In 2008, Hannah Jones, Nike’s new VP of Corporate Responsibility, wanted the company to be a leader in creating sustainable footwear, and subsequently developed a strategy for working with the product units to do so. Questions remained about whether Nike was on the right track and if the company was...

Since 1917, American jobs have been classified by their skill level. “Unskilled work” was said to, “require no special training, judgment, or manual dexterity, but supply mainly muscular strength for the performance of coarse, heavy work dexterity.” It was the largest category of work and included m...

On October 7, 2019, businessmen Jonathan Soros and Jon Patricof pitched a concept for a new professional sports startup to four professional softball players who had traveled to Soros’s office in New York City. During the meeting, the two men laid out their vision for an innovative professional soft...

On October 29, 2018, Indonesia’s Lion Air flight 610, a nearly new Boeing 737 MAX 8 jet, plunged into the Java Sea at 400 miles per hour, killing all 189 people on board. Eight days later Boeing issued a bulletin to all 737 MAX 8 and 737 MAX 9 operators stating that “erroneous angle-of-attack data” ...

In 2015, when Dan Schulman became CEO of PayPal, a digital payments company, many people thought of it as the button they clicked when paying for online purchases. In 2015, PayPal embarked on a new mission: using technology to democratize financial services. In Schulman’s words, it would “turn the ...

In 2017, U.S.- based Liberty Media, owner of the Atlanta Braves baseball team and streaming music provider SiriusXM among other properties, purchased Formula 1, the commercial organization behind the motorsport of F1 from a private equity firm. The well-seasoned management team that took over, inher...

This case describes how leaders at Mud Bay, a chain of pet products based in Pacific Northwest, changed the way they operated their business from 2014 to 2017. They adopted a framework that included heavy investment in people with operational choices that leverage that investment by increasing produ...

Lobstermen are self-employed, and significantly contribute to the economy and identity of Maine communities. In 2012, lobster prices crashed amidst high supply, regulatory demands, and market conglomeration. Lobstermen had to take action to protect and advance their livelihoods. They decided to work...

Set in 2009, and based on interviews with and publications by MIT Sloan Professors Simon Johnson and Andrew Lo, this note describes the “why” and “how” behind the global financial crisis that hit in 2008 as well as the short-term and long-range solutions being publicly advocated by Johnson and Lo.

In June 2007, Mexico-based CEMEX became one of the world’s largest suppliers of building materials after attaining a majority stake in Australia’s Rinker Group. Just 24 months earlier, the company had acquired U.K.-based RMC. While CEMEX’s successful growth strategy could be attributed to its unique...