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Business Cases

These aren't your grandpa's static PDFs. Our reinvented case study experiences are developed with our Academic Advisory Board from top business schools and produced by our team of award-winning film and podcast creators. At key decision-making moments, students engage in small-group discussions, which are evaluated by AI and the insights are shared with professors.

Dropbox
Dropbox | Throw Away Your Thumb Drive
Available

Dropbox’s story begins in 2007 when Drew Houston, a recent MIT graduate, forgot to bring his flash drive on an hours-long bus ride between Boston and New York City. He became inspired to solve the problems of file sharing, sync, and backup once and for all. This case study follows Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi through their time at Y Combinator, their successful launch, their entry into professi...

Strategy|Entrepreneurship WATCH TRAILER
Olav Sorenson, UCLA Anderson School of Business
Joseph Jacobs Chair in Entrepreneurial Studies; Professor of Strategy; Faculty Director, Price Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation
Olav Sorenson
Airbnb
Airbnb | Product Testing, Pivots, and Product-Market Fit
Available

In 2008, two cash-strapped friends, Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia, needed desperately to make rent for their apartment in San Francisco. Turning their living room into a makeshift "bed and breakfast" by inflating air mattresses, they seized an opportunity when a large design conference left attendees with no local hotel accommodation options. The idea began to take shape, and they launched "Air Bed ...

Strategy|Entrepreneurship WATCH TRAILER
Steve Eppinger, MIT
Professor of Management Science and Innovation, General Motors Leaders for Global Operations Professor of Management
Steve Eppinger
Facebook
Facebook | What Comes Next?
Available

Follow Mark Zuckerberg across the intricate web of social media evolution as he leads Facebook over the course of a decade. This case study delves into the tech giant's apprehensions as it envelops significant competitors like Instagram and WhatsApp, and grapples with diminishing engagement from Gen Z and Gen Alpha - a stark contrast to its triumphs with Millennials. As the narrative unfolds, the ...

Technology Management WATCH TRAILER
Sanjoy Moulik, University of California, Riverside
Assistant Professor of Information Systems
Sanjoy Moulik
TikTok
TikTok | The Social Media Unicorn
Available

After developing a suite of apps based on the power of big data, Chinese software engineer Zhang Yiming founded ByteDance. Yiming’s company would later become the highest valued unicorn startup in the world with a valuation of $225 billion at the end of 2023, mostly because of the global domination of its social media app, TikTok. How did a Chinese company achieve massive success in such a saturat...

Technology Management
Doug Thomas, University of New Mexico, Anderson School of Management
Professor, Strategy and International Business
Doug Thomas
Weight Watchers
Weight Watchers | Adapting to Ozempic
Available

Weight Watchers, a long-time leader in lifestyle-based weight loss, made a major change by acquiring telehealth platform Sequence. This strategic pivot under new CEO Sima Sistani marks a departure from the company’s traditional emphasis on willpower and peer support for weight management. Weight Watchers now prioritizes a health-centered approach, recognizing conditions such as diabetes and obesit...

Marketing WATCH TRAILER
Kelly Goldsmith, Vanderbilt
E. Bronson Ingram Chair, Professor of Marketing
Kelly Goldsmith
Girl Scouts USA
Girl Scouts USA | How the Cookie Crumbles
Available

In the past twenty years, Girl Scouts USA has faced unprecedented challenges in member recruitment and retention. To help mitigate financial difficulties, the organization has engaged in licensing agreements. These agreements permit their iconic brand to be used across various products and companies, spanning from coffee flavors to shampoo. The licensing agreements, while providing financial relie...

Marketing WATCH TRAILER
Kelly Goldsmith, Vanderbilt University
E. Bronson Ingram Chair, Professor of Marketing
Kelly Goldsmith
Hybrid Work Simulation
Hybrid Work Simulation | Figuring Out The New Normal
Available

In this simulation, participants play employees of a consulting firm who are negotiating a new hybrid back-to-office plan for their team. Two participants play characters who favor fully remote work, while four participants play characters who prefer at least partially in-person work....

Human Resources Management|Negotiation WATCH TRAILER
Corinne Bendersky, UCLA Anderson School of Business
Professor and Area Chair of Management and Organizations
Corinne Bendersky
Stoked For Folk
Stoked For Folk | Harmony in Collaboration
Available

In this negotiation simulation, participants play the directors of a non-profit music festival and those of a local news station as they discuss sponsoring the festival and try to reach a deal....

Negotiation|Marketing WATCH TRAILER
Emily Hunter, Ph.D., Baylor University
Department Chair, Professor of Management
Emily Hunter, Ph.D.
Spotify
Spotify | An Island in the Stream
Available

Analyzing Spotify's business model within the broader context of the music industry, this case evaluates the audio streaming giant's long-term prospects through the lens of corporate strategy, delving into the company’s distinctive position in a two-sided market. ...

Strategy WATCH TRAILER
Robert Seamans, NYU Stern School of Business
Professor of Management and Organizations, Director of Center for the Future of Management
Robert Seamans
South African Breweries
South African Breweries | Isolation to Globalization
Available

Despite decades of fraught sociopolitical events and staunch regulation, South African Breweries managed to acquire a near monopoly in its domestic South African market. As virtually the only beer brewer in South Africa, it achieved its growth by focusing on growing margins while lowering prices. In other markets, however, it saw significantly less success when it came to building efficiencies and...

Strategy WATCH TRAILER
Olav Sorenson, UCLA Anderson School of Management
Joseph Jacobs Chair in Entrepreneurial Studies; Professor of Strategy; Faculty Director, Price Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation
Olav Sorenson
Hybrid Work Simulation
Hybrid Work Simulation | Figuring Out The New Normal
Available

In this simulation, participants play employees of a consulting firm who are negotiating a new hybrid back-to-office plan for their team. Two participants play characters who favor fully remote work, while four participants play characters who prefer at least partially in-person work....

Human Resources Management|Negotiation WATCH TRAILER
Corinne Bendersky, UCLA Anderson School of Business
Professor and Area Chair of Management and Organizations
Corinne Bendersky
Zappos
Zappos | Running with Tony Hsieh
Available

After 18 months pushing for a transition to a self-management organizational system called “Holacracy,” Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh took a decisive step. He offered three months' salary as severance to employees who didn't embrace the new system. In a month, 14% of the workforce, including 20% of the tech department, resigned. This case explores Tony Hsieh's leadership journey at Zappos. When Amazon acq...

Organizational Behavior|Leadership WATCH TRAILER
Noah Askin, UCI Paul Merage School of Business
Assistant Professor of Teaching, Organization and Management
Noah Askin
Microsoft
Microsoft | Strategic Culture
Available

The story of Microsoft is best understood by looking at its era-defining leaders: Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, and Satya Nadella. In the early 21st century, Microsoft's competitive culture aligned with company strategy, successfully realizing the company's ambitious vision of placing a computer in every household. However, after achieving this milestone, Microsoft's growth plateaued. Satya Nadella's...

Organizational Behavior WATCH TRAILER
Adam M. Kleinbaum, Dartmouth College
Associate Professor of Business Administration
Adam M. Kleinbaum
Zappos
Zappos | Running with Tony Hsieh
Available

After 18 months pushing for a transition to a self-management organizational system called “Holacracy,” Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh took a decisive step. He offered three months' salary as severance to employees who didn't embrace the new system. In a month, 14% of the workforce, including 20% of the tech department, resigned. This case explores Tony Hsieh's leadership journey at Zappos. When Amazon acq...

Organizational Behavior|Leadership WATCH TRAILER
Noah Askin, UCI Paul Merage School of Business
Assistant Professor of Teaching, Organization and Management
Noah Askin
Uber
Uber | The International Invasion
Featured

Travis Kalanick, the controversial CEO of Uber, prioritizes growth beyond Uber’s initial market in San Francisco and the greater United States. But going global poses challenges such as regulatory ambiguity and facing different competitors, like DiDi in China. Not only that, but many would protest Uber’s disruption of the ride hailing industry. With its history of rapid scaling, can Uber overcome ...

International Management WATCH TRAILER
Dimitrija Kalanoski, University of Manchester, Alliance Manchester Business School
Lecturer in International Business and Strategy
Dimitrija Kalanoski
TikTok
TikTok | The Social Media Unicorn
Available

After developing a suite of apps based on the power of big data, Chinese software engineer Zhang Yiming founded ByteDance. Yiming’s company would later become the highest valued unicorn startup in the world with a valuation of $225 billion at the end of 2023, mostly because of the global domination of its social media app, TikTok. How did a Chinese company achieve massive success in such a saturat...

Technology Management
Doug Thomas, University of New Mexico, Anderson School of Management
Professor, Strategy and International Business
Doug Thomas
San Francisco Transportation
San Francisco Transportation | The City Where You Can't Get A Cab
Available

Until 2010, San Francisco had a major problem: it was difficult to get around the city. San Francisco had long been known as “the city where you can’t get a cab.” Tourists and residents alike complained not only about taxis, but also about the city’s inefficient and crowded public transit system. Taxi drivers, who were heavily regulated, struggled with an outdated permit system. Startups like Lyft...

Economics
Patrick Conway, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Professor of Economics
Patrick Conway
Heart Attack Grill
Heart Attack Grill | A Burger Worth Dying For
Available

Having lost a years-long IP battle against a major restaurant chain, fitness entrepreneur Jon Basso set out to expose American fast food restaurants for what they really are: silent killers. Basso started a small, six stool burger shop called Heart Attack Grill (HAG) that serves extremely high-calorie burgers, fries, and milkshakes with a warning that the food “will kill you.” This case examines H...

Marketing|Ethics & Social Enterprise WATCH TRAILER
Andres Terech, UCLA Anderson School of Business
Adjunct Professor of Marketing; Faculty Director, Morrison Center for Marketing and Data Analytics
Andres Terech
Intuition v. Analytics
Intuition v. Analytics | Solving the Hiring Puzzle
Available

In this fictional case study, students are tasked with stepping into the role of a hiring manager at QuantumEd, a leading edtech company. The hiring manager, Samantha, must decide between two candidates, Kristen or Misha, for the critical position of Product Lead for Higher Education Technology. Kristen comes highly recommended by mutual acquaintances within the company, while Misha, with a strong...

Human Resources Management WATCH TRAILER
Corrine Bendersky, UCLA Anderson School of Business
Professor of Management; Area Chair
Corrine Bendersky
Revolution Prep
Revolution Prep | The Tutor Invasion
Available

Starting in 2012, Revolution Prep co-founders Ramit Varma and Jake Neuberg bet the future of their tutoring business on a big move: taking their business online. In the short-term, the risky decision cost them revenue, employees and stability. But in the long run, it helped Varma and Neuberg compete in the “Prep Wars” against more established tutoring companies like Kaplan and The Princeton Review...

Entrepreneurship|Strategy|Finance
Lovepop
Lovepop | Creating a Billion Magical Moments
Available

Co-founders John Wise and Wombi Rose navigate the early stages of their kirigami card start-up Lovepop. They address issues of production, distribution, and the tricky questions of equity in exchange for financial capital and advising. ...

Strategy|Entrepreneurship|Finance WATCH TRAILER
Olav Sorenson, UCLA Anderson School of Business
Joseph Jacobs Chair in Entrepreneurial Studies; Professor of Strategy; Faculty Director, Price Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation
Olav Sorenson
Uber
Uber | The International Invasion
Featured

Travis Kalanick, the controversial CEO of Uber, prioritizes growth beyond Uber’s initial market in San Francisco and the greater United States. But going global poses challenges such as regulatory ambiguity and facing different competitors, like DiDi in China. Not only that, but many would protest Uber’s disruption of the ride hailing industry. With its history of rapid scaling, can Uber overcome ...

International Management WATCH TRAILER
Dimitrija Kalanoski, University of Manchester, Alliance Manchester Business School
Lecturer in International Business and Strategy
Dimitrija Kalanoski
South African Breweries
South African Breweries | Isolation to Globalization
Available

Despite decades of fraught sociopolitical events and staunch regulation, South African Breweries managed to acquire a near monopoly in its domestic South African market. As virtually the only beer brewer in South Africa, it achieved its growth by focusing on growing margins while lowering prices. In other markets, however, it saw significantly less success when it came to building efficiencies and...

Strategy WATCH TRAILER
Olav Sorenson, UCLA Anderson School of Management
Joseph Jacobs Chair in Entrepreneurial Studies; Professor of Strategy; Faculty Director, Price Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation
Olav Sorenson
Toyota
Toyota | A Waste-Free Way to Work
Available

In the aftermath of World War II, the Toyota Motor Corporation faced challenges that influenced the company’s survival strategies for decades. After top executives took responsibility for the company’s downturn and resigned, scrappy production manager Taiichi Ohno was tasked with radically restructuring the company’s production strategies. Learning from extensive tours and training at U.S. manufac...

Operations Management
Chris Mondy, Washington University in St. Louis, Olin Business School
Lecturer in Marketing
Chris Mondy
Netflix
Netflix | DVDs Killed the VHS Star
Available

As video killed the radio star, Netflix killed the video rental store. Beginning as an internet store that mailed the newest generation of consumer media directly to customers without the hassle of an extra stop on their commute and evolving to the streaming mega-giant and producer of Emmy and Oscar-winning original content we now know, Netflix has forever changed the way people consume media....

Strategy WATCH TRAILER
David Souder, University of Connecticut
Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship, Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and Research
David Souder
Go-Blu
Go-Blu | A Balanced Scorecard Case
Available

Go-Blu Enterprises has had success in the toy industry for almost seventy years, but stock prices seem to have hit a ceiling. Concerns with both their financial state and the ecological impact of their best-selling action figure, Maizeman, have prompted them to try a new approach: they are poised to open a new division of the company, and adopt a powerful new management tool. This fictitious case ...

Accounting
Emily Drogt, University of Michigan, Ross School of Business
Lecture of Accounting, Clyne Crawford Teaching Fellow
Emily Drogt
Financial Accounting
Financial Accounting | Earnings Management and Ethics
Available

Ms. Pristine, Inc. is a corporation that manufactures a variety of cleaning products, the most popular of which is the Wizard Wipe. Ms. Pristine has seen financial success in recent years under CFO Jim Martin. Martin, who has a military background, had long been a stickler for rules and took a conservative approach in his accounting. Just as the company is facing growing competition in the current...

Accounting WATCH TRAILER
Preeti Choudhary, Eller College of Management, University of Arizona
Professor of Accounting
Preeti Choudhary

Academic Advisory Board

For each of our academic fields, we appoint a board of leading professors to oversee the development of instructional materials. This includes crafting the curriculum and recruiting academic authors to work alongside our instructional designers and creative teams.

Learn More

Olav Sorensen, Ph.D.

Olav Sorensen, Ph.D

Olav Sorenson, Ph.D.
Entrepreneurship Practice Leader

Olav Sorenson is Faculty Director for the Harold and Pauline Price Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation at UCLA Anderson School of Management, where he also holds the Joseph Jacobs Chair in Entrepreneurial Studies. A member of the UCLA Anderson faculty since 2020, Sorenson is renowned for his research in economic geography, particularly the impact of entrepreneurship on regional growth and competitiveness.
Olav Sorenson

Kelly Goldsmith, Ph.D.
Marketing Practice Leader

Kelly Goldsmith is the E. Bronson Ingram Chair, Professor of Marketing at Vanderbilt University Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt. She received both the Research Productivity Award (2021) and the Dean’s Award for Teaching (2020), in addition to being recognized as a Chancellor’s Faculty Fellow.
Practice Leader

Gus Cooney, Ph.D.
Negotiation Practice Leader

Gus Cooney is a Senior Lecturer in the Operations, Information and Decisions Department of the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania where he teaches its #1 ranked negotiations course. Cooney has been the recipient of many awards, including a full-tuition Cardinal Medeiros Scholarship at Boston University, the prestigious dissertation award from the Society of Experimental Social Psychology.
Practice Leader

Daylian Cain, Ph.D.
Negotiation Practice Leader

Daylian Cain is a Senior Lecturer in Negotiation, Leadership, and Ethics at Yale School of Management. Cain's research focuses on "judgment and decision-making" and "behavioral business ethics." In other words, he studies the reasons why smart people do dumb things. Cain is a leading expert on conflicts of interest, especially the "perverse effects of disclosing conflicts of interest," and how to turn altruism on and off. Notably, Cain’s research has been discussed in the Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, Forbes, The New Yorker, the Washington Post, BusinessWeek, USA Today, the New York Times and other top media outlets such as NPR.
Practice Leader

Myles Shaver, Ph.D.
Strategy Practice Leader

Myles Shaver is Professor of Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management where he holds the Curtis L. Carlson Chair in Corporate Strategy. Myles’ research about corporate expansion is published in leading scholarly journals and he is invited to present at conferences and universities around the world. His research about the Minneapolis-St. Paul Headquarters economy has helped guide talent attraction and retention initiatives in the region and is presented in his book: Headquarters Economy: Managers, Mobility, and Migration.
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Corinne Bendersky, Ph.D.
Human Resources Management Practice Leader

Corinne Bendersky is Professor and Area Chair of Management and Organizations at UCLA Anderson School of Management. An expert in workplace conflict, status, justice, and diversity and inclusion in teams and organizations, her research contributes to both academic knowledge and organizational practice. Bendersky’s recent projects include developing interventions to reduce gender bias, advancing conflict measurement methods in teams, and using machine learning to analyze conflict expressions and women's representation in media.
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Lindred Greer, Ph.D.
Organizational Behavior Practice Leader (Groups & Teams)

Lindred (Lindy) Greer is a world-renowned thought-leader on how to create high-performing teams. She is currently a Professor for Management & Organizations at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business and the Faculty Director of its Sanger Leadership Center. Greer’s research focuses on how to lead high-performing teams. Her research has won awards from organizations such as the Academy of Management and American Psychological Association, has been cited over 10,000 times, and has made impact in practice via her articles in outlets like Harvard Business Review and her executive education work with clients around the world, such as Amazon, Google and ExxonMobil.
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Noah Askin, Ph.D.
Organizational Behavior Practice Leader (Leadership)

Noah Askin is Assistant Professor of Teaching Organization and Management at UC-Irvine Paul Merage School of Business. Askin is an award-winning teacher and case writer, who is trained as a computational social scientist and sociologist. His research includes social and cultural networks, the causes and consequences of creativity (particularly in the music industry), the production and consumption of culture, and the dynamics of organizational and individual status.
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Adam M. Kleinbaum, Ph.D.
Organizational Behavior Practice Leader

Adam M. Kleinbaum is a professor in the Strategy and Management area at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. He teaches leadership and organizational behavior, social networks, and leads learning expeditions to Israel, focusing on technology and entrepreneurship. He also consults to organizations about issues of leadership and organizations, culture, and collaboration, especially with respect to remote and hybrid work. His award-winning research has been published in leading journals from Nature Communications to the Harvard Business Review and has been covered by media outlets ranging from the New York Times and Wall Street Journal to Scientific American and Psychology Today to Teen Vogue and Cosmo. He enjoys riding and maintaining his vintage 3-speed bicycle.
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