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In 2015, Toshiba, a conglomerate best known throughout the world for its electronics products, announced to the world that it has overstated profits by 151.8 billion yen (US$1.2 billion) over a seven-year period. The conduct of Toshiba's management and employees left a deep stain on Japan that threw corporate culture and corporate governance practices into turmoil. This case presents a comprehensive overview of the Toshiba accounting scandal. It examines how the accounting irregularities in evidence at Toshiba spread from a relatively minor case of accounting misrepresentation to corporate-wide deception ingrained in the cultural fabric of the organization. The research highlights how issues of corporate culture can undermine even the most robust corporate governance strategies, and examines some of the challenges Toshiba faces in its attempts to recover from the biggest accounting scandal in contemporary Japanese history.

In September 2008, Hank Paulson, U.S. Treasury Secretary, Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, and Tim Geithner, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of NY, found themselves in the eye of the mightiest financial storm since the Great Depression. After months of battling the crisis, they were confronted with the largest problem they had encountered yet-Lehman Brothers, the global investment bank, was teetering on the edge of failure. This case asks students to consider what the appropriate response from the policymakers and central bankers should have been.

Itamar Frankenthal was evaluating bank loan proposals to finance his acquisition of Rose Electronics Distributing Company ("Rose"). He contacted 40 small and large banks that lent in the region and that outreach and follow-up calls resulted in nine term sheets received from different lenders. With the proposals in-hand, he needed to decide which one was the most favorable.

Several private startups, including Planetary Resources, SpaceX, and Deep Space Industries, had initiated plans to mine minerals in space. The ventures looked promising: an asteroid one kilometre in diameter contained, potentially, $20 trillion worth of industrial and precious metals. Governments had become involved in space exploration as well, with interests that ranged from projecting military power in space to claiming resources. The current legal framework surrounding space exploration was vague, but the United Nations Treaties and Principles on Outer Space recognized extraterrestrial resources as the "common heritage of humankind." What should a privately funded venture company consider when developing a strategy for space exploration and mining? What would be the concerns of a senior government official or a representative from a global organization such as the United Nations? Are the concerns different for different countries?

On November 1, 2015, the four founders of Kaps Foods India Private Limited (Kaps) invited external business consultants to a business strategy meeting. The ice cream industry was moving toward the premium segment of the market, and Kaps was eager to move out of its stagnant phase. However, two of the four founders were skeptical about the acceptance of the Kaps brand in the higher-end market. They believed that the market would always consider Kaps a local brand, which was not ideal for moving into the premium market. Also, taking on the bigger players at the higher end of the ice cream segment would be a daunting task for the company. The four partners had a number of issues and options to ponder and discuss with consultants. Becoming a pioneer in the ice cream industry in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh was a proud achievement for the team, but what new marketing considerations would be involved in entering the premium market?

With a rich history stretching back to the 19th century, Wang Laoji herbal tea was one of the most popular drinks in China. The tea was sold in a green-box version by Wang Laoji and a red-can version licensed to Jiaduobao Beverage Co. Ltd. (Jiaduobao Beverage), but in 2012 the right to use the Wang Laoji name was lost by Jiaduobao Beverage following a legal dispute. Jiaduobao Beverage had to quickly transfer brand associations from Wang Laoji to its own brand and retain consumer loyalty. But was it successful in doing so? Did Jiaduobao Beverage enhance its brand equity through transferring Wang Laoji's brand associations? What could Wang Laoji do to counter its loss of brand equity?

CF Industries' products-nitrogen fertilizers-are a crucial input to making agriculture productive enough to feed the world. However, its products are undifferentiated commodities. Throughout parts of its history, CF has struggled to be consistently profitable, yet over the last decade it has been very profitable. The case provides an opportunity to examine how CF manages to create value and capture it as profits despite being in a commodity business.

In the summer of 2016, wearables 'wunderkind' and Pebble founder and CEO, Eric Migicovsky, was pleased with the young startup's success in the five years since its founding. The Silicon Valley-based company had recently shipped its two millionth smartwatch; held the record for three of the four highest Kickstarter campaigns ever (raising cumulatively over $40 million on the site); launched its first non-watch product dubbed a "wearables game changer;" and enjoyed a loyal customer base, particularly among technology early adopters and the community of software developers that created applications and watch faces for its products. Nonetheless, the young company faced a variety of challenges. The nascent smartwatch industry recently saw a dramatic uptick in competition. Apple had introduced its smartwatch the prior year; other established technology companies such as Samsung and Motorola offered smartwatches; U.S.-based fitness tracker Fitbit had recently launched its first smartwatch; and Chinese firm, Xiaomi, was soon to release a low-priced smartwatch. Migicovsky considers an array of strategic options as he looks ahead.

This case draws on the methodologies described in Inside the Box: A Proven System of Creativity for Breakthrough Results, by Drew Boyd and Jacob Goldenberg, to distill the key aspects of the subtraction template as a means to encourage new product innovation. The subtraction template, as defined in the case, is a process guided by the notion that "less is sometimes more" and that value can be created by eliminating aspects of a product and reimagining the result for a new audience or new use. The case outlines the steps to follow when applying the subtraction template in business settings and includes a student exercise for classroom use.

Between 2012 and 2015, Viom Networks Limited (Viom), India's largest independent telecommunications tower company, transformed its business from a position of near financial ruin to one of sustainable profitability. Viom's journey demonstrated how suitable initiatives, supported by relevant leadership, can bring about remarkable improvement in a company. When American Tower Corporation (the world's largest independent tower company) acquired a 51 per cent stake in Viom, it brought unexpected change. Further, the dynamism of the telecom industry presented challenges and opportunities that could bring about significant changes for the company into fiscal year 2016/17 and onwards. In its upcoming phases, Viom wanted to focus on predicting the next technological breakthrough and enabling growth ahead of the industry curve. How would Viom deal with these challenges?

In August 2015, an intern at Asante Teaching Hospital, a prestigious not-for-profit hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa, wanted to organize the cost data she had gathered from staff interviews into clear recommendations for the hospital's chief executive officer. Asante Teaching Hospital's maternity ward competitors had begun offering bundled pricing for natural births, and the intern wondered if Asante Teaching Hospital should do the same. In order to calculate the costs of the service, she planned to employ both activity-based and time-driven activity-based costing techniques. With this information, she could present the results of her analysis and recommendations for a pricing strategy.

Between 2000 and 2016 Apple introduced a number of new products and services that dramatically expanded the company's scope well beyond its traditional market position in computers. Over that period, the direction of the company changed and evolved almost as dramatically. This note summarizes the major events along the way and how the Apple leadership spoke of these changes. Apple's new products and services included the launches of iTunes, the iPod, the iTunes Store, iTunes for Microsoft Windows, the iPhone, Apple Watch, and Apple Music. The company also changed its name from Apple Computer to Apple in 2007, reflecting the company's growth and evolution.

The case series is based on extensive interviews with key executives at adidas Russia/CIS in charge of implementing the radical IT, supply chain and omnichannel initiatives that transformed adidas Russia/CIS from one of the poorest performers to the new standard within the Group. The initiatives included pioneering the rollout and implementation of key new technologies such as click-and-collect, ship-from-store, endless aisle and RFID - all of this in the face of the massive economic crisis that embroiled Russia. With some 1,200 company-owned stores - the Group's largest direct retail footprint globally - adidas Russia/CIS was critical to the financial success of the Group as a whole. The case provides an opportunity to discuss the key challenges in the rollout and implementation of cutting-edge IT, supply chain and omnichannel initiatives in one of the most challenging retail and logistics environments, i.e. Russia during the latest economic crisis.

"Mesosphere: Creating Lasting Value on Top of Open Source Software" explores the challenges associated with building a company on top of open source software. In 2013, Florian Leibert, Ben Hindman, and Tobias Knaup founded Mesosphere. By combining proprietary software products with an open source software called Apache Mesos, Mesosphere developed a single platform called the datacenter operating system (DC/OS). With the DC/OS, companies could easily deploy, operate, and scale workloads and applications across multiple servers in a datacenter. In an era of big data analysis and software containers, companies were thrilled to find a solution that simplified the management of these complex services. For Mesosphere's co-founders, there was little doubt that Apache Mesos and the DC/OS could provide tremendous value to thousands of enterprises around the globe. However, the trio faced several challenges associated with building a successful organization on top of a free, open source product. Specific obstacles addressed in the case include: building and managing open source software communities; understanding distinct customers and customer needs; creating products (and a product release schedule) aligned with customer needs; determining how to monetize Mesosphere's products and services; aligning on what product features to open source (versus what features to make proprietary); and responding to major competitive threats.

This case explores the origins and current practices of DBL, a San Francisco-based venture capital fund and one of the first impact investment funds to achieve significant financial returns to scale. This case allows for a competitive analysis of DBL's investment strategy as it seeks to deploy $400m, as well as the opportunity to evaluate a specific investment in a solar power company targeting low-income consumers in Tanzania.

State Street Global Advisors was the investment arm of State Street Corporation, one of the largest custodians and asset managers in the world with over $2.3 trillion in assets under management. Inspired by demand from a large pension fund client for better gender diversity investment products, SSGA had created the first gender diversity ETF in 2015. However, despite an auspicious launch, the ETF had yet to attract the level of institutional capital SSGA had anticipated.

The Canadian brand manager of Zelboraf had to decide how to introduce and price Zelboraf in the Canadian market. Zelboraf was a breakthrough discovery in treatment for melanoma cancer patients. Hoffmann-La Roche (Roche) began developing Zelboraf in 2005. During the clinical trials, the drug yielded such positive results in targeting late-stage (metastatic) melanoma cancer that Roche ended clinical trials early in order to expedite FDA approval and market launch. A competitor was developing a drug-Dabrafenib-that targeted the same segment of patients with B-RAF genes. It was unclear if this specific market segment could support two similar products. It was also unclear whether Dabrafenib's Canadian market launch would affect the likelihood that Zelboraf got on the approved drug list to secure government reimbursement. The brand manager and her team also needed to determine the right price point for Zelboraf. Roche had to set a price that ensured profitability, but did not compromise Zelboraf's competitive position.

This is a "context" case that offers a general sense of the scale and scope of tasks confronting the Chinese government in economic reform, particularly since President Xi Jinping assumed political leadership over 2012-2013. It also provides an avenue to appreciate the inner mechanics of how China works today.