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Social and political issues in the US health care system, along with near-record employment levels, had led to a high employee turnover rate throughout the industry in 2019. In October, after Brownspeed Health Care, a consultative service, received numerous requests from its clients for assistance, the chief analytical officer was asked to prepare a report on how the company could help its clients address the problem. The first phase of the plan was to use the Consumer Price Index for urban wage earners and clerical workers as part of a low-risk strategy to enhance employee compensation and deploy wide-scale retention strategies and forecasting services.

In July 2018, the owner and president of Yates Control Systems was contemplating her company’s future. The company was an engineering firm located in Hamilton, Ontario and catering to the region of Southwestern Ontario. The company’s net income had declined over the past year and the owner was considering several strategic options: maintaining company operations (status quo), hiring a second salesperson, expanding into parking system controls, purchasing an existing company that specialized in parking system controls, or selling her company. The owner had to evaluate which option would be the best path forward for her and for her business.

In March 2016, the associate finance director at Bevaco China (Bevaco), an American multinational firm in China, faced a tough decision. Over the past four years, she had worked diligently to shift her focus from managing work to leading people. She was assigned to work in a joint venture between Bevaco and Mask, a leading Chinese private enterprise, where she faced numerous challenges. A year later, she moved back to Bevaco and worked with a charismatic and visionary leader, who inspired her to further develop her leadership as she built a 50-member team. However, as the associate finance director was enjoying her progress in leadership development, the leader resigned and the team’s work was to be outsourced. Amid this upheaval, she received an offer to work in a globalizing high-tech Chinese firm with the opportunity to work overseas. Was she ready for this opportunity? Could she overcome the challenge of a new company and lead others in a global context?

In late 2016, the owner of RW Citrus & Juice, a business-to-business fresh juice company in Michigan, asked a management consultant to fill in as the company’s interim general manager. The owner initially brushed aside the management consultant’s early concerns about equipment maintenance, and it soon became apparent that the company lacked a basic structure for operations. In a company lacking operational organization, how could the management consultant make sense of the changes that the company required? How should he separate the “must-haves” in operations management from the “nice-to-haves” and communicate the needed changes to a reluctant owner?

PharmaCo was a large, multinational, integrated pharmaceutical company. Its board of directors was meeting to discuss a possible friendly merger with a complementary competitor and to review a quarterly cybersecurity report. However, before either of these discussions could begin, PharmaCo’s chief financial officer interrupted with news that the company’s customer database had been encrypted by hackers in a ransomware attack and a ransom of $25,000 in Bitcoin had been demanded. Unfortunately, this was the first in a series of cyber attacks affecting the organization. The board of directors must increasingly deal with a number of issues brought by management and make some critical decisions in overseeing this crisis.

The director of sales for the detergents arm of LDFL India Limited (LDFL) had to develop a 2019 sales strategy with the objective of reducing the inter-channel conflict that had resulted in the general trade (GT) channel’s destocking of LDFL products and a loss of market share in 2018. The cash and carry format was the biggest challenge for the GT business, as it provided a cheaper, on-demand supply source alternative to the GT retailers that dominated the total detergent sales in the industry. The sales strategy options were to demarcate specific channels for sales of specific stock-keeping units; focus on stricter price control across channels, which could ensure a level playing field for GT; customize market offerings for targeted customer segments; or make changes pertaining to organizational structure and performance metrics. Every option had benefits, pitfalls, and implementation challenges.

In July 2019, Green Trend Holdings Co. Ltd. (Green Trend) faced a difficult situation with regard to flaws in the preparation of its proposed initial public offering on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong. According to the remedy measures raised by the underwriter facilitating the initial public offering process, Green Trend needed to raise additional capital of ¥1 billion with a proposed annual interest rate of about 30 per cent. Of course, the company could have postponed the initial public offering; however, without the long-awaited return following a successful initial public offering, all the efforts taken in past years would be in vain. The uncertainty of the capital market would further complicate the future road to an initial public offering. Did Green Trend have better alternatives?

In October 2018, the owner of Sam’s Pizzeria (Sam’s) in Orillia, Ontario, needed to determine how he should staff his business to keep up with an increase in demand on Halloween. Halloween had often been a source of frustration, as Sam's struggled to keep up with demand on that day. Providing customers with good-quality pizza and fast delivery was critical to Sam’s success. Not wanting to repeat the mistakes of the past, the owner knew that he would need a better plan to staff his pizzeria if Halloween were to be any different this year.

In 2019, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Boston-based Feehan Investment Management faced a decision. After succeeding her father as CEO, she launched a quantitative research group, or quant group, which used statistical and mathematical methods to determine investment strategies that were applied to incubate a long/short equity strategy. After incubating the strategy for three years and realizing good returns, the CEO wanted to open up this fund strategy to outside investment; however, she needed to decide on which fund structure to wrap this strategy in—a hedge fund or a mutual fund.

The chief executive officer of RenY Corporation (RenY) based in Hong Kong, had just established the Ghana Investment Fund Limited (GIF) as a subsidiary of RenY in Ghana. GIF aimed to invest in the entrepreneurial ideas of university graduates in Ghana under a model that brought together the intellectual capital of the graduates, e-commerce, and investment capital under an umbrella of mentoring and collaboration. Access to Ghanaian government contracts to provide products and services was an important aspect of the CEO’s sustainable development plans for low income communities, but he was faced with ethical issues on the way government business was done in Ghana—to be successful in gaining some of these contracts, extra payments were required. He had to decide if his investment was going to result in nothing or if there was a way to move forward.

In September 2014, the national logistics manager at Lajpal Tea Pvt. Limited (Lajpal Tea), a leading tea brand in Pakistan, received notice that one of his key logistics service providers would soon terminate his service contract for transportation services. This contractor had been associated with Lajpal Tea since the company originated; however, due to payment delays and non-responsive behaviour from the logistics team, he decided to terminate his services and provided three months’ notice as per the terms and conditions of his contract. The transport company’s business was strong: the owner had many local contacts, geopolitical influence, and a good understanding of the local market. However, his trucks were old fashioned and were not equipped with the latest technology, such as global positioning system tracking. Lajpal Tea, a leading organization with plans for expansion, had to decide what to do now. Should the logistics manager negotiate with the existing contractor or find an alternate transporter from among the other available options?

In February 2018, the dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of the East Coast in eastern Canada was faced with the challenge of managing a protest by one of his professors. Tension had been brewing between the two for a few months because of inappropriate expense claims and complaints of sexual harassment. However, because of the way the dean had been appointed, he was in a weak position and could not depend on his superiors for help in solving the problem. As a result, donors were complaining, prospective students were changing their minds about applying, and department chairs were beginning to complain. The dean wondered what he should do to bring his faculty back to a normal functioning state. What should he do about the protesting professor, the apparent fraud, and the reactions of potential employers, potential students, and donors? How could he improve the image of his faculty and the university?

Regulus Solar Power Inc., headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, had continued to experience financial growth over the past decade, thanks in large measure to the environmental movement and declining solar panel prices. The expansion of renewable resources was one of the lynchpins of the environmental movement sweeping the United States. Since its founding in 2010, Regulus Solar Power Inc. had focused on installing solar powered systems throughout the Southwest United States, primarily on residential and commercial applications. By 2018, however, revenues had gone flat due in largely to the rapid expansion of the largest solar panel installer in the United States into Regulus Solar Power Inc.’s traditional marketplace. The company’s management team wished to examine the impact of lowering prices on revenues and assess the opportunities for more fully engaging environmental movement groups.

In 2013, Bikes & Co. Ltd., a business unit belonging to a multi-divisional organization in Nagpur, India, was rooted in the past and out of touch with the contemporary environment. A new chief executive officer had been charged with implementing strategic changes that would turn the unit around across the organization, in every function and department. These changes aimed to align the company with consumer expectations and behaviour, which was reflected in retail outlets or points of purchase. The organization had to avoid concentrating only on the consumer’s end decision point and focus instead on the entire consumer decision journey. The new chief executive officer had been given 12 months to accomplish a business transformation that would address issues related to human resources, the supply chain, marketing and branding, vendor management, sourcing, sales, customer service, enterprise resource management, product design, engineering, and retail outlets.

In late 2012, Shanghai Euclid Printing Machine Co. (Shanghai Euclid), a joint venture between a Chinese state-owned enterprise and an American multinational enterprise, was in the process of closing down. Established in December 1993, the joint venture had experienced successive rounds of downsizing over the past 18 years, dropping from an original high of 1,800 employees to a workforce size of 668 in 2012. In its place, a 100-per-cent state-owned enterprise would now be founded, and any employees and business activities that would be retained needed to be moved to this new enterprise, Shanghai Gutenberg Printing Machine Co. (Shanghai Gutenberg). The general manager at Shanghai Euclid had to make some difficult decisions about the strategic orientation of Shanghai Gutenberg. He also needed to come up with a plan regarding the remaining 668 employees, deciding whom he could retain and who would need to be laid off. Considering the importance of social harmony in the Chinese context, he also needed to determine how to conduct the workforce change process in order to cause the least possible disruption to employees and other stakeholders.

A doctor in the Department of Pediatrics at Riverdale Hospital, an Australian hospital affiliated with the faculty of medicine at a leading nearby university, reported directly to the chair of the department. The doctor received funding for his research in the amount of $380,000 per year, but because he was not a tenured faculty member, he was not able to directly control the contributions. Instead, the fund was administered by the department chair, under the doctor’s supervision. While checking the accounting of the fund in December 2010, the doctor discovered an irregularity that made him doubt the chair’s administration of the donations. As more clues and irregularities emerged, the doctor became convinced that the fund was being mismanaged and that this mismanagement was being covered up. When he eventually confronted the chair, he found himself in a stressful and difficult situation, with little support. In 2018, the dean of medicine circulated an external audit that claimed there had been no wrongdoing, and the doctor found himself facing a much larger, stronger opponent. Should he take action, pursuing civil or criminal charges? Should he leave the institution and take the donations with him? Should he stay where he was and deal with the consequences?

Hospitals frequently deal with congestion and blockage that affects patient flow and increased costs. In 2018, at University Hospital, part of South West Health Centre, patient flow in the medical surgical intensive care unit seemed to be highly susceptible to congestion, and this was creating ripple effects throughout the hospital and leading to increased costs. The complexity of patient flow presented an opportunity to build a discrete-event simulation model to provide insights regarding the patient flow, costs, and opportunities for improvement. But how could the hospital’s management use a simulation model of patient flow to determine alternatives to optimize both patient flow and costs?

In January 2019, a second-year master of business administration student has come up with an idea for a new venture: sourcing products from her social contacts, using Instagram to direct traffic to her company website, and utilizing the postal service to deliver goods. Does a viable business opportunity really exist, or are there too many unknowns?

In late September 2017, the country manager of Garrard Japan was reviewing an interim strategy to deal with emerging, negative views on the ongoing globalization of industry and commerce. Garrard Japan was a wholly owned subsidiary of Garrard S.A., a leading packaged foods company. The European-based multinational enterprise had been a major contributor to globalizing trade and commerce, and the survey results had highlighted a Japanese view that global companies were concerned more with profits than with meeting the needs of local communities. The country manager wondered whether the strategy developed by his team to change these perceptions was adequate. He was also considering how to execute the strategy and who should pay for it: Garrard Japan or Garrard S.A.?

In late September 2014, students in the Arnold School of Business (Arnold) full-time MBA program wrote an open-book managerial accounting exam. Immediately after the exam, one of the students, who was also vice-president academic of the Graduate Business Students Association (GBSA), was informed by a classmate that some students accessed the Internet for solutions during the exam. The GBSA representative knew she had to do something but was unsure how to proceed.<br><br>In part A of the case, the student representative consulted with her colleague, the GBSA president. The two considered four potential courses of action: (1) do nothing; (2) bring the issue to the entire GBSA council; (3) inform the course instructor; or (4) speak directly to the academic chair of the MBA program.<br><br>In part B of the case, the two student representatives speak with the academic chair, who explained that without any hard evidence of academic dishonesty, little could be done. The academic chair and GBSA representatives must decide how to resolve the issue when any solution is likely to disappoint some students and cause division, and possibly enmity, among classmates who are just one month into their MBA.