E308
Sean Harrington, Garth Saloner
2008
It was July 2007, and Linda Rottenberg, cofounder and CEO of Endeavor—a nonprofit dedicated to transforming the economies of emerging markets by identifying and supporting high-impact entrepreneurs—was preparing for a quarterly meeting with the global…
E316
Jocelyn Hornblower, Garth Saloner
2008
This case follows entrepreneur Nicole Alvino in the early days as she started a new company, dermalounge. Issues covered include building networks, writing a business plan, and fundraising.
E277
Katherine Bose, Kathryn Shaw
2008
The case looks at Bialecki, Inc., a boutique search firm based in NYC for senior level managers in the financial services industry. The case protagonist as well as the firm’s founder and president, Linda Bialecki, struggles to reconcile consistent…
E286C
Katherine Bose, Robert Chess, Peter Reiss
2008
The protagonist (“Howard Glass”) is a recent GSB graduate (2007) heading up a biomedical device start-up focused on the gastric bypass market. The case tracks Glass and team from the team formation and idea generation phases through the company’s first 6…
E281
Katherine Bose, H. Grousbeck
2008
The protagonist is a Japanese national and the founder and Chairman of Satura Cakes. He is based in Honolulu, HI and his president is based in Palo Alto, CA. Together, they encounter several management challenges in the first 3 years of operating their…
E327B
Jocelyn Hornblower, Garth Saloner
2008
The case follows Rose Hanna and her three business partners (Richard Hanna, Bob Francis and Faye Francis) as they launch and grow a scientific instrument company, MicroSample. It covers the idea discovery stage, their decision to work together as a team…
E297
Bethany Coates, Joel Peterson
2008
In April 2008, Brian Spaly, founder and chairman of Bonobos Inc., a men’s pants company, began a 6 mile run around Central Park in New York City. As he passed the reservoir, he thought about how tense the last six weeks had been at the company. On one…
CG14
David Larcker, Brian Tayan
2008
In the late 1990s, UtiliCorp United, a utility that owned natural gas and power assets in the Midwest and internationally, moved aggressively into the business of wholesale energy trading. The move came after Congress passed legislation that opened…
E309
Bethany Coates, John Glynn Jr.
2008
For Sean Parker, a managing partner at Founders Fund (FF), a San Francisco-based venture capital (VC) firm, November 2007 was a critical moment in the process of raising the firm’s second fund. As he prepared to describe FF’s nontraditional strategy to a…
E315
Garth Saloner, Alex Tauber
2008
This vignette is used in the seminar “Entrepreneurship from the Perspective of Women” that is led by Professor Garth Saloner. The class that uses this vignette hopes to touch on five generic questions regarding women who pursue entrepreneurial ventures…
E296
Mark Leslie, James Lattin, Bethany Coates
2008
Corey Leibow eased his car back onto Sand Hill Road in Palo Alto, California. As president and CEO of Mercado, a company that provided the search and merchandising technology to power retail web sites, he had just met with another venture capital (VC)…
A198
Madhav Rajan, Brian Tayan
2008
Over the last 10 years, the number of publicly traded companies that have had to restate financial results has risen dramatically. Regardless of whether the restatements stemmed from the aggressive application of accounting standards or the need to…
E282
H. Grousbeck, Sean Harrington
2008
A search fund is a pool of capital raised to financially support the efforts of an entrepreneur, or a team of entrepreneurs, to locate a privately held company for acquisition. This study, as well as its predecessors in 1996, 1998, 2001,2003, and 2005…
GS59
Hau Lee, Jennie Tung
2008
As the middle classes of many Asian countries grow, we are beginning to see countries like China, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, and Indonesia becoming emerging markets for many consumer goods. Markets for higher end, branded products in…
GS68
Seungjin Whang
2008
China Telecom was a major provider of telecommunication services in China. It was organized into three layers-—Corporate HQ, Provincial companies, and city branches. Zhejiang Corporation, one of China Telecom’s 31 provincial companies, adopted enterprise…
GS62
Hau Lee, Amanda Silverman
2008
Operations network design is about where to locate your supply sources and manufacturing and distribution operations, as well as the deployment of such operations, i.e., who should be supplying whom. With the emergence of global supply and manufacturing…
GS61
Hau Lee, Jennie Tung
2008
PCH International started out as a sourcing agent of low-priced electronic components from Taiwan and China to the Western world in the mid 1990s, it had evolved to become a provider of comprehensive supply chain solutions to global technology companies…
GS63
David Hoyt, Hau Lee, Mitchell Tseng
2008
In August and September 2007, Mattel made a series of product recalls, totaling more than 20 million toys. The recalls were for excessive lead and for magnets that could become loose. All of the recalled toys had been made in China. The Mattel recalls…
CG12
David Larcker, Brian Tayan
2008
By 2007, executive compensation at U.S. companies had become an extremely contentious topic. Reports in the press of multi-million dollar pay packages—in the form of stock option exercises, severance packages, and retirement payouts—led to an outcry…
CG11
David Larcker, Brian Tayan
2008
In 2007, corporate governance became a well-discussed topic in the business press. Newspapers produced detailed accounts of corporate fraud, accounting scandals, excessive compensation, and other perceived organizational failures—many of which culminated…
GS64
David Hoyt, Michael Marks
2008
This case describes a number of situations in which important customers of a major electronics manufacturing firm (contract manufacturer) behaved in a manner that could be considered “ethically challenged.” The case is told from the perspective of the…
E287
Katherine Bose, John Glynn Jr.
2008
The protagonist is Lars Dalgaard, a young manager with solid experience but none in leading a technology company. Through a combination of circumstances, Dalgaard becomes the CEO of a drowning software company focused on the HR space at the peak of…
CG13
David Larcker, Brian Tayan
2008
Retail grocery sales represent a significant portion of the U.S. economy. The industry was highly competitive, with companies operating on low gross and net margins. As a result, grocery stores were generally under significant pressure to reduce their…
A200
Nathan Blair, Alan Jagolinzer, C. Gregory Rogers
2008
The case discusses the current US and international accounting guidance regarding the disclosure of contingent and environmental liabilities, including FAS 5 and IAS 37. It then addresses the role of socially responsible investors and other factors that…
