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In 2013, CEO Frida Polli was contemplating the next steps for her start-up business, pymetrics. After receiving her PhD in neuropsychology and MBA from HBS, she was determined to put her scientific and academic knowledge to work to build a business solving real world problems. To this end, her team at pymetrics had adapted a set of robust neuroscience-based computer exercises designed to measure a number of elements of brain functionality and apply these exercises to the world of talent assessment. In just about 25 minutes, these tests compiled a powerful cognitive, social, and emotional profile of the individual that could match the output of experienced interviewers or much longer psychometric testing programs. And the added benefit was that these tests, unlike interviews, discussion panels, or self-reported questionnaires, were hard to "game" because the underlying brain function and rate of learning showed through. Frida believed that her exercise suite would be invaluable to recruiters and had demonstrated to a hedge fund and a major consulting firm that it was much more cost effective than their traditional approaches and could be used to broaden their search for the best talent. As she got out of the cab at LaGuardia to catch the plane for Boston, she wondered what the Harvard Business School class she was about to address would think of her ideas and how they might suggest she implement them.

The Opportunity Hub was a cloud-based platform that enabled managers to market projects they were working on and associated resourcing needs as 'Opportunity Owners' and employees, or 'Opportunity Seekers', to browse these statements of need and engage when they had interest and availability. The premise was that the commitment would be no more than 20% of an employee's time, and could be much less, but it would be highly transparent. The Opportunity Hub was intended to offer a solution to Shell's business challenge of lacking digital capability. The core objective was to organize and dynamically access internal talent to get work done in a more automated way and at pace.

The overarching vision of the global nongovernmental organization Transparency International was to free the world from corruption. Transparency International Ukraine (TIU) was founded in 2014, after three failed attempts, to tackle the high level of corruption that had taken hold of that country. Over the first two years, the chief executive officer faced significant organizational issues that hindered the organization's performance; he appointed an external hire as chief operating officer to help facilitate a transition to a new, more professional team in Kyiv and to turn the organization around. As the two seasoned professionals worked collaboratively to revamp the organization, they realized they faced challenging external and internal pressures. Not only were they tackling highly corrupt public officers and colluding oligarchic elites, they were also faced with alienated volunteers, who questioned their ability to transform TIU. In 2017, they had made some progress but still faced many barriers. How could they reinvent the organization without risking burnout?

In 2018, China was the biggest market for Internet services in the world. Along with the country's huge market size, its comparatively low penetration made it an immensely attractive market for search engine services. To capture this market, Google was planning to re-enter the Chinese market-after leaving in 2010-with a censored search engine codenamed "Dragonfly." The move was opposed by human rights activists, Google's own employees, and the U.S. government. Google had the opportunity to improve its share in the global search-engine segment if it could somehow tap into the vast Chinese market. But the tight control over Internet services by the Chinese government on one hand, and the protests by various interest groups on the other, had put Google in a tight spot. Google had to decide if it should go ahead with the plan to offer Dragonfly in China. Should Google instead explore other market and non-market strategies to re-enter the Chinese market?

In October 2016, the board of Tata Sons, a company in the Tata Group, India's largest business group, decided to remove Cyrus Mistry from the chairmanship of its board. Subsequently, Tata Sons appealed to the shareholders of the other Tata Group companies, including Tata Steel Limited, to also remove Mistry from their boards. The shareholders of Tata Steel were informed that an extraordinary general meeting had been called to vote on two resolutions that would decide whether Mistry and another independent board member should continue as directors of Tata Steel or be removed from their positions. How could the shareholders make a thoughtful and forward-thinking decision on the two resolutions?

The case describes the Red Flags game, a single-player game that is complementary to seminar teaching, and provides more flexible experiential learning opportunities for students. It is aimed at teaching students the internal control and fraud prevention concepts covered in the Accounting Information Systems course. The role of this course is to provide a specialised in-depth accounting course that addresses these key notions: role of information systems within accounting; documentation of accounting information systems including data flow diagrams and flowcharts; database management, processes and modelling; exposures and risks associated with accounting information systems; evaluation of information technology internal controls and impact on internal control; impact of information technology on the audit process; relationship of accounting information systems to major processes of the business cycle; and development, design and analysis of accounting information systems.

In the summer of 2019, Yu Sasaki, Head of the Game Division of DeNA, a Japanese mobile gaming company, is evaluating various growth strategies for its recent game Othellonia. Sasaki needs to decide if he should focus on customer acquisition, retention, or monetization.

This case addresses the nuances of gender dynamics and career progression at the top of the organization, where even women who have strong leadership expertise, experience, and alliances with powerful male colleagues still get stuck. Told from the point of view of Sonia Millar, the case explicitly presents two significant challenges: How can Millar sustain her career momentum into the CEO role despite taking on the critical but difficult role of CIO: How can Millar address the potentially antagonistic actions of another business leader who may be another strong contender for the CEO promotion? The case provides the opportunity to discuss influence, action planning, talent management, inclusion, and implicit bias. It is designed to provoke debate in the classroom regarding the phenomenon of gender bias (among other forms of bias) in the workplace. It is recommended for upper-level undergraduates, MBA candidates, and executive education participants in courses focused on organizational behavior, power and politics, leadership, diversity, and career management.

James "Hondo" Geurts, the Acquisition Executive for U.S. Special Operations Command was in the middle of his Senate confirmation hearing in 2017 to become Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition. Overseeing acquisitions in one of the most secretive parts of the U.S. military, Geurts had founded SOFWERX, an open platform to diversify and speed the rate of new ideas into Navy SEALs, Army Special Forces, and the like. His approach helped source the idea for the EZ-Fly, a hoverboard, from a YouTube video. At his confirmation hearing, the Senators' questions had a common theme: How should things like SOFWERX and protypes like the EZ-Fly find a place within the Navy writ large? How would Geurts's experience running an innovative procurement effort for U.S. Special Forces units enable him to change a much larger-and much more rigid-organization like the U.S. Navy?

This case looks at the deal-making process between Celgene, a large publicly traded pharmaceutical company, and Agios, an early-stage biotech company. The framework of a potential deal is explored and the potential road-blocks to Agios' profitability are discussed. The relationship between a fledgling biotech company and an established pharmaceutical company as well as the expectations from both sides regarding their deal are examined.

This is an industry note on renewable energy-wind, solar, governmental incentives and storage. It covers the recent history of both the wind and solar industries, an extensive look at governmental policies in the United States, including the Green New Deal, and supply-demand-price developments in those sectors.

Unilever subsidiary Dove soap became a "brand with a purpose" and created shared value when the company decided to launch a Campaign for Real Beauty to combat the artificial media-driven stereotype of female beauty that causes appearance anxiety in women and girls around the world. From as young as 6 years of age, girls develop concerns about their body image that affect their self-confidence, relationships, health and careers. Through research and evidence-based practices, Dove developed a global campaign including advertisements, school curricula, online resources, public events, policy advocacy, and training sessions that reached more than 35 million girls and women across 140 countries. Rigorous evaluations demonstrated positive impact in self-esteem and body image while driving a decade of consecutive sales growth for Dove, ultimately becoming Unilever's biggest brand. Yet the challenge of deciding how to allocate funds between advertising the product and conducting educational programs to deliver social impact remained. The company also faced criticism about other Unilever brands, such as Axe or Fair & Lovely, that contradicted the Dove campaign.

A Harvard Business School alumna discusses her life trajectory.

In 2012, Nalin Jain, then head of GE aviation for South Asia, was given the added responsibility for GE's transportation business in India, including bidding for a $2.5 billion contract to manufacture, service and maintain 1,000 diesel locomotives for state owned Indian Railways (IR). The deal, which would have been "the largest deal on the planet" for the transportation business, had been under discussion for six years, and many within GE had given up hope that it would materialize, but Jain persisted. In February 2015, when IR requested companies to submit a financial bid in six months, Jain quickly built an autonomous team, sequestered from the rest of GE, with people from multiple businesses and functions. His team overcame internal resistance from people at headquarters and stiff competition to help GE win the deal by a narrow margin. Jain was then tasked with executing the deal. As many of his earlier team members had moved on, Jain hired new people and built a new diverse yet integrated team for execution, with members able to put aside their many differences, look beyond their functional silos, and focus on the project deliverables. However, 2017 brought a series of challenges. GE changed India's organization structure, making India business leaders report only to their respective global business leaders instead of reporting to both their business leaders and the India country leader. Jain's mandate was expanded to include the entire international operations of GE's transportation business. And, sub-optimal company performance forced GE to announce cost cuts of $2 billion. In the face of this turmoil, Jain wonders, "Have I created an agile team that can succeed in GE's matrix environment and deal with the internal challenges? Do the team members have the maturity and motivation required for the project to succeed?"

The chairman of Fuyao Glass Industry Group Co. Ltd. was pleased with his company's financial results for the first half of 2018. Two years earlier, the organization's subsidiary, Fuyao Glass America Inc., had completed the construction of the largest auto glass manufacturing facility in the world, which was located in Moraine, Ohio. Its revenues in the first half of 2018 had surged 27 per cent compared with the previous year, while groupwide revenues of the organization had grown 16 per cent. Fuyao Glass America Inc. had converted its loss of ¥65 million into a profit of ¥48 million. With deteriorating relations between the governments of China and the United States (U.S.) indicating an uncertain future, some social pundits were criticizing the organization for deserting China by investing overseas. The chairman remained defiant and confident in his strategy, but how would the company's U.S. expansion and global strategy be affected by recent developments in the relationship between China and the United States?

By the end of 2018, a recent business program graduate had found that his first social enterprise had been a success, and he wanted to start his next venture in the Kenyan agricultural market. He identified three challenges in this area-climate change, lack of market access, and ineffective education systems-and he wanted to try to address one of these with a new business. Case A explores how he needed to perform a market assessment to understand the opportunities and constraints of the Kenyan market, identify the resources and processes that would be available to him when starting the business, and form strategies for performing customer research.