In July 2008, Luis Morales, president of Kent Chemical International, is proposing a third reorganization effort after two failed attempts to better align his business with its U.S.-based parent company. With a global expansion strategy placing increasing demands on his organization, a divide forming between Kent''s core business and its growth markets, and a global recession looming, Morales knows this time his plan has no room for error.

Roger Cahill has spent less than a year as head of the Mobile Division of BoldFlash, a flash memory component maker. On the corporate level, BoldFlash has adapted to an evolving and difficult marketplace, but the Mobile Division is struggling. The four groups within the unit refuse to work together, and the unit recently failed to capitalize on an important new product opportunity. To address the problems, Cahill has made a number of organizational .....more

Spreadsheet supplement for 8421.

Kurt Meyer, chief risk officer of Swissgrid, the Swiss national electricity transmission system operator, reflects on the risk management system he installed after the deregulation and liberalization of the European energy market. With 41 connections to other European networks, a failure in Swissgrid''s network could interrupt the supply of electricity in Switzerland and much of Europe. Meyer describes the periodic interactive risk workshops conducted .....more

This case traces the life of Katharine Graham from housewife to publisher of the Washington Post. Born into a family of wealth, Graham described herself as a "doormat wife" after she married Phil Graham and stayed at home to raise their children. His unexpected death thrust her into the role of publisher, a job for which she was ill-prepared. Graham made her mark in history by publishing the Pentagon Papers, which showed the extent to which the government .....more

This case traces the life of Robert McNamara from Harvard Business School to Ford Motor Company to the U.S. Department of Defense. McNamara excelled in every job along the way: becoming the youngest-ever professor at Harvard Business School, the first non-family president of Ford, and Secretary of Defense under President John F. Kennedy. He achieved these successes by using quantitative techniques he learned at Harvard to drive goal-oriented efficiency. .....more

It was the height of the summer in 2022, and Michel Doukeris, the CEO of Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev), and Peter Kraemer, the company''s Chief Supply Officer, gazed across the vast desert surrounding Zacatecas, Mexico. They were visiting their Grupo Modelo Brewery, AB InBev''s largest and the highest-volume producer in the world, to contemplate their goal of increasing sales while reducing the company''s impact on the natural environment. This .....more

An analysis of the problems of interpersonal communication, as viewed from a human behavior standpoint. Real communication occurs when one listens to another person''s viewpoint with empathic understanding. It is possible to facilitate achievement of this communication breakthrough by summarizing the speaker''s thoughts and feelings to his or her satisfaction before presenting a rebuttal. This procedure leads to the reduction of defensiveness and .....more

Velong is a supplier of kitchen equipment and backyard grills for major global brands and store brands of large western retailers. In light of the COVID-related disruptions to the global supply chains, and the evolving trade tensions between China and the Western countries, Velong''s global customers were pressuring the company to move 30% of its manufacturing from China to other locations. Velong was considering a number of countries to shift its .....more

In the last 70 years, the small island of Taiwan has achieved what many believe to be a "miracle": its economy has grown at a record-setting pace, driven and guided by one of the world''s most successful set of industrial policies, and it has become one of the richest and most open nations in the global trading system, with particular sway in the vital semiconductor sector. In more recent decades, however, the authoritarian government that originally .....more

In November of 2022, the small tech company OpenAI released ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot which quickly captured the public''s imagination-becoming the world''s fastest-growing consumer application within months of its release. Though observers from across sectors were thrilled by the infinite potential uses of generative AI products like ChatGPT, the release also sparked an intense debate about the potential risks of AI, including job .....more

Le Thi Thu Thuy, Vice Chairwoman of Vingroup, the largest private conglomerate in Vietnam, and Global CEO of VinFast, Vingroup''s automotive subsidiary established in 2017, was contemplating VinFast''s future strategy. Domestically, the EV market in Vietnam was in its infancy with many hurdles including a shortage of charging stations, potential electric overload, a lack of consumer incentives, poor road conditions, and traffic congestion. Internationally, .....more

Supplements the (A) case.

Unicorn human relationships startup Beamery evaluates it growth versus depth strategy as its strategic partners and customers could become future competitors in a quickly changing AI based human resources and talent management industry.

In this short vignette on ethics in consulting, Brenda Thompson, a new Associate at a prestigious consulting firm, learns that a fellow Associate is using the firm''s meal expense benefits to pocket the difference between the maximum daily allowance and his actual amounts spent in the form of prepaid gift cards. Though this practice was not explicitly said to violate the policy, Brenda feels uneasy about the situation and must decide how to act on .....more

In this short vignette on ethics in consulting, John Child, a new Associate at a prestigious firm who is eager to impress, decides to use an AI tool to expedite his analysis and craft his presentation due to a short project timeframe. Feeling uneasy about his decision not to inform his team after a successful presentation, he must weigh the tradeoffs of providing late disclosure, whether partial or full, or continuing to withhold his decision from .....more

In the summer of 2023, Eduard ("Eddie") Croitoru, Vice President (VP) of ICL Group ("ICL") Corporate Initiatives, was reflecting on ICL''s internal ideation program, the Business Innovation for Growth (BIG) Accelerator. When Raviv Zoller became the CEO of ICL in 2018, he recruited Croitoru, then his Chief of Staff, to help embed a culture of innovation throughout the company. He tasked Croitoru with addressing employee engagement and innovation challenges, .....more

Today, both organizations and employees are increasingly focused on passion. An analysis of 200 million U.S. job postings found that the use of the word "passion" increased nearly tenfold from 2007 to 2019, while a recent survey of thousands of college-educated workers found that 72% of their listed career goals were related to passion-more than both salary and job security. Similarly, more than 90% of surveyed Columbia Business School MBA students .....more

This case explores retailer Best Buy''s decision to enter health care. Best Buy Health aims to enable care at home across three prongs: consumer health, active aging, and virtual care. A key pillar of Best Buy Health''s strategy is leveraging the Geek Squad-the company''s technical support agents who install technology and media products in the home-to set up remote patient monitoring devices for people with a chronic disease or those enrolled in .....more