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"Media General and the Balanced Scorecard (A) " (UV1135) describes the impetus for and the process of implementing a balanced scorecard (BSC) in a large, publicly held, multimedia news organization. The B case (UV1137) presents a situation where a business-unit manager turns to his region's BSC to evaluate the possible reasons for a quarterly revenue shortfall. These cases can be used in an undergraduate, graduate, or executive-education setting to introduce the BSC topic.

This short case challenges students to review a series of corporate financial metrics and to match them to one of the thirteen industries listed for them.

Students must assess the opportunity of purchasing a business as well as evaluate the likelihood that the potential investor, as a sole proprietor, will receive the required financing. This analysis should include the 4 Cs: character, business conditions, capacity to repay and collateral analysis. This analysis will also entail the qualitative examination of the business to be purchased, the new potential owner's personal characteristics, the dental industry and the location of the proposed business. Following the analysis, students should analyze the opportunity quantitatively by including the preparation and analysis of a statement of cash flows, ratio analysis, projected financial statements and, finally, an analysis of the available sources of collateral to be pledged for the loan.

Is it a sign or just a coincidence that several talented employees have recently left Sambian Partners? The architecture and engineering firm's latest defector refuses to tell the head of human resources, Mary Donillo, why he was unhappy. And the self-administered employee surveys don't reveal much. When CEO Helen Gasbarian gets word of the next possible flight risk, she promotes the employee on the spot. How can Sambian stop the talent drain? Four experts comment on this fictional case study in R0806A and R0806Z. Anna Pringle, the head of international people and organization capability for Microsoft, thinks that Helen should take a hard look at Mary, who is not safeguarding the firm's talent. Helen must also become an attentive listener. F. Leigh Branham, the CEO of human resources consultancy Keeping the People, thinks that Sambian's employees need a forum in which they can speak openly about their discontent. The candid discussions can expose the "triggering events" that impel people to leave, such as a disconnect between the firm's long-standing focus on innovative design and a more recent concern with profitability. Jim Cornelius, the chairman and CEO of Bristol-Myers Squibb, once faced a potential employee exodus as interim CEO of the pharmaceutical company. He advises Helen to meet face-to-face with her most talented employees and assure them that she understands their concerns and desires. Jean Martin, the executive director of the Corporate Executive Board's leadership council, urges Helen to support a mission and culture to which employees will feel connected. She explains that although people join companies for rational motives, they stay for emotional ones. By the time unhappy workers tell their managers what's going on, it's often too late.

Is it a sign or just a coincidence that several talented employees have recently left Sambian Partners? The architecture and engineering firm's latest defector refuses to tell the head of human resources, Mary Donillo, why he was unhappy. And the self-administered employee surveys don't reveal much. When CEO Helen Gasbarian gets word of the next possible flight risk, she promotes the employee on the spot. How can Sambian stop the talent drain? Four experts comment on this fictional case study in R0806A and R0806Z. Anna Pringle, the head of international people and organization capability for Microsoft, thinks that Helen should take a hard look at Mary, who is not safeguarding the firm's talent. Helen must also become an attentive listener. F. Leigh Branham, the CEO of human resources consultancy Keeping the People, thinks that Sambian's employees need a forum in which they can speak openly about their discontent. The candid discussions can expose the "triggering events" that impel people to leave, such as a disconnect between the firm's long-standing focus on innovative design and a more recent concern with profitability. Jim Cornelius, the chairman and CEO of Bristol-Myers Squibb, once faced a potential employee exodus as interim CEO of the pharmaceutical company. He advises Helen to meet face-to-face with her most talented employees and assure them that she understands their concerns and desires. Jean Martin, the executive director of the Corporate Executive Board's leadership council, urges Helen to support a mission and culture to which employees will feel connected. She explains that although people join companies for rational motives, they stay for emotional ones. By the time unhappy workers tell their managers what's going on, it's often too late.

Is it a sign or just a coincidence that several talented employees have recently left Sambian Partners? The architecture and engineering firm's latest defector refuses to tell the head of human resources, Mary Donillo, why he was unhappy. And the self-administered employee surveys don't reveal much. When CEO Helen Gasbarian gets word of the next possible flight risk, she promotes the employee on the spot. How can Sambian stop the talent drain? Four experts comment on this fictional case study in R0806A and R0806Z. Anna Pringle, the head of international people and organization capability for Microsoft, thinks that Helen should take a hard look at Mary, who is not safeguarding the firm's talent. Helen must also become an attentive listener. F. Leigh Branham, the CEO of human resources consultancy Keeping the People, thinks that Sambian's employees need a forum in which they can speak openly about their discontent. The candid discussions can expose the "triggering events" that impel people to leave, such as a disconnect between the firm's long-standing focus on innovative design and a more recent concern with profitability. Jim Cornelius, the chairman and CEO of Bristol-Myers Squibb, once faced a potential employee exodus as interim CEO of the pharmaceutical company. He advises Helen to meet face-to-face with her most talented employees and assure them that she understands their concerns and desires. Jean Martin, the executive director of the Corporate Executive Board's leadership council, urges Helen to support a mission and culture to which employees will feel connected. She explains that although people join companies for rational motives, they stay for emotional ones. By the time unhappy workers tell their managers what's going on, it's often too late.

In December 2007, more than 75 percent of all U.S. Internet users streamed some form of video online, consuming over 10 billion videos in total. While devices such as AppleTV and TiVo allowed users to watch Internet video on their televisions, Internet-delivered video was largely a web-based phenomenon. Despite this, the industry was preparing for the inexorable collision of Internet video and the television. While a video signal could be fed over coaxial cable, through copper wires or over fiber optic connections, the majority of U.S. consumers would continue to receive their television signal and Internet service through a wired connection for the foreseeable future. This case examines the transition to IP video delivery in 2008 from the perspective of those companies that own the "pipe," notably telecommunications companies, descendants of the 1982 AT&T divestiture, and cable companies, otherwise known as Multiple System Operators (MSOs).

Adezan is a medium-sized Brazilian company in the packaging and logistics business. It serves a broad portfolio of customers, and counts several global companies among its key accounts. Adezan's transformation from a manufacturer of wood packaging to a supplier of logistics services is, in part, the result of opportunistic strategies and the entrepreneurial ability of Cesar Zanchet. At a time of profound market changes, Adezan is confronted by the 7-7-7 challenge posed by Cebrace; a joint venture of global glass manufacturer Saint Gobain and Pilkington, to deliver a 7% annual reduction in packaging costs for three consecutive years. This case covers Cesar's leadership and highlights what academic literature defines as "entrepreneurship capital."

In 2002, a successful community development corporation in Boston, Massachusetts was approached by two other organizations about potential mergers. Each organization had distinctive geographical and ethnic roots but there were clear financial and management advantages to be had from combining assets. In one case, merger discussions proceeded with the benefit of lawyers and common board connections. In the other case, despite good progress at the beginning, the merger talks became increasingly contentious with opposition from community groups who rallied political leadership to step in. This case offers the opportunity to analyze the action and decision-making of the three organizations using alliance, negotiations, organizing and strategic frameworks. It also allows the class to engage in discussion about the nature of "community" in community-based organizations. HKS Case Number 1921.0

The hotel industry has experienced tremendous growth since the 1980s and has emerged as a global industry. During the expansion processess and rise of competition, multinational, multi-brand corporations, such as Hilton Hotels Corporation, were in the process of finding new markets and setting priorities. On the other hand in emerging markets, such as Russia, most of the national hotel industry had been formed under the pressure of foreign hotel chains. In addition to competing with foreign firms in their own markets, local Russian companines were also planning to enter international markets. In this environment where competition was strengthening within the global hotel industry, and new players were emerging, a number of questions and challenges existed: 1) How could firms effectively leverage their competencies and increase their competitiveness? 2) Would the multinational hotel corporations continue to expand their brand portfolios? 3) How could hotel chains maintain their integrity during the expansion on a global scale? 4) What strategies might apply to convince Western hotel companies to compete in emerging markets? 5) Which direction would further develop the hotel industries in emerging economies.

The chief executive (CEO) of Cequel Energy, Inc. (Cequel) is trying to choose between three options: continue operating Cequel as is, selling it, or converting part of the company into an income trust (in combination with another similarly sized firm). The CEO's key concern is the relative valuation of the three options. Other key issues include the management team's preferences and an impending tax horizon. This case can be used as an introduction to corporate finance and valuation using multiples. It also allows for consideration of the impact of taxes on valuation and could provide a useful tool to discuss tax policy given changes in the tax treatment of income trusts that occurred subsequent to the case.

The owner of Cenabal, faced an important decision. She had received an offer from two investors on the television show The Dragon's Den. She wondered if it would be wise to give up 50 per cent control of her organic salad dressing and bread dipping business in return for their $200,000 investment. Would losing a considerable amount of control over the business be worth gaining access to capital and their notable business experience? The supplements Cenabal (B) and (C) look at subsequent events.

Chronicles the globalization of the Tata Group, one of India's largest business groups. Since 2000, many Tata Group operating companies have aggressively built international businesses, particularly through overseas acquisitions. After describing the globalization rationales and approaches of the major Tata Group companies, the case asks students to consider whether Tata Motors should pursue the acquisition of the Jaguar and Land Rover brands owned by US-based Ford Motor company.

In 2006, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center was an internationally leading institution for cancer care, education, and research. Since 1996, it had successfully reorganized itself from a cancer hospital that was physically organized around clinical specialties into one that was organized into disease-based integrated practice units called multidisciplinary care centers. These units were supported by a new construction project that had created new disease-specific facilities and a widely-supported administrative plan in which physicians reported both to leadership of specialty-based academic departments and disease-based clinical centers.

This case series looks at three important inflection points in Palm's history that relate to decisions about its platform: when the company was debating whether to open its operating system (OS) for licensing to third-party hardware manufacturers; 2001, when the company was deciding whether to split into two separate companies; and, 2005, when the company was migrating from its own OS into Linux. (The last part, set in 2008, is an epilogue). By looking at Palm's decision concerning its platform over time, students are asked to consider how Palm's decisions affect innovation, competitiveness, value creation and value capture.

Chi Mei is a Taiwanese industrial group that makes a major diversification into the technology intensive TFT-LCD flat panel display industry. Because the diversification is far away from its core competence in petrochemicals, it is an opportunity to examine how the firm was able to become a global leader in the relatively short span of ten years. Such organic diversifications are relatively unusual by Western standards, especially into technologies and markets that have relatively high entry barriers and where there is no deep rooted national technological or scientific foundation. As such Chi Mei is an interesting vehicle to examine the rise of a major Asian industrial cluster with global scope which has no participants or competitors in the West. The case can also be used to expose students to the global supply chain for key information technology components. Taiwan and Korea are today the major world centers for the manufacture of semiconductors (in particular DRAMs and FLASH memory) and flat panel displays. Taiwan is also the center for notebook computer manufacturing, and Taiwanese companies, through their China-based manufacturing and assembly operations, drive 60% of the IT exports from China. Yet few students even know the identity of these major global players. Taiwan and Korea based TFT-LCD flat panels are the critical components in notebook computers, computer monitors, and flat panel televisions from essentially all well known global brands.

The case describes the strategic situation facing Carlos Ghosn and the Renault-Nissan Alliance in 2008 and beyond. One set of strategic issues concerns how to exploit to a greater extent the potential of the novel organization form - a sort of supra-corporate ecological system - that the Alliance represents. A second set of strategic issues concerns the further evolution of the Alliance - what Ghosn calls the "fourth stage" - in light of the dynamic forces that are reshaping the global automotive industry, and especially the issue of how to further scale-up the Alliance. A third set of strategic issues concerns developing further the strategic leadership capability of the Alliance and the evolving role of Carlos Ghosn as CEO of both Renault and Nissan.

Research in Motion (RIM) is a high technology firm that is experiencing explosive sales growth. David Yach, chief technology officer for software at RIM, has received notice of an impending meeting with the co-chief executive officer regarding his research and development (R&D) expenditures. Although RIM, makers of the very popular BlackBerry, spent almost $360 million in R&D in 2007, this number was low compared to its largest competitors, both in absolute numbers and as a percentage of sales (e.g. Nokia spent $8.2 billion on R&D). This is problematic as it foreshadows the question of whether or not RIM is well positioned to continue to meet expectations, deliver award-winning products and services and maintain its lead in the smartphone market. Furthermore, in the very dynamic mobile telecommunications industry, investment analysts often look to a firm's commitment to R&D as a signal that product sales growth will be sustainable. Just to maintain the status quo, Yach will have to hire 1,400 software engineers in 2008 and is considering a number of alternative paths to managing the expansion. The options include: (1) doing what they are doing now, only more of it, (2) building on their existing and satellite R&D locations, (3) growing through acquisition or (4) going global.

In April 2008, Bruce MacNaughton, president of Prince Edward Island Preserve Co. Ltd. (P.E.I. Preserves), was focused on turnaround. The company he had founded in 1985 had gone into receivership in May 2007. Although this had resulted in losses for various mortgage holders and unsecured creditors, MacNaughton had been able to buy back his New Glasgow shop/cafe, the adjacent garden property and inventory, and restart the business. He now needed a viable product-market strategy.

Brenda Cooper, a new regional sales manager for Hausser Food Products, is stumped after a year on the job. In charge of selling infant foods to customers in the Southwest, Cooper realizes that she's fighting against demographic trends such as declining birth rates, as well as a movement to produce homemade baby food. In this case students examine Hausser's organizational structure, its incentive system, and sales plan to consider how Brenda might earn the support she needs.