The case discusses the challenges faced by Rikin Gandhi, the chief executive officer (CEO) of a nonprofit organisation, Digital Green (DG), as he experimented with ideas that had vast commercial potential. DG produced videos of best farming practices and shared them with small and marginal farmers to help them increase their crop yield. As the organisation grew, it started a pilot project named LOOP. LOOP used technology to provide end-to-end shared logistic services to farmers. It aggregated farmer produce from a village, delivered that produce to the market, received payment from sales and transferred the payment to farmers. This entire chain of transactions could be tracked using a smartphone application at the farmer's end. As the LOOP project became successful and the various stakeholders came to terms with its tremendous financial potential, Rikin needed to decide on an organisational model to tap into the potential of LOOP and, at the same time, to not disrupt the work at DG. The case focuses on the organisational model options available to DG, as a nonprofit, to pursue and scale a project with commercial potential. Nonprofit organisations in India have various limitations regarding their engagement in commercial, revenue-generating activities. The main questions the case tries to focus on are as follows: What are the various options available to the CEO of DG to pursue a project with commercial potential such as LOOP? What are the limitations and challenges of each of these options that the leader needs to know while making their decision?

The case describes the international acquisition of the South African firm Beruc by an Indian, family-owned firm, Tega Industries Limited. Primarily a supplier of equipment to mining companies, Tega was a prominent player in the business of selling solutions to consumers in liners, mill liners, screening equipment and conveyors, apart from wear and flow equipment. Ten years after the acquisition, the benefits were not without problems. The issues facing the founder of Tega included declining financials of the subsidiary, labour-related problems, matters related to supply chain, concerns from clients in South Africa and sustained tensions between the local leadership and the corporate headquarters in India. With several changes in the leadership of the South African subsidiary (including Indian South African origin leaders), the ride was not smooth.

Supply-chain disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic are of unparalleled magnitude because of a confluence of circumstances: a sudden rise in demand for some products, unforeseen shifts in demand points, supply shortages, a logistical crisis, and an unprecedentedly quick recovery in major economies. This article maps the changes that will occur in supply-chain planning and management in a post-COVID-19 world. It also reflects on the articles included in this special issue and draws key conclusions about how configurations of global supply chains might change. Automation and digitalization are likely to play a key role in these transitions.

In December 2020, Daytoy Group, a leading global furniture and home furnishings retailer, asked the small Chinese candle supplier Dalian Talent Co. Ltd. to become its sole supplier of aromatic and unscented candles. Daytoy Group was offering the supplier a large amount of new production volume after terminating its relationship with its only other candle supplier in the Asia-Pacific region due to a corporate social responsibility issue. The supplier had to consider the cost of the additional supply chain management, manufacturing technique, and production capacity that would be needed to comply with the new request. The company already had enough orders from other reliable clients to fill its schedule until April 2022. Expanding production capacity and adding work teams to meet the request would take one to two years. How should the supplier respond to the request? What impact would the new arrangement have on its operations? How would it affect its long-time collaboration and future partnership with Daytoy Group?

On October 31, 2021, Thistle Links Inc. (Thistle), a sports management company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, had just finished its fiscal year 2021. During the year, the company had experienced a wide variety of occurrences related to its equity financing activities. Starting with the shareholders' equity section of the previous year's statement of financial position, Thistle's accountant is tasked with recording all transactions that occurred over the course of the year.

The case describes the lead-up to the offer to acquire Baxalta Inc by Shire PLC in the summer of 2015, weeks after Baxalta was spun out of Baxter's BioScience business. The setting is the biopharmaceutical sector - the fastest-growing in the global pharmaceutical industry in 2014, when M&As reached a record $219.4 billion. Shire, a leader in the treatment of rare diseases whose share price had quadrupled since 2010, had sustained strong sales growth. Baxalta was specialised in haematology, immunology and oncology, with product sales of $6 billion in 2014. After a private proposal to Baxalta's management in July 2015 was rebuffed, Shire considered making a public tender offer at $45.23 per share in August, valuing Baxalta at $30.6 billion. It estimated annual cost synergies to be $500 million, with additional tax and revenue synergies. The case puts students in the shoes of Shire's senior management as they decide whether to pursue the acquisition on the terms envisaged. Instructors can obtain a discounted cash flow (DCF) Excel template (for an in-class valuation exercise) as well as the model solutions on request from [email protected]

In the early twenty-first century the Native American populations of the United States continued to live with the legacy of colonialism, ethnic cleansing, and cultural destruction. Although other minority groups had increasingly been able to make their voices heard, Native Americans struggled to bring attention to the continuing consequences of this history. Native Americans were the most economically challenged group in the United States and were disproportionately victims of police violence and mass incarceration. This note provides background for these challenges.

In March 2020, Second Harvest Heartland, one of six Foodbanks serving Minnesota, was caught in the COVID-19 emergency with considerably more people exposed to hunger and food insecurity. Its management team led by CEO Allison O' Toole and COO Theirry Ibri alertly managed the crisis by improvising and implementing new programs. In August 2021, with signs of the crisis behind them, they had to decide which of the adaptations they should keep, and how to go back to addressing their original mission of ending hunger.

Though crowdfunding is no longer an atypical fundraising mechanism, its practical use remains limited, particularly when it comes to social entrepreneurship, owing to the numerous challenges unique to social-entrepreneurial ventures. By combining existing research on social entrepreneurship, value cocreation, the sharing economy, and digital platforms, this work offers practical insights into how existing platforms can be used for crowdfunding financial resources, sourcing creative ideas, collaborating, and gathering an array of nonfinancial resources. Additionally, this article discusses the ideal digital platform solution and explains how a multifaceted, multiuse digital platform can be created and utilized by new social ventures for meeting a multitude of needs. By focusing on a mission of social change and by understanding how digital platforms can avail crowdfunding, social entrepreneurs can overcome legitimacy issues and lack of traditional funding avenues. This taps into many of the typical aspects of the sharing economy: the benevolence of the actors, use of the internet for facilitation, and the motivation to engage in a new way of doing things. Thus, this article adopts a multidisciplinary view in exploring how crowdfunding can be coupled with the remobilization of idling resources using digital platforms to support social-entrepreneurial ventures in a myriad of ways.

Crowdfunding offers a new funding model for research activities at universities. It combines fundraising with public engagement and an entrepreneurial spirit. While universities might be expected to show enthusiasm for the possibilities of crowdfunding, support has not been widespread in Australia. Only a small number of Australian universities have provided active support for crowdfunding of research activities. Interviews with academics and administrators from two Australian universities with a history of providing strong support for research crowdfunding show that clear vision and firm leadership are required to overcome organizational inertia. Universities need to provide space for academics and administrators to innovate, try new approaches, and even fail as they learn whether crowdfunding works for them. Peer support and organized training can help academics as they seek to build an audience via social media engagement. Universities can also provide analysis of campaign progress and, in some cases, funding to support campaigns. The article concludes with best-practice advice for universities that wish to encourage research crowdfunding supported by a framework that describes a continuum of support, ranging from an outright ban to benign neglect to strong support for this new activity.

When it comes to raising money via crowdfunding, the language used in campaign narratives matters. Little practical guidance has been offered to those wishing to use crowdfunding concerning how to tailor the language in a crowdfunding campaign to enhance funding prospects. We take insights generated in academic research and distill those down to practical guidance for crowdfunding users. Here, we focus on two important aspects of language. First, we highlight how language that provides insight into the entrepreneurs' personality--words expressing positivity, charisma, resilience, or narcissism--relates to funding. Second, we outline how various linguistic styles used to describe the general topics of the campaign relate to funding. Our work is particularly applicable to one of the most popular forms of crowdfunding: rewards-based crowdfunding.

In this article, we look at how to leverage the positive face of the fear of missing out (FOMO) to foster brand community-building in the context of equity crowdfunding in the post-COVID-19 era. Using thematic analysis from 15 interviews with crowd investors across Europe and North America, we investigated how FOMO influences the decision-making of crowd investors. Findings suggest that FOMO is a powerful belongingness facilitator that can support the crowd investor's self-determination strategies and thus their willingness to take part in a crowdfunding community, sharing in its values and beliefs. FOMO can be used by entrepreneurs to activate identification mechanisms through which they can create a loyal fan base. We conclude by proposing an entrepreneurial action plan to guide the entrepreneur in making the most of FOMO in equity crowdfunding ventures.

Crowdfunding platforms enable entrepreneurs to bring to life ideas that may otherwise have remained unrealized. When crowdfunding campaigns go well, campaigners are able to fulfill their vision, funders' engagement is rewarded, and society gains access to a range of new offerings. But some recent high-profile medical-technology campaigns have failed to deliver their promised rewards despite reaching and at times far exceeding their funding goals. The objectives of this article are to shed light on why donors fund campaigns that turn out to be too good to be true and to examine how this engagement reduces trust in crowdfunding. To this end, I explore the role of product creativity as a dual mechanism for both funding success and postfunding delivery failure. Product creativity is typically associated with positive crowdfunding outcomes. But in the context of medical-technology campaigns, product creativity may make community members more attracted to campaigns that are less likely to deliver on their campaign promises. This phenomenon then increases the likelihood that the campaign will reduce trust in crowdfunding, hurting donors, the focal venture, and future campaigners. I offer practical implications for crowdfunding platforms, campaigners, and supporters interested in learning more about the pitfalls associated with initially successful crowdfunding campaigns.

Crowdfunding has become an increasingly popular tool for entrepreneurs to solicit public funding from individuals. As its popularity grows, entrepreneurs are seeking to learn more about crowdfunding to improve their chances of success. In this article, we explore how podcasts can offer fresh insights to crowdfunding and serve as an effective tool for entrepreneurs to improve their knowledge and the likelihood that their campaigns are funded. We discuss key insights for entrepreneurs offered by ten popular podcast episodes on crowdfunding. Each episode offers enduring lessons for entrepreneurs interested in launching a campaign and also exemplifies the value that podcasts can potentially offer entrepreneurs.

This article focuses on entrepreneurs' self-funding behavior in the reward crowdfunding context and its relation to crowdfunding success. Theoretically anchoring our discussion in signaling theory, we argue that self-funding sends similar information to that conveyed by quick-fix bootstrapping efforts. Accordingly, we hypothesize that self-funding behavior is positively associated with crowdfunding success as it can help alleviate uncertainties around a fundraiser's intent and quality as perceived by prospective backers. To show this, we use a sample of 1,583 campaigns collected from Zhongchou, the largest Chinese reward-based crowdfunding platform, to test our hypotheses. Our results demonstrate that entrepreneurs' direct self-funding is positively associated with crowdfunding success. Moreover, this effect is partially mediated by the quality of campaigns' content elements.

In early 2021, an investor had a substantial amount invested in three companies in the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group Reliance Group: Reliance Communications Ltd., Reliance Infrastructure Ltd., and Reliance Capital Ltd. The market price of Reliance Group shares had fallen steeply during the past five years (2016–2020), eroding the wealth of shareholders; consequently, the investor had lost almost all of his investments in the three group companies. Further, in 2019, Reliance Communications Ltd. had filed for bankruptcy. In 2020, the chair of the Reliance Group mentioned that Reliance Capital Ltd. had stopped its lending business and initiated stake sales. The investor decided to sell his shares in Reliance Communication Ltd. and Reliance Capital Ltd. at a huge loss. However, good dividend payments, and positive signals from the Reliance Group chair regarding betterment in the top line, a promotors’ stake increase, and his intention to reduce the companies’ debt to zero in 2020 made the investor hold their Reliance Infrastructure Ltd. shares. Nevertheless, to understand the possibility of improved fundamentals, the investor had to analyze the financial statements of Reliance Infrastructure Ltd., examining these for potential red flags that could identify significant threats to the future of the company and his investments.

The vice-president at Tencent LeXiang (LeXiang), the enterprise social networking platform of Tencent Holdings Limited (Tencent), had been overseeing the development of the platform from its inception. Since its official launch in 2017, LeXiang had been successfully adopted across a wide range of multinational corporations; it was also popular internally at Tencent, with many employees engaging with their fellow co-workers on the forums.<br><br>The vice-president was preparing for a meeting with Tencent’s leadership about the future of LeXiang and how the platform could bring value internally to the company. As part of her preparations, she received a data set that included many posts and replies within Tencent’s own LeXiang platform. While she thought there was significant value in the insight the platform provided about Tencent’s own employees, she was unsure how to organize the wide-ranging posts and demonstrate their potential value to Tencent’s leadership.

In early 2019, Anthony Campagna, the global director of fundamental research at ISS EVA, a unit of the proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), was preparing to release ISS's analyses of public company performance and CEO compensation ahead of Say on Pay (SOP) voting. ISS's reports helped institutions and other investors determine how to vote their shares at annual shareholder meetings. The report's assessment of CEO compensation for SOP relied on the degree of alignment between a CEO's industry-relative compensation and the firm's industry-relative performance. ISS had long used total shareholder return (TSR)-a measurement based on a company's stock price appreciation and dividend payouts-to measure company performance. In 2019, for the first time, ISS supplemented the TSR measure with economic value added (EVA)-a measurement based on accounting data that combined operating profit and a charge for capital-to measure performance. ISS believed that using EVA as a complement to TSR painted a more complete picture of company performance than TSR alone. EVA was, however, a far more complicated and not widely understood performance metric. Interpreting EVA for certain types of firms-young, high-growth, investment-intensive-could also be challenging. Campagna wondered how market participants would respond to ISS's use of EVA in its voting recommendations, particularly when TSR and EVA could make company performance look quite different. Did the benefits of EVA make managing its complexities worthwhile? Was EVA too complicated for investors to understand? Would EVA work equally well for young and high-growth firms as for mature firms? How might Campagna best promote the use of EVA?

This note explains the residual income valuation model (RIM), how it relates to "traditional" valuation models, the intuition behind its use, and empirical research related to its value relevance. RIM is theoretically equivalent to the dividend discount model and the discounted free cash flow model. However, it expresses future cash flows to equity in terms of accounting measures of capital (e.g., book value of equity) and performance (e.g., return on equity). Implementing the RIM requires forecasting the amount of expected future "economic profits," which depends on how business strategy plays out in the context of industry competitive dynamics, effective management of financial capital, and governance.