April 2012

		Coming Summer 2012 ... Coursepack Builder
		New Cases in Organizational Behaviour & Leadership
		Award Winning Authors
		Upcoming Conferences
		ISB-Ivey Global Case Writing Competition Invitation

This content management tool is designed to give our customers the flexibility to assemble custom course packs that can be downloaded instantly from the Ivey Publishing website. More information to follow soon!

The newest cases from the Ivey case collection are available for review. View New Cases for more details on cases registered in your discipline.

Greenpeace's Unfriend Coal Campaign and Facebook

Facebook’s director of policy communications was faced with a situation caused by a YouTube video posted by the non-governmental organization (NGO) Greenpeace. This video publicly critiqued the environmental sustainability of Facebook’s decision to build a new data center, its main objection being the fact that the new facility would be connected to a local utility provider that supplied electricity mainly from the burning of coal, one of the largest sources of global warming. Greenpeace had dubbed these actions the “Unfriend Coal Campaign,” which now had 500,000 followers and had generated numerous media stories. Greenpeace’s goal was to pressure Facebook into adopting cleaner energy policies by leveraging Facebook’s own social media against the company. As Facebook had no plans to stop building the facility, the director needed to figure out the best course of action for Facebook to take in response to the mounting pressure from Greenpeace in order to alleviate the increasingly negative attention from media and consumers. This case can be used in courses such as Business Ethics, Business Communication, General Management or Executive Education to place students directly into the role of an organization that faces an ethical issue, resulting in mounting public and media attention; give students an opportunity to develop their analytical, communication and decision-making skills in order to evaluate the current situation and provide a successful solution for Facebook management to initiate; provide an opportunity for students to consider and identify ethical (versus non-ethical) business practices; allow students to explore how NGO's such as Greenpeace use creative and innovative methods to pressure large businesses into making changes; explore how technology and social media are changing the face of communication for business and consumers in the marketplace.

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World Championship Wrestling - A Crisis of Leadership (A)

In January 2000, World Championship Wrestling (WCW)’s executive VP is faced with a challenging decision. He had been appointed the executive VP just three months ago, and was tasked with restoring the company to a profitable position. However, WCW’s onscreen product was suffering; ratings for the flagship WCW Monday Nitro (Nitro) program had fallen to their lowest levels in nearly three-and-a-half years. WCW was losing its market leadership position, its viewing audience and even some of its on-screen talent to its major competitor, the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). This industry creates a unique competitive environment. While most industries will adhere to legal and moral codes, professional wrestling has avoided scrutiny of most legislative bodies and the culture is an “at-all-costs” approach. As a result, there have been underhanded, unethical competitive practices utilized by both the World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). This case is in an unorthodox industry (professional wrestling) seen by many as a low-class, low-brow form of entertainment with stereotypes about performers and fans alike. Herein lies the uniqueness of this case: an opportunity to show students that traditional business and strategy concepts can be applied to an atypical industry and that the core issues are very familiar; balancing pros and cons, choosing the best strategic direction, and understanding trade-offs and consequences regardless of mainstream acceptance.

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Apple A

The Apple A and B cases provide two perspectives on the evolution of Apple and are designed to evoke debate about models of strategy, organization and leadership. The A case presents the story of Apple from a hindsight rational analytic perspective in which students are able to apply a variety of models about strategy, organization, leadership and innovation. The second case presents a more nuanced account of the happenstance and serendipity in Apple's development and also raises questions about Jobs' leadership. The contrasting stories of the two cases are designed to provoke thoughtful debate and insight in the service of considering the implications for the fact/fiction of the information we receive, our capacity to make sense of that information, and furthermore how we can apply that understanding to how we manage and lead. A teaching note for this case is forthcoming.

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Authors of Learning with Cases, Teaching with Cases and Writing Cases won the Outstanding Contribution to the Case Method award presented by the European Case Clearing House during the 2012 annual case award ceremony.

Carol Stephenson, Dean of the Richard Ivey School said, “The award of Outstanding Contribution to the Case Method gives worthy recognition to three remarkable individuals who have dedicated so much of their lives to teaching people worldwide how to get the most out of cases. Jim, Mike and Louise have conducted more than 400 case writing and case teaching workshops for thousands of participants in more than 50 countries over the past 40 years. Their work is at the heart of the great case tradition we have developed at Ivey and the school is delighted at this recognition.” Congratulations on their achievement!

In addition, the case entitled Louis Vuitton in Japan, authored by Justin Paul, won an award in the Entrepreneurship case category.

We always enjoy meeting our customers. Please stop by the Ivey Publishing booth at any of the following conferences to say hello and learn more about our products and services.

Administrative Sciences Assoc of Canada (ASAC) – St. Johns, NL – June 9-12

Academy of International Business (AIB) – Washington, DC - June 30-July 4

Academy of Management (AOM) – Boston, MA - August 3-7

American Marketing Association (AMA) – Chicago, IL – August 17-19.

In partnership with the Centre for Teaching, Learning, and Case Development at the Indian School of Business (ISB), Ivey would like to invite you to participate in the ISB-Ivey Global Case Competition 2012.

The objective of this competition is to help build a repository of high-quality, internationally benchmarked cases about Indian businesses. The cases should be original business case studies suitable for use in MBA classrooms across the world and should aim to showcase the unique challenges and issues faced by organizations and business leaders in India. Submissions must also include teaching notes in English.

Winning cases will be published in the Ivey-ISB co-branded case collection available through Ivey Publishing. First place winners will also receive a cash prize of US $4000. Second prize winners take home US $3000 and there are special category prizes of US $2000 per category. A panel of internationally acclaimed subject experts judge each case in a double-blind review process and will provide written feedback on each case.

Download the intent to participate form and email it to Ivey India. Deadline for submissions has been extended to April 30 for international participants.