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The setting of this case is off the coast of the failed state of Somalia, where incidents of piracy have increased dramatically over the past few years. In this case a group of 14 pirates have hijacked a cargo ship full of machinery, but have yet to make any demands. They hold the multinational crew of 20 (whose captain and two officers are American), the ship, and the cargo hostage. The Chief Operating Officer of an international shipping company must choose among alternative strategies to get the crew, cargo and ship, back safely with as little cost as possible.

Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF), dubbed "the greatest literary show on earth" was an annual event held in late January at the Diggi Palace in Jaipur. JLF provided a platform for international authors and Indian language authors from the subcontinent to engage in a literary dialogue. By 2011, JLF attracted the largest festival audience in the Asian Pacific region with approximately 60,000 visitors from 24 countries. It featured 224 speakers in 140 sessions, and 100 musicians in 20 concerts. Success had already changed the character of the festival from the earlier more intimate days and had created a momentum that, if not managed correctly, could compromise goals such as the democratic ethos of the festival. While JLF had achieved explosive growth and critical success, its expenses still exceeded its revenue. Could JLF find an organizational and financial "template" which could sutain the festival into the future?

The state-run Banco de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires (Banco Ciudad) was losing money in 2007. Early in 2008, Federico Sturzenegger, a renowned academic in Argentina, was appointed executive chairman by the city government and charged with turning the bank around. But just four months later, Sturzenegger was already facing the 45th day of a labor conflict sparked by union representatives on account of having fired six employees. The showdown raised several questions. First and foremost: Who owned Banco Ciudad? The city government? The citizens? Its employees? How could this bank use its strengths and overcome its weaknesses to best serve its constituents and the public? This case follows Sturzenegger's eventful first few years in office to examine how a state-owned enterprise maneuvered in a challenging environment to hit its targets of greater efficiency and profitability.

Mary Tolan, CEO Accretive Health, examines whether to expand the company's operations in hospital revenue cycle management into the field of Total Cost of Care management.

Molly Miller, an Intel employee and shareholder, must decide whether to vote FOR or AGAINST Intel's proposed 2009 option exchange program. Given recent declines in Intel's stock price, more than 99% of Intel's outstanding employee stock options are "underwater," and employee motivation and retention are serious concerns. If the program is approved by shareholders, Molly must decide whether to participate in the program and tender her underwater employee stock options. As a shareholder and an employee, Molly must assess the pros and cons of Intel's proposed exchange program from both perspectives. In addition, she must consider Intel's proposal in light of the alternative approaches pursued by other corporations that have recently confronted the problem of underwater employee stock options.

The new vice-president and general manager of Best Optical Ltd. is trying to formulate a strategy in response to his competitors actions. Best Optical is a distributor of vision hardware and competitors are buying up retail outlets, threatening to shut Best Optical out of the market. The vice-president has to decide how to respond to the threat and what implications his response will have on Best Optical's business.

CCM Hockey (CCM) had been losing market share to competitors in the hockey skate business. In order to counteract this trend, in March 2008, the most innovative pair of hockey skates ever developed by CCM was made available to customers. Soon after the launch, however, some quality issues developed. CCM decided to replace the skates with an identical pair while trying to remedy the problem. In 2009, new improved skates were put on the market but they looked identical to the previous model. Buyers were skeptical and, as a result, sales were poor. Both the trade and individual consumers had lost confidence in the brand. CCM returned to the drawing board and redesigned the skates but also decided to launch the skates close to four months after the normal industry cycle. The decision was complicated by a stagnant market and indistinct consumer segments. The brand manager and his assistant were faced with developing a strong launch strategy because the future of the CCM Skate brand depended on a successful launch.

Ron Burkle is an activist investor and stockholder of Barnes & Noble, Inc. (BN). In September 2010, through his company, The Yucaipa Companies (Yucaipa), Burkle filed a "Definitive Proxy" to challenge BN's slate of board-of-director nominees at the upcoming stockholder meeting. The proxy was made in response to a ruling against Yucaipa by the Delaware Chancery Court concerning a lawsuit that challenged Barnes and Noble's poison-pill provision, which prevented outsiders becoming majority stockholders. Burkle disagreed with BN's founder, chairman and owner of the majority stake in the company, Leonard Riggio, concerning BN's long-term strategy. While Burkle wanted the company to cede ground to Amazon in the digital reader marketplace and instead concentrate on BN's physical stores, Riggio believed that the Nook eReader should be the centrepiece of the company's strategy. Riggio had to respond to the Yucaipa proxy in the short-term and come up with a plan of action to retain control of the company in the long term.

Most family businesses do not survive beyond two or three generations. One of the main reasons for the short life span of family businesses is due to the lack of governance mechanisms in the family. With better family governance, business development becomes a more enjoyable journey and ensures continuity of the business across generations. This case is about an Indian family business, GMR Group, which was established a quarter century ago, and by 2010 became one of the major diversified infrastructure organizations in the country with large-scale interests in infrastructure (energy, roads and airports) and manufacturing (agri-business, mainly sugar). Since its founding, the Group has come a long way, from an independent proprietary enterprise to a family-owned holding corporation with several companies under its control, along with external stakeholders. The growth of the group has been led by the entrepreneurial zeal and organizational capabilities of its founder G.M Rao. Having seen many family businesses breaking up for want of adequate governance mechanisms, Rao led the way for the writing of his family's constitution with the help of several experts. The entire family spent many hours, and after several rounds of iteration created and signed a constitution in 2007. The writing process of the constitution, and the policies and processes developed were optimal for maximizing GMR's performance and the family's well-being in current and future generations. The case captures the essential processes and output of writing a family constitution.

Nuru International was founded in 2008 as a social venture with the goal to eradicate extreme poverty around the world by helping the rural poor achieve self-sufficiency. The case follows Jake Harriman, founder and executive director, through the multiple human resource challenges he must face in building his nonprofit organization. The first of four vignettes involves Kevin Newton, one of Nuru's first employees, after his promotion to international agricultural director. In his new role, Newton become increasingly vocal and adversarial, voicing his opinions throughout the organization, and Jake must decide how to best handle the situation. The second vignette describes the poorly-handled termination of Nuru's contract grant writer and how Jake must deal with the employee and his supervisor. Finally, an unfortunate accident leads to Jake's absence at the company offsite resulting in two unfortunate situations. In the first, Nuru's recently terminated director of development publicly misrepresents the circumstances leading to his dismissal to the full group of employees attending the offsite. In the second, the employees compile an overwhelming list of gripes about the company, in Jake's absence, which he must ultimately address.

The OpenTable case describes the company's evolution from its startup phase in 1998 to its decision to go public ten years later. The company transitioned through three CEOs until it hired Jeff Jordan, former head of PayPal and general manager of eBay North America, to help take the company public. The case describes the various factors a company must consider when going public, including the company's long-term potential, the fiduciary responsibility to investors, the regulations associated with Sarbanes-Oxley, the time and energy required of the management team and financial staff to meet regulators' and investors' needs as a public company, and the obvious financial and branding benefits, among others. OpenTable has just selected Merrill Lynch as its lead bank when the U.S. financial markets collapse virtually collapse overnight in the fall of 2008, creating a decision point for the management team and board to either continue forward with the process or wait an indefinite amount of time until the economy gains more stability.

Birchbox offers trial-sized beauty products delivered monthly by mail -- attracting rave reviews. Seeing the success of this model, numerous "copycat" clones seek to offer the same service. Many of these copycats focus on non-U.S. countries, but others are challenging Birchbox on its home territory. Can Birchbox defend its position? How?

Chanel, the iconic haute couture house, founded by Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel in 1913, came to embody its founder's philosophy, taste, and style and set a distinctive and influential tone for women's fashion. Coming to prominence during the height of cultural modernity in the 1920s and 1930s, Chanel's designs wrapped high and low cultural references into beautiful yet practical clothing and jewelry for women of Europe and the Americas. In their articulation of clean, classic lines, her designs set a standard for women's fashion and clothing, relevant from 1910 through to the 1960s. She created several iconic but understated staples of many women's wardrobes, such as her signature cardigan and suit, the quilted handbag with a chain-link strap, which left its wearer's hands free, and "the little black dress," all of which continue to be part of women's wardrobes today in some shape and form. Chanel died in 1971 leaving the future of the brand and its leadership uncertain.

The "Big 3" - Ford Motor Company, General Motors, and Chrysler - were all headquartered in Detroit, Michigan. Born between 1903 and 1928, they dominated the automobile industry in the U.S. for decades until they became complacent. In the 1970s they started losing share to better quality, more fuel-efficient foreign imports. By 2008 they were teetering, and two required federal government assistance to stay afloat. Within three years, remarkably, the Big 3 had turned around by improving competitiveness in quality, design and cost. Ford's Alan Mulally, GM CEO Ed Whitacre, and Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne took different approaches to guide their respective companies to improvements in product design, quality, and cost competitiveness that led to sales increases, solid profitability and positive cash flow. From October 2010 to October 2011, GM, Ford, and Chrysler sales increased 1.8%, 6.2%, and 27%, respectively. GM and Ford reported strong profits and better-than-expected sales, and agreed to pay bonuses to unionized workers as part of new contracts. The Big 3 were gaining market share-Ford was now handily outselling Toyota Motor Corp. in the U.S. after falling behind in 2007. Many saw the "Big 3" turnaround as proof that a unionized manufacturing industry could be revived through strong, decisive leadership on multiple fronts and improved union relations.

Since the 1970s, the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan region (MSP) had outpaced the nation in job creation and income per capita. MSP's diversified base of industry clusters had enabled the region to adapt to economic downturns and an exodus of major corporate headquarters, earning it the accolade "Minnesota Miracle." Starting in 2003, however, MSP lagged the rest of the U.S. in job creation (see Exhibit 1). Alarmed business and civic leaders coalesced around a loose-knit group that congregated annually as the Itasca Project. In 2009 these leaders launched the Itasca Jobs Task Force, and its 2010 report set in motion a series of actions by groups of CEOs and politicians aimed at reversing these trends by creating jobs in all sectors of the economy. In the fall of 2011, however, it was unclear whether these efforts would achieve their intended results (see Exhibit 2), or whether longer-term corrective actions in education and skills training would need to take hold first.

Pacific Grove Spice Company is a profitable, rapidly growing manufacturer, marketer, and distributor of quality spices and seasonings. The company's business model requires significant investment in accounts receivable, inventory, and fixed assets to support sales. Although the company is profitable and all of its net income is reinvested in the firm, the firm must utilize significant amounts of debt to fund the necessary growth in assets to support sales. The bank is concerned about the total amount of interest-bearing debt on Pacific's balance sheet and has asked the company to provide a plan to reduce it. Debra Peterson, president and CEO, believes the current four-year financial projections are reasonable and attainable. She is also considering three opportunities: sponsoring a cable cooking show, raising new capital by selling shares of common stock, and acquiring a privately owned spice company. Students must analyze the company's financial projections to determine if the reduction in debt meets the bank's requirements. They must also analyze the opportunities and consider their individual and combined impacts on the company's financial position. The case illustrates the interaction between investment and financing decisions. This multifaceted case can be taught in a single class session or extended over several sessions and can be used as a final exam for an introductory MBA-level Finance course.

The owner of a goat herd in Tennessee must decide whether to rent out his herd for a land-clearing project at a nearby resort. Goats are better suited to clearing the land than humans and machines, but the owner has never rented out his goats for such a purpose. The owner must identify costs associated with the project, then determine a price to charge for the service. Since the owner has no prior experience renting out livestock, he must come up with estimates of the incremental costs associated with the rental operation and prepare a bid with little knowledge of rates charged by competitors for goat rentals. This case provides a realistic example of the thought processes that business owners go through when evaluating whether to expand into complementary lines of business, as well as the considerations of entrepreneurs contemplating starting new businesses. See also Goats: The Green Alternative (B) and Goats: The Green Alternative (C).

Crown Investment Corporation (CIC) of Saskatchewan and its partners Mosaic Corporation and CIBC had decided to sell a fertilizer plant that they jointly owned. Now CIC and its associates had to come up with a value assessment and mode of sale.

After successfully establishing more than 33 retail stores in large cities across China, Decathlon, a large sporting goods manufacturer and retailer, planned to open its official online shopping website in China. The marketing department head of Decathlon China, has experimented with several new social media in China in order to increase the brand awareness among online shoppers. In the upcoming executive meeting, marketing department head would like to persuade the chief executive officer to dedicate more resources to social media to increase both online sales in the short term and market share in the long term.

An updated "Four Products" case. This 2011 version includes; sliced peanut butter, artificial dirt for thoroughbred race tracks, interactive tombstones, and stride-changing running shoes. These four products form the basis to assess the drivers of new product adoption. In particular, one of the critical tasks in marketing new innovations is predicting demand and rates of diffusion for those products. And while one can speculate on the scope and rate of diffusion for any given product, it's helpful to compare and contrast diffusion across products. Doing so allows one to focus on the drivers or product characteristics that influence product diffusion, making one product a star and another a dog. Specifically, looking across products allows one to pick up on things that get lost in discussing a single product. Note that this case often gets used with HBS No. 505-075, "Note on Innovation Diffusion; Rogers' Five Factors," which can be distributed along with the case or after the case has been taught.