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In 2007, popular acceptance of the problem of global warming, and new recognition of its potential consequences, had brought carbon dioxide emissions to the front of Americans' minds. The continued turmoil in Iraq, as well as the United States' worsening relations with other oil rich nations such as Russia and Venezuela, highlighted a lack of energy security for Western countries importing vast quantities of petroleum. Moreover, rising gas prices were beginning to frustrate drivers at the pump while U.S. vehicles consumed 3.3 billion barrels of gasoline and 1.2 billion barrels of diesel fuel a year (as of 2006). These factors combined to create what some observers were calling a "perfect storm," drawing attention to the developed world's widespread addiction to oil. However, as concern about these issues was reaching an all-time high, transportation technology was undergoing a revolution. Advancements in alternative fuels, electric drive vehicles, and hybrid technologies were showing promise for reducing oil consumption. This paper examines some of these emerging innovations.

In 1995, Procter & Gamble (P&G) scientists began researching methods of water treatment for use in communities facing water crises. P&G, one of the world's largest consumer products companies, was interested in bringing industrial-quality water treatment to remote areas worldwide, because the lack of clean water, primarily in developing countries, was alarming. In the latter half of the 1990s, approximately 1.1 billion (out of a worldwide population of around 5.6 billion) people lacked access to clean drinking water or sanitation facilities. An estimated 6 million children died annually from diseases, including diarrhea, hookworm, and trachoma, brought about by contaminated water. Many of these deaths were preventable if a water sanitation product was paired with effective education and distribution. With a long history of scientific research and innovation in health, hygiene, and nutrition, P&G considered ways it could address the safe drinking-water crisis as the new millennium approached. Although the company had a vast array of successful products, P&G did not offer anything that involved water purification, either domestically or in developing countries where poverty, lack of infrastructure, and inaccessibility of remote communities made the prospect of cleaning up the water more difficult.

The case, set in late 2007, examines what MySpace-the largest online social network-should do to respond to its agile competitor, Facebook. Since its inception MySpace had experienced phenomenal growth, acquiring 20 million members in its first 20 months of operation, and another 70 million a year later, to become the most visited website in the United States. Its growth stalled around mid-2007, just a few months after Facebook had released its programming platform which allowed outside programmers to build applications using its social network data. The wealth of new applications on Facebook allowed the company to increase its membership by more than 15 per cent in one month. To remain competitive MySpace had to release its own platform, and now it needs to decide whether to build its own proprietary application platform or join OpenSocial, a Google-sponsored open source platform.

Founded in the wake of Hurricane Katrina as a catalyst for the transformation of the public education system in New Orleans, President Sarah Usdin and CEO Matt Candler must adapt their strategy to respond to a continuously shifting local context. By 2008, conditions on the ground begin to stabilize, creating a new set of challenges in realizing the organization's vision to provide excellent public schools for every child in New Orleans.

Leading index company Dow Jones recently signed a license and joint marketing agreement with Transparent Value LLC, the creator of a new fundamentals-based valuation methodology. The agreement allowed Dow Jones to offer a family of indexes based on the Transparent Value methodology. The methodology viewed stock prices as the clearest and most reliable signals of the market's expectations about a company's future performance, and employed a Reverse Discounted Cash Flow (RDCF) valuation model to calculate the revenue required to support a given stock price for a given company. Then, the methodology applied a probability that the company would achieve the needed revenues in the next 12 months, based on its recent track record. Moreover, the methodology endeavored for specificity. For example, when possible, Transparent Value strove to determine what the company needed to do in its business activities to achieve the required revenues. Called "business performance requirements," these could include the number of new store openings, or the number of product unit sales needed, as two examples. The fictitious case protagonist, a business development manager at a leading money management firm, is looking to launch an exchange-traded fund (ETF) using a fundamentals-based index as the underlying index. She needs to decide whether to base her ETF products on the Dow Jones - Transparent Value indexes. The case study provides an overview of equity indexes and ETF's and a step-by-step description of Transparent Value's methodology.

This is the story of MTC, a Kuwaiti telecom company that has grown from a sleepy, state monopoly to become one of the fastest growing telecom companies in the world, with the largest regional footprint across the Middle East and Africa. The CEO of the company, Dr. Saad Al Barrak had been successful in executing an aggressive growth plan that found its crown jewel in the acquisition of Celtel, one of the largest telecom companies in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, this acquisition threw MTC into a dynamic new context and marked the beginning of a very different phase. If Dr. Saad was going to lead MTC into the topmost ranks of global telecom, his team would have to successfully grapple with all the growing pains of managing across borders, brand names and cultures. All against the backdrop of an unpredictable African market with huge growth potential and rapidly increasing competition.

Mohammed Harib placed his phone on the desk in front of him. As he sat back in his chair and looked out the window, he began to take stock of how his life had taken such a dramatic path over the last few years. Life was good for the founder and CEO of Lammtara Pictures, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) first 3D animation studio. Recently dubbed 'Dubai's answer to Pixar' in a recent magazine article, Lammtara's first animated television show, FREEJ, had taken the Arabian Gulf region by storm a year ago. It was November 2007, and the second season of FREEJ had aired earlier in the fall, smashing the first season's record-breaking viewership numbers.

Lisa Sherman is a successful executive at Verizon who is struggling with the decision to reveal her sexual orientation. After attending a diversity training workshop in which participants expressed extremely negative views about people in her community, Sherman wonders whether the company is the right place for her, or if she should reveal her identity as lesbian and work within the system. Should she meet with the CEO to share her experience, or continue to conceal her sexual orientation while working at Verizon?

This two-part case study describes the initial merger and cultural transformation of Aviva's Norwich Union (NUI) operation in the UK. It examines the complexities of integration that arose following a series of mergers that created NUI from 1998 to 2000. Case A describes how, after CGU Plc and Norwich Union joined forces to become NUI, top management's priority was to restore profits. Behind the scenes, however, the need for a whole new corporate culture was becoming increasingly imperative. It shows the tension between the need for immediate gains in efficiencies vs. longer-term approaches to the business that required careful nurturing and attention. It ends as the executive team's announcement of the new corporate philosophy - "to be a service provider with insurance at our core and care at our heart" - is greeted with complete disbelief by employees. Case B describes the actions taken to overcome their skepticism and successfully implement the new philosophy - actions that required significant change to the organisational culture.

Intuit's "Spotlight" employee recognition system had rapidly become an integral part of the company's culture after it was introduced in late 2004. The program enabled any employee to recognize outstanding performance by any other employee by sending an online "thank you" to the employee, with a copy to the recipient's manager. The program also allowed managers and senior individual contributors to give monetary awards, which could be redeemed for gift certificates, to employees for exceptional performance. Recognition was seen as an important way to increase employee engagement, and the success of Spotlight was seen by Intuit's management as an important aspect of the company's performance management. The case describes the evolution of employee recognition at Intuit, from informal methods, to a merchandise-based program, then to the gift-certificate-based Spotlight program. It describes the culture and values at Intuit, employee input into program design, and the elements of program success. The case also provides a brief discussion of the general subject of employee recognition.

EURid considers possible market mechanisms to allocate initial domain names within the Internet's newly-created "dot EU." European Union regulations and community norms substantially constrain EURid's approach, preventing the use of the most natural economic mechanisms (such as auctions).

Describes a set of key strategic decisions facing the scientific founder and CEO of a promising, Early stage bio-pharmaceuticals company.l Should the company establish a proposed alliance with a pharmaceutical firm? Should it create a nutraceuticals business in parallel to its effort to develop anti-aging therapeutics? And, should it in-license a second drug development candidate?

This case reviews the development and financing of the Dabhol power plant in India's Maharashtra state. This project was controversial from inception for three main reasons: the promoter (the now defunct Enron Corporation) sought to minimise its capital commitment in the project; the project economics relied on high final output pricing relative to prevailing (subsidised) price levels; and both project and financing transactions failed to protect adequately against political disruption. For practical purposes it may be considered an example of a failed project finance venture. This case explores in particular how risks associated with developing such ventures in a politically volatile environment may be mishandled by promoters and financiers. In principle it aims to illustrate the difference between managing operational risks and managing and mitigating project risks in an uncertain institutional setting.

As Facebook topped one billion monthly users in October 2012, the online social network continued to face questions about how best to monetize its surging traffic. The company could invest further in new advertising products, which represented the majority of the revenue thus far, or concentrate on the Facebook Platform and help third-party developers create and distribute their own applications. After a highly anticipated yet largely disappointing initial public offering (IPO), Facebook's stock price steadily declined. It became critical for the Facebook team to identify sustainable growth opportunities, particularly as more of its user base accessed the site via mobile devices.

A recently hired U.S.-trained sales account manager at Medical Equipment Inc. (Medical Equipment) returned to his office after meeting with the head of the cardiology department at a specialist hospital and research center in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He had worked very hard to secure his first sale of US$725,000 for healthcare equipment, but was disheartened when the head of cardiology told him that the hospital's purchasing director intended to give the order to Medical Equipment's main competitor. The competition's sales representative and the purchasing director had known each other for 10 years and the head cardiologist implied that there might be side payments involved. The sales account manager knew Medical Equipment's product was superior and wondered how he could secure the order without having a history with the purchasing director or without engaging in practices he found ethically questionable.

In November 2006, Symon Bridle, the newly appointed chief operating officer of Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts, was thinking about a number of organizational issues that presented challenges to Shangri-La's rapid expansion strategy. There were three major issues at hand: (1) the company was expanding into high-wage economies in Europe and North America; (2) the company was expanding its presence in China--a country where front-line employees were not used to exercising decision-making authority; and (3) newcomers in the Chinese hotel market were poaching Shangri-La's staff and driving up wages in historically low-waged markets. As a COO, Bridle needed to ensure that Shangri-La's signature standards of "Asian Hospitality" were maintained during this expansion.

This case examines the relation between China's demand for resources and political risk.

This note demonstrates how a forward price, or equivalently, futures price, is determined and considers forward and futures contracts written on financial assets and on commodities. The note introduces the concept of a convenience yield and calculates the convenience yields on four commodities, crude oil, natural gas, copper and gold. Examples in the note use actual market prices.