Saturday, December 10, 2022

December 11, 2022 - A Year Later, That Brutal Log4j Vulnerability Is Still Lurking



S28
A Year Later, That Brutal Log4j Vulnerability Is Still Lurking

A year ago, as Russia amassed troops at its border with Ukraine and the Covid-19 Omicron variant began to surge around the world, the Apache Software Foundation disclosed a vulnerability that set off a frenzy across the global tech industry. The bug, known as Log4Shell, was in the ubiquitous open-source logging library Log4j and exposed a wide range of applications and services—from popular consumer and enterprise platforms to critical infrastructure and internet-of-things devices. Now, after weeks of intensive remediation last December and a year of cumulative progress on patching, Log4Shell no longer poses the universal threat it once did. But researchers warn that the vulnerability is still present in far too many systems worldwide, and that attackers will be successfully exploiting it for years.

Many critical vulnerabilities get discovered every year that are of high urgency to address, but Log4Shell was unusual because it was so easy to exploit wherever it was present, with few caveats or subtleties for attackers to navigate. Developers use logging utilities to record operations in a given application. All attackers need to do to exploit Log4Shell is get the system to log a special string of code. From there, they can take control of their target to install malware or mount other digital attacks. Loggers gonna log, so introducing the malicious snippet can be as easy as including it in an account username or sending it in an email.

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S36
Aliens-inspired Returnal is coming to PC, and you should probably play it

A lesser-known PlayStation 5 game called Returnal is coming to PC, and while it hasn't had as much fanfare as big-ticket titles like Spider-Man, The Last of Us, or Horizon, it's definitely one you should try. It's simultaneously a throwback to classic arcade action games, a PC-style Roguelike, a technical showcase for modern systems, and an homage to the moody science fiction novels and films of the 1970s and 1980s. But most importantly, it's a good game.

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S39
Pharmeasy: Expansion Dilemma Amidst Regulatory Uncertainties ^ W20396

The two co-founders of PharmEasy, an online medical store and pharmacy website launched in 2015, faced a new challenge in December 2018. Recent judgments by the Madras and Delhi High Courts had suspended the operations of India's more than 250 online pharmacies until new industry regulations could be drafted. Only a few months earlier, in August 2018, the Indian government had released proposed draft regulations for the online sale of medicine. However, an organization representing more than 850,000 pharmacists in India had staged a one-day strike to protest the government's proposal. Should PharmEasy take a cautious approach with its ambitious expansion plans until the government introduces regulations? Or would its competitors seize the opportunity to move forward aggressively to gain market share? The co-founders recognized that the regulatory uncertainty was creating confusion. They needed to decide on their next steps quickly-and communicate their intentions to all stakeholders. Rakesh Gupta is affiliated with Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad. Lubna Nafees is affiliated with Appalachian State University.

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S48
The PikoGym Entrepreneurs: Muscling Up through Intellectual Property ^ W20431

Frustrated with the available means of working out while travelling, the three founders of PikoGym, a start-up out of Erlangen, Germany, had the idea to build a workout device that allowed users to train anywhere and everywhere. The lightweight and compact solution would be combined with a progressive web application to facilitate customers meeting up for workouts, provide motivation, and build community. PikoGym would be entering a growing but highly competitive and relatively fragmented market. Although competitors' solutions were similar to PikoGym's, they lacked the versatility and comfort offered by the latter. The three entrepreneurs wanted to ensure that their intellectual property (IP) management strategy aligned with their business goals and long-term plans for the company's success. Florian Fuchs is affiliated with Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. Peter M. Bican is affiliated with Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. Alexander Brem is affiliated with Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg.

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S42
GoSports Foundation: Going Beyond The Gold ^ W21246

GoSports Foundation was a non-profit venture that developed India's emerging athletic talent through athletic scholarships and other supports that helped the athletes achieve sports excellence. The foundation had limited funding and numerous applicants, requiring that it carefully choose the athletes it would support. Nandan Kamath, a co-founder of the organization, has to choose one athlete from several applicants for support. He also has to decide whether the foundation should start supporting the development of coaches and trainers and how it should balance its support with a desire to advance the profile of athletes competing in the Paralympics.Sanjeev Tripathi is affiliated with Indian Institute of Management Indore. Vijay Krishnamurthy is affiliated with SDMIMD, University of Mysore (India).

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S29
Insta360's X3 is a 360 and Action Camera in One

If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED

For years now, Insta360 has been working to merge the world of 360 video with the action camera. The Insta360 One RS (8/10 WIRED Recommends) has an interchangeable lens system that allows exactly this flexibility. Still, changing lenses isn’t the easiest thing to do when you’re in the middle of the action.

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S30
Upgrade Your Motorcycle Helmet—With a Bluetooth Headset

Lately, I've been hearing voices. They tell me all sorts of useful information, such as where to go and how to get there. Don't worry, all of this precisely stops when I take off my motorcycle helmet. That's because it's Bluetooth connected, and I love that I can keep my smartphone in my pocket while riding and get all my directions straight to my ears. 

It's the best upgrade I've ever made to my riding experience. You should forget about mounting your smartphone to your handlebars and make the upgrade too. Your sanity will thank you.

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S40
Teach For China and the Chinese Nonprofit Sector ^ 314052

Teach For China was founded in 2008 with the mission of expanding educational opportunity across China. By 2013, Andrea Pasinetti's lofty dream had taken flight: over 300 graduates from top American and Chinese universities were participating in its 2-year teaching fellowships in more than 87 rural Chinese schools. The organization had grown from a founding team of three in a shoebox office to an 80-person operation headquartered in Beijing with teams in six other locations across China. Teach For China adapted the model pioneered by Teach For America to meet the needs of the educationally under-resourced of rural China. Led by an American, could Teach For China reshape its international identity and become an enduring Chinese institution? Could Teach For China manage regulatory risks and challenge public and government skepticism of the still-nascent and highly volatile nonprofit sector? Would Teach For China be able to sustainably scale its model to truly end educational inequality in China?

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S52
P&G Canada: Old Company, New Tricks ^ 916019

P&G Canada faces ongoing global pressure to increase productivity and reduce spending. Thom Lachman, President of P&G Canada, is seemingly out of options that will make a large enough impact without harming the business, until the idea of a radical space reduction strikes him. The case follows Lachman, working closely with Country HR Manager Jane Lewis, from idea inception to the eve of the company-wide transition to a dramatically scaled-down and reorganized office space. In particular, the case provides a basis for discussion surrounding employee motivation-specifically as it is affected by the change management process and workspaces, benefits versus perks, and sorting effects. A (B) case details the outcome of the office space transition.

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S3
Seeing Earth From Space Will Change You

When he first returned from space, William Shatner was overcome with emotion. The actor, then 90 years old, stood in the dusty grass of the West Texas desert, where the spacecraft had landed. It was October 2021. Nearby, Jeff Bezos, the billionaire who had invited Shatner to ride on a Blue Origin rocket, whooped and popped a bottle of champagne, but Shatner hardly seemed to notice. With tears falling down his cheeks, he described what he had witnessed, his tone hushed. “What you have given me is the most profound experience I can imagine,” Shatner told Bezos. “It’s extraordinary. Extraordinary. I hope I never recover from this.” The man who had played Captain Kirk was so moved by the journey that his post-touchdown remarks ran longer than the three minutes he’d actually spent in space.

Shatner appeared to be basking in a phenomenon that many professional astronauts have described: the overview effect. These travelers saw Earth as a gleaming planet suspended in inky darkness, an oasis of life in the silent void, and it filled them with awe. “No one could be briefed well enough to be completely prepared for the astonishing view that I got,” Alan Shepard, the first American in space, wrote in 1962, after he’d made the same trip that Shatner later took.

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S31
The Multiverse is real — just not in the way you think it is

The multiverse is having a moment. From Rick and Morty to Marvel movies, the idea that our universe is just one of many has inspired countless storylines in recent popular culture.

Why is the multiverse so compelling? To theoretical physicist and philosopher Sean Carroll, one reason is that we’re drawn to wondering how things might have turned out differently. What if you had chosen a different career path? Married someone else? Moved to a different city?

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S8
Why We Buy What We Do

This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.

“I don’t like to shop, but I do like to buy,” Frances Taylor wrote in The Atlantic in 1931. In an essay called “Who Wants My Money?,” Taylor laments how inconvenient the process of shopping is. “I am a business woman working on commission, and I make money which I like to spend,” she writes, but going to stores is “a time-wasting and nerve-racking performance.”

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Why is strep A surging — and how worried are scientists?

Group A streptococcal bacteria (strep A) cause infections that trigger a sore throat — and can lead to scarlet fever or, rarely, more serious conditions and death.Credit: CNRI/Science Photo Library

As the days lengthen and temperatures rise each spring, British paediatricians know what to expect: an increase in group A streptococcal infections that should tail off by the summer. But an off-season outbreak of the bacterial infections this year has jumbled expectations, made scores of people ill and killed 13 children under the age of 15 in England since September.

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S41
After Job 1: Actions and Reactions in the Ford/Firestone Recall ^ BAB113

Few recent events have shaken public confidence in product safety as much as the recall of 6.5 million Firestone tires in August 2000. The defective tires made by Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. were supplied primarily as original equipment on Ford Motor Co. sport utility vehicles (SUVs) and sold as replacement items for SUVs and light trucks. For some consumers, the combination of Firestone tires and Ford vehicles proved lethal. Accidents involving tread separation and rollovers were blamed for 148 deaths and over 500 injuries. Chronicles the actions and reactions of Ford and Firestone, various legislative and regulatory bodies, and the public as the truth emerged.

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S21
Building Effective Working Relationships, Module Note ^ 415030

This note introduces a framework for deliberately building effective interpersonal relationships. First, we will define the necessary attributes of these relationships. Next, we will discuss common barriers to effectiveness. Lastly, we will provide tools to build and maintain these relationships.

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S34
Starts With A Bang podcast #88: From dust till cosmic dawn

For a cosmologist like me, “cosmic dust” is a thing that’s in the way, confounding our data about the pristine Universe, and it’s a thing to be understood so that it can be properly subtracted out. But the old saying, that “one astronomer’s noise is another astronomer’s data,” proves to be more true than ever with cosmic dust, as how it’s produced, where it came from, and how it comes together to form planets, molecules, and eventually creatures like us, are some of the most essential elements necessary for us to exist within this Universe.

In visible light, cosmic dust is normally just a starlight blocker, but in other wavelengths of light, its composition, distribution, density, grain size, polarization, and many other kinetic and thermal features can be revealed. Here to guide us through the ins-and-outs of cosmic dust, with a special view towards millimeter, submillimeter, and radio wavelengths, I’m so pleased to welcome PhD candidate Carla Arce-Tord to the show. Enjoy this far-ranging tour of cosmic dust, and perhaps by the end you’ll walk away inspired about all there is to know as well as the remarkable people making it happen!

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S24
Seneca Systems (A): General and Confidential Instructions for R. Thompson, Vice President, Marketing ^ 899169

Seneca is a three-party negotiation-mediation simulation. The context is a product failure crisis in a manufacturing company with highly autonomous units. The heads of two divisions are in a dispute over who has responsibility for failures in a key product. The head of a third division is attempting to mediate a resolution to the dispute. Unlike many mediation simulations, the mediator has both independent interests and some power to influence outcomes. Two versions of the mediator role are available. In Seneca Systems (A), the mediator can make a financial contribution to solving the problem and hence has bargaining power. In Seneca Systems (B), the mediator has some coercive power in the form of influence with the CEO and could impose a solution if the parties are unable to resolve the dispute themselves. The core teaching issues concern the tradeoffs inherent in having vested interests and power as a mediator.

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S25
HBR Working Parents Starter Set (5 Books) ^ 10623

All the advice you need to succeed as a first-time working parent. The year after having your first baby can be one of the most challenging and disorienting periods of your career. From finding the best childcare when you return to work, to setting expectations with your manager, to getting enough sleep so you can show up as the person you want to be and do your job well--juggling it all can seem impossible. You're not alone, but you're going through a tough moment and you need support. The "HBR Working Parents Starter Set" offers insights and practical advice from world-class experts on the topics that are the most important to new working parents who want to be great parents and have impactful careers. The five books in this set--"Succeeding as a First-Time Parent," "Getting It All Done," "Taking Care of Yourself," "Managing Your Career," and "Communicate Better with Everyone"--will teach you how to transition back to work effectively, make decisions that align with your priorities, find time for personal development, and make career choices that work for you--and your family. There's no simple answer or foolproof tip to make working parenthood easy--but the strategies in this collection can help set you on the path toward finding success both in your career and as a parent. The HBR Working Parents Series with Daisy Dowling, Series Editor, supports readers as you anticipate challenges, learn how to advocate for yourself more effectively, juggle your impossible schedule, and find fulfillment at home and at work. Whether you're up with a newborn or planning the future with your teen, you'll find the practical tips, strategies, and research you need to make working parenthood work for you.

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S35
5 creative ways people are using ChatGPT

On November 30, OpenAI — the research lab behind the groundbreaking text-to-image AI DALL-E 2 — unveiled its latest creation: ChatGPT, an AI chatbot capable of providing detailed responses to text prompts.

Within five days, more than one million people had signed up to test the cutting-edge technology, according to OpenAI President Greg Brockman, and their prompts and the AI’s responses are now flooding Twitter feeds as people marvel at the bot’s mastery of language.

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S50
Lincoln Center CEO Henry Timms on New Models for Effective Leadership

On Nov. 29, tens of millions of people around the world donated their time and money to the causes and institutions that matter most to them. It was all part of an annual movement known as “Giving Tuesday,” which Henry Timms and his team launched a decade ago. Since then it has generated more than $13 billion for good causes in the U.S. alone. The phenomenon is part of what Timms calls “new power,” where smart ideas are circulated for anyone and everyone to interpret and build on – rather than being controlled by a centralized organization. It’s based on what one of Timms’ colleagues calls “un-branding,” where institutions don’t insist on putting their logos and terms of engagement all over everything they initiate. “The ‘old power’ world was: you participate in my mission on my terms, and I tell you what to do, and you do it or don’t,” says Timms. “The ‘new power’ world is: we get people to participate in our mission on their terms.”

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S10
The Absurd Talent of Kylian Mbappé

The French star player has already proved that he’s one of the best in the history of the game.

This is an edition of The Great Game, a newsletter about the 2022 World Cup—and how soccer explains the world. Sign up here.

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S5
We’re All Capable of Going ‘Goblin Mode’

The Oxford Word of the Year tells a concise story about how many of us are doing these days.

The people have spoken about what the people have spoken: The 2022 Oxford Word of the Year, chosen for the first time ever by public vote, went to goblin mode by a 93 percent majority. Oxford defines goblin mode as “a type of behavior which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations.” It’s a gloriously evocative phrase—and it tells a concise story about how many of us are doing these days.

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S12
The Indonesia Strategy Case: Confidential Instructions for Joanna ^ INS978

This is a multi-issue one-on-one internal negotiation between a recently promoted boss, Joanna, and an older-than-her employee, Rupert, who is disgruntled at having been passed over for promotion. Joanna needs his advice to design the new strategy for the Indonesia operations, which she must present to the board soon.

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S37
The weekend’s best deals: A bunch of Apple devices, Surface, Xbox, Meta Quest, and more

Black Friday and Cyber Week are technically done and dusted. But the season of deals and record-low pricing continues for a variety of electronics as we wind down the year.

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S55
Creating a Luxury Experience at Value Retail ^ 513009

Value Retail PLC owned and managed a number of premium shopping destinations (Villages) across Europe. Soon the company would be moving into an entirely new market: China. The company's Villages had proven popular with both shoppers (many of whom were international tourists who had come to Europe specifically to visit one of Value Retail's Villages) and brands, a number of which were luxury brands that had historically avoided selling product at outlet locations. The company's Founder and Chairman, Scott Malkin, looked to the future challenges his company might face in China, as well as to the challenges his company faced around human resource management and organizational control as the company grew in size and formalized parts of its processes, and how his company would be impacted by the ongoing changes in the retail industry, including the rise of online shopping.

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S33
Fatherhood changes men’s brains, according to before-and-after MRI scans

The time fathers devote to child care every week has tripled over the past 50 years in the United States. The increase in fathers’ involvement in child rearing is even steeper in countries that have expanded paid paternity leave or created incentives for fathers to take leave, such as Germany, Spain, Sweden and Iceland. And a growing body of research finds that children with engaged fathers do better on a range of outcomes, including physical health and cognitive performance. 

Despite dads’ rising participation in child care and their importance in the lives of their kids, there is surprisingly little research about how fatherhood affects men. Even fewer studies focus on the brain and biological changes that might support fathering. 

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S11
Should Local Police Departments Deploy Lethal Robots?

Last month, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted in favor of allowing that city’s police department to deploy robots equipped with a potential to kill, should a situation—in the estimation of police officers—call for lethal force. With that decision, the board appeared to have delivered the city to a dystopian future. The vote garnered a loudly negative response from the public, and this week the supervisors reversed course and sent the policy back to committee. But the fact that the decision initially passed—and may yet pass in some form—should not have been surprising. Police departments around the country have been acquiring robotic devices for decades. Most are used for what have become routine policing activities, such as surveillance and bomb disposal. But some can be outfitted with other capabilities, such as to fire 12-gauge shotgun rounds, and in Dallas, in 2016, the police used a bomb-disposal robot to detonate an explosive device, in order to kill a suspected sniper who had shot twelve officers, killing five. The San Francisco Police Department has seventeen robots, twelve of which are functional, and among that number are bomb-disposal units that can be repurposed to deliver an explosive device. (They, too, can be outfitted to fire 12-gauge rounds.)

Since 1997, when the National Defense Authorization Act sanctioned the transfer of surplus Department of Defense matériel to local police departments, ostensibly to shore up their defenses for the war on drugs, law-enforcement agencies around the country have been stockpiling the weapons and equipment of war. An earlier program that enabled police departments to buy military surplus at a discounted rate was given a boost after 9/11, when grants from the Department of Homeland Security enabled local forces to purchase armored personnel carriers, tactical gear, sound cannons, drones, and other accoutrements of modern warfare. According to the Law Enforcement Support Office, which oversees the weapon transfers, more than seven billion dollars’ worth of equipment has been transferred to more than eight thousand police departments since the program began.

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S1
How do floating wind turbines work? 5 companies just won the first US leases for building them off California's coast

Northern California has some of the strongest offshore winds in the U.S., with immense potential to produce clean energy. But it also has a problem. Its continental shelf drops off quickly, making building traditional wind turbines directly on the seafloor costly if not impossible.

Once water gets more than about 200 feet deep – roughly the height of an 18-story building – these “monopile” structures are pretty much out of the question.

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S27
What to Do When Your Hard Work Is Being Overlooked

The shift many companies have made from in-person to hybrid and remote work models has its benefits. But a major downside is the lack of visibility for remote employees. When working from home, you don’t get to see much of what others are doing, nor do they get a sense of what your day-to-day looks like.

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S20
Riot Games: Can Culture Survive Growth? ^ 416016

Buy books, tools, case studies, and articles on leadership, strategy, innovation, and other business and management topics

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S19
ROQ.AD and the Ad-Tech Industry ^ W16227

By August 2015, Berlin-based advertising technology venture Roq.ad had grown from a chance encounter between its two co-founders to become a revenue generating operation with 18 full-time employees in Germany and Poland -- in just 10 months. Their goal was to develop new cross-device, user-recognition technology that would enable advertisers to accurately target consumers across a range of devices such as personal computers and peripheral devices. Roq.ad's co-founders had decided from the beginning not to seek out venture capital and instead to retain tight control of their business. Given the lead time needed to develop technology, they had also decided to use an industry-standard agency model for generating revenues that would be used to fund the development of technology and the eventual launch of the program. As Roq.ad approached the end of its first year in business, the co-founders faced an important strategic challenge: How could they successfully transform the company from its initial mobile-advertising agency model to become Europe's number one provider of cross-device, user-recognition technology?Christopher Williams is affiliated with DURHAM UNIVERSITY. Umair Shafique is affiliated with Richard Ivey School of Business.

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S43
groupelephant.com 2021: Beyond Corporate Purpose ^ B5997

The groupelephant.com case focuses on CEO Jonathan Tager as he grapples with expanding his company's Beyond Corporate Purpose: Elephants, Rhinos & People ('ERP') initiative, six years after its 2015 launch. groupelephant.com originated from EPI-USE, a professional software and services firm, and the world's largest independent SAP HR/Payroll specialist. Following a period of rapid corporate growth but waning enthusiasm for purely financial objectives, Tager decided to rebrand the Group and employ a hybrid (blended) business model to achieve business, environmental and social goals. Tager reflects on the various ERP programs and their impact on elephant and rhino welfare, through a strategy based on poverty alleviation in areas adjacent to the threatened species, in Southern Africa. The case also describes the effects of the ERP initiative and corporate rebranding on the core for-profit business. More broadly, the case study explores the benefits and challenges inherent in the hybrid business model, potential strategies for scaling the ERP initiative globally, the importance of "purpose-driven leadership", and issues related to impact strategy and impact measurement. Drawing on recent trends, it also prompts students to discuss whether company leaders have a responsibility (or an implicit mandate) to actively engage in advocacy and devote significant resources to social and environmental objectives.

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S9
Remembering Grant Wahl, a Champion of American Soccer

This is an edition of The Great Game, a newsletter about the 2022 World Cup—and how soccer explains the world. Sign up here.

Twenty years ago, when I first called the soccer writer Grant Wahl, he was an exotic species. In those days, most writing about American games existed in niche magazines with low production values and even lower circulations. Grant was the rare domestic journalist covering soccer who had begun to break free from this constricted corner. Where the other American writers rendered the game esoteric and remote—a precious foreign import that only connoisseurs could appreciate—Grant made it appealingly accessible.

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S54
GROW: Using Artificial Intelligence to Screen Human Intelligence ^ 418020

Over 10% of all 2017 university graduates in Japan used GROW, an artificial intelligence platform and mobile app developed by Tokyo-based people analytics startup IGS, to recruit for a job. This case puts participants in the shoes of IGS founder and CEO Masahiro Fukuhara, a first-time entrepreneur, as he considers the varied ways the "big data" he is collecting is being used--and whether some uses promised more meaningful (or less potentially misleading) impact than others. After briefly introducing IGS, Fukuhara, and GROW, the case outlines exactly how GROW works, starting with a mobile app to assess competencies and personalities of candidates and ending with artificial intelligence (machine learning) to produce high-quality recommendations to companies about whom they should hire. The case then articulates precisely how three companies--airline ANA (All-Nippon Airways), global conglomerate Mitsubishi Corporation, and advertising/media company Septeni--use GROW in very different ways to manage talent recruiting, screening, hiring, placement, and development. The case asks students to consider two questions: (1) Which of the three company's approach to using people analytics for talent acquisition and development is most appealing (or most concerning)?; and (2) Should Fukuhara turn on the most advanced part of the artificial intelligence engine, allowing GROW not just to provide recommendations to clients about whom they should hire, but also (based on performance and attribute data of previous hires) to overrule clients' specifications (or biases) about the competencies they should be targeting in their ideal hires?Accompanying the case are the (anonymized) data one of these companies used to make their hiring decision, so that students can experience first-hand the opportunities and challenges of using people analytics in hiring. The case also provides an accessible yet thorough explanation of the key aspects of artificial intelligence (supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement machine learning). The case is well-suited to courses in Managing Human Capital, People Analytics, Talent Development, Organizational Behavior, or General Management.

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S49
ENOVE: Business Strategy in a Transitioning Economy ^ W16035

In August 2014, La Société Energies Nouvelles & Environnement (ENOVE), a subdivision of Groupe Bismuth, was developing an expansion strategy in the unstable political and economic environment of Tunisia, the company's home country. Tunisia was the birthplace of the Arab Spring, a series of political revolutions that started in 2010 and swept the Mediterranean region for five years. Tunisia was also quickly moving toward a democratically elected government, but the transition was not an easy one; the country experienced a setback of about 10 to 15 years, in regards to economic development. Years of functional corruption under the long-time president, Ben Ali, were followed by sustained economic growth in manufacturing, tourism, and education. This led the economy into a governmental vacuum. For the first time, workers began exercising their rights to demand better conditions. There was little governmental oversight on customs, labour, or taxation. The threat of terrorism, whether real or perceived, was always present. Under these conditions, ENOVE's president had to make a decision: Should ENOVE expand within Tunisia, or move their manufacturing operations to a more stable country, perhaps nearby Morocco?Maciek Nowak is affiliated with Quinlan School of Business-Isom.

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S18
Yves Saint Laurent: Strategic Leadership of Creative Directors ^ W17554

On April 1, 2016, fashion house Yves Saint Laurent (YSL) announced the departure of its creative director who had been responsible for successfully reviving the struggling YSL brand since 2012. Three days after this surprising departure, the company announced that its next creative director would be a relatively inexperienced, 36-year-old designer. After decades of leadership turmoil and financial instability at YSL, the incoming creative director was facing increasing pressure from stakeholders to build off the success that his predecessor had achieved. The global luxury fashion industry had become increasingly competitive, with multiple brands competing for the industry's estimated value of €265 billion in 2017. Had YSL made the right decision in selecting this young director? To help YSL remain one of the top brands in the fashion industry, should the new director implement a strategy that builds upon the successful foundation created by his predecessor, or should he develop new strategies?Wiboon Kittilaksanawong is affiliated with Saitama University. Andrew Jiro Poplawski is affiliated with Nagoya University of Commerce & Business.

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S69
Keep Forgetting Things? Neuroscience Says This Memory-Fixing Brain Habit Works Best

"The results were incontrovertible ... regular, engaged reading strengthened older adults memory skills."

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S15
Dirty Stuff II, General Instructions ^ PON580

General Instructions for Dirty Stuff II Six-person, multi-issue facilitated negotiation among industry, environmental, consumer/community, labor, and government representatives to develop single-text regulation of toxic industrial by-product. Dirty Stuff is an industrial by-product of a large number of industrial processes that has recently found to have harmful health side-effects. A first meeting was convened at which a representative from environmental organizations, labor unions, industry groups, community groups and consumer groups would attend in order to discuss how Dirty Stuff is to be regulated. This meeting ended abruptly and in a highly emotional and hostile fashion - a fact which has become reported in the press. A second meeting has been convened and the various factions have agreed to enlist the help of a facilitator. The goal of the upcoming second meeting is to revise the proposed rule regarding the production and use of Dirty Stuff. This will be published in The Federal Register.

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S2
Climate crisis in Africa exposes real cause of hunger – colonial food systems that leave people more vulnerable

In the waning hours of the year’s biggest climate change conference – COP27 – we learned of a deal to create a loss and damage fund. This is essentially a source of finance to compensate poor countries for the pain they are incurring because of climate change. An often-cited example of such suffering is the ongoing drought in the Horn of Africa region, which has put some 22 million people at risk of severe hunger.

While some have heralded this agreement as long overdue climate reparations, others point out that the loss and damage fund does nothing to address the root causes of climate change - fossil fuel emissions.

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S16
Harvard Business Review 20-Minute Manager Ultimate Boxed Set (16 Books) ^ 10277

This 16-volume, specially priced boxed set makes a perfect gift for aspiring leaders who are short on time but need advice fast, on topics from creating business plans and giving feedback to managing time and presentations. The set includes "Creating Business Plans," "Delegating Work," "Difficult Conversations," "Finance Basics," "Getting Work Done," "Giving Effective Feedback," "Innovative Teams," "Leading Virtual Teams," "Managing Projects," "Managing Time," "Managing Up," "Performance Reviews," "Presentations," "Running Meetings," "Running Virtual Meetings," and "Virtual Collaboration." Don't have much time? Get up to speed fast on the most essential business skills with HBR's 20-Minute Manager series. Whether you need a crash course or a brief refresher, each book in the series is a concise, practical primer that will help you brush up on a key management topic. Advice you can quickly read and apply, for ambitious professionals and aspiring executives--from the most trusted source in business. Also available as an ebook.

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S26
PARKER - GIBSON - Confidential Instructions for the Gibsons ^ PON386

Accompanied by product #PON385.Two-party, single-issue negotiation between two neighbors regarding the potential sale of a vacant lot. The Parkers and the Gibsons own homes on adjacent plots of land. The homes are separated by a 1/2 lot the Parkers purchased years ago in hopes of building a tennis court, which they never got around to. The Parkers are now moving out of state and are interested in selling the half lot, as the buyer of their home is not interested in it. The Parkers have approached the Gibsons (who have interest in the lot for home improvements they have planned) about purchasing the lot. Neither party knows much about the other's interests. The Parkers and Gibsons are meeting to explore whether a mutually beneficial transaction is possible.This is a role play case.

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S46
Holden Forests & Gardens: Leading in Turbulent Times ^ 821051

Buy books, tools, case studies, and articles on leadership, strategy, innovation, and other business and management topics

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S13
Professionalization of Ujwal Bharati ^ 910M36

The case is woven around the decision dilemma faced by the second generation managing director of Ujwal Bharati Pharmaceuticals, a mid-size business. He had to decide whether to retain his non-family CEO or not. There are other issues related to corporate and family governance covered in the case as well. This case was written in the context of the major efforts made by Indian family businesses in recent years to professionalize their operations. This is particularly so among mid-size businesses. In this case, while the director appreciates the need to professionalize and successfully recruit non-family professionals, he is not able to retain them. The director's major dilemma is not only to delegate but to simultaneously find a way of making use of his time. Indirect opposition to changes from the old guard causes problems and the board, consisting of professionals, is ineffective. The director's elder brother, without any male heir, is non-interfering and the director's only son is not well-groomed for the position. The case is best suited for a session on professionalization of management of a growing company but is also appropriate for courses such as family businesses, organizational behavior, strategy implementation and entrepreneurship.

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S47
Food Forward: How Volunteer Teams Move Surplus Produce from Tree to Table ^ B5991

Food Forward's volunteers call it "fruit therapy" to harvest excess fruit from citrus trees throughout Los Angeles knowing it will soon feed food insecure families. Through the nonprofit's 2020 surplus produce programs, the team rescued 62.5 million pounds of nutritious fruits and vegetables and even organized 2,037 socially-distanced volunteer events during the COVID-19 shut-downs. The team, comprised of 40 engaged staff and 4,100 dedicated volunteers, worked together to overcome the imbalance of food waste and people who lacked enough to eat. How did Food Forward maintain and motivate such a large volunteer group to help bridge the hunger gap - and what role would they play in the organization's future?

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S14
Sadiq Gillani's Airline Career Takes Off: Strategy in Action ^ OB95

As a student at the Harvard Business School, Sadiq Gillani decided to focus his career on the airline industry. This case study explores Gillani's strategic decisions to take positions with aviation consulting companies, start-up airlines, and budget airlines-and gain valuable experience that prepared him to work on big transformative issues, skills he would later use as chief strategy officer at the Lufthansa Group, Europe's largest aviation company. At Lufthansa, a company with a German culture where people tended to work their way up, Gillani found himself an outsider. Networking and establishing a presence as a global expert and leader in the industry helped move his career forward. In 2018 Gillani became senior vice president at Emirates, which operated in 80 countries around the world and was the largest airline in the Middle East. As he reflected on the moves he had made to build his career and his reputation in the airline industry, Gillani wondered to what extent the career strategies he had employed were generalizable to other people in other industries-and whether these strategies would prepare him for his next position.

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S6
Zero COVID’s Failure Is Xi’s Failure

For three years, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, fought a remorseless battle against COVID-19. He called it a “people’s war”—a national struggle to defeat an unseen foe and save lives. The contest locked families in their homes for weeks, strangled the economy, and closed the country to the world. Other governments that failed to contain the pandemic may be indifferent to death and suffering, the message was, but not the Chinese Communist Party, which cares about life above all else.

“Zero COVID,” the policy that mandated all of the stringent lockdowns and rigid quarantines, is dead. Officially, the Chinese government will never admit that. The party paints itself as infallible and won’t acknowledge that it erred. The government insists that the fight against COVID is not over. But the new approach, announced on Wednesday, is no longer fixated on suppressing infections to nil—and may not be able to contain them at all. The public quickly realized that, reached its own conclusion about the risk of an explosive outbreak, and began panicked purchases of at-home COVID tests and flu medications.

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S32
Seize the day? Here's what people get wrong about "carpe diem"

Excerpted from This Beauty: A Philosophy of Being Alive by Nick Riggle. Copyright © 2022. Available from Basic Books, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

You are familiar with the Ancient Roman advice, carpe diem, often translated as seize the day. Less familiar is the phrase that follows it in Horace’s famous poem, Odes 1.11, which reads carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero: trust as little as possible to the future. What exactly does this mean? It is tempting to interpret it as carpe diem’s cousin: live like there is no tomorrow. But why should anyone live like there is no tomorrow? Why isn’t that terrible, irresponsible advice? It might have you saying things you will regret, selling goods you should keep, or staying up all night swinging from a chandelier, living like tomorrow doesn’t exist. Like it doesn’t exist! But it does.

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S51
Vermeer Technologies (A): A Company Is Born ^ 397078

Charles Ferguson has just heard from a venture capital (VC) consortium that it is willing to finance Vermeer Technologies, a company he has cofounded for developing Internet software. The funds are sorely needed, but the VCs have imposed some onerous conditions, including a request that Vermeer's first CEO be an outsider. This case is accompanied by a Video Short that can be shown in class or included in a digital coursepack. Instructors should consider the timing of making the video available to students, as it may reveal key case details.

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S4
You Can’t Really Make a Feel-Good Body-Horror Movie

The Whale aims for noble sentimentality, but Darren Aronofsky can’t stop turning pain into spectacle.

From the first minute, The Whale is suffused with dread. The director Darren Aronofsky has long specialized in that type of atmosphere; even when working on the tiniest scale, he conjures mounting horror out of the mundane. His latest work closely echoes prior films such as π and Requiem for a Dream, both claustrophobic epics with thudding scores and dreary outlooks. But in The Whale, which is adapted from Samuel D. Hunter’s play, the sinister mood immediately feels at odds with the subject. The protagonist, Charlie (played by Brendan Fraser), is completely housebound and on the brink of death because of extreme binge-eating. His confinement is abject, but the source of his pain is deeply relatable: grief.

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S23
What's Your Problem?: To Solve Your Toughest Problems, Change the Problems You Solve ^ 10257

Are you solving the right problems? Have you or your colleagues ever worked hard on something, only to find out you were focusing on the wrong problem entirely? Most people have. In a survey, 85 percent of companies said they often struggle to solve the right problems. The consequences are severe: Leaders fight the wrong strategic battles. Teams spend their energy on low-impact work. Startups build products that nobody wants. Organizations implement "solutions" that somehow make things worse, not better. Everywhere you look, the waste is staggering. As Peter Drucker pointed out, there's nothing more dangerous than the right answer to the wrong question. There is a way to do better. The key is reframing, a crucial, underutilized skill that you can master with the help of this book. Using real-world stories and unforgettable examples like "the slow elevator problem," author Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg offers a simple, three-step method--Frame, Reframe, Move Forward--that anyone can use to start solving the right problems. Reframing is not difficult to learn. It can be used on everyday challenges and on the biggest, trickiest problems you face. In this visually engaging, deeply researched book, you'll learn from leaders at large companies, from entrepreneurs, consultants, nonprofit leaders, and many other breakthrough thinkers. It's time for everyone to stop barking up the wrong trees. Teach yourself and your team to reframe, and growth and success will follow.

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S38
Walking can lower risk of early death, but there's more to it than number of steps, study finds | CNN

Taking 8,600 steps a day will prevent weight gain in adults, while already overweight adults can halve their odds of becoming obese by adding an additional 2,400 steps — that's 11,000 steps a day, according to new research.

The new research echoes results from a recent study in Spain in which researchers found health benefits rose with every step until about 10,000 steps, when the effects began to fade. Counting steps may be especially important for people who do unstructured, unplanned physical activity such as housework, gardening and walking dogs.

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S44
Enterprise Culture in Chinese History: Zhang Jian and the Dasheng Cotton Mills ^ 308068

This case focuses on the legal and managerial evolution of limited-liability firms in China, using the example of the Dasheng cotton mills in Nantong near Shanghai. Dasheng, one of the earliest and most successful industrial enterprises in pre-war China, was founded by the famous entrepreneur Zhang Jian (1853-1926). Having survived various economic and political crises, the Dasheng cotton mills became a state-owned enterprise in 1953. In the wake of the economic reforms the successor to the original Dasheng Enterprise was restructured as the Jiangsu Dasheng Co. Ltd. in 1996. Issues of corporate governance, legal environment, government relations and the role of family business structures are discussed in the context of how they shaped the business environment in pre-war China and continue to influence Chinese enterprise culture in 2008.

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S17
Harvard Business Review Leader's Handbook: Make an Impact, Inspire Your Organization, and Get to the Next Level ^ 10158

The one primer you need to develop your leadership skills. Put aside all the overhyped new frameworks, the listicles, the "10 best things you need to succeed as a leader today." The critical leadership practices--the ones that will allow a leader to make the biggest impact over time--are well established. They're about how you create a vision and inspire others to follow it. How you make difficult strategic choices. How you lead innovation. How you get results. These fundamental skills are even more important today as organizations and teams become increasingly networked, virtual, agile, fast-moving, and socially conscious. In this comprehensive handbook, strategy and change experts Ron Ashkenas and Brook Manville distill proven ideas and frameworks about leadership from Harvard Business Review, interviews with senior executives, and their own experience in the field--all to help rising leaders stand out and have a big impact. In the "HBR Leader's Handbook" you'll find: Concise explanations of proven leadership frameworks from Harvard Business Review contributors such as Clayton M. Christensen and Michael E. Porter; In-depth case studies of senior leaders such as Jim Wolfensohn at the World Bank, Paula Kerger at PBS, Darren Walker at the Ford Foundation, and Jim Smith at Thomson Reuters; Step-by-step guidance to help you understand and start implementing six core leadership practices: building a unifying vision, developing a strategy, getting great people on board, focusing on results, innovating for the future, and leading yourself.HBR Handbooks provide ambitious professionals with the frameworks, advice, and tools they need to excel in their careers. With step-by-step guidance, time-honed best practices, real-life stories, and concise explanations of research published in Harvard Business Review, each comprehensive volume helps you to stand out from the pack--whatever your role.

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S7
‘Biological Strip Malls’ Have Taken Over the Planet

This story originally appeared in bioGraphic, an independent magazine about nature and regeneration powered by the California Academy of Sciences.

On a toasty morning in March, a steady stream of hikers trudges up the steep road leading into Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve. Many seek out this popular park just north of San Diego for the expansive views of the sparkling Pacific Ocean and the gnarled, endangered pine trees that lend the reserve its name. But a slender woman in a panama hat and an orange safety vest ignores the views. Instead, she lingers along the road’s dusty shoulder, staring intently at a patch of black sage that bursts with petite lilac flowers.

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S22
Doing Deals and Leading Teams at XAF Partners ^ 413032

Private equity firm XAF Partners, created out of the 2003 merger of Shanghai-based Xuan Partners and AF Group, a spin out of the Shanghai-based, emerging market-focused private equity arm of a large European bank, had grown steadily over the last decade, establishing offices in Beijing, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Mumbai, Seoul and Singapore. At the end of their day-long partners' retreat, several firm partners discuss the challenges they face as they juggle three roles in their business life: deal makers in their own sectors; managers of younger associates and directors across their sector teams; and as leaders in their young but successful firm.

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S63
LinkedIn Reviewed Millions of Job Listings. This 1 Key Change Leads to Many More Applicants

There's an enormous disconnect, and it could be an equally enormous opportunity.

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S64
You Have 22 Days Left in 2022. These Daily Tips Can Help You Make 2023 an Extraordinary Year

Sign up now to get a daily tip or mindfulness challenge, plus a behind-the-scenes look at my column.

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S57
Au Bon Pain: The French Bakery Cafe, the Partner/Manager Program ^ 687063

In recent years, Au Bon Pain (ABP), a chain of upscale French bakeries/sandwich cafes based in Boston, confronted a set of human resource problems endemic to the fast food industry (i.e., a labor shortage which made it difficult to attract and maintain quality crew personnel and management candidates, an inadequately trained management staff, and high turnover). To deal with the resulting "cycle of failure" while increasing individual initiative and performance at the unit level, ABP devised a new compensation-incentive system for its store managers--the Partner/Manager Program. Under this program, store managers would be paid a standard base salary plus a share of the incremental profits. The case asks students to evaluate the program by comparing it to ABP's existing compensation system, determining the different ways in which managers from two stores operating under an experimental run of the program achieved their results, and by considering the strategic implications of implementing the program in all of the company's stores.

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S56
Global Knowledge Management at Danone (A) ^ 608107

This case explores French consumer goods company Danone's novel approach to knowledge management. In 2007, Human Resource Chief (Executive Vice President) Franck Mougin assesses the company's knowledge-sharing tools and considers his options going Forward. Through informal knowledge marketplaces and sharing networks, Danone had helped managers connect with each other and share good practices peer-to-peer, rather than relying on traditional hierarchical lines of communication or IT repositories. From 2004 to 2007, Mougin and his team had found that 5,000 Danone managers around the world--the company conducted business in 120 countries--had shared about 640 now-documented good practices. In 2007, the strategic importance of saving time in a decentralized organization through adoption of colleagues' good practices was put to a test. Should the knowledge management tools be extended to include all employees and external partners on a regular basis? And on top of sharing good practices, could it be extended to include the creation of new solutions and processes? Would this require more formalization of processes and more tracking of results? The case illustrates Mougin's options on taking knowledge management into the future of Danone.This case is accompanied by a Video Short that can be shown in class or included in a digital coursepack. Instructors should consider the timing of making the video available to students, as it may reveal key case details.

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S45
South African Chefs Association: Maintaining a Non-Profit Organization ^ W19787

In February 2020, the president of South African Chefs Association was exploring ways to ensure a sustained revenue stream for the association, which relied primarily on membership fees for survival. As a non-profit organization, South African Chefs Association had a rich history of representing chefs, enabling them to compete on the international stage, supporting their training and education, and providing members with networking opportunities and a community. The association faced several challenges; most notably, it needed to find an innovative solution to sustainable growth in terms of both membership and revenue numbers and the value created for members. The association's president needed to establish a sense of relevance and community for its members through a range of strategic partnerships and innovative value contributions, ensure its leadership reflected the racial makeup of the country, and reconsider its structure and purpose.Anastacia Mamabolo is affiliated with University of Pretoria. Charlene Lew is affiliated with University of Pretoria.

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S53
Winning Business at Russell Reynolds (B) ^ 422046

In an effort to make compensation drive collaboration, Russell Reynolds Associates' (RRA) CEO Clarke Murphy sought to re-engineer the bonus system for his executive search consultants in 2016. As his HR analytics guru, Kelly Smith, points out, that risks upsetting-and maybe even losing-some of the "big billers" (rainmakers) who were heavily rewarded under the current system that motivated individual, 'entrepreneurial' efforts to win business. Frustrated by the current system's shortcomings, including failing to provide clients with the teams they needed for increasingly advisory work and affording junior consultants an opportunity to adequately apprentice, Murphy was worried that the current compensation system was holding RRA back from executing on his growth strategy intended to help RRA-a top 5 search firm-recapture market share lost to its competitors since the great recession. He had tried many attempts, over multiple years, to change the culture through other means, but only with tepid success. Now he had to decide whether to pull the trigger on a large-scale effort to adjust RRA's discretionary bonus system after hearing concern-and even anger-over the proposal from some of his top 20 consultants. To permit students to analyze the situation, they have access to detailed, real performance and compensation data for all RRA consultants in 2015 (in the supplementary (C) case spreadsheet), along with the modeling RRA did to forecast the effect of the compensation system changes on each person. Students can therefore analyze how a more collaborative approach to compensation might positively impact some consultants and adversely impact others, assessing the benefits and risks of the dislocation. By asking students to decide whether Murphy should move forward with the new compensation system, or whether an alternative might be better, students will wrestle with the role of compensation systems in driving intended behaviors, such as collaboration, and thus in supporting or warping organizational culture, performance, and growth. By analyzing the dislocation to employees' variable compensation due to a change, students will learn the challenges of changing and calibrating compensation systems. Finally, by exposing students to the various tradeoffs involved in designing a compensation system and the "zero sum" nature of their implications, students will internalize the complexity involved in attempting to drive organizational change through changes to a compensation system (i.e., "align incentives" is not as easy to do as it is to say).

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S58
The Written Interview: Self-Assessment and Career Development ^ 481012

Buy books, tools, case studies, and articles on leadership, strategy, innovation, and other business and management topics

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S60
Adam Baxter Co./Local 190: 1985 Negotiation, Local 190 Confidential Information ^ 396325

Includes a series of three negotiation exercises portraying management/labor relations at ABC over a period of seven years. ABC, initially a family-owned business, had prided itself on its cooperative relationship with its union, Local 190. With the skyrocketing inflation of the 1970s, management considered drastic changes. Management and labor would undergo a series of negotiations over wages, benefits, and work conditions at ABC's main plant in Deloitte, Iowa.

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S59
Identifying and Developing Capable Leaders ^ 601054

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S62
Union Fenosa Gas: Human Resources Start-up ^ IES171

Faced with new challenges in the energy sector, Union Fenosa decides to enter the liquefied natural gas (LNG) business and becomes involved at every stage, from procurement to sale. The challenge is to source gas from optimal locations, create the right type of organization, build a liquefaction plant, and put together a team capable of managing the project successfully. And all this in record time (the Damietta plant went from engineering to production in just three years).

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S61
Applied: Using Behavioral Science to Debias Hiring ^ 921046

The UK government's Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) needed to hire a new associate and were trying to increase the diversity of their job candidates. This decision was based on academic research showing that recruiters and managers often fell into common traps like "stereotype" and "affinity" bias, where they hired people who looked the part or who were similar in appearance or background as themselves. To overcome these biases, the team had spent hours using a permanent marker to redact the names and educational information from each candidate's CVs, one-by-one. This painstaking process inspired Kate Glazebrook to develop Applied-a technological solution to debias hiring. Applied was a recruitment and hiring platform that used technology to eliminate biased language in job ads and used task-based assessments to reduce favoritism, among other features. Years after founding the company, Glazebrook considered asking her clients to remove CVs altogether. Could Glazebrook convince her new and existing customers to use the platform, even after taking away CVs?

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