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Pleasure Craft Inc. is a manufacturer of snowmobiles and personal watercraft. The company is looking into expanding it business into either outboard motors or front-end loaders. A new team leader has been asked to prepare financial analyses on each project and to recommend whether one or both projects should be pursued. The team leader must determine initial costs, estimate future cash flows, and calculate the cost of capital.

A consultant with a human resources consulting firm must reassess a client's long-term incentive program, by reviewing the current plans and considering other forms of incentives. Students will focus on accounting for equity-based compensation payments, the importance of assumptions in the determination of employee stock-option expense and financial reporting and economic implications of different long-term equity-based incentive plans.

The senior officers of a national office supplies manufacturer and distributor are at odds over a slow paying, and perhaps insolvent, major distributor, and what the options are to collect the account and maintain sales in the region.

Mearl Canada Limited does not want to implement Mearl Oil Company's environmental impact targets because, in Mearl Canada's opinion, the targets create an extra layer of regulation for considerable cost and negligible benefit. Mearl's position is that all Mearl worldwide operations must adopt these performance standards, as this will allow the company to make operational their stated environmental policy. Each party has an opportunity to make their case at the International Environmental Group meeting, and it will decide if Mearl Canada may deviate from the environmental impact target and continue with their own homegrown environmental management system and standards. This case is from the point of view of the manager, Mearl Support, environmental. The supplement Mearl Oil Company: Environmental Impact Targets (B), product 9B05M019, is from the senior environmental manager, Mearl Canada Limited view and the supplement Mearl Oil Company: Environmental Impact Targets (C), product 9B05M020, is from the International Environmental Group's perspective.

A recent MBA graduate is working as vice-president equity sales for an investment bank in the Ukraine. The firm's managing director has requested a recommendation regarding whether they should start investing in Ukrainian equities on their own account, or retain their practice of acting purely as an agent - buying and selling shares for clients without taking any ownership position.

A loan assessment officer at Export Development Canada is evaluating a proposed deal involving the export of refurbished machines used in the forestry industry. He must decide whether Export Development Corporation should extend loans to a foreign firm that is interested in purchasing from a Canadian supplier. Issues include international business risk and the role of an export development agency in facilitating a country's exports.

This case is designed to stimulate students' reflections on ethics. The context of the case is a familiar one to most students (plagiarism on a student essay); it therefore allows them to experience more personally the range of emotions and perspectives involved in ethical issues. Yet the parallels to business ethics situations are strong, and can be discussed in depth. Students are assigned to one of two roles in advance of class (a student who has plagiarized text for an assignment and a professor), supplement cases A Minor Assignment: Role of Rob Thatcher and A Minor Assignment: Role of Lydia Katz, products 9B05C007 and 9B05C008 are given out to support the roles.

A graduate of a business school must consider two options available to him with similar salary packages. The first is to accept an offer to start as an assistant marketing manager with a consumer packaged goods firm, the other is a consulting assignment with a small tool & die firm. The case provides students the opportunity to value different benefits based on their risk tolerance and career aspirations.

Royal Manufacturing Inc. requires an extension of its temporary $3 million line of credit. Holdbacks on contracts and several years of losses were causing a cash flow problem. The company and the bank must now assess the company's financial needs.

Plant Nutrients is a medium-sized retailer of crop supplies. The general manager is preparing a proposed operating statement to send to the parent company. This statement must reflect an increase in volume of two per cent while maintaining the required 13 per cent on investment in business. He is considering a number of ways of improving performance: getting better utilization of fertilizer blending capacity, adding a new line of seed and adding precision agriculture services. Another option is to alter pricing.

The Ontario Machinery Ring is a cooperative set up to perform a matchmaking service for farmers who want to have custom work done and farmers who want to do custom work. This concept is widespread in Europe but has not been tried in North America. The general manager of the organization has set up a prototype operation and is looking at expansion opportunities. Expansion will take more funds than are available and the general manager has sought financial assistance from the provincial Ministry of Agriculture and Food. Before committing funds to this project, the ministry requires marketing research to measure demand for the machinery ring concept. Supplemental cases, Ontario Machinery Ring (B) and (C), product 9B04A022 and 9B04A023 look at questionnaire development and data analysis.

A young manager at a consultancy firm is faced with the lack of business professionalism at a speaking event of a well-known guest speaker. The event is poorly attended by staff and a series of disrespectful actions on the part of the attendees - occurs. The manager must decide how to handle similar situations in the future.

The human resources manager at Moss Earthmoving Equipment sends an e-mail to the director of career management at a business school outlining two incidents of lack of professionalism displayed by recent MBA new hires. These actions eroded the company's confidence in recruiting from the school. The director must decide what immediate action should be taken and what changes if any, should be made in the long term.

A manager must decide among seven candidates to recommend for a management promotion. The company has developed a new focus on equal opportunity for its female employees, so the manager is struggling with the decision of which to choose from five male and two female candidates, particularly in light of some company statistics that indicated women were not proportionally represented in management.

The purchasing manager was wondering how many bottles he should purchase in the coming year. Last year, the market had levelled off and sales predictions were difficult. On the one hand he wanted to be sure sufficient bottles were available to supply this year's sales levels, yet he also wanted to minimize year-end inventories as covered storage space for empty bottles was tight and a bottle change-over seemed possible in the next two years.

Golden Tulip is a small hotel that provides a unique hotel experience for business and pleasure travelers. The owner was concerned about the decrease in occupancy and hired an independent consultant, who must complete the analysis and design task for a new information system that would address promotion and reservation concerns.

The new senior vice president of marketing at Vista-Sci Health Care Inc. must decide which of two very strong yet very different candidates he should promote to the position from which he has just been promoted. Both candidates have demonstrated strengths and weaknesses in their current jobs; the question is whether or not these competencies and other personal characteristics make them a good fit for the new role.

A recent MBA graduate has joined a small division of a medical equipment manufacturer as a regional sales manager. Sales are not going well, customer complaints are common, and he is unhappy with the amount of time he must spend away from home. The regional sales manager must analyse his options to determine the best way to balance the rigours of a sales career and personal life. He must consider the challenges of an undefined, boundary-spanning role; management's possible role in mitigating these challenges; and the expectations about the rigours of a sales career.

<p style="color: rgb(197, 183, 131);"><strong> AWARD WINNER - Regional Asia-Pacific Case Writing Competition</strong></p><br>Worldwide Equipment Ltd. is one of the world's largest manufacturers of heating, ventilating and air conditioning equipment. The Beijing regional sales manager has just heard that the sales performance of his office ranked the lowest among the sales offices in China. The sales Beijing force will not receive their year-end bonus unless the situation can be turned around quickly. He must determine whether the sales management process or a recent new hire on the sales force, whose hiring was strongly suggested by the manager's boss, are to blame for the poor sales performance and how to keep the situation from recurring.

Jonathon Elderslie, recently retired after running his own company for 30 years, must decide what questions he should ask before deciding whether to join the board of directors of a publicly traded company. While flattered by the invitation, he has some concerns given the current climate of concern about corporate governance and, more specifically, the views about the role of a director expressed by one of his business acquaintances.