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The case presents an investment opportunity in a Chinese technology company by using a variable interest entity (VIE). Since foreign ownership is restricted in certain sectors of the Chinese economy, like technology, a VIE can be used to structure around such regulations. VIEs are complex arrangements that rely on an intricate network of contractual relationships that have been designed to mitigate, but cannot eliminate the risk of investing without becoming a shareholder of the investment target. As almost all Chinese technology companies that are listed on exchanges outside of China use a VIE structure, it is important to understand the possible risks associated with investing via a VIE. Examples such as Alibaba are used to illustrate the risks related to using a VIE to access Chinese investment opportunities.

Matthew Andrews and Elizabeth (Liz) Graham had recently graduated college and planned to get married soon. They had both accepted jobs in Washington, DC, and would be moving to Gainesville, Virginia. Matthew would be working as a software engineer with both medical and life insurance, and Liz was taking a job as an advertising agent with no benefits. Until they started their jobs, neither Matthew nor Liz had health insurance. This was a source of real concern, especially since they recently had found out Liz was pregnant. They decided to sit down, go over the benefits offered by Matthew's employer, and make some decisions about which health insurance plan might be best for them, as well as consider life insurance and disability insurance options.

ClearLife's first product was a trading and analytics platform for participants in the US life settlement market, the secondary market for life insurance. ClearLife played a key role in facilitating transactions and devising a common language for expressing value and risk in this alternative asset class, and soon became the leading service provider in this market. After six years, ClearLife began to search for new business opportunities and identified the equity release market as particularly promising: ClearLife could leverage its experience in handling longevity-linked assets, and there were no strong competitors in sight. Nevertheless, this small enterprise faced the risk and challenges associated with allocating its limited resources to expanding the business. Students studying this case explore the factors underpinning the attempt of an InsurTech company trying to diversify.

Eric Hawkins, director of engineering at AppFolio-a digital technology firm that offered cloud-based business software to small and medium sized companies-was shocked by an unusual request from his senior leadership team. Could Hawkins and one of his agile teams build a check scanner feature inside their management software? AppFolio's founders had instructed to never build a check scanner; providing technologies to help businesses move into the digital era was a primary company goal. A scanner for paper checks would contradict the hard-won culture of software innovation and project self-selection that AppFolio and Hawkins' teams lived by. Hawkins also worried that creating a new team to work on the check scanning project would cause workload and morale issues. But the sales team believed that this technology could close deals with larger, more complex property management companies, some with managers who wanted the check scanner feature. Several large-scale deals were on the line. Hawkins quickly assembled an agile market validation team and considered two options: hold fast to the company's values and refuse to build the check scanner feature or capitulate and build a basic check scanner with minimum functionality. Engineers would likely consider this a "loser" project, yet sales might get a boost that could open a new revenue stream. Hawkins had to make his decision quickly.

On May 9th, 2018, in an extraordinary upset, Mahathir Mohamad again became Malaysia's Prime Minister. Najib Razak, who had headed the government since 2009, had been swept up in the 1MDB scandal - perhaps the biggest state-corruption incident in history. Although Malaysia's growth had remained solid since the financial crisis, the scandal undermined the budget, the country's debt position, and foreigners' willingness to invest. What was it in the history, culture and institutional structure of the country that had allowed 1MDB to happen. And could the 93 year-old Mahathir get the country back on track?

In July 2016, in Philadelphia, a group of aspiring entrepreneurs had developed a proof-of-concept prototype for the Drinks-Up! mobile drinks-ordering app, a digital innovation designed to provide a better bar experience. The team had received an investment proposal that included a plan for app development and a partnership opportunity from the potential investor's company, and they were facing an investment decision: Was an agreement that would see the investor develop the app the right option to develop Drinks-Up!? If not, how much time and sweat equity was this really going to take? Was Drinks-Up! truly a disruptive innovation that was worth the risk?

Ofo (stylized "ofo"), a Beijing-based bicycle-sharing company, had grown bicycle sharing from nothing into a dockless mobile application (app) service industry with over 120 million monthly active users sharing 30 million bicycles in cities across China and around the world. Founded by five bicycle enthusiasts in 2014, its dockless system used a smartphone application to unlock and locate nearby bicycles, charging an hourly rate for use. Although only two years old in 2017-and yet to turn a profit-the company was valued at over USD 1 billion in a recent E round of private-equity financing. ofo's new funds would be used to buy bicycles for international expansion and hire more talent, but in a rapidly changing, highly competitive environment, the company needed to assess its current and future position.

Sandu Pharmaceuticals Ltd. (Sandu Pharmaceuticals) was a publicly listed company operating in the pharmaceuticals and health care sector. It manufactured Ayurvedic medicines. Incorporated in 1985, the company traced its history back over more than a century. The third generation was at the helm of the firm in September 2016. The company's director, was thinking about how previous successive generations in the family had handled the challenge of absorbing family members into the business, and in particular about whether he was doing enough to prepare the next generation to take over a business that was bound to grow more rapidly in the future, given the growing concern worldwide about the cost of allopathic health care and demand for less invasive and more holistic treatments.

Lieven Demeester was the Associate Dean of the Singapore Management University (SMU) Master of Business Administration (MBA) programme. The University was launched in 2000 as a school with a distinctive approach to undergraduate education relative to two well entrenched local competing business schools - both in terms of a broad-based curriculum and an interactive pedagogy that aimed at developing students with strong communication and collaborative skills. In 2008, SMU launched an MBA programme with a small cohort of 45 students (including both part-time and full-time) students. Since then, the programme had undergone a few changes to its curriculum and had expanded in size to around a hundred full-time and part-time students. SMU capitalised on its location in the heart of Singapore to attract foreign candidates who were keen to work in the country. However, regulatory changes had made it more difficult for foreign students to find jobs in the country after graduation. The MBA programme was especially important because growth of the undergraduate programme was constrained by the Ministry of Education, which subsidised tertiary education. Also, it is usually the flagship programme of a business school. The recruitment team regularly travelled to hold roadshows and information sessions within Asia while the marketing team used social and traditional media to raise awareness for the programme. The career services team was expanded to help students in their job searches. Deemester was considering getting the programme ranked internationally. How could he differentiate the SMU MBA programme from competing programmes, taking into account the needs of its target market?

Kiera, a young, enthusiastic sales rep, was recently promoted to manager of a sales team of five. In her first year on the job, she tackled a major revamp of the company's outdated training materials and organized a regional conference for her area, but neither her boss nor corporate seemed to appreciate the work she had been doing. Without support or guidance from her boss, Kiera was confused. What was she supposed to do? Parts A and B of the case present two different perspectives on coaching. Part A contains a narrative from the point of view of the "coachee," Kiera, who was learning how to work with her boss, ultimately with the assistance of an executive coach. This case focuses on coaching as a tool to enhance self-management and relationship management and to improve personal performance. Part B describes how Kiera started to learn the "coach approach" to managing her team with the continued guidance of her executive coach. She learned to apply the same skills that her coach used with her in Part A to diagnose her team, share feedback, and communicate expectations. She was learning how to listen and ask thoughtful questions, but she also needed to expand her awareness to "other-management" and build her own coaching skills to enhance her team's performance.

IDinsight, an evaluation company founded by graduates of the Harvard Kennedy School, designs and conducts evaluations that best suit the needs of clients across the developing world, offering timely and rigorous evidence to help decision making. In 2014, USAID approached IDinsight to conduct an evaluation of an affordable solar lantern developed by another social organization, d.light. IDinsight would have to assess whether d.light's innovation was worth subsidizing and scaling in other parts of Africa and the world. This case describes the decisions and challenges IDinsight faced when conducting the evaluation and presents the results of the evaluation for students to consider. This case includes a 10:45 min. video where Neil Buddy Shah, CEO and Co-Founder of IDinsight, describes the company's approach to evaluating anti-poverty programs in developing countries. Shah also explains what evaluation design was ultimately chosen, why, and what the results of the evaluation were. Segments from the video can be used as a way to reveal this information as part of the class discussion.

This case features an entrepreneur striving to rapidly grow a successful chain of hair salons that serve women with afro hair. After doubling from 13 to 26 salons across Brazil in 2014, the founders' expansion plan called for 120 Beleza Natural salons and R$1 billion in sales by 2018. CEO and cofounder Leila Velez is considering various fundamental marketing strategies to catalyze growth: Should Beleza launch a new mass-media campaign, increase promotional discounts, expand its target market to serve men, broaden its service offerings, streamline processes to reduce wait times, expand distribution channels, or franchise? Students assume the role of Velez and are asked to recommend which growth strategy would be their top priority. In doing so, they are required to evaluate how these strategies pertain to the company's business model and value proposition. They are also challenged to consider what a brand is and what makes a strong service brand in order to verify if their strategies are consistent with Beleza's brand. The teaching note outlines a framework for developing or evaluating a business model as well as developing strategies for managing growth. The case is accompanied by a series of video interviews with Velez that support case preparation, in-class discussion, and key learning points.

Jane Philpott, a federal member of Parliament and minister in the Canadian government's cabinet, had told voters during her election campaign in 2015, "For me, a seat in the House of Commons is not a target; it's a tool. It's the tool that you and I will use to make this community better-to make this country better." Four years later, Philpott was forced to examine her position and her potential to use that tool when a scandal brought to question the principles upon which the governing party had campaigned. Resigning over principles carried a great cost; was it the right decision for Philpott?

In April 1520, Gaspar de Quesada and other Spanish Captains mutinied against their Portuguese admiral Ferdinand Magellan. After being retired by the Portuguese King, Magellan approached the Spanish King, Charles I, claiming to know a passage through the newly found continent to South-East-Asia. The king promised Magellan significant personal gain and full authority over an armada of five ships. When leaving Spain in 1519, Magellan did not reveal the details of his plans to the mostly Spanish captains of the other ships, but rather ordered them to just follow his boat. A minor signal of disobedience by Magellan's deputy was met with immediate force and the expedition continued until Magellan ordered to stay in a natural harbor during Winter season and drastically rationed supplies. The case study describes a meeting between the Spanish Captains under the command of Gaspar de Quesada during which they debate their options, namely a mutiny to get control of the largest ship, San Antonio. Using a historical case and setting, the case allows to discuss multiple issues of contemporary interest in the domains of leadership and (business) ethics, namely loyalty, authority, power, (dis-)obedience, psychological contracts (and their violations), organizational success, and triple bottom line thinking.

BootsUnlimited.com (BU) is a website offering custom-made footwear. Customers can choose from a wide variety of styles and can also create new styles based on their exact specifications. The company instructs customers on how to provide 20 different foot and calf measurements, and from those measurements, the footwear is made in a Thai production facility. BU products cater to the custom boot market and to very different segments, and the brothers who co-own the family business have designed a Google AdWords campaign for their company to target each segment. Because they were starting with a limited budget, and because BU catered to such niche markets, the Rosens decided to start with very specific keywords that would require lower bids. They believed that starting this way would keep them from running out of money too soon.

The backwaters of Vembanad, in Kerala, India, were a renowned tourist attraction, known for their beautiful waters, schools of fish, and the people who lived along the shores. However, the exploitation of resources had taken a toll on the lake and its ecosystem. Pollution and the decline of the rich fish population had left the community impoverished. In 2008, the non-profit social enterprise Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment (ATREE) had launched an innovative educational and self-regulatory program that had begun to improve the ecosystem. However, by 2018, the resurgence of the fish population had also attracted a fisheries-based food company that wanted to begin processing and exporting fish caught in Vembanad. The immediate employment benefits were attractive to the impoverished local fishers, but the long-term consequences for the region and its community were severe. How should ATREE respond to this pending crisis? Should ATREE use incoming money for immediate relief for Vembanad's stakeholders or should it use the money for long-term benefit by focusing on further conservation efforts?

Since China's accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001, economic relations between China and the US have deepened. Along with closer ties, however, has also come greater political conflict. In this case, students will analyse the current Sino-US diplomatic relationship through two distinct lenses: 1) bilateral diplomatic relations; 2) economic theory. By understanding the complex political and economic factors underpinning the relationship, students will be called on to propose potential solutions to avoid further escalation.

Based in Omaha, Nebraska, Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is a holding company that invests in many diverse businesses. The most significant of those are property and casualty insurance businesses, although the company owns businesses in the railroad, utilities, energy, and finance industries as well. The case focuses on accounting for investments at Berkshire Hathaway. The company adopted the new US guidance (ASU 2016-01) on accounting for investments in its 2018 10-K, and key excerpts from that report comprise much of the case. Students are asked to review Berkshire Hathaway's financial statements and the footnotes related to its investments, consider the method of accounting for those investments, and decipher their impact on the financial statements.

In June 2017, executives from Amalsad Vibhag Vividh Karyakari Sahakari Khedut Mandali Ltd. (Amalsad Cooperative) met to consider possible changes to the cooperative's interventions in commodity marketing, particularly, whether further interventions would benefit member farmers. Linking a unique reward and penalty scheme to the grade supplied by the farmers and directly supplying produce to the terminal market in Delhi had resulted in a 15 per cent increase in the farmers' income. Streamlining the entire process-from receiving the commodity, grading and sorting the supply, to paying the farmers-had considerably reduced delays. The chairperson of the Amalsad Cooperative, which covered farmers from 17 villages near the town of Amalsad, in India, was pleased that reengineering the commodity marketing process had not only fetched a better price but had also eliminated the inefficiencies associated with marketing through the traditional channel-the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee trading yards, or mandies. However, he wondered whether further refining the grades would enhance the income of the members and asked his executives what other processes could be modified to benefit the members, especially in rendering services.

In 2018, Restaurant Kazu was operating at near full capacity with long waiting lines. Located in a mixed, high-density neighbourhood in the west end of downtown Montreal, Quebec, the full-service restaurant had been popular with patrons since its opening eight years earlier. However, the owner and chef wondered if he should address the issue of long waiting lines, which could discourage potential customers. If so, what measures could he take to improve the situation, and how cost effective would the measures be? With the start of the peak season only two weeks away, the owner had to make some quick decisions.