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At Precision Electro-Tek's mobile phone manufacturing facility in southern China, thousands of operators-bright and capable young men and (mostly) women like Jieliang Hao-are motivated to improve line productivity through small innovations for faster assembly and have discovered many ways to increase their performance. Meanwhile a globally networked team of manufacturing experts led by Marty Cole, the case protagonist, is trying to spread best practice from other sites around the globe. Unfortunately these two processes sometimes inadvertently clash, presenting a management challenge. The case helps students examine the implicit assumptions managers make in organizing work inside a factory. These assumptions reflect theories of worker behavior and motivation in combination with managers' beliefs of what constitutes "best practice." Students are offered an opportunity to dissect these lean manufacturing theories and recognize that in this particular implementation, implementation of best practice without sufficient consideration of the interplay of theories on motivation has led to unexpected outcomes. The case offers an opportunity to explore the link between work design and compensation and to understand the differences between compensation and motivation. The case frames the role of the general manager in setting up work structures and compensation systems in a very traditional and explicit setting, one where linkages should be clearly visible yet assumptions are often deeply buried and implicit. Our expectation is that students will see the lessons generalize to most, if not all, of the organizations where they have worked. There are three cases: the (A) case describes the management view, the (B) case describes the direct labor worker view, and the (C) case details the results of an employee survey that was conducted on two manufacturing lines.

The government-led creation and incubation of the semiconductor industry in Taiwan is a striking success for advocates of strong industrial policy. It has led to the island nation's domination of the global "foundry" business in which firms like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) manufacture the designs of "fabless" design companies. The two have a combined global market share of close to 70% of this global business segment. This success was all the more striking because when the initiative began, the country had few of the large scale firms that could support the R&D and scale necessary to enter such sophisticated capital intensive industries. There were no firms with the deep technological roots or the skill base to even begin. Yet government planners recognized the challenges of upgrading the nation's technology base and formulated a strategy that entailed the creation of "pilot agencies" that would serve as vehicles to bridge between sources of leading edge technology (predominantly sourced from overseas) and the commercialization to be carried out by local firms.

Most large companies operate in more than one business. Valuing a diversified company requires separate valuations for each of its businesses and for the corporate headquarters. This method of valuing a company by parts and then adding them up is known as Sum-Of-The-Parts (SOTP) valuation and is commonly used in practice by stock market analysts and companies themselves. However, it is rarely taught in MBA programs or broached in valuation textbooks. Yet the application of the method raises a number of challenges.

Founders and their families can raise equity without relinquishing control of their companies, through the use of mechanisms such as dual-class stock, pyramidal ownership, voting agreements, and disproportionate board representation. The use of these mechanisms in publicly traded companies is widespread throughout the world, and in the United States. Understanding how the various mechanisms contribute to the separation between economic ownership and control is important for the individuals who set them up because the choice among these mechanisms impacts firm value. It is also important for minority shareholders in these companies and for regulators, for reasons of transparency and investor protection.

Microsoft designs, modifies, publicizes, and distributes Windows Vista -- against a backdrop of consumers already largely satisfied with their existing Windows XP systems. Microsoft must decide what features to include and what to drop, how to compete with its own installed base, and how to mobilize partners to offer Vista-compatible systems.

Zappos was founded in 1999, during the Internet boom, to sell shoes online. The company's founding premise was to provide the ultimate in selection to its customers-all brands, styles, sizes, and colors. Zappos organized all aspects of its business (including recruiting, culture, call center, inventory, website, and supply chain) to provide the best possible service-it wanted to "wow" everyone who interacted with the company, from customers to employees to corporate partners. Zappos grew rapidly, and by 2008 was profitable with net sales (after returns) of about $650 million. The company faced a number of issues as it looked forward. While it had penetrated only about 3 percent of the U.S. market for shoes, Zappos had expanded its product lines to items such as camping gear and video games. It needed to determine those elements of its strategy had contributed to its success in shoes, and whether it would be able to duplicate that success in other product lines. It also needed to determine how it could scale its business-much of the effort it had made to "wow" its customers was labor intensive and expensive-could this be scaled to a company with revenues of tens of billions? Finally, the economic landscape changed dramatically in late 2008, with the financial market collapse and recession. The service-intensive Zappos.com business was based on sales at little to no discount, unlike many websites that relied on selling at the lowest possible price. Would the company need to make changes to respond to the changed economic environment, and if so, what were those changes? The case provides an opportunity to evaluate the core competences of an Internet retailer that has experienced rapid, initial success. The case enables students to consider supply chain issues, which are critical to the company's success, in the broader context of the business: the bases of Zappos' success, its core competencies, culture, and competitive environment.

Shanghai Diligence Law Firm, started in January 2006, is a rapidly growing law firm in China's burgeoning legal services market. In addition to the usual challenges facing all professional service firms (picking and retaining talent and building a desired client portfolio), the firm faces some challenges and opportunities that are unique to its setting in China and the fact that the firm is not yet three years old. The legal profession in China is a new and rapidly growing one with a large number of small firms all trying to carve out a distinctive niche for themselves. One of the partners in the firm, Joseph Shang, has created an innovative compensation system he calls the "A-B-C-D Model" which enables even the most junior associates to earn compensation for bringing in new business. This model is a kind of hybrid between the typical compensation system found in a Chinese law firm and those found in U.K. and U.S. law firms. The goal of this approach to compensation is to enable the firm to get and keep promising lawyers while also giving them an incentive to help grow the business. Somewhat unusual for a typical law firm, or any type of professional service firm, this compensation model is only used in Shang's practice. The founder and CEO, Chenyao Wu, has his own version of an "A-B-C-D Model," and discussions are taking place about what the firm should be doing about compensation. In addition to compensation, the firm is grappling with issues regarding divergent views amongst the partners, building a brand in a very competitive marketplace and the stability of the core team.

After a series of acquisitions, Maurice Levy, the Chairman and CEO of Publicis Groupe, had created the fourth largest marketing and communications company in the world. His next major challenge was managing the firm's digital transformation. In December 2006, the company acquired Boston-based Digitas, a leading digital agency headed by David Kenny. After the initial merger, which included the unbundling of Digitas capabilities and the global expansion of its agency network, Publicis Groupe launched VivaKi, a new company-wide digital platform, to spearhead the firm's total transformation. But since the June 2008 launch, the global economy had taken a turn for the worse. Could Levy, Kenny, and other leaders change the holding company quickly and effectively enough to make the new model work?

In the run-up to the Beijing Olympics, China's US$5.714 billion outdoor advertising market, like the city itself, underwent a major overhaul. With the advancement of communication technologies, China's outdoor media scene saw the arrival of more and more digital-driven media formats geared toward capturing a population that was increasingly on the move. The government initiative to overhaul the city landscape had facilitated significant consolidation of China's previously decentralized outdoor media market and redefined the competitive landscape, giving rise to a handful of major players. Tulip Mega Media was founded by retired Chinese Olympic swimming champion Zhuang Yong and partner Wang Min in 1998. By July 2008, Tulip Mega Media's footprint not only covered Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, but stretched to a total of some 12 major cities in China. Its head-on competitor, Advision, another Shanghai-based outdoor digital media company, was racing against Tulip Mega Media in acquiring prime media sites and in attracting funding from the capital market. Could Tulip Mega Media rise to the challenge and replicate the success of some of its predecessors, such as Focus Media and AirMedia?

In the summer of 2007, Mattel, the largest toymaker in the US, made several recalls of products that had been made in China. The recalls led not only to a sharp reduction in Mattel's sales but also to public hearings in the US Congress, which significantly affected Mattel's reputation. Like other toymakers, Mattel has been relocating its production abroad, outsourcing the manufacture of parts and components. Indeed, 65% of Mattel's products are made in China. In contrast to its competitors, however, Mattel has understood the importance of quality control in this relocation/outsourcing process. In the 1980s, it reversed its earlier strategy of outsourcing to factories in Asia by owning and operating some plants in Asia for producing its most popular products. The product recalls show that quality control continues to be an issue. This case explores Mattel's strategy for organizing production, the trade-offs between in-house production and outsourcing, and the trade-offs between different production locations.

In April 2008, Nintendo was ranked seventh in the annual BusinessWeek-Boston Consulting Group ranking of the world's most innovative companies. The award recognized the company as an innovative design powerhouse that had challenged the prevailing business model of the video game industry with its new video game console, the Wii. The video game console industry traditionally went into a new cycle every five to six years. In 2006, when the newest generation of video game consoles was introduced, Microsoft and Sony had continued with their previous strategies of increasing the computing power of their latest products, the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3. This time, however, Nintendo had planned something different. The company believed that the video game industry had been focusing far too much on existing gamers and completely neglecting non-gamers who could well be the source for future growth. Armed with this insight, Nintendo had developed a radically different strategy by producing the Wii, whose processing power was dwarfed by that of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Nevertheless, it soon became evident that Nintendo's Wii was a runaway success. How has Nintendo achieved this success? Has the company really disrupted the video game industry? What course of action is available to Nintendo's competitors?

In 1987, President Ronald Reagan established the President's Commission on Privatization to identify federal government functions that could be shifted to the private sector. One agency that the Commission considered was the Federal National Mortgage Association, or Fannie Mae. Fannie Mae was a Depression-era creation that was charged with establishing a secondary market for home loans. By purchasing qualifying residential mortgages from individual home loan issuers, Fannie Mae provided these institutions with funds for the continued issuance of mortgages, thereby promoting the government's goal of increased homeownership. Although lawmakers had already partially privatized Fannie Mae in 1954 and again in 1968, the agency in 1987 still retained close links to the federal government, including an emergency line of credit from the U.S. Treasury. After its deliberations, the President's Commission recommended Fannie Mae be restructured into a fully private firm. Now it was up to Congress and the President to decide whether to accept and implement the Commission's findings.

Jonathan Kutchins and Mark Cullen, managing partners of IT consulting firm Exeter Group, Inc., are considering four potential client engagements. Three of them involve prominent universities, an area of market strength for the firm, and one involves a top-tier strategy consulting firm, a new market for Exeter. Each of the projects has both attractive and unattractive attributes, with various degrees of upside and downside risk. As a relatively new and small IT consulting firm, Exeter needs to make careful choices about how it allocates resources to projects and it is not clear if the firm has the capacity to add all four projects at once. Thus Kutchins and Cullen have to decide which, if any, of these projects to do. In some cases they must also decide whether they want to try to restructure the nature of the engagement to better fit the firm's service model. Although young and small, the firm has grown successfully and is optimistic about its future prospects. Kutchins and Cullen thus want to make decisions about these very specific client engagements in the context of their overall strategy and the contributions of these engagements to helping the firm achieve its long-term goals.

Prior to the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, Chinese people were outraged by repeated interruptions of the Olympic torch relay in Paris on 7 April 2008. Soon after the incident, LVMH Group, a shareholder of the retailer Carrefour, was accused by some Chinese internet users of donating money to the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet. The rumor spread on the internet quickly, leading to calls for a large-scale boycott of Carrefour on 1 May 2008. Despite the souring public sentiment, Carrefour did not provide a consistent response to the public, even after one whole week of the crisis. The situation deteriorated quickly, with demonstrations taking place in various cities across China. Meanwhile, further rumors about Carrefour's anti-boycott promotions were circulating on the internet. How should the local management react to the public relations crisis and how can Carrefour manage its corporate image going forward?

Mibanco, Peru's leading microfinance bank, faces intense competition as the banking industry rushes into low income segments. Companion video clips bring into the classroom the contemporary reality of a world-class microfinance institution, where the unpaved streets and cluttered markets of the loan officer coexist with the sophistication of technical financial analysis and premier professional management. Rafael Llosa, the General Manager of Mibanco, must find the way to maintain the financial performance of one of Peru's most profitable banks and meet the strategic growth goals set by his board while facing the most aggressive competitive scenario in the 25-year history of microfinance in Peru. Courseware No. 9-309-701, "Microfinance: An Operating Perspective," contains five chapters filmed at Mibanco: Introduction, Competition, Marketing, Operations and Human Relations.

The manager of an upscale hotel in the heart of London, Ontario - The Clonlara - wanted to apply revenue management techniques to increase revenue at the hotel. Specifically, she wanted to apply quantitative analysis to determine how many rooms to discount for a Saturday night stay.

The Cleveland Clinic's health care services are internationally renowned for quality. In 2008, The Clinic began to restructure the organization into teams defined around patient needs, rather than traditional medical specialties."Patients First! takes shape as the teams measure and report outcomes, coordinate care, and develop to support improving value for patients. In addition to restructuring care delivery in the hospitals and throughout northeastern Ohio, The Clinic has investments, facilities, and staff in several other states in the U.S. as well as in Canada and Abu Dhabi. Now in 2015, as the Clinic's domestic and international footprint continues to expand, its leadership is also focused in maintaining the Cleveland Clinic brand and providing optimal clinical care. Students can explore strategy transformation, geographic expansion, the process of introducing new measurement approaches, alignment of activities with strategic goals, and issues in leading change both within a company and across an economic sector.

On one side, a loose network of protesters made arrangements for dramatizing their opposition to the WTO and international trade practices. At the same time, public safety officials from local, state, and federal agencies developed security plans for the public areas near the locus of the ministerial meetings. Their aim was to ensure that the talks proceeded smoothly while preserving the activists' rights to peaceful protest. Throughout the planning process, local leaders operated on the assumption that the tolerant ethos of the Pacific Northwest would prevail. This assumption proved terribly wrong, however, when, on the opening day of the talks, law enforcement officials lost control of the crowds gathered outside the meeting venue. Readers are asked to consider what lessons can be drawn from this ultimately inadequate security planning process. How might security planners have thought differently about how to prepare for the conference? What should they have anticipated in advance? How could they have developed a better awareness of protesters' activities and plans? HKS Case Number 1897.1

On one side, a loose network of protesters made arrangements for dramatizing their opposition to the WTO and international trade practices. At the same time, public safety officials from local, state, and federal agencies developed security plans for the public areas near the locus of the ministerial meetings. Their aim was to ensure that the talks proceeded smoothly while preserving the activists' rights to peaceful protest. Throughout the planning process, local leaders operated on the assumption that the tolerant ethos of the Pacific Northwest would prevail. This assumption proved terribly wrong, however, when, on the opening day of the talks, law enforcement officials lost control of the crowds gathered outside the meeting venue. Readers are asked to consider what lessons can be drawn from this ultimately inadequate security planning process. How might security planners have thought differently about how to prepare for the conference? What should they have anticipated in advance? How could they have developed a better awareness of protesters' activities and plans? HKS Case Number 1897.0

In 2006, Thomas Schiller, a managing director of Arthur D Little ("ADL"), arrived in hazy Beijing with a crystal clear objective: to resurrect a consultant practice that lacked brand recognition in China. Despite success and renown around the world for its technology-focused consultancy business, ADL's first attempt at the Chinese market in early 2000s was hamstrung by its global restructuring. Was there a magical key to unlocking the giant market that had eluded Schiller's predecessor? How could Schiller ensure success for the practice in China?