The Group of 20 industrial and developing nations met this week in Seoul, South Korea for the G-20 annual summit. The G-20’s efforts to coordinate economic and trade policies were complicated by the fact that some members are running large current account deficits, while others are running sizeable current account surpluses. Some nations are worried… Read more »

Moe Stein is the second of three generations of Steins running Frank’s Sport Shop in Bronx, New York. Moe possesses a throwback style – a sharp wit and ready one-liners that he flings at any and all customers. In this day and age of big chain stores, Frank’s is nearing its 80th anniversary. Stein must… Read more »

Rosetta Stone, maker of software by the same name, has grown from a small, family-run business into a publicly-traded company under the leadership of CEO Tom Adams. Adams is multi-lingual and credits his experience learning languages beginning at age 10 with taking the company to the next level. QUESTIONS: 1. In terms of talent, discuss… Read more »

The United States imposes export controls on dual-use technology items. The term dual-use technology refers to items which can be used for both military and commercial applications. Dual-use technology is a concern for items which could be used for peaceful or for military purposes, such as building nuclear or biochemical weapons. The United States bars… Read more »

In a surprise move, the Canadian government provisionally rejected BHP’s $38.6 billion bid to buy the Canadian firm Potash. Potash, in the province of Saskatchewan, controls more than a fifth of the world’s reserves of potash, a key ingredient in fertilizer. After its initial review, the Canadian government was not convinced that the acquisition of… Read more »

Veteran radio executive Randy Michaels was not able to transfer his success to running the large, newspaper-based Tribune Company. While the financially struggling company appears ready to emerge from bankruptcy protection, Mr. Michaels was forced to resign following a meeting with the company’s board of directors. The often criticized culture installed by Michaels seemed to… Read more »

Twitter is the latest in a short list of very successful dot com businesses. Still, it has had its share of problems. For one, there was an internal power struggle among the founders. In addition, the company has suffered from the lack of a clear strategy or a plan for dealing with growth pains. More… Read more »

Facebook recently disclosed that limited user data was sold to third-party firms by application developers. Facebook has a zero tolerance policy against data brokers and temporarily suspended the application developers. QUESTIONS: 1. Given that Facebook was not directly involved in the sale of access to user data, what makes this an ethical issue for the… Read more »

In an effort to increase sales, a small but growing number of food chains are adding mobile food trucks as distribution channels. In contrast to local food-truck businesses which usually only operate as mobile units, some national chain eateries have added mobile units to supplement their brick-and-mortar locations. These chains are often using franchising as… Read more »

The high value of the Japanese currency is contributing to a major restructuring of Japan’s economy. Japanese businesses are increasingly transferring more of their manufacturing abroad to offset the stronger yen, which makes Japanese goods more costly and less competitive in global markets. Toyota Motor Corporation will produce a record 57% of its output abroad… Read more »