As the newly appointed vice president of global joint ventures for ABCO, a large pharmaceutical company, Marjorie is responsible for monitoring and managing the firm’s portfolio of joint venture projects. Always a vocal supporter of ABCO’s emerging markets division, she was excited when Jim Drake, the CEO, gave her the opportunity to head this new function in the business. She knew that Jim, a risk-averse fellow, was skeptical about how profitable some of the joint ventures in South America and Asia would turn out to be. Marjorie’s mandate was to analyze the existing joint ventures worldwide. Based on this analysis, the firm would invest in the profitable ventures, but clean house, meaning disband the unprofitable ones. Jim, however, was prone to sending mixed messages. Over her 10 years at ABCO, Marjorie had learned that even with clear evidence that a project was a losing proposition, he hated to kill it.