, is charged with turning a geographically organized department into one organized by function. He knows that the success of the reorganization will depend on effective collaboration, but he cannot get a sense of what collaborative relationships do and do not exist by looking at a formal organizational chart. Instead, Gulas uses ONA, a method for mapping relationships among people in a group. In the ONA results, Gulas sees a group still fragmented by geography and constrained by hierarchy and other gaps in connectivity. The B case presents the network-building steps Gulas took on the basis of the ONA results and the results of a follow-up ONA Gulas conducted two years after the initial analysis. This second ONA revealed a network that was stronger and more appropriately connected in various ways.

Supplements the (A) case.

Supplement to 609-065

Supplement to 609065

Under the leadership of Tim Flynn, Chairman and CEO of KPMG, the firm made a number of changes in compensation, governance, and culture in order to address the underlying reasons for actions that occurred prior to him becoming CEO that led to the accounting giant paying $456 million to the federal government over allegedly selling illegal tax shelters. These changes included a common compensation bonus pool for the entire firm and rewarding people for professionalism as much as for business development; strengthening governance by adding a lead director to the board, removing the chairman and deputy chairman from board member selection, and creating separate committees for professional practice, ethics, and compliance and operations; and enhanced its ethics and compliance program through human resource processes (e.g., recruiting, orientation, training, and exit interviews), implementing periodic and required ethics courses, active firm leadership in these courses, and establishing multiple channels of communication for employees to raise concerns with an explicit "no retaliation" policy. In January 2007, 86% of the employees were proud to work for the firm, compared to 60% in 2005. Employee turnover was at an all-time low. And the Tax Practice, the source of the problems, was the fastest growing such practice in the Big Four accounting firms at 18%.

To help her finance her aggressive expansion plans, Genevieve Thiers plans to raise venture capital for the first time. She has spent the last six long years building Sittercity into the nation's leading babysitting web service, larger than all of its competitors combined. In the process, she brought her boyfriend and his sister into the business to help her, and ended up learning important lessons about mixing family and business. Now looking to raise venture capital, Thiers has just received an email from a general partner at a top VC firm, proposing another meeting and asking her to bring to the meeting an extensive list of proprietary information. This was a promising development, but Thiers was unsure whether she wanted to discuss Sittercity in such depth, especially when the venture capital firm had refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement. How should she respond?