In January 2018, an account manager at a Canadian advertising agency was tasked with making a recommendation regarding a potential workplace safety marketing campaign in Manitoba, Canada, that aimed to lower the number of work-related injuries and deaths. The account manager had previously been involved with a 2016 advertising campaign that had used an innovative approach to expose the attitudes and opinions that young people had about workplace safety. Cleverly utilized hidden-camera footage of inexperienced young people eagerly agreeing to dangerous working practices caught the attention of the public and media, and ultimately helped raise awareness and reduce workplace injuries in Manitoba. The account manager felt strongly that more needed to be done to improve workplace safety, but he needed to analyze the 2016 results to determine whether a new marketing campaign was the best solution. He would be working with and ultimately pitching his recommendation to a multi-faceted team made up of members who each had a stake in improving workplace safety in Manitoba. With the team already formed and time of the essence, he knew he must analyze and address the potential opportunities of a behavioural marketing campaign in order to make a recommendation on a course of action that could potentially save young Manitobans’ lives.

Alibaba Group Holding Limited is an operator of online mobile marketplaces in retail and wholesale trade. They are a multinational technology conglomerate that has a total of 115 subsidiaries with 785 companies. Some notable platforms owned by Alibaba include Taobao, Tmall, Aliexpress and Lazada. The company is involved in logistics, retail and wholesale, local consumer businesses, cloud services including network virtualization services, large scale computing, security and big data analytics. They also partake in innovation initiatives and digital media and entertainment. Their headquarters is located in China. They also have offices located in several countries around the world including Singapore, India, the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US). Over the past decade, Alibaba has seen exponential revenue growth. Understanding Jack Ma's (co-founder and former executive chairman of Alibaba Group) leadership behaviours and Alibaba's organizational culture enabled us to appreciate how the group managed complex and intertwined issues during his tenure. Now that the baton has been passed to succeeding Chairman and Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang, the world's eyes have turned to Zhang to witness how he leverages on Alibaba's current position and sustains its business operations and rapid growth.

Increased use of digital collaboration tools are making employee contributions more visible within their organizations and connecting them with wider networks both of which can provide them with more options for career growth. The authors researched the effects of increased visibility into individual performance and found evidence that it leads to increased mobility. That means managers need to worry about retaining not only their stars, but also their A-/B+ talent.

Can an online, direct-to-consumer pharmacy both improve the quality and speed of care for patients who need branded drugs and stabilize profits for pharmaceutical manufacturers? UpScript, after years spent achieving legal and regulatory compliance and simultaneous technological innovation has developed a direct-to-consumer (DTC) channel that could upend the standard model of pharmaceutical insurance and pharmacy benefit manager channels that dominate the industry. But UpScript's reliance on self-investment constrains it from access to the capital it now needs to grow and remain at the forefront of its ability to provide pharma with this sales channel. With whom should UpScript invest to maintain growth and market leadership? And as it grows, how will UpScript be challenged by the deeply entrenched pharmacy benefit managers that currently cover most American lives? And how does UpScript stay ahead of the other online pharmacies or telehealth businesses offering a DTC sales channel, mostly for lifestyle generic drugs? This case is suitable both as a general business case for undergraduate and MBA students of any level, focused on strategy, entrepreneurship, DTC pharmaceutical strategies, the pharmaceutical sector, regulation of pharmaceutical marketing and advertising, pharmaceutical benefit managers, and the healthcare industry.

In January 2018, an account manager at a Canadian advertising agency was tasked with making a recommendation regarding a potential workplace safety marketing campaign in Manitoba, Canada, that aimed to lower the number of work-related injuries and deaths. The account manager had previously been involved with a 2016 advertising campaign that had used an innovative approach to expose the attitudes and opinions that young people had about workplace safety. Cleverly utilized hidden-camera footage of inexperienced young people eagerly agreeing to dangerous working practices caught the attention of the public and media, and ultimately helped raise awareness and reduce workplace injuries in Manitoba. The account manager felt strongly that more needed to be done to improve workplace safety, but he needed to analyze the 2016 results to determine whether a new marketing campaign was the best solution. He would be working with and ultimately pitching his recommendation to a multi-faceted team made up of members who each had a stake in improving workplace safety in Manitoba. With the team already formed and time of the essence, he knew he must analyze and address the potential opportunities of a behavioural marketing campaign in order to make a recommendation on a course of action that could potentially save young Manitobans' lives.

In the fall of 2022, boot maker UGG and its parent company, Deckers, were working to position the brand in the nascent but fast growing metaverse. The metaverse, the online realm that individual users could navigate as digital avatars, was becoming more commercialized, as a range of brands started offering digital products for sale to users. Given the importance of how physical UGGs felt on wearers feet, how should the company think about its metaverse operations?

CPlex input file to accompany W27140.

CPlex solution file to accompany product W27141.

In fall 2021, André Bolduc was contemplating retirement and passing down his maple syrup farm, or “sugar bush,” to his children. David Bolduc, the youngest in the family of three siblings, was the only family member who wanted to continue the generational tradition of the family’s maple sugar farm, which was located in Saint-Jacques-de-Leeds, a municipality close to Montreal and Quebec City. David and his wife had three children under the age of ten. David was evaluating the option of expanding the family’s maple syrup business in order to reach greater profits from production so that he could continue his family’s traditional legacy and also be able to support his family. While the 2021 maple syrup season was over, David would have to make a decision well before spring 2022.

Every Harvard Business School first-year student enrolls in "The Entrepreneurial Manager," a course that focuses on leadership in entrepreneurial settings. This document outlines the course's goals and approach.

This note explores the emerging multi-billion dollars commerce trend of livestream commerce. Livestream commerce is the sale of goods or services directly to consumers via live shows on digital platforms (such as social media or e-commerce platforms). It is a form of social commerce in which consumers engage with real-time videos to complete transactions. Livestream commerce was especially popular in China, where gross merchandise value through this channel reached $316 billion USD. In the rest of the world, livestream commerce had mixed success, and has not gained traction in Europe and North America. The note explores the 3 top livestream commerce in China - Taobao Live, Douyin, and Kuaishou, to learn about the phenomenon and explore the success of livestream commerce in the future. In particular, the note allows for discussion of the following questions: How should a platform develop a sustainable business model in livestream commerce? What would it take for any of these platforms to come out on top of the competition? Are social media or e-commerce platforms better positioned to win in this market? Was the boom in China's livestream commerce replicable in other countries? Why hasn't livestream commerce gained traction in Europe and North America? Was it just a matter of time, or are there inherent factors that impede on the success of this shopping format?

On June 25, 2021, Professor Pratik Modi, chairperson of the postgraduate program at the Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA), attended a meeting with the director and chairpersons of different academic areas and programs, where it was decided that the upper limit on the number of elective courses offered by each area should be done away with, considering the requirements of students and faculty members. Although the decision to remove the upper limit seemed to be beneficial to all parties, it would pose a challenge in terms of scheduling classes, given the number of constraints involved. Modi was determined that a solution could be found using the tools and techniques of operations research, which was taught as one of the core subjects at IRMA.

Spreadsheet to accompany product W27140.

Instructor Spreadsheet to accompany product W27141.

In July 2022, a portfolio manager for an investment company was considering adding the Coca-Cola Company (Coca-Cola) stock to its flagship global blend fund, which invested in firms with neither predominant value nor growth characteristics. Her initial task was to develop an investment thesis by first gathering qualitative and quantitative information related to Coca-Cola and its peers. Her thesis would consider what long-term trends might play out in the industry, as well as any short- and medium-term considerations related to the economy, the industry, and Coca-Cola itself. She wondered whether an analysis of recent financial performance coupled with expectations of future performance could provide any clues as to the suitability of current investments. Recognizing that further analysis would follow (such as an in-depth discounted cash flow analysis), the portfolio manager needed to know whether the fund should consider investing in Coca-Cola’s stock based on her preliminary analysis.

Spreadsheet to accompany product W31037.

In fall 2021, André Bolduc was contemplating retirement and passing down his maple syrup farm, or "sugar bush," to his children. David Bolduc, the youngest in the family of three siblings, was the only family member who wanted to continue the generational tradition of the family's maple sugar farm, which was located in Saint-Jacques-de-Leeds, a municipality close to Montreal and Quebec City. David and his wife had three children under the age of ten. David was evaluating the option of expanding the family's maple syrup business in order to reach greater profits from production so that he could continue his family's traditional legacy and also be able to support his family. While the 2021 maple syrup season was over, David would have to make a decision well before spring 2022.

Using the example of a matrix implementation at Atrium Health, the authors discuss the challenges that emerge when an organization moves to a matrix reporting structure that is, when employees shift from straight-line reporting to having two bosses, and when leaders' reports also report to someone else. They describe the four elements that make up a well-functioning matrix model, best practices for creating balance among those elements, and the mindset and skills leaders need to thrive.