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This case concerns the troubles that Euro Disney experienced from the start. Euro Disney claimed that the major cause of its poor financial performance was the European recession and the strong French franc. The timing of the park's opening could not have been more inopportune. If the recession had been the only cause of Euro Disney's problems, the financial restructuring would only need to carry the park forward to better economic times. Only when Europeans began spending freely again would investors learn the answers to some uncomfortable questions: Was the whole idea of Euro Disney misconceived? Were there other fundamental cultural problems that could inhibit the park's success? Would Euro Disney fail to recover even though other European companies did? And, if so, why was the Disney theme-park concept successful in Japan and not in France?

In January 2013, Irish authorities were the first to uncover the year's first food sourcing scandal: horsemeat sold as beef on supermarket shelves. It was not long before regulators and retailers realized the problem was truly a continental one. The incident involved French exporters, Luxembourger production facilities, Cypriot and Dutch meat traders, British and Swedish retailers, and Romanian horsemeat. Food service providers and retailers were forced to test beef products to ensure they were horse-free, pulling products that contained traces of equine meat. British supermarkets alone disposed of an estimated 10 million “beef” burgers in the wake of the scandal.

This case is an example of the challenges of managing the complex global supply chains that make up the modern food industry. In this class discussion, students will use concepts from management, economics, and public policy to assess the damage of this event and to analyze strategies for preventing similar incidents in the future.

In June 23, 2016, voters in the United Kingdom have just approved a referendum calling for leaving the European Union. The case describes the motives for European integration, the rise of separatist movements in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, and the referendum process itself.

The purpose of this case is to provide a contemporary counterpoint to a discussion of the economic and political motivations for the American Civil War. Dominant themes highlighted here are economic nationalism, political nationalism, cultural centrism and ethnocentrism, and populism.