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Shanghai Pharmaceuticals (SPH), a vertically integrated Chinese pharmaceutical conglomerate, was considering its strategic options in the context of a rapidly evolving industry, policy, and economic environment. The company-essentially a collection of subsidiaries operating under a unified management structure-was formed through the 2009 merger of several state-owned enterprises, part of a broad policy effort in China to streamline state assets, consolidate the fragmented pharmaceutical sector, and enhance the global competitiveness of domestic firms. As it competed with other large domestic firms to become one of the few national champions that the government hoped to create, SPH was also considering an acquisition in the U.S. or Europe. This case allows students to consider the broad trends sweeping China's pharmaceutical industry and health care sector and assess future opportunities there for domestic and foreign businesses.

Centuryply operates in the building materials space - specifically, in interior decoration with plywood, laminates and decorative veneers - alongside other categories like cement, shipping, and logistics. In India, this market is dominated by unorganized players, and plywood has always been treated as a commodity by marketers. Given the boom in real estate across residences and offices, as well as the current rapid lifestyle changes in India, the company expects sustainable and continuous growth and wants to achieve greater success in the wood furnishings category. Centuryply views investment in brand-building as a way to beat commoditization.The focus of the case is to explain innovative branding strategies that may be adopted by marketers to create a brand in the commodity market. In addition, it touches on the difficulties faced by a company to maintain a sustainable brand proposition amid competition. The key question is how to maintain brand-building momentum and take it to the next level.

t was February 2012 and the founder of Nurturing Green, a plants-as-gifts enterprise, faced an important business decision. As he pondered the deal presented to him by an investment firm, he wondered about the wisdom of giving up 50 per cent control of his company in return for the investment firm's offer of $10 million in capital funding. Would the investors take control of the company out of his hands, or would they provide necessary capital and useful business experience? Further, if he acquired the venture capital, how and where should he allocate the funds and his efforts to maximize the degree of leverage his business could gain from the influx of capital? Should he invest in building warehouses to better serve his customers by achieving lesser lead times? Should he invest in research and development to increase the knowledge capital of his business, or should he consider other options?

Sitara was a village in India whose local governing body had 15 members headed by the gram-pradhan. In 2011, the gram-pradhan had approved a project for renovation of a large village pond as per the directives of the central government's MNREGA scheme. However, on starting the excavation work at the project site, it was found that the area was extremely marshy. Manual labourers turned up at the site everyday but declined to work in life-threatening conditions. MNREGA prohibited the use of machines except in the case of extraordinary circumstances without exactly defining what such circumstances might be. Thus, the gram-pradhan was forced to pay labour fees for no work. The case is set at this juncture, where a solution must be found. Part A illustrates how the Indian style of management that relies on competencies such as jugaad (creative improvisation), innovation, and resourcefulness leads to talent management and capability-building even at the bottom of the pyramid. Part B brings forth the trade-off between the management practice of jugaad and management through "systematic innovation." Part C sheds light on the public policy approach of examining the whole situation. The case also explores the competencies needed for the effective functioning of social and commercial institutions in the Indian context.

St. Mary Maternity Hospital, a nonprofit organization, had a mission to deliver healthy babies at normal weight and to offer medical care to expectant mothers regardless of their financial situation. This case demonstrates the value of staying focused on achieving a mission statement. To achieve the hospital's mission, it was important to identify factors that could affect the weight and health of babies. This case demonstrates how a few factors related to birth could result in insightful and actionable recommendations for doctors, administrators, and policy makers.

Natalia Georgio is the executive director of a growing dance troupe. She has a mandate from her board to expand the company by going international and pursuing TV and film opportunities. To realize these plans for growth, she recently hired a new marketing director, who wants to launch a customer research initiative. The company's founder, however, believes that innovation comes from employees, not customers. Natalia needs to decide whether to bring her new marketing director's customer research plan to the board or follow the founder's lead and cultivate creativity from within. Thomas J. DeLong and Vineeta Vijayaraghavan present this fictionalized case study with expert commentary provided by Mario D'Amico and Jens Martin Skibsted.

Natalia Georgio is the executive director of a growing dance troupe. She has a mandate from her board to expand the company by going international and pursuing TV and film opportunities. To realize these plans for growth, she recently hired a new marketing director, who wants to launch a customer research initiative. The company's founder, however, believes that innovation comes from employees, not customers. Natalia needs to decide whether to bring her new marketing director's customer research plan to the board or follow the founder's lead and cultivate creativity from within. Thomas J. DeLong and Vineeta Vijayaraghavan present this fictionalized case study.

Natalia Georgio is the executive director of a growing dance troupe. She has a mandate from her board to expand the company by going international and pursuing TV and film opportunities. To realize these plans for growth, she recently hired a new marketing director, who wants to launch a customer research initiative. The company's founder, however, believes that innovation comes from employees, not customers. Natalia needs to decide whether to bring her new marketing director's customer research plan to the board or follow the founder's lead and cultivate creativity from within. Thomas J. DeLong and Vineeta Vijayaraghavan present this fictionalized case study with expert commentary provided by Mario D'Amico and Jens Martin Skibsted.

A small US-based crowdsourcing platform illustrates the entrepreneurial challenges in a new 'industry' - the crowdsourcing industry. The firm's president founded and manages a virtual firm, which he launched even before the term crowdsourcing was coined. He has chosen to focus his firm, initially, on selling labor services to the American real estate market. Now that he has successfully built a network of reliable providers and repeat clients, his dilemma is how to grow his firm.

Healthware, a digital communication agency specializing in healthcare, is based in Salerno Italy. The firm has 72 employees in two countries as well as clients in 14 countries. The case illustrates the location trade-offs of operating - and growing - a global digital company far from the epicenter of Italian business. The theme is universal. Once the firm is far from a nation's epicenter, a dynamism may be absent but the advantages are quite tangible: lower costs and employee stability. This teaching case is based on actual companies, people, and events, though some details have been dramatized or disguised.

In 2005, a successful Peruvian-based software company was seeking to grow by exporting its software products. The case illustrates the entrepreneurial challenges in selling software products from a developing nation that is not on the forefront of the technology world. LOLIMSA has successfully grown its market into several Latin countries outside of Peru. The firm is considering trying to enter the lucrative American market for the second time, but knows that the investment in market entry is substantial.

This case address two major issues of importance to an integrated delivery system ( IDS) in promoting goal congruence: the design of financial responsibility centers and the selection of an appropriate transfer pricing methodology. It helps students to see that, in a truly integrated IDS, treating hospitals (and other providers) as standard expense centers and using two-part transfer prices can help to improve goal congruence.

This case is useful in bringing together several different disciplines: strategy, management control, and change management. The organization was a newly formed integrated clinical enterprise that included an academic medical center, a community hospital, and a academic practice plan. It also was tied strategically and financially to a college of medicine. It was attempting to achieve clinical and financial integration between its physician practices and its provider institutions, mainly the medical center, but the effort had been compromised by a budget crisis that had had a detrimental effect on the organization, and had led to mistrust among the physicians, some of whom were considering leaving the organization.

This case provides students with an opportunity to look at both structure and process issues in a highly bureaucratic context, and to consider the appropriate balance between centralization and decentralization in a management control system. It also provides students with an opportunity to assess the value of a management control report.

This case allows students to analyze the impact of rate changes in a purchase-of-service system. One conclusion is that these systems function as communication media whereby the public sector signals its priorities to the private sector (the service providers). The situation being analyzed is one in which the public sector wishes to establish a one-time payment for the completion of a given task-an adoption-which will eliminate the ongoing cost of foster care for the adopted child.

This is a case designed to illustrate how a management control system might be designed in an educational setting. Students need to determine (a) if it is a good control system, and, if so, why, (b) if it is a system in need of modification, and, if so, where, or (c) if it is akin to killing a fly with an elephant gun and should be scrapped.

This case gives students an opportunity to determine the appropriate size of a nonprofit organization's surplus. The case also lends itself to the use of a spreadsheet if the instructor wishes the students to have practice in preparing one.

This case provides an opportunity to use a number of analytic techniques, and it raises several issues associated with benefit-cost calculations.

The case describes the phenomenal growth of Facebook, a social networking site launched in 2004, which had reached approximately 1 billion members by 2012. The case provides an overarching picture of the company's growth over the last eight years, from its founding to present day global expansion, covering the competitive landscape, the challenges it has faced along the way (including controversy over its privacy policy), its growth strategy and product development, marketing, and organizational challenges.

In an era of ever-changing technology, the challenge for a social entrepreneur is to cope with the fast pace of change. With a concern for the environment and energy conservation, the entrepreneur in this case became an entrepreneur with the development of a new product - a mechanical charger. His company, ideaForge, manufactured and sold two types of products: mechanical chargers and other conventional chargers such as bike chargers. The mechanical charger, an innovation of ideaForge, was a product that could produce electricity through mechanical operation. The sales of other conventional chargers were increasing, while the sales of mechanical chargers were decreasing. The company faced two major challenges while running the business: how to market this innovative product to customers used to traditional mobile phone chargers, and whether the company should increase the product range or concentrate on existing products. The decision that had to be made was whether to sell only through distribution channels or through a sales force, or both. The young entrepreneur, along with his two cofounders, also had to make decisions on how to position and price their products in the market. With a changing market scenario, several initiatives and calculated risks would have to be taken if they wanted to develop new product offerings, such as laptop chargers and bicycle chargers, both of which would mean diversifying the business.