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On January 31, 2014, the chief executive officer (CEO) of General Motors (GM), a major automaker located in Detroit, Michigan, must decide whether to issue a recall based on a defect that had been found through an internal safety committee investigation. The ignition switch of certain GM small car models manufactured between 2005 and 2007 was prone to being nudged out of the run position, causing the driver to lose control as the engine would switch off mid-drive, disabling power steering and preventing air bags from being deployed in the case of a collision. If she decided to issue a recall, the CEO needed to consider which car models to include, as well as whether to offer any additional compensation to drivers. Not only would a recall have potential legal and public relations repercussions, but it would present the company with potential future costs. She needed to consider the accounting implications of these contingencies.

An immigrant entrepreneur created Hi-Bridge Consulting Corporation, a company that imported and distributed alcoholic products in Canada, among other activities. In 2009, the entrepreneur brought Yanjing beer to Canada from China, even though the Chinese brewery did not have an articulated international expansion strategy in Canada at the time. Despite numerous challenges in the Canadian beer market, the entrepreneur made significant headway. However, six years after the product's introduction, she understood that many Canadian consumers were still not aware of Yanjing beer and that she needed to find an effective way to increase its market share.

Coppersea, a craft distillery in the Hudson Valley of New York, had developed a range of whiskies using "heritage distilling" techniques (a term they coined), whereby local, raw materials were combined using a process modeled after 19th century distilling. Founded in 2011, the distillery was the consequence of intense conversations between Angus MacDonald, a master distiller who had learned distilling in his teens from his uncle, and Michael Kinstlick, a businessman who foresaw the burgeoning of the craft distillery movement. After nearly a decade in the business, Kinstlick hoped to grow production volumes by three to four times existing levels-which were still below 10,000 9-liter cases annually-using Coppersea's current production technologies. Kinstlick knew that growth beyond those levels would require a more significant set up and investment. Given the trends affecting craft distillers, an evolving consumer base, and new potential avenues of distribution, including international expansion, the path forward would be challenging. Students take on Kinstlick's challenge and grapple with keeping a balance between sustainable growth and adhering to Coppersea's founding principles and heritage methods. Kinstlick described his perspective: "We realize our heritage approach would keep our production volumes somewhat limited as we grow-but we think it's important to retain that distinction of character in the spirits themselves and we don't think we can capture that using the same kinds of methods other distillers are using, even other craft distillers.

Lululemon, a successful yoga and athletic apparel company, faced a number of controversies notably those surrounding comments made by the founder and regarding employee and public relations. Many of these controversies seem out of line with Lululemon's Manifesto, a one-page collection of sayings that guide the company's actions. These issues culminate with issues regarding one of their most popular products, resulting in a product recall in 2013. As Lululemon enters 2014, facing drops in their share price and a revenue growth below expectations, Lululemon's new CEO has to make some decisions about the best way forward for the company.

In early 2014, the senior vice-president of the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan is considering two investment opportunities in the oil and gas industry brought forward by his team. He is trying to understand how to ensure that the principles underpinning responsible investing are incorporated in the decision about which to choose. Each investment looks very attractive, but a growing stream of controversies surrounding oil sands extraction, pipeline safety and environmental protection has raised concerns. He faces multiple questions: How can the impact of these environmental, social and governance issues be quantified precisely? Can they be translated into an informed investment decision that the organization's stakeholders will accept? What approach to responsible investing is appropriate for a pension fund? What alternative methods of incorporating these issues into the investment decision process should be considered?

An academic and medical practitioner leaves Harvard Medical School to join the American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC) as dean of the School of Medicine and vice president of medical affairs. Faced with unmotivated staff, a huge deficit, a plethora of procedural inefficiencies, and the chaotic political situation of the country, he is determined to turn things around and raise the institution to international standards and position it as the premier medical institution in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. He restructures the management team and sets a new vision of growth and expansion. However, he must face problems related to a lack of patient-centered service, tense relations between nurses and doctors, operational inefficiencies, and branding issues. Will AUBMC be able to pursue an ambitious growth strategy in the face of an adverse financial and political situation?

A health services company is planning for an initial public offering. Its new business model is the farming of body parts to feed into the organ supply chain in developed economies to help reduce the waiting lists for organ transplants.

This case is used at the Darden School of Business in the inventory module of the "Financial Reporting" course elective, but it would also work well at the advanced undergraduate level. Through five phases, students first become familiar with core terminology and concepts before examining various situations-from what to make of an annual report footnote disclosure and balancing the pros and cons of using LIFO versus FIFO cost flow assumption to examining misreported inventory and inventory write-downs.

With 24,000 staff and over 300 stores, Belk Inc. sought to replace its entirely manual labor scheduling system with an automated software solution from Reflexis. Belk hoped the upgrade would simplify scheduling, reduce time employees spent in non-customer-facing roles, and result in improved allocation of resources through the use of big data, thereby increasing sales productivity. Like many other retailers, Belk expected the benefits from automated scheduling software to be significant. But unlike other retailers who took an iron hand approach to push compliance, Belk's implementation permitted store managers "edit" the system to "fix" the "bugs" in the automated schedules-seeking not to replace labor but rather inform it. Belk commenced piloting the solution in May of 2013 and subsequently expanded the number of stores running the software to 50 over the course of 2013. Despite signs of initial success with the stores running the scheduling solution, Bass quickly began to notice a significant issue with the implementation: over 70% of shifts generated by the system were receiving manual overrides ("edits") by the store managers. Store managers believed the edits were necessary to remain responsive to local needs-and were, indeed, productive. Senior executives were skeptical, concerned that edits indicated resistance to productive change, and unsure of why Belk had spent so much time and money on an automated system only to have the stores override it. Having deliberately allowed store managers and lead schedulers to override the system, SVP Eric Bass (a retail store veteran who worked his way up to corporate) now needed to understand how and why they were doing so, and make sure that those edits were being made in a constructive manner. In a disagreement between human and machine, Belk allowed humans to win by design by giving them the right to edit the 'optimized' schedules.

Executives from Portland Drake Beverages (PDB) are meeting to determine the appropriate product positioning and advertising campaign for the launch of Crescent Pure, a specialty organic beverage. They have 3 options for positioning: should Crescent Pure be positioned as an energy drink, a sports drink, or should it adopt broader positioning as an "organic health and wellness" beverage? Students studying this case explore customer segmentation, product differentiation analysis, and the evaluation of perceptual maps as a market research technique.

The Senior Vice President of FormPrint's Medical Products business unit is considering issues raised by the upcoming introduction of a new 3D printing system, the Ortho500, which could print custom exoskeletal orthopedic splints, braces, and casts that conformed to a patient's body. The potential market extended beyond large urban hospitals (the Ortho's existing market) to high-volume outpatient offices in the U.S., with a long-term goal of expanding internationally. The product represents an important new market opportunity for FormPrint's Orthopedic business unit, but requires a new approach to marketing and sales. The immediate issue is whether the product should be sold by FormPrint's existing orthopedic sales force or by independent sales representatives. Other issues include the role of the Ortho500 in the company's global marketing strategy and the need for better marketing-sales coordination in a changing healthcare marketplace. If the Ortho500 failed to meet sales targets, bonus compensation would be reduced and the department could face layoffs. The case focuses on a core marketing decision-direct vs. indirect channels of distribution-and raises important issues in strategy development and implementation. The FormPrint case is ideal for use in courses on marketing strategy, marketing organization, B2B marketing, or new product development.

Since its opening in Beijing in November 2007 as the first non-profit art center in China, UCCA had been operating with the mission to "promote the continued development of the Chinese art scene, foster international exchange, and showcase the latest in art and culture to hundreds of thousands of visitors each year." For the past six years, UCCA had worked with more than 100 artists and designers to present 87 art exhibitions and 1,826 public programs to over 1.8 million visitors, including many important leaders from all over the world. Given the context of the economic and political environment in the rapidly changing Chinese art market, the founders and senior management of UCCA wondered what they could do to achieve growth and financial viability while continuing to realize their mission.

AMICHOCÓ Foundation was a private non-profit organization operating since 1996 in the Colombian department of Chocó, one of the poorest in the country and characterized by being largely inhabited by ethnic minorities of African origin and enjoying one of the highest levels of biodiversity in the world. The Foundation implemented productive projects that help improve the living conditions in communities within a framework of social and environmental sustainability. In this line, in 2000, the Foundation encouraged the creation of Oro Verde Corporation (hereinafter, OVC), a cross-sector alliance involving, in addition to AMICHOCÓ, three local social organizations. OVC developed the Green Gold program that considered conventional small- scale mining as a productive alternative that could be integrated to specific market niches. The case depicts the overall situation of Chocó department and the importance of the mining industry to its economy. It also describes OVC's inception and the role played by AMICHOCÓ in its creation, and provides a detailed account of the Green Gold program, with an emphasis on its value proposition: a business model that articulated traditional gold production in Chocó with green international markets. In addition, it recounts the concerns expressed by community representatives with regard to the model's efficiency and its capacity to create economic value. These concerns raised the possibility of building alliances with medium-scale private mechanized mining companies in order to enhance the model's economic impact. Exhibits provide information on the characteristics of Chocó department, social and environmental impacts of medium-scale mining, environmental conservation criteria governing the Green Gold model, and estimated economic results for conventional mining and mechanized mining operations.

Rebranding is a marketing strategy often used by companies. The rebranding of a city is not only less common but far more complex. By 2013, the city of Detroit, Michigan was facing a multitude of problems: declining population, crumbling roads and bridges, abandoned properties, an alarming school drop-out rate, poverty, high cost of pension plans, government corruption, growing crime and crippled emergency services. The 2008 recession had dealt a serious blow to its core automotive industrial sector, and although some high tech companies were moving in, the "Motor City" was wallowing in debt. In July 2013, Detroit filed for bankruptcy protection, which was granted that December. Its financial emergency manager was able to strike deals with its major debt-holders, the banks, and with the city's largest union, but these forward steps were threatened when the water department started cutting off water to households that could not pay bills that had risen 120 per cent over the past decade. How does a city facing outraged residents and investors, that lacks infrastructure to such a degree that almost half of its traffic lights are non-functional and that is in an atrocious financial state repair its image and attract new investors?

The Hongxin Entrepreneur Incubator, located in Xiamen, Fujian Province, China, has experienced tremendous growth between 2001 and 2013. Its founder and president has received widespread acclaim as he has helped to launch and turn around more than 100 local companies, both start-ups and more developed enterprises. He now plans to develop and grow the incubator by setting it up as an online platform that would connect and support an alliance of entrepreneurs on a scale never seen before in China. As he looks forward to taking it in this new direction, he wonders how he can ensure continued success and maintain his philosophy of caring for the community of entrepreneurs while maximizing profits.

In 1999, the International Horticultural Exposition was held in Kunming, capital of Yunnan Province in China. Recognised as an international exposition by the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE), the event was organised by the International Association of Horticultural Producers (AIPH), based in Paris, France. It was the first international mega-exposition hosted in China, and had strong support from Kunming's local government agencies. The six-month long exposition (Expo Garden) attracted more than 9 million visitors from around the world with a daily average of 49,000 park visitors and hitting a peak of more than 110,000 visitors in a single day. After the exhibition ended, Kunming government decided to continue to keep the venue open as a tourist destination, and major transformations were made to Expo Garden's management structure and business operations. A decade later, Expo Garden had lost its position as a prime tourist destination in Yunnan, as other destinations such as Dali, Shangri-la and Lijiang became the top tourist draws. During this time, domestic tourists emerged as the main engine of growth in Yunnan's tourism industry. In 2012, the group that owned and managed Expo Gardens, Yunnan Tourism Co. Ltd, a state-owned company listed in the Shenzhen stock exchange, needed a turnaround strategy to enhance the attractiveness of Expo Garden, its major asset. The aim was to: transform Expo Garden into a major player in Yunnan Province's tourism industry; and to boost Expo Garden's income growth substantially and improve the financial performance of the company.

The case examines the operations strategy of Whole Foods, one of the largest natural grocery chains in the United States. In late 2013, Whole Foods was expanding rapidly, with a publicly-stated goal of growing from 351 to 1,000 domestic stores by 2022. It was also engaged in a strategic initiative to combat "food deserts" - areas with limited access to affordable and nutritious food. In pursuit of these initiatives, the company's rapid entry into a heterogeneous set of new markets necessitated a reexamination of its store format, target customer base, and approach to human capital.

In early April 2012, Michelle Dipp, MD, Ph.D, CEO and co-founder of OvaScience, had just received a buyout offer from PG Ventures, a private equity firm interested in acquiring the innovative fertility treatments company. The company's first promising fertility treatment, AUGMENT (Autologous Germ-line Mitochondrial Energy Transfer), had the potential to improve egg quality, increase the success of IVF cycles, and decrease the incidence of multiple births (i.e., twins, triplets). OvaScience had been in operation since 2011, and AUGMENT had not yet reached the market. Dipp and her partners had high hopes for the success of AUGMENT and the impact the underlying technology could have on millions of infertility cases around the world. How fast might Dipp and her team grow OvaScience? Would they have the resources? Dipp considered the best way to build out OvaScience's business model and whether AUGMENT's potential outweighed the PG Ventures offer.

The case follows Scott Painter and his executive team as they deal with a crisis that threatens the survival of TrueCar, a company founded by Painter to improve consumers' car buying experiences. TrueCar's automotive dealer network, from which the company earns its revenue, is rapidly declining in size as dealers leave to protest TrueCar's practices. The case also describes Painter's career and his personality as context for the situation. Painter and his team must persuade dealers to rejoin its network in order to survive, which will require the company to rethink its identity.