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Josh Williams is a Student at the NAU who has driven buses on campus and wants to improve the transportation on campus. He is convinced that purchasing a new type of bus that is more fuel efficient, has larger capacity, better designed for boarding, and has a longer life is worth the higher purchase cost. He sets out to prove it by creating a discounted cash flow (DCF) analysis. Since many of the estimates for the DCF analysis are uncertain, he decides to perform a Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) analysis. Students are asked to step into Josh’s role and perform the analysis.

Josh Williams was a Student in the authors’ MBA program. Both authors teach in this program and one author was the Advisor for Net Impact and worked with Josh to present his idea to the university administration. The authors have changed a name or two but otherwise, the case describes a real situation in a real organization without disguise.

The authors have used this case in a first semester MBA-Applied Management course, Decision Modeling and Simulation. Students already have experience with DCF analysis and have been introduced to MCS. With this case, students apply MCS at the conclusion of a three-week module on predictive analytics. Students have run at least two MCS models and have become comfortable with the software. The case would also be appropriate for a senior-level undergraduate course such as business analytics or management science. It might also be useful for other courses that include the MCS modeling technique learning objectives such as project management.

This case provides an opportunity for students to perform an MCS analysis. MCS is useful when many of the inputs to a DCF analysis (or any model) have been estimated and the modeler is concerned that the estimates are uncertain and could perhaps be a range of values. MCS can be used to understand the effect of this uncertainty on NPV which in turn may affect the decision. The case could also be used without MCS focusing just on the DCF analysis with deterministic sensitivity analysis.

Many scholars have noted the critical skills needed for leaders in the face of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA). These skills include self-awareness, listening, communication, adaptability, critical thinking, and collaboration. Students who are able to develop these skills would be better equipped to lead in settings where the answers—and even the questions—are unknown. This paper details an approach to developing leadership skills to prepare undergraduate leadership students for a VUCA world, through the use of a classroom workshop on improvisational comedy. I have refined this improv workshop over sixteen course iterations spanning the past nine semesters, and students commonly point to the workshop as one of the most challenging and rewarding class sessions of the course. In this paper I review the literature that has informed my approach, explain the learning objectives addressed by the improv workshop, describe the approach I use, share quantitative and qualitative data that illustrate the success of the approach, and share my lessons learned, all in service of supporting colleagues who wish to try this approach.

This paper aims to focus on the experiences and observations of a black disabled woman in the UK.

The paper is a personal commentary from a black disabled woman who uses health and social care services in the UK. It details the author's disability and some recent barriers that she has faced in using services.

The author gives some examples of her recent experiences in relation to employment, independent living, healthcare providers and getting her wheelchair repaired.

The paper offers the unique perspective of a service user on UK health and social care services.

Whilst some authors have portrayed the Internet as a powerful tool for business and political institutions, others have highlighted the potential of this technology for those vying to constrain or counter‐balance the power of organizations, through e‐collectivism and on‐line action. What appears to be emerging is a contested space that has the potential to simultaneously enhance the power of organizations, whilst also acting as an enabling technology for the empowerment of grass‐root networks. In this struggle, organizations are fighting for the retention of “old economy” positions, as well as the development of “new economy” power‐bases. In realizing these positions, organizations and institutions are strategizing and manoeuvering in order to shape on‐line networks and communications. For example, the on‐line activities of individuals can be contained through various technological means, such as surveillance, and the structuring of the virtual world through the use of portals and “walled gardens”. However, loose groupings of individuals are also strategizing to ensure there is a liberation of their communication paths and practices, and to maintain the potential for mobilization within and across traditional boundaries. In this article, the unique nature and potential of the Internet are evaluated, and the struggle over this contested virtual space is explored.

This paper describes the personal history and intellectual development of Morris B. Holbrook (MBH), a participant in the field of marketing academics in general and consumer research in particular.

The paper pursues an approach characterized by historical autoethnographic subjective personal introspection or HASPI.

The paper reports the personal history of MBH and – via HASPI – interprets various aspects of key participants and major themes that emerged over the course of his career.

The main implication is that every scholar in the field of marketing pursues a different light, follows a unique path, plays by idiosyncratic rules, and deserves individual attention, consideration, and respect … like a cat that carries its own leash.

In the case of MBH, like (say) a jazz musician, whatever value he might have depends on his originality.

This study investigates the effects of a broad-based policy change that altered maternal employment, family income, and other family characteristics on drug-related crime among youth. Specifically, we exploit differences in the implementation of welfare reform in the United States across states and over time in the attempt to identify causal effects of welfare reform on youth arrests for drug-related crimes between 1990 and 2005, the period during which welfare reform unfolded. We use monthly arrest data from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Reports to estimate the effects of welfare reform implementation on drug-related arrests among 15- to 17-year-old teens exposed to welfare reform. The findings, based on numerous different model specifications, suggest that welfare reform had no statistically significant effect on teen drug arrests. Most estimates were positive and suggestive of a small (3%) increase in arrests.