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Case Studies

This listing contains abstracts and ordering information for case studies written and published by faculty at Stanford GSB.

Woman sitting in class listening to a lecture
Leadership in Focus

Leadership in Focus is a large collection of case vignettes, teaching, and learning resources that bring real-world business challenges to life and spark lively discussions aimed at improving executive skills. Each short video is accompanied by teaching notes for added context, suggested discussion questions and role-playing ideas to help engage groups of managers in learning experiences of their own. Leaders may also experience the cases online with opportunities to calibrate their thinking for actionable insights.

Letting People Go

|E718
David Dodson
2020

If you’re committed to excellent leadership, you’ll have to replace employees who aren’t a good fit. Further, a willingness to replace underperformers, or those in the wrong job, sends the message to your organization that...

Onboarding

|E716
David Dodson
2020

One of the more common mistakes in the hiring process is failing to offer vigilant, clear, and supportive onboarding for new hires. Too often, managers celebrate the moment a candidate accepts an offer but forget...

Standardized Approach to Hiring

|E715
David Dodson
2020

Too often we give lip-service to the importance of building a team and how important hiring is, yet for many organizations, they don’t back this up with action. The most common reason is that to...

Strategic Compensation

|E719
David Dodson
2020

Too often, leaders fail to view compensation through a holistic and strategic lens. Instead, they make compensation decisions ad hoc to solve a single problem, such as making an offer to a candidate, handling a...

The 360 Performance Review

|E717
David Dodson
2020

The 360-degree performance review (“the 360”) is a structured feedback process that leaders can use to encourage employee development and strengthen their organizations. Unfortunately, many companies that use this powerful tool fail to realize its...

The Skills of Great Leaders

|E714
David Dodson
2020

If you Google “characteristics of entrepreneurs,” you’ll get about 155 million results, most of which are platitudinous: “creative”; “passionate”; “motivated”; “resourceful.” You’ll read that you need to be good at “visualization,” that it helps to...

Gainsight: Leading by Example in Customer Success

|E682
James Lattin, Kirk Bowman, Erika Feldhausen
2020

This case describes the evolution of the customer success function through the rise of Gainsight. It discusses the responsibilities of the customer success function, measuring and compensating customer success teams, and the return on investment...

Women in Venture Capital: Cindy Padnos and Aileen Lee

|E696
John Glynn, Erika Feldhausen
2020

This case focuses on Cindy Padnos’s and Aileen Lee’s experiences founding their own VC firms. It introduces some of the tradeoffs and challenges facing both founders. In particular, the case highlights some of their early...

Scoot: Singapore Airlines’ Low-Cost Carrier Strategy

|SM321
Glenn Carroll, Jesper Sørensen, Debra Schifrin
2020

In December 2019, Scoot, the low-cost carrier (LCC) launched by Singapore Airlines Limited in 2011, had successfully established itself in the Asian market, having flown over 65 million passengers to 68 destinations with a fleet...

GoDaddy and the Holy Grail: Equal Access to Top Performance Reviews

|SM318C
Adina Sterling, Sheila Melvin
2020

GoDaddy had long been known for polarizing television commercials that were focused on generating attention and buzz—CNBC called its brand “synonymous with controversial advertisements with scantily clad women.” But the company decided that the ads...

GoDaddy and the Holy Grail: Equal Access to Top Performance Reviews

|SM318A
Adina Sterling, Sheila Melvin
2020

GoDaddy had long been known for polarizing television commercials that were focused on generating attention and buzz—CNBC called its brand “synonymous with controversial advertisements with scantily clad women.” But the company decided that the ads...

GoDaddy and the Holy Grail: Equal Access to Top Performance Reviews

|SM318B
Adina Sterling, Sheila Melvin
2020

GoDaddy had long been known for polarizing television commercials that were focused on generating attention and buzz—CNBC called its brand “synonymous with controversial advertisements with scantily clad women.” But the company decided that the ads...

Honor Home Care

|SM331
Rob Chess, Susan Pohlmeyer
2020

This case examines the history of the home care industry in the United States and discusses the opportunities and challenges the co-founder and CEO of Honor Home Care faced when trying to scale the business....

23andMe: A Virtuous Loop

|E688
Robert Siegel, Jeffrey Conn
2020

This case describes 23andMe CEO and cofounder Anne Wojcicki’s founding story and her recent attempts to scale the company’s direct-to-consumer genetic testing franchise while simultaneously expanding its pharmaceutical development aspirations.

Clinova: Diagnose and Decide

|E699
George Foster, Jeffrey Conn
2020

This case provides an overview of the founding and scaling story of British health and wellness company Clinova. The case outlines the fledgling company’s early marketing successes signing up-and-coming athletes and sports franchises, as well...

iRelaunch: From Career Break to Career Re-entry

|SM325
Robert Chess, Jocelyn H. Hornblower
2020

This case is primarily about the opportunity for mid-career professionals to return to work after a career break. It focuses on the company iRelaunch, which helps companies develop and implement career re-entry programs and connects...

Nike: Sport Forever

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Robert Chess, Jeffrey Conn
2020

This case examines Nike’s push to develop a sneaker specifically engineered for walking and a luxury apparel line which are both purposefully marketed to an older demographic, a first for the company. The case focuses...

Majid Al Futtaim in 2019: Driving Digital Transformation in a Physical World

|SM326
Robert Siegel, Nick Hubbard
2020

Majid Al Futtaim, a retail and entertainment conglomerate based in the United Arab Emirates, undergoes a digital transformation under CEO Alain Bejjani in response to disruption in its four core industries: retail, hospitality, food/beverage and...

The Rise of Mercado Libre

|IB109
William Barnett, Gary Mekikian, Christy Johnson
2020

Marcos Galperin, a graduate of Stanford Graduate School of Business, founded Mercado Libre in 1999 with a vision to build an e-commerce company focused on serving the nascent but fast- growing Spanish and Portuguese-speaking markets...

Venus Medtech: Global Innovation in the Race Between China and the U.S.A.

|E693
Peter Ziebelman, Joseph Golden
2020

The main purpose of the Venus Medtech case is to give students a greater appreciation for the scale, sophistication, and competitiveness of the innovation landscape outside of Silicon Valley, with particular focus on China. Through...

Publicly available cases in this collection are distributed by Harvard Business Publishing and The Case Centre.