Valve Corporation is a game developer that has 400 employees, no bosses, and is very successful. How can you have a structure that flat? The company, a spawn from Microsoft, seems to be doing just fine thank you. The information at the following seven web links (including a podcast and the employee handbook) contain all of the raw material required for a live case:

• From the editor: Valve’s handbook and the trust phenomenon
• Valve’s employee handbook (pdf)
• How Valve hires, how it fires, and how much it pays
• Podcast: Varoufakis on Valve, Spontaneous Order, and the European Crisis
• Why Valve? Or, what do we need corporations for and how does Valve’s management structure fit into today’s corporate world?
• Valve website: Our people
• Valve Wikipedia entry

I think you could probably just give these seven web links to students, say “discuss,” and get out of the way.

Contributed by Rich Makadok