Case Studies

The Dawn Lepore case presents a series of dilemmas that one woman, Dawn Lepore, deals with in her professional career that present her with a series of challenging issues.  The case starts off with background (to be read before class) about Dawn’s early…

The Dawn Lepore case presents a series of dilemmas that one woman, Dawn Lepore, deals with in her professional career that present her with a series of challenging issues.  The case starts off with background (to be read before class) about Dawn’s early…

This case explores the rise and fall of Nebula Inc., a company that industry experts had originally predicted would become the market leader in the hybrid cloud computing market. In its early days, Nebula seemed like a guaranteed success—the founding team…

Part B describes the challenging negotiations that Davis went through with VMware to finally arrive at a price before both sides reached the dreaded “deal fatigue.”  After presenting the price to his board, one board member asserted that he wanted to…

Virsto, a storage virtualization company, was founded in 2007 by Mark Davis, Alex Miroshnichenko, and Serge Pashenkov.  Davis founded Virsto after managing a series of technology startups, many of which were ultimately acquired by big name players such as…

As Box continued to mature as a company, the firm fought through the ups and downs of being a highly visible hyper-growth Silicon Valley firm. Box struggled to get its IPO completed, having to deal simultaneously with a volatile stock market and increased…

This case picks up where “LinkedIn and Modern Recruiting (A)” left off, detailing the company’s innovations in hiring practices, which included its highly effective use of LinkedIn profile and resume data. As part of these innovations, LinkedIn’s talent…

In 2015, LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network, was experiencing explosive growth, and it needed to hire the very best people quickly to support and fuel that growth.  This case discusses LinkedIn’s hiring approach and details how the company…

This 2015 case is about the internal organizational transformation of the Hewlett Packard (HP) Enterprise Group (EG), which brought in $28 billion in annual revenue and had 50,000 employees.  “EG Ignite,” led by a small team of 10 people who reported…

The B case begins with the consultants’ proposal to Kim Markey, executive director of revenue cycle at Huntington Hospital (HH).   The proposal is untraditional in that it is focused on more than revenue enhancement—it includes transforming the culture. 

Kim Markey began as executive director of revenue cycle at Huntington Hospital (HH) in November 2012.  Located in Pasadena, California, HH was a 625-bed non-profit regional medical center that was named among the top-performing hospitals in 2012 by U.S…

In early 2014, Tara Fela-Durotoye, the founder and CEO of House of Tara, was contemplating one of her greatest achievements to date. Her company had been named by L’Oréal as a strategic distributor for Nigeria of leading international cosmetics brand…

This is a role-play case, intended for use in a leadership development course for MBA students. The case has four roles: two for students playing the co-founders of a startup and two for students/coaches playing the venture capitalists deciding whether or…

This is a role-play case, intended for use in a leadership development course for MBA students. The case has four roles: two for students playing the co-founders of a startup and two for students/coaches playing the venture capitalists deciding whether or…

Li & Fung Limited (LF), a Hong Kong-based multinational, was a global leader in consumer goods design, development, sourcing, and distribution.  LF managed the entire supply chain for retailers and brands around the world by working with a network of over…

During his second year as a high school teacher in South Carolina, Reid Saaris noticed that a highly academically capable student was not registered for advanced classes.  The student was African American and Saaris observed that most African-American…

This case profiles the journey of protagonist Tim Harkness through his many entrepreneurial pursuits.  It chronicles his early career and how a bout of serendipity landed him a job in the life sciences tools industry.  From there, Harkness went on to lead…

By 2015 Google’s Android operating system had been deployed on over one billion units worldwide. The firm had been happy with the high market segment share achieved on mobile phones, but new challenges were arising: advances by traditional competitors…

The case follows CircleUp, an online marketplace that connects early-stage consumer retail companies with prospective investors.  The case begins by describing the dynamics of the traditional private equity industry, which incentivize firms to favor…

This case assesses Actis’ optimal exit route for Umeme, a Ugandan electricity distribution company in their investment portfolio. Actis, a private equity firm that invests exclusively in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, had spent seven years substantially…

The Medium Corporation seeks to change how people author, consume and engage with content on the Internet. Founded by Ev Williams, co-founder of Blogger and Twitter, the company developed a digital publishing platform and set of social network tools that…

Disappointed by how poorly his two favorite football teams were playing against each other on a Thursday night in November 2009, Warren Packard considered the other games he could watch.  It was late fall and there were college basketball, college…

The Wikimedia Foundation is responsible for supporting Wikipedia and various other projects through administration, technical and financial support. Since its founding, Wikipedia has changed the way people around the world research information by allowing…

The term “conflict minerals” referred to four minerals—tantalum, tin, tungsten, and gold—that are mined in countries throughout the world, including the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).  These minerals, sometimes referred to as the “3TG” minerals, were…