This technical note is part of the Giving Voice to Values (GVV) curriculum. To see other material in the GVV curriculum, please visit http://store.darden.virginia.edu/giving-voice-to-values.
This note provides an overview of a sample "Giving Voice to Values Workshop" as it may be taught to current and future business practitioners and suggestions on how an educator can prepare for the delivery o
Blue Ridge Bike and Hike (Blue Ridge) was expanding. Financing the recent growth had been accomplished with little planning. Blue Ridge had increased long-term borrowing to cover some needed investments in store infrastructure (display structures and leasehold improvements), and annual income was able to finance much of the needed investment in inventory (a major commitment of resources). However,
This case explores the considerations of an executive compensation analyst as he finalizes a report to the compensation and benefits committee of Charter Communications (Charter), a leading broadband and communications company, on the appropriate compensation structure for Charter's CEO, Thomas Rutledge.
Charter's board clearly wanted to retain Rutledge, but in the world of executive compensatio
While managers of both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations often focus on their area of specific expertise, true success comes only from taking a complete enterprise perspective. Organizations must focus on global, not local, optimization across all functional areas, not just one. In this note, we present a model based on nine interrelated areas that when jointly considered will increase t
In early 2017, Tatsumi Kimishima, the latest CEO of Nintendo Co., Ltd. (Nintendo), felt confident in the company's newest offering: a home/portable console hybrid appropriately named the Switch. But despite conservative yet positive forecasts within the company, there was still uncertainty, as with any innovative product. Nintendo had come a long way since its origins as a playing-card company, bu
This case uses France's labor market and regulation reforms in 2018 to illustrate how deregulation and labor market reforms can affect an economy's potential GDP. The case discusses President Emmanuel Macron's efforts to boost economic growth through economic liberalization, focusing on small- and medium-sized enterprises. The material allows for an examination of the effects of regulation on labo
Ebony Jones manages asset allocation for Colorado's Public Employee Retirement Association (PERA). She is worried that some asset price measures are approaching levels observed prior to the Great Recession, and she is pondering whether she should shift PERA's asset allocation toward cash and fixed-income investments as a precaution. To put the current market situation in perspective, she looks bac
Senior Change Manger Fredrick Martin and the UVA HR leadership team are tasked with the implementation of Ufirst, a project that will merge more than 70 HR programs and 11 distinct HR offices in both the academic division and the health system into a single, seamless HR. Ufirst will also leverage new technology that will provide self-serve HR to approximately 30,000 employees.
It is an ambitious
Set in January 2009, this case summarizes the events surrounding the financial crisis of 2008 as well as leading theories of its origin. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson must brief the incoming Obama administration on what initiatives have been taken to fight the financial crisis and on what remains to be done. This is an exercise in self-evaluation: What should he say? The case highlights eight n
This case introduces salauno, a for-profit company founded by two young entrepreneurs, Javier Okhuysen and Carlos Orellana, who wanted to eliminate needless blindness in Mexico. Untreated cataracts and complications from diabetes were the leading causes of blindness in Mexico as of 2017, and the entrepreneurs aimed to build an inclusive business focusing on low- and middle-income people who were e
This note shapes a framework of competing policy priorities for governments in responding to a financial crisis: rescue, relief, recovery, and reform. The dominant considerations are where, when, how, and why governments should choose the order of these policy priorities. The second part of the note highlights six hurdles to policy making: ideologies, interests, incentives, institutions, innovati
Among only a handful of early adopters of a new revenue recognition mandate for calendar year 2017 annual reports, beginning of the year retained earnings for Ford Motor Company (Ford) was adjusted $36 million higher while General Dynamic's was adjusted down by $301 million, both a result of their early adoption of the new revenue recognition guidelines.
A new revenue recognition mandate, she not
While there are a number of courses focused on helping students create and perfect innovative new products, there remains a gap regarding how to create and perfect the idea?or the positioning behind the product. The reality is that it is significantly more difficult than most people think to create a superior positioning concept. In addition, most sophisticated marketing organizations begin with a
This case study gives an overview of the creation of the Pay-for-Success (PFS) Lab at the University of Virginia (UVA). It promotes discussion of how other university institutions can scale up their own research labs with a limited budget, and also introduces students to the PFS concept and the role university research institutions can play in the social impact process. It highlights the key oppor
The A case in this series takes the viewpoint of a senior portfolio manager who has to decide how to vote the shares held by Wells Fargo Asset Management: she can vote for the current board members of Imation Corp. (IMN) or for the nominees put forward by an activist hedge fund. The hedge fund sent an open letter to IMN shareholders seeking support to replace the key members of IMN's board, as the
This is a technical note in Russian that adapts and builds on the December 7, 2017, version of UVA-F-1810. It explains what blockchain is and what it allows, and discusses its advantages and potential issues to consider further. It also provides an example of an application in which blockchain technology is used and describes regulatory and governance considerations. This note also discusses vario
This is a case in Russian that adapts and builds on the January 29, 2018, version of UVA-F-1819. It describes a hypothetical hedge fund manager who is examining whether to invest in bitcoin. The case discusses the potential risks and rewards of investing in bitcoin, the role of bitcoin and digital currencies more broadly, and financial innovation in the space, such as ICOs. This case includes info
This exercise will help students understand how to develop a Strategic Marketing Plan: an essential skill, but one that many business, government, and organizational leaders are not equipped to develop strong and competitively superior strategic plans. Because it is complicated to develop a case with the information needed for students to practice developing a Strategic Marketing Plan, this exerci
In February 2013, John Carroll and Alexander Whittemore, both managing directors at Summit Partners (Summit), are considering an investment in RoboSoft, LLC (RoboSoft), a provider of data-center automation, business intelligence, and security software solutions, primarily for the IBM i operating system. Summit had previously invested in RoboSoft, and did well when it exited the company in 2007. Ov
This note replaces "Valuation of Late-Stage Companies and Buyouts" (UVA-F-1639).
This note focuses on the valuation of late-stage companies with a particular emphasis on leveraged buyouts (LBOs). In contrast to venture capital, where firms are typically at an early stage of development, late-stage investments involve more-established businesses that have an ability to take on higher levels of deb
Quentin Bell, the owner of a small oil extraction firm, BE Oil, owns the rights to drill on six different wells. Drilling requires substantial up-front costs, and each well has different drilling costs and production capability. Bell's challenge is to decide which wells to drill based on his expectation of the price of oil when it is extracted.
The case was written for use in Darden's global econ
This field-based case allows instructors to explore the world of data analytics with students, using Brandefy, a startup company, and its plan to expand its app into additional categories of the grocery store as a sandbox for learning. Using R (or some other statistical programming language/software, such as Python, SAS, Stata, or SPSS) and retail scanner data from 84.51? (https://www.8451.com/are
Although not all MBA students end up working in a marketing function and/or on a brand per se, all students will develop a professional brand, whether it is proactively built or created through happenstance. This exercise helps guide students through a process to think strategically about how to develop their professional brand at work. It is used in conjunction with a technical note that details
Although not all MBA students end up working in a marketing function and/or on a brand per se, all students will develop a professional brand, whether it is proactively built or created through happenstance. This exercise helps guide students through a process to think strategically about how to develop their professional brand in an internship setting. It is used in conjunction with a technical n
This technical note explores the many different forms of equity compensation. Equity compensation, defined as compensation that provides for the delivery of equity securities, aligns employees' incentives with shareholder value driven by a company's stock price. Equity compensation is used extensively to attract and retain key employees. However, the types of equity compensation differ in their ef
Understanding the economics of gold mining had always been a challenge. Gold mines were long-lived assets that required substantial capital investments both to identify and gain access to mineral ore for future processing and to sustain output over the life of a mine. A typical investor might have looked at annual operating margins alone, ignoring these capital outlays, and set unrealistic return
This case provides for a discussion about how retail banks provision for loan losses, and how to analyze the riskiness of loan portfolios and the adequacy of the allowance for loan losses. What is unique about the setting is that a smaller regional bank made a large loan based on an unsubstantiated appraisal. Students can observe how the loan moves to nonperforming status in one quarter, then is d
