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On August 22, 1996, U.S. President Bill Clinton signed into law the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA)-a dramatic reform of the American system of economic assistance for the poor that, as its title suggested, attempted to encourage labor force participation rather than reliance on federal support. Clinton's decision to support a proposal that substantially cut spending on economic assistance was controversial among members of the Democratic Party, especially so close to the 1996 election. Republicans, in contrast, hailed the signing of PRWORA. Was the 1996 welfare reform a triumph of centrist policymaking that would establish a more sustainable version of economic assistance for poor Americans, or was it a dangerous first step toward the gradual disappearance of that assistance? Whose vision of American society did it represent? Instructors may also obtain a Teaching Note, written by this case's author, that provides suggestions for using this case effectively in the classroom.

Susan Barney, chief financial officer of Parcel Expeditors (Parcel), a thriving same-day package delivery company headquartered in the United States, had to make some decisions. The management of Parcel was planning to take the company public in the coming year but they had yet to determine the accounting for certain pension plan costs. The most important goal for management was to provide investors with useful information for their decision making; however, Barney was unsure as to how different choices allowed within the pension accounting standard might impact earnings. In order to assess the impact of each standard, Barney decided to evaluate the pension accounting of a few competitors in the package delivery industry.

Digital was on Vice President of Strategic Partnerships and Programs Bridget Coughlin's mind these days. DMNS had been dabbling in digital for the past few years, but had never fully committed to it. The time had come to establish a strategic vision, and to decide whether to designate serious human and financial resources. It was time to make some decisions about the DMNS' digital future. The digital discussion was taking place within a larger strategic conversation about the primacy of the onsite experience of the Museum and the need to get outside of its walls to reach new constituents. How should she balance onsite programming, offsite programming, and online programming to maximize attendance and deliver against the Museum's mission? Was digital the magic pill that would allow the Museum to reach new audiences or was DMNS better off delivering a face-to-face museum experience within its own four walls or out on the streets of the Denver community?

In June 2007, the chief executive officer of Telesat Canada, headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, was considering his strategy following a decision by Industry Canada to reject four out of six of its applications for satellite slots. His largest concern was the decision to award the two most important licences for the Extended Ku-band network - which the company's largest clients, Bell Canada Inc. and Shaw Communications, were both seeking - to a subsidiary of a non-Canadian company, Ciel Satellite Limited Partnership, which was owned by SES S.A., a global corporation based in Luxembourg. The regulator's decision had the potential to severely limit Telesat's future revenues as well as destabilize its valuation in the midst of a sale process. The company needed a plan of action to propose a reconsideration of the allocation of licenses while also maintaining its working relationship with Industry Canada.

In 1992, for the first time in India, Titan Industries Ltd., headquartered in Bangalore, India, introduced a watch brand exclusively for women - the Titan Raga. Launched to appeal to sophisticated women, it was embellished with striking symbolism from Indian culture. Its first targeted customers were progressive homemakers and those who were trying to balance work and family life but who wanted to embellish their traditional or Western attire with a beautiful, sensual timepiece. The watches were often given as gifts during festivals or occasions such as birthdays. However, the customer profile changed to the young career professional with disposable income, who often considered the watches to be too much like jewellery and affected by design flaws such as a difficult to read face and finicky clasp. By 2010, the marketing team realized that it had to revisit its branding strategy to meet this challenge and its global competitors. Should they relaunch Titan Raga as a stand-alone brand with a new brand ambassador who will appeal to this new demographic?

Shooting & Outdoor Distributor (SOD) was a Puerto Rican family-owned wholesale business selling sporting goods for hunting and fishing. After a year of working for the company, the operations manager was confronted with the arrival of a U.S. retail chain, Sports Authority (SA), to the Puerto Rican market. SA carried many sporting goods sold by SOD, as well as a number of brands under exclusive distribution agreements between SOD and its U.S. manufacturers. Even though SA was a retailer, due to its size, it had the power to negotiate better prices with manufacturers than SOD and pass those deals on to the final customer. SOD's operations manager was considering three options for combating this competition: 1) Develop private branding for a new rifle product; 2) Open SOD retail stores not operating close to SA or to its retail clients; and/or 3) Expand SOD to other Latin American and Caribbean markets where no competition was present.

The Children's Place was a New Jersey-based specialty retailer of apparel and accessories for children up to age 12. Starting in fiscal 2013, the company was moving from a clearance-centre model, where it sold a variety of national brands, to a made-for-outlet model that emphasized its own brands. This was necessitated by intense price competition in its market. The new strategy involved developing, coordinating and controlling its own global apparel value chain. When the Rana Plaza building in Dhaka, Bangladesh collapsed on April 24, 2013, killing and injuring a large number of workers, products destined for The Children's Place were found in the debris. The adverse publicity that ensued meant that the company's top management had to re-evaluate its strategy. What should be their response?

In 2005, Patagonia launched the Common Threads Recycling Program. The goal was to reduce the number of products Patagonia customers purchased through a two-fold effort. The first part was to encourage customers to fix damaged clothing. Patagonia began publishing do-it-yourself repair guides to assist customers in repairing their clothing. To provide an alternative for customers who were unable or unwilling to repair their clothing themselves, Patagonia charged an affordable fee to have garments shipped to their repair facility. The second aspect of the Common Threads program was to create a second-hand market for Patagonia garments that did not fit or that were no longer worn. Patagonia collaborated with eBay to develop a storefront and also created an online marketplace on its main website. Patagonia also offered to cover the shipping costs for garments that were beyond repair, which Patagonia would then break down and repurpose. To promote its Common Threads initiative, Patagonia created "Worn Wear," a program that highlights thousands of videos and pictures from customers around the globe who treasure their worn, patched-up Patagonia garments with pride. While most companies would encourage customers to repeat their purchases, Patagonia prides itself and its customers on waste-free purchases. Patagonia's next step was to launch a campaign in 2011 to dissuade customers from purchasing clothing that they did not really need. On the busiest weekend for retailers in the US, a 2011 New York Times ad from Patagonia featured a picture of one of Patagonia's highest grossing fleece jackets below the words: "DON'T BUY THIS JACKET." Underneath was a detailed description that defended Patagonia's rationale based on the negative environmental impacts caused by consumerism. Despite Patagonia's efforts, sales increased by approximately 30% in the nine months following the ad. The case concludes with the business dilemma facing Chouinard: What should Patagonia do?

A review of the process utilized by the Obama administration to create the Health Care.gov exchange and the problems that resulted from the implementation effort. There is a B case that provides the follow on strategy and processes utilized to get the site up and running after the initial failures of implementation.

Accor, the world's leading hotel operator with a portfolio of fourteen hospitality brands (including Sofitel and Novotel) in 92 countries, prided itself on living up to its motto, "To open new frontiers in hospitality." Accor was indeed contemplating how to do just that-but not by tackling a new frontier of the geographic variety. Rather, the firm was further exploring the digital frontier via a new distribution channel that would allow it to better compete in the online marketing space for travel reservations.

It took BJ Lee many years to learn how to navigate the patent minefield that was the global LED industry. When his company was first spun off from the Industrial Technology Research Institute in Taiwan, he thought the essence of a good IP strategy was to develop a technology portfolio that was different from everybody else. But in the ensuing two decades of competition and litigation, he came to appreciate some of the nuances that enabled his company to have freedom to practice. This case exposes that journey and some of the learnings.

Perhaps among the most popular newspapers in the world, the Times of India (TOI) was faced with developing a national strategy in a very diverse country. The paper's strategy included lowering the price of print newspapers, developing readership among India's youth, embracing active story coverage, and continuing to deliver door-to-door in metro areas. But by 2014, the cost structure required to keep newspapers on doorsteps every morning had Rahul Kansal, executive president at Bennet, Coleman & Co. Ltd. (TOI's publisher), reexamining the paper's direction. The firm's growth model had included nonmetro and digital expansion. Should TOI continue to tap into the increasingly literate and underserved Indian population to grow its print readership in metro and nonmetro areas? What effect would that decision have on TOI's digital penetration?

This brief case discusses the graduation hooding ceremony at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. Its purpose is to provide practice in calculating process operating parameters such as takt time, throughput rate, throughput time, and capacity. It also provides an example of the use of Little's Law and Operator Loading Charts.

In May 2013, the owner of Sawdust, Co., a small woodworking business outside Kigali, Rwanda, has to decide on a new strategic direction for his company while not compromising its past success. He had started the company in 2007 with the goal of revolutionizing the sawdust industry in his country while also promoting social welfare in the region by offering employment to both survivors and perpetrators of the 1994 genocide. Although the company has achieved modest profits, he is eager to do more. However, some tough decisions lie ahead. He can choose to go alone and take out bank loans to invest in the three lines of machinery needed to expand the business; he can engage in a joint venture in which he will have to give up an equity stake in return for the required capital; or he can follow the status quo. How can he achieve top line revenue growth, remain profitable and socially responsible and withstand international competition?

In early 2013, the senior vice-president of customer strategies at Toronto-based Cineplex Inc. (Cineplex) was sitting in her office, working on the firm's strategy. The firm's chief executive officer had asked the VP to examine some strategic alternatives and present them at the upcoming meeting of the company's board of directors. One of Cineplex's major concerns stemmed from the seemingly inexorable continued reduction in theatrical-release windows - the period during which film distributors such as Cineplex had exclusive distribution rights. The VP and her team were considering two approaches: (1) extending Cineplex's core business with premium offerings, and (2) vertically integrating into the digital download of movies. Cineplex dominated the theatrical exhibition market, and investors and analysts were starting to ask: "What's next?"

In July 2014, the managing director of Lakshmi Projects in Delhi, India, finds himself struggling with the marketing and sales strategy for the year ahead. Founded in 1997, the company specializes in offering turnkey solutions for bulk material handling systems for industries in the fast-growing infrastructure segment of the Indian economy; its two main product categories are elevator and conveyor systems. Yet, the company was failing to meet its sales targets, largely due to an overextended and underachieving salesforce. What was the right structure for the sales, after-sales and quality teams in the organization? An additional concern was that a sales strategy for the company's new product, set to launch in October 2014, had not yet been decided. Fluctuating industry dynamics, financial strains, field sales and service requirements meant that this was a complex decision that held larger consequences for the company's future.

The chief financial officer at Beijing Automobile Group Co. Ltd., a large Chinese state-owned automobile manufacturer, is weighing up whether the company should purchase an equity stake and/or access to the intellectual property rights and production equipment of Saab Automobile, the troubled Swedish premium automaker owned by General Motors. Previous experience of Chinese technology acquisitions in the auto sector has given him pause for thought. He has to weigh up the likely return on investment, the ability of the company's workforce to absorb and develop new technology, and the role of competitors in China's rapidly growing auto market. He has three options: purchase access to Saab's intellectual property rights alone, purchase an equity stake as well as access to those rights or do neither. If he goes ahead with either of the first two options, and if the gamble pays off, he will enhance his own reputation and that of his company. However, if the gamble fails, not only reputation but potentially a lot of money will be lost and much effort wasted in trying to absorb a foreign product into current operations.

Paul Finney and Pat Jobe, long-time friends and future business partners, are proposing the establishment of a frozen biscuit manufacturing operation in the now defunct Clearwater Seafood plant in North Sydney, Nova Scotia. Cape Breton Innovation and Research Council (CBIRC), a private corporation, had recently assumed ownership of the plant and wanted to expand and develop local business by creating an incubator within the facility. Finney and Jobe presented a business proposal to CBIRC in August 2006 and the organization was very excited and believed the idea had promise. Finney and Jobe, although convinced of the merits of the product concept, still had some questions that needed answering before they could make a final assessment on the feasibility of the business. Both were employed full-time and the decision to leave their jobs to pursue this business was not a decision that could be made lightly. The case includes detail on the market structure and demand within the bakery/frozen dough industry. Additionally, the proposed marketing mix, selected target markets, and production/operation plans are covered in depth. Finney and Jobe now need to sift through the information and make a decision on the market size and sales potential for By-the-Sea Biscuit Company. The immediate task facing Finney and Jobe is to determine the sales potential for By-the-Sea Biscuit Company. Based on the projected sales and expenses, the partners must also make an assessment on the feasibility of the business.