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Foxconn's management seemed keenly aware of the company's need to reposition its business. While its revenues increased almost uninterruptedly over the previous decade, its net income margin had decreased over this time frame. Should Foxconn double down on manufacturing or make attempts to leverage its current advantages into new kinds of business, such as becoming an original design manufacturer ("ODM")?

Walmart has decided to expand into Africa through the acquisition of the South African consumer goods retailer Massmart. In doing so, the world's largest retailer faces significant backlash from South Africa's largest union. The company must also contend with price-sensitive consumers and a lack of supplier relationships on the African continent. Will Walmart appeal to South African consumers and achieve the volume of sales needed to make its first African presence a success.

Molson Coors' chief corporate responsibility officer has been tasked to use the company's efforts toward global corporate responsibility to drive its global competitiveness. He must roll out new corporate responsibility initiatives to engage employees across the company's range of geographic locations.

Coca-Cola is considering which of several global marketing/promotional efforts to bring to the United States. Each has proven successful in other parts of the world, but for varying reasons. All represent efforts outside of the industry's normal advertising-based approach to marketing.

Explores the role of CEO Man Jit Singh and his senior management committee in leading Multi Screen Media Pvt. Ltd. (formerly SET Pvt. Ltd.), a leading television broadcaster in India. Describes Singh's decision to evaluate employees based on values as well as performance, and the management committee's response. Allows for discussion of: 1) the impact of leadership style on team culture, performance, and effectiveness; 2) the challenges of building a values-based organization; 3) the complexities of managing talent in a young industry, particularly within an emerging market; and 4) the final decision by CEO Man Jit Singh and the subsequent actions taken by members of the management committee.

After an unusual round of doubles in May 2011, real estate investor Bobby Turner, Managing Partner, Canyon-Agassi Charter School Facilities Fund (CACSFF) and Chairman, CEO, and Co-Founder of Canyon Capital Realty Advisors, found himself at a loss for words. Turner was in the midst of raising capital for the CACSFF, a vehicle designed to promote the success and growth of best-in-class charter schools by acting as a for-profit "bridge" developer of educational facilities throughout the United States. He thought he had found the perfect investor in Bill Gates, the Microsoft founder and billionaire philanthropist, who for years had been an outspoken supporter of education reform. But as he made his pitch on the tennis court alongside his partner, retired professional tennis star Andre Agassi, and Andre's wife, retired professional tennis star Steffi Graf, he realized he would encounter more resistance than originally expected. Despite Gates' fascination and intrigue with the pair's novel concept, he was hesitant to mix the non-profit oriented efforts of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with a for-profit private equity investment. Turner had heard similar concerns from other philanthropists and foundations. Furthermore, the fund's characterization as a social enterprise left unanswered questions regarding how making a positive impact could be juxtaposed with efforts to maximize investor profits. What started off as the match of the century ended rather unceremoniously as Gates graciously declined the opportunity to invest in CACSFF. As Turner and Agassi walked off the court, they realized they would have to go back to the drawing board to better gauge which investors would have an appetite for this type of investment and how best to market the fund to those parties going forward.

In late July 2013, Danielle Engle, Managing Director of Clairemont Capital, was contemplating what to do about a large investment her fund had in the stock of Yahoo! Inc. In mid-2012, Clairemont had invested nearly $75M in Yahoo! after the tech company settled a highly visible proxy fight with prolific activist investor Daniel Loeb of hedge fund Third Point. Since that time, Loeb and his colleagues had joined the board, the company had hired a new CEO and the stock price was up nearly 80%-increasing the value of Clairemont's investment by $60M in less than a year. But Yahoo! had just announced an agreement to buy back two-thirds of Third Point's stake in the company. It had also announced that Loeb and two other company directors appointed at his request would step down from the board. At the same time, Alibaba, the giant Chinese e-commerce company of which Yahoo! owned a sizable stake, was widely expected to go public in the near future. What should Clairemont Capital do with its investment in Yahoo! in response to this news? This case provides students with opportunities to discuss shareholder activism, the interaction between a company growth strategy and business model and its valuation, discounted cash-flow valuation analysis, multiples valuation, transaction-based valuation, and company valuation by parts.

Ciaran Meghen and Ronan Loftus, co-founders of IdentiGEN (an Irish company that had created a unique service called DNA TraceBack to help customers identify and trace meat products), were discussing the company's future. The recent crisis over beef products being contaminated with horsemeat in Europe had generated strong demand for IdentiGEN's services. But more than this, DNA TraceBack gave customers strong insight into their operations to ensure product was genuine, and helped facilitate a continuous feedback loop between all players of the supply chain to deliver a high quality product to consumers. In light of strong demand, how should IdentiGEN proceed in terms of which customers to work with, and which products should it support?

In early January 2012, the director of social media for the McDonald's Corporation (McDonald's) was challenged with a tall order. The corporation had just launched a large public relations campaign using the Twitter hashtag "#MeetTheFarmers" to promote connections with family farms and local suppliers. Maximizing a Twitter Promoted Trends expenditure, the director had switched the hashtag from "#MeetTheFarmers" to "#McDStories" halfway through the first day of the campaign. However, numerous detractors used the hashtag to express negative comments towards the corporation. A few days later, the media started to run negative coverage with mocking headlines and articles providing screenshots of the negative tweets but no statistics that explained or put proper context to the situation. The director needed to devise a better strategy for McDonald's social media campaigns in order to prevent potential media fallouts.

In 1995, Paul Shipman, CEO of Redhook Ale Brewery, and his management team prepared to enter uncharted territory by taking their craft-brewing operation public in the United States. Although there already were massive large-batch breweries that were profitable, publicly traded firms, Redhook was different: it embodied the ethos and grassroots beginnings of the microbrew movement. Still Shipman wondered about the potential of the craft-brewing industry segment.

The inventor of the Kinkajou, a portable glass bottle cutter, has successfully completed a crowd-sourced financing campaign. His funding goal of $75,000 was considered to be quite ambitious and the timeframe in which he aimed to secure the funding was only 30 days. He managed the campaign impressively and exceeded his goal on the last day of the campaign. At this point in his business development, this entrepreneur has secured an offshore manufacturer, all backers have received their products and he has resolved a number of technical and operational problems. With so many challenges behind him, he now faces questions of future distribution through multiple wholesalers and is considering the opportunity of joining with a major international retailer.

The VerniSoks case highlights the entrepreneurial challenges of building a social start-up and the circumstances surrounding a visionary idea that struggled to gain financial traction from private investors and the venture capital community. The VermiSoks story paints a picture of a complex business model with a strategy that may have been too convoluted for potential investors to believe in its financial viability. There is no doubt that the VermiSoks business functions were both intricate and technical. Miguel attempting to package an incredible complex system, the Virtuous Cycle, struggled to gain financial traction in its holistic form. VermiSok' business model was designed to be monetized; the "social" purpose often took the spotlight. The Virtuous Cycle, in its entirety, was capable of serving a huge need in the world. Miguel's desire to "close the loop" of the Virtuous Cycle and build his start-up around the entire system, rather than individual components, stood as a deterrent to attracting needed investors. On their own, the compartmentalized business elements had strong potential revenue opportunities, but the system as a whole was still difficult to grasp and presented a much greater investment than financiers were willing to undertake.

Hideo Seto, the recently appointed chairman of the investment committee of the Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corporation, must decide whether to push JAL group, Japan's largest airline, into bankruptcy or to act as a sponsor in an out-of-court restructuring. The bankruptcy of JAL would be the largest ever for an industrial firm in Japan's history. The case introduces the mechanics of bankruptcy, the tradeoff between out-of-court restructuring and bankruptcy, and the costs of financial distress. At the level of public policy, the case also serves as a useful backdrop to discuss the role of bankruptcy in the efficient functioning of the economy, and the related comparison between Japan and the U.S. in terms of both the bankruptcy code and the cultural attitudes toward corporate restructuring. This case can fit into an introductory course in a module on capital structure and the tradeoff between the costs and benefits of debt or in an advanced corporate restructuring course in a module on the effect of different legal and cultural environments on bankruptcy proceedings.

Ministry of Supply is an entrepreneurial venture in the apparel sector. The firm focuses on a specific segment - 'performance professional wear' - within the sector, specializing in clothes that use fabrics with high-tech performance features (such as moisture-wicking, deodorizing, and temperature control) to make professional attire (button-down shirts, dress pants, etc.) for men. The firm has had success in fund-raising and its innovative product has garnered it good publicity, but the unusual combination of seemingly contradictory features - performance fabrics commonly used in outdoor leisure activities and a professional look and design - in the product has also generated cognitive challenges among consumers. How, if at all, can the firm increase the sales of its products?

For nearly two decades, the leading evidence on hormone therapy was based on findings from observational studies like the Nurses' Health Study. In 1985, researchers at Nurses' Health Study confirmed that postmenopausal women who took estrogen had lower rates of heart disease than women who had never taken the hormone. These influential findings helped drive the surge in hormone prescriptions in the 1980s and 1990s. But in 2002, in a stunning turnaround, researchers for a randomized clinical trial called the Women's Health Initiative reported that hormone therapy, in fact, increased the risk of heart disease and stroke among postmenopausal women. Almost overnight, prescriptions for hormone treatment plummeted. For millions of women who were either abruptly taken off hormones or denied treatment, though, the feeling of confusion and anguish remained. At the heart of the hormone therapy controversy was the fact that two different research approaches-observational studies and randomized experiments-had arrived at diametrically opposite results, once again raising questions about what constituted reliable evidence. Case Number 2005.0

Motivating employees has long been a topic of fascination for business leaders. Psychologists have developed many useful insights that are helping businesses to accrue value from their workforces. Regulatory focus theory stands out as one of the newer theories that is gaining traction as well as substantial empirical support. The purpose of this reading is to explain the basic tenets of regulatory focus theory and to discuss how it can be used to enhance motivation and engagement in the workplace.

The Middle East market has been targeted by global perfumeries as the region to grow revenues. This case reviews the strategies of Elizabeth Arden, Coty, Estée Lauder, Christian Dior, L'Oréal, and Revlon in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Competitive rivalry is intense with these world players, as well as numerous established regional perfumeries such as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the House of Ajmal, and Swiss Arabia. Social media advertising implemented in concert with celebrity appearances, such as Britney Spears, has made the UAE a popular venue for marketing and launching new fragrances. The marketing channels that are growing are shifting away from high-end department stores to mass merchandisers and duty-free airport retailers. This case compares these targeted global strategies to the regional perfumeries with an eye toward assessing whether the regional perfumeries are fully exploiting their market opportunities.

The case shows how a technology services company shaped and reshaped - and reshaped again - its IT governance structure to better integrate the IT function with business clients. The company is a large Italian telematics provider - Octo Telematics - which is specialized in the provision of telematic services and systems for the insurance and automotive markets. During the period described in this case, the company was growing and globalizing rapidly. The desired alignment between IT and the business units is needed to promote behaviors consistent with the organization's mission and strategy. As Octo experimented with new processes, committees and reorganizations the company 'traveled' through several governance archetypes.

Established in 1958, Xinhua Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine (hereafter referred to as "Xinhua Hospital") is an integrated modern teaching and research hospital with a comprehensive set of disciplines and a specialization in paediatrics. Xinhua Hospital currently has 1,586 beds, 47 clinical departments and 66 specialties. It has three National Key Disciplines, one Shanghai Key Discipline, five Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine Key Disciplines, one Ministry of Education Key Laboratory (MOE-Shanghai Key Laboratory of Children's Environmental Health), and two of Shanghai clinical centres, respectively. In 2005, Xinhua Hospital co-founded Shanghai Xinhua Hospital Group with Shanghai Children's Medical Centre Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, No.3 People's Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Chongmingbao Town People's Hospital, and Xinhua Hospital Chongming Branch. Under the arrangement, members remain as stand-alone legal entities, and are financially and operationally independent. Since 2007, Xinhua Hospital has been importing talent to lead its disciplinary development and enhancing its management through informatization development. In 2011, the hospital had 3,400 employees and its number of accident & emergency unit patients reached 3.3 million, the highest in Shanghai; it treated 69,000 inpatients and undertook 41,000 operations. Xinhua Hospital is a large Class 3A (the highest grade in China) public hospital. The focus of this case study is to understand how was it able to implement an EMR-centered (electronic medical records, also known as electronic patient records or electronic health records) information system within its complicated, traditional organizational structure.

Online storage company Dropbox provided remote-storage over the internet of any type of computer file, along with file sharing, synchronization and backup. Using a freemium pricing strategy whereby a basic service was free-of-charge and a premium service was paid, Dropbox grew into a business with 200 million users. But only an estimated 1.6 to 4.0% of its users provided any revenue to the company. This case examines how Dropbox used freemium pricing to facilitate product adoption and user referrals. A survey is provided of the cloud-storage industry, including an overview of the largest players and their pricing/service models. Further, various freemium-based companies across industries are compared, including user conversion rates and revenue profiles.