In the seaside town of La Jolla, a community conflict revolves around a coastal cove known as the Children's Pool. A colony of seals took up residence in the pool, which previously was enjoyed by children. The feud escalated from public outrage to death threats and arrests. In a narrow sense, Children's Pool is a binary conflict between those who want the cove to remain a sanctuary for seals and those who do not. In a larger sense, it is a multiparty conflict among numerous stakeholders. For some, the conflict impacts their livelihoods, property values, and quality of life. Others fight to defend the rights of the wildlife. There are also those looking for a hybrid solution. A native La Jollan, Jim Thomas, grew increasingly concerned about the ongoing conflict among neighbors. The parties to the conflict attempted to solve it through litigations and other adversarial approaches, but none stuck for long. Jim believed it would prove more productive to initiate a mediation. But in what format? The case guides the students through two parallel mediation simulations, a two-party one and a multiparty one, that explore the pros and cons of each approach helping Jim to make an informed decision.
Pace Delivers at Pace University in Pleasantville, NY, is an on-campus student-run food delivery service launched as a pilot in April 2017. On a residential campus where many students did not own vehicles, Pace Delivers provided late-night food deliveries to students desiring off-campus restaurant food. As of November 2017, Pace Delivers had incurred heavy losses, in part due to its inability to accept Flex Dollars, a part of meal plan money students can use outside the campus dining services. The vendor the team hired to build an order-taking site for accepting Flex Dollars had not yet completed the site with the promised features. Therefore, the team had been able to accept only credit card payments through a Shopify e-commerce site. Believing that the business was losing sales with its inability to accept Flex Dollars, the student managers had to decide whether to wait for the vendor to come through or adopt some other online payment alternative. The team also needed to come up with other ideas to help the business survive and become profitable in the long term. Featuring an on-campus student-run business catering to students, the case offers a business setting that students can readily understand and will find engaging. In addition, it provides insights into the challenges of launching an online business.
The KIWA: INTERNATIONAL TRADE WITH A PURPOSE case tells the story of Kiwa, an Ecuadorian company competing in the snacks industry, whose central purpose is to help small farmers in the country get out of poverty and fight climate change through alternative agricultural practices. To do this, it designed a business model that avoids intermediaries and transfers these fees to farmers, who get a higher price for their raw materials. The company exports to 16 countries where retailers or food-processing companies buy its products under private-label agreements, in bulk or under Kiwa brand. However, private-label and bulk sales are increasing steadily, in detriment of Kiwa products that communicate the social and environmental efforts of the firm to final consumers.
A female entrepreneur in Ghana developed a transportation company that provided services for national and large multinational organizations in the country. A key service that Pergah Transport Limited (Pergah) offered was vehicles and drivers for the executive expatriates of multinationals. The drivers for that service were employed by Pergah but embedded with the contracting companies. Pergah’s remaining employees—mechanics, other drivers, and support staff—were based out of the company’s premises in Accra.<br><br>The employees at Pergah’s premises were paid above the employment standards for Ghanaians; however, the drivers who were embedded with the multinational companies were compensated according to the standards established by those companies. The variance between local and multinational standards for employees of the same company led to differences in job satisfaction, motivation, and compensation. The Pergah-based employees were paid fairly, and increasing their rate to the multinational level would have posed financial challenges to the company. How, then, could Pergah address the discrepancy and resolve these issues?
In 2020, when everyone had been quarantined at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, South Korea-based Eric Kim jumped onto YouTube, a video-sharing digital platform. Although his initial growth on the platform was relatively fast, it soon began to stagnate. Kim decided to consider four key strategies to overcome this situation, which included revealing his face in his videos, business expansion, strategic alliances through Multi-Channel Networks (MCNs), and internationalisation. Would Kim regain his rapid expansion of influence on YouTube? Could his subsequent growth efforts be sufficient to ensure his channel's continued success in an increasingly digital world?
By December 2018, Evie the digital personal assistant (PA) had gained quite a following from prominent clients such as Unilever and Airbus. Powered by artificial intelligence (AI), Evie was so good that clients believed 'she' was human, expecting to greet 'her' in the flesh at meetings. Jin Hian Lee, Evie.ai's co-founder, understood that gaining such high praise from clients was not enough. More needed to be done to jumpstart the fledgling start-up's growth to the next level. But where should his focus be? There were signs that Evie could perhaps benefit from specialising in specific domains or be bolder and venture beyond the shores of Singapore, where the start-up was based since it began in 2014. How should Lee chart the 'career path' of Evie? What should he do? Unbeknownst to him, Lee would face a similar dilemma in 2020 when the global COVID-19 pandemic plagued the world. How could he cope with the challenges awaiting Evie.ai?
This simulation case is meant to be used as a learning object for students to understand the various facets of the Resources, Events, Agents (REA) data model in designing accounting information systems. The case allows students to analyse the various entities in an REA data model, and identify associations between these entities and their cardinalities. There are two scenario examples provided in the simulation - 1) YY Frozen Yoghurt and 2) SMU Mart. The first simulation helps students understand the concepts of the REA data model, and the second simulation assesses students' understanding of the REA concepts and framework.
Garen Staglin, Founder and Chairman of One Mind, reflected on his life's work in brain health. As he contemplated stepping down in the next few years, he weighed how to pass along this legacy to his son, Brandon Staglin, the impetus behind and next generation of the family's landmark nonprofit. Founded in response to Brandon's psychotic break in 1990, One Mind confronted the stunning deficits in basic brain health research and care in the United States through research, funding, and public awareness efforts. While Brandon had already taken on much of the responsibility for the organization in his capacity as One Mind's President, the organization's board might still choose another candidate as his successor. On a professional level, would Brandon's authenticity as someone who was personally impacted by mental illness lend the organization greater authority in its mission? On a personal level, how could the stress of such a role impact Brandon's wellbeing? Given Brandon's long-standing commitment to the organization, how can the family navigate this thorny issue weighing the needs of the family, external actors, and One Mind itself? The contents of this case contain material about mental health challenges and suicide. Some readers may find elements of this material distressing. If you are experiencing emotional crisis or distress, please contact a local mental health professional or your local suicide prevention hotline. In the U.S., you can reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline 24/7 by calling or texting 988 or visiting 988lifeline.org/chat.
MyGate started its journey in 2016 as a gate management system for gated societies but soon evolved into a multi-sided platform offering solutions to the residents' day-to-day needs via the company's mobile application. Residents could approve entry and exit of visitors, search for local service providers like maids, carpenters, plumbers, etc., purchase groceries and a variety of FMCG and consumer durables, engage in group buying, list their properties for sale or rent and engage in peer-to-peer trade. The case highlights the challenges faced by co-founders in balancing the different expectations of stakeholders. As a gate management software, MyGate needed to balance between the security of the residents and the convenience of residents, visitors and service providers. As a communication medium for brands to reach consumers, MyGate needed to balance the frequency and placement of advertisements so that residents would not be irritated while the platform earned revenue for enabling the brands to reach target segments in specific locations. As a gatekeeper, MyGate needed to balance the privacy requirements of residents and the wish of brands to craft more meaningful messages for their target segments. In January 2022, MyGate was yet to turn profitable and needed to balance the objectives of monetisation and expansion of product offerings' geographic footprint. At the core of these dilemmas was the need to balance the current and future profits of a startup which relied on investor funds for survival.
The ability to commercialize products based on distributed innovation is one of the critical challenges of large-scale open innovation. While this issue has been largely investigated in relation to open-source software (OSS), the literature on commercialization strategies of open-source hardware (OSHW) is comparatively scarce, despite OSHW commercialization being more complex. Based on a multi-method exploratory study, this article shows that with OSHW, firms may strategically leverage a "gray area" between closeness and openness to take advantage of OSWH community innovations.
A female entrepreneur in Ghana developed a transportation company that provided services for national and large multinational organizations in the country. A key service that Pergah Transport Limited (Pergah) offered was vehicles and drivers for the executive expatriates of multinationals. The drivers for that service were employed by Pergah but embedded with the contracting companies. Pergah's remaining employees-mechanics, other drivers, and support staff-were based out of the company's premises in Accra. The employees at Pergah's premises were paid above the employment standards for Ghanaians; however, the drivers who were embedded with the multinational companies were compensated according to the standards established by those companies. The variance between local and multinational standards for employees of the same company led to differences in job satisfaction, motivation, and compensation. The Pergah-based employees were paid fairly, and increasing their rate to the multinational level would have posed financial challenges to the company. How, then, could Pergah address the discrepancy and resolve these issues?
Companies run better when employees help one another, but good intentions don't always lead to sustainable actions or follow-through. The authors examined how failing to help colleagues can affect both an organization and the employees involved. What they found is that cultivating self-compassion at work may be key to boosting helping behaviors among employees, especially when leaders model the behavior.
This case examines the vital social problem of the rising incidence of cataracts in India, especially in the elderly population. It describes the design and deployment of e-Paarvai, an AI-based digital health solution in more than 30 districts of rural Tamil Nadu, India, which helped screen about 25,000 cataract patients within ten months of its launch. It describes how design thinking and digital intervention could lead to effective health service delivery for social good. Specifically, this case focuses on: (1) elements of a service ecosystem, (2) the characterization of various personas and customer journey maps using design thinking (3) the application of emerging digital technologies like AI to solve challenging, complex social problems.
Allianz Turkey is a property casualty insurance company operating in a region experiencing increasing losses from natural catastrophe events related to climate change, for example hail, wildfire, and flooding. There are also substantial other natural catastrophe exposures including earthquakes. The operating environmnent includes high inflation and worsening exhange rates, both of which make it challenging to set premiums and to resolve claims when those milestones can occur years apart. In many ways the existence of these natural and financial pressures and the high awareness among the population of natural catastrophe hazards makes Turkey a precursor to what might occur in Europe and North America in the face of possible increasing perils related to climate change. The company has a dilemma at the time of the case regarding how to satisfy customers and settle claims from a hailstorm without historic precedent, which damaged tens of thousands of automobiles as well as other assets. How should the company satisfy these customers today? Should it avoid writing policies in higher risk areas in the future? Are there other ways to identify and manage risks in addition to contracts? The "B" case discusses the earthquake of 2023 and the "C" case discusses information technology, sensors, and predictive analytics that the company now uses to help manage the onset of and response to natural catastrophe situations.
Allianz Turkey is a property casualty insurance company operating in a region experiencing increasing losses from natural catastrophe events related to climate change, for example hail, wildfire, and flooding. There are also substantial other natural catastrophe exposures including earthquakes. The operating environment includes high inflation and worsening exchange rates, both of which make it challenging to set premiums and to resolve claims when those milestones can occur years apart. In many ways the existence of these natural and financial pressures and the high awareness among the population of natural catastrophe hazards makes Turkey a precursor to what might occur in Europe and North America in the face of possible increasing perils related to climate change. The company has a dilemma at the time of the case regarding how to satisfy customers and settle claims from a hailstorm without historic precedent, which damaged tens of thousands of automobiles as well as other assets. How should the company satisfy these customers today? Should it avoid writing policies in higher risk areas in the future? Are there other ways to identify and manage risks in addition to contracts? The "B" case discusses the earthquake of 2023 and the "C" case discusses information technology, sensors, and predictive analytics that the company now uses to help manage the onset of and response to natural catastrophe situations.
Allianz Turkey is a property casualty insurance company operating in a region experiencing increasing losses from natural catastrophe events related to climate change, for example hail, wildfire, and flooding. There are also substantial other natural catastrophe exposures including earthquakes. The operating environment includes high inflation and worsening exchange rates, both of which make it challenging to set premiums and to resolve claims when those milestones can occur years apart. In many ways the existence of these natural and financial pressures and the high awareness among the population of natural catastrophe hazards makes Turkey a precursor to what might occur in Europe and North America in the face of possible increasing perils related to climate change. The company has a dilemma at the time of the case regarding how to satisfy customers and settle claims from a hailstorm without historic precedent, which damaged tens of thousands of automobiles as well as other assets. How should the company satisfy these customers today? Should it avoid writing policies in higher risk areas in the future? Are there other ways to identify and manage risks in addition to contracts? The "B" case discusses the earthquake of 2023 and the "C" case discusses information technology, sensors, and predictive analytics that the company now uses to help manage the onset of and response to natural catastrophe situations.
Nreach Online Services Private Limited (doing business as Xoxoday) is a technology company that builds digital infrastructure for rewarding employees, customers, and partners through perks, incentives, and disbursement payouts. Incorporated in 2018, it has grown at a scorching pace; in just a little over three years, it has acquired more than one thousand clients that leverage their technology infrastructure to run rewards programs for about two million end-users. Xoxoday has built a sizable suite of reward, recognition, and motivation products for three target segments: (1) corporate workforces, (2) customers and channel partners, and (3) sales teams. The product lines for these three client groups are called Empuls, Plum, and Compass, respectively.<br><br>Employee well-being, both physical and emotional, has been a challenge for Xoxoday’s Empuls (corporate workforce) clients. These challenges have been exacerbated by the pandemic. Another issue apparently catalyzed by the pandemic—and with which corporate employers were grappling, given that most of their workforce had been working remotely since 2020—was that of attrition. Xoxoday’s Empuls clients are looking for novel solutions to stem the tide of what is now famously called the “Great Resignation.” Should Xoxoday implement gamification as a strategic solution to encourage well-being behaviours among the workforce of its corporate clients and to arrest attrition? Why and how could Xoxoday demonstrate responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI) while deploying gamification as a strategic solution for addressing the two key human resources management (HRM) challenges of employee well-being and attrition? How can trust pose a potential challenge to the implementation of AI-based HRM solutions? Which approach to business model innovation should Xoxoday adopt while offering such solutions?
Greenkraft Private Limited (Greenkraft) supplied artisanal products to global clients and was an India-based not-for-profit organization. The company worked to address the socio-economic needs of artisan women. For 800 women workers, the Greenkraft production unit symbolized independence and pride, motivating them to work and deliver quality output. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Greenkraft was compelled to adopt home production to supplement production unit operations to fulfil its supply obligations. With the rapid spread of the COVID-19 Omicron variant in January 2022, Greenkraft’s management had to choose a production and fulfilment strategy in the new normal. They considered adapting production unit operations with the COVID-19-related protocols, changing to complete home-based production, or adopting a hybrid model with part production unit and part home production. The change in the production strategy impacted Greenkraft's business viability and producers’ livelihood, needing careful thought and implementation.
AstraEye Pharma Pvt Ltd.: An Unsettling Dilemma (APP) was an ophthalmology pharmaceutical company that drew 80 per cent of its revenue from the artificial-tears segment. Elena Sanders was responsible for drafting a turnaround strategy for increasing market share by building prescription momentum, improving operational efficiency, and devising a renovated digital strategy. Based on the available options, Sanders had to decide between improving operational efficiencies for an existing brand—Rejuvenate at a 0.5 per cent carboxymethyl cellulose concentration—or launching a new product—Fresh Plus at a 0.3 per cent hyaluronic acid concentration—to cater to a greater number of patients. She was also tasked with sharing an important element of digital strategy: launching APP’s health-care-providers-and-practitioners engagement website or launching a microsite on a third-party online community platform for doctors (i.e., the Health Support Network for Professionals). The decision was urgent, as Sanders had to present her position during the annual strategy meeting scheduled for March 2022.