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In late 2019, Dr. Hiroaki Kitano, the president and director of research at Sony Computer Science Laboratories (Sony CSL), had decided he would be stepping down from his position soon. Sony CSL, a small blue-sky fundamental research facility funded by Sony, had always operated on the strength of the trust between Sony's CEO and the lab's director. Sony had been hands-off in its management, leaving Kitano to hire, fire, fund, and evaluate the lab's researchers and project portfolio at his own discretion. Now that he was stepping down, however, he worried that Sony CSL could not withstand his departure. Kitano wanted to make a transparent plan for the organization's future before he handed off Sony CSL to his successor. That plan involved three key decisions. First, what should be the optimal structure and governance of Sony CSL? Should it maintain its independence and autonomy, or should it align more closely with Sony's business priorities? Second, how could Sony CSL scale its impact on Sony and society at large, given its small size? Finally, should Sony CSL establish some standard methods of measuring project success and strength of the portfolio? In making these decisions, Kitano wanted to ensure that he preserved the unique culture that had allowed Sony CSL to pursue path-breaking research and innovation.

thyssenkrupp Steel Europe, a major European steel company, operates a so-called push-pickling line (PPL) in Bochum, Germany. The PPL produces a particular type of steel strips that are sold to B2B customers, mainly in the automotive industry. In spring 2014, a senior vice president of thyssenkrupp Steel's production operations and one of his production managers notice that over the span of ten years the production facility regularly did not meet its planned production volumes. They set out to determine the drivers for the deviations from planned production figures with the ultimate goal to improve the production planning process at the Bochum PPL. Students will step into the shoes of Markus Schulze a production manager at thyssenkrupp Steel as he searches for performance drivers at the Bochum PPL and analyzes recent production data to build a forecasting model for production planning.

Jennifer McDougall is considering investing in mutual funds for the first time, and has narrowed her options down to three: one that is domiciled in Germany, and two that are domiciled in Luxembourg. As a cautious and risk-averse investor, Jennifer has done extensive research on the three funds, and has come across a curious fact: the beta of the German fund is surprisingly low. After speaking to her financial planner, she learns there is no legal requirement in Germany for mutual funds to compute net asset values at a particular time of the day. If the German fund is closing its books in the middle of the day and its net asset values reflect its midday holdings, rather than end-of-day holdings, this could explain the low beta. Thus, the German fund might appear less risky, without actually being so. Jennifer needed to get a clearer picture of what was going on before making her decision.

Using the data provided with the case, students will determine the closing time of the three funds and how that affects the beta of each. Then they must make a recommendation about which fund would be the best investment for Jennifer.

Harley-Davidson's first-ever chief marketing officer has his work cut out for him as the classic American motorcycle manufacturer seeks to curb slowing sales from aging customers. The dilemma: what to do with its less known and unprofitable Buell brand, which has a younger customer base? Which of five options continue its dual-brand strategy, double down on Buell, operate Buell as an endorsement brand, sell it, or discontinue the brand entirely will best attract younger buyers without alienating current diehard customers?

There are growing expectations that students graduating from health courses and current health professionals have some proficiency in using telehealth. However, there is limited accessibility to multidisciplinary-based material to meet this need. This paper describes the development of an online telehealth education resource using a co-design approach and the strengths and challenges of embedding authentic learning principles in an open-access online course with a broad target audience.

The authors first describe the co-design process of the course and discuss the pedagogy underpinning the course design. Then learner enrolment data is discussed to evidence uptake across key characteristics. Finally, the authors assess the efficacy of the co-design approach by analysing feedback collected from learners at the end of the course.

The course is structured across four modules and comprises interactive content, reflective tasks, case studies and purposefully developed digital material. Responses from the working group and from learner feedback indicate that the course is an authentic and relevant introduction to telehealth practice for both health students and current health professionals, despite some limitations.

This case study demonstrates the value of a co-design process and key learning design choices in online course development to meet the educational needs of learners from broad disciplinary backgrounds, in various stages of learning/understanding of telehealth and/or requiring a practice-based resource in the context of a rapidly changing policy environment.

OCCASIONALLY some writer is inspired to make the declaration that reference work as understood in America does not exist in Great Britain, or, even more definitely, is not known there. We rejoice at any advance our American friends make, but our enthusiasts for American methods must not undervalue the homeland. In the pages that follow some aspects of reference work receive attention, and the inference to be drawn may be that, if we have not specialized this department of work to the extent that transatlantic libraries have done, if in some smaller places it hardly exists “as the community's study, archive department and bureau of information,” yet in our larger cities and in many lesser places much work is done.