The United States Golf Association (USGA), operates among a network of associations and organizations in the game of golf. In the ecosystem of golf, there are many stakeholders, but no single governing body with overarching power to direct the action of other stakeholders. While the USGA works to improve the health of the golf industry, and the experience of participants, the actual experience of golfers is dependent on their local facilities, which are not under the control of the USGA. The golf ecosystem includes governing bodies, course owners, equipment manufacturers, professionals, and recreational players. During the first half of the 21st century, the recreational sport was in decline in the United States, as measured by many metrics, while it was growing in Asia. To guide its decision-making, and to inform key stakeholders, the USGA developed a strategic plan for 2020-2022, which it released in October 2019. This case discusses the role of the USGA in the complex golf ecosystem, its management, and the initiatives it undertook to grow the game of golf. The case draws on an earlier Stanford case study, SPM-52: The USGA and Golf Participation in the United States.
Research shows that people engage in vicarious moral licensing at work, granting themselves leeway to do bad things in light of good deeds performed by close colleagues. Leaders are no exception. Even when leaders inspire good citizenship in their teams, two factors can make them susceptible to unethical behavior: narcissism and close identification with team members.
For Sid Worley, it was decision time. He had spent the last two years courting the management and the family owners of his largest competitor, and finally (and unexpectedly) they had indicated that they would be receptive to "a serious offer" to buy the company. Worley was excited and determined to buy the company, but now he faced the reality of having to come up with an offer that would work.
Through most of 2020, the United States was battling the same demon as the rest of the world: the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, a large number of people worldwide spent more time at home, so they noticed repairs that needed to be made and used the increased time spent in their living quarters to paint rooms, garden, build, and complete projects. Many people turned to The Home Depot for the materials and tools to achieve these goals. To address the needs of its workforce, The Home Depot invested in its employees by offering additional compensation, changing employee benefits, and creating a safe environment. As the pandemic continued, the executive team knew that safety measures would be essential to the organization's ongoing success. The Home Depot needed to protect its associates and the public. But the company's biggest selling season loomed. Spring was the kickoff for the many home-improvement projects and jobs across the United States. Leadership had to consider the need to manage increased customer traffic and sales without aiding in the spread of the coronavirus.
On October 7, 2020, Bespoken Spirits publicly announced it had received $2.6 million of seed funding for its "sustainable maturation process," a process that could produce award-winning whiskeys in just days rather than years using a novel technology and data science. The technology dramatically reduced the time, cost, and environmental impact (it required less energy and less wood) of making whiskey. At the same time, the technology could also be used to enhance a whiskey's taste profile which could allow producers to charge more for their products. To date, entrepreneurs Stu Aaron and Martin Janousek had proven they could produce whiskey at scale and with desired properties. Having validated the concept, they now had to decide whether to continue making whiskey themselves or use their technology to process it for others. In short, they had to decide whether to be a product-based, B2C company or a service-based, B2B company, or both? If they decided to be a service business, should they emphasis the Maturation-as-a-Service (MaaS, faster and lower cost production) or the Customization-as-a-Service (CaaS, creation of customized products with unique taste profiles) business in the short term?
In late 2019, the Colombian company AgrÃcola Himalaya SA was undertaking a strategy to double its sales by 2030. The company's popular Hindú brand of teas, developed over six decades, had expanded to include not only black and green teas but also herbal teas, fruit teas, ready-to-drink products, and an iced tea line. Over the past 10 years, the company had enjoyed steady growth, distributed its products throughout the Americas, and developed a communications strategy focused on health and wellness. Now the company's chief executive officer (CEO) had to decide whether or not it was time to expand into other product categories, and if so, how. The CEO and marketing team needed to develop a brand strategy to present to the board of directors and create a new product portfolio that would support the company's growth strategy. Which channels should the company target for growth? Should it continue to grow in the same category, extend the brand to other categories, or expand the demographic mix of its customer base?
Isaac Park was only six weeks into the role of leading all technology operations for Primal Leadership Solutions, a global leadership advisory organization that offered consulting services and executive recruitment. The lifeblood of the business was its database, which contained the critical and comprehensive information for all of the organization’s past and current projects as well as its employees, clients, and recruits. The legacy system had to be replaced by a single, efficient, and reliable database. Although implementing a new database sounded straightforward, about halfway through implementation, pandemonium had broken out. The project’s leader was asked to step aside, and Park was asked to step in as the new leader. Park knew that going back to the old system was not the right answer; it was imperative that the company find a way forward. Both Park’s own credibility and the credibility of the project were on the line.
In 2016, the University of Calgary (U of C) was celebrating its 50th anniversary with a variety of events, such as the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, which brought visiting scholars from across the globe. At the same time, Alberta, ON, had been hit with significant forest fires, and many residents that were evacuated from northern communities had moved into U of C residences. The campus was alive with activity when its information technology (IT) systems were encrypted in a ransomware attack. The university’s emergency response team had to act quickly to identify and isolate the root cause of the problem and to decide how to contain it, whether to pay the demanded ransom, and what to tell members of the university and the wider community. The university’s response to this threat and its management through the crisis would ultimately shape the IT team and future investment decisions.
In late 2019, the Colombian company Agrícola Himalaya SA was undertaking a strategy to double its sales by 2030. The company’s popular Hindú brand of teas, developed over six decades, had expanded to include not only black and green teas but also herbal teas, fruit teas, ready-to-drink products, and an iced tea line. Over the past 10 years, the company had enjoyed steady growth, distributed its products throughout the Americas, and developed a communications strategy focused on health and wellness. Now the company’s chief executive officer (CEO) had to decide whether or not it was time to expand into other product categories, and if so, how. The CEO and marketing team needed to develop a brand strategy to present to the board of directors and create a new product portfolio that would support the company’s growth strategy. Which channels should the company target for growth? Should it continue to grow in the same category, extend the brand to other categories, or expand the demographic mix of its customer base?
By January 2020, Microsoft Corporation’s (Microsoft’s) Microsoft for Health healthcare vertical had become the company’s most important vertical. Microsoft’s chief executive officer, Satya Nadella, wanted the company to be viewed as a strategic partner of the healthcare industry and its clients. However, several challenges remained regarding the success of this vertical: both doctors and patients were unwilling to rely on artificial intelligence (AI) for diagnostics and prescriptions, while machine learning was even less accepted. Additionally, not many companies were willing to transfer more than 10 per cent of their data to the Microsoft Azure cloud platform, which raised concerns about whether or not the decision to focus on vertical versus horizontal clients represented an appropriate strategic decision. As enterprises were not shifting the majority of their data to the cloud, should Nadella reconsider his decision to focus on verticals? How could he overcome the challenges associated with the use of cloud computing and AI in healthcare? If Nadella wanted to address his clients as partners, what approach should he follow to develop such collaborative relationships?
Formed in 1997, Star Alliance was the first global airline network or constellation. Its aim was to shift the airline industry away from a network of loose bilateral agreements between individual airlines to a more comprehensive network of multilateral agreements between members. A wave of deregulation in the industry in the 1970s and 1980s, which opened free travel between countries, led to the creation of three major global constellations: Star Alliance, Oneworld, and SkyTeam. These networks conferred many benefits on their members, such as cost sharing, loyalty program management, and increased flight load. However, in early 2020, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic had devastating effects on the airline industry. The focus of airline alliances thus shifted from greater connectivity between members to survival in the new global landscape. Would this strategy help airlines survive the COVID-19 crisis? Was group-based competition needed to thrive during a pandemic? Their main concern was whether or not the powerful frameworks they created would be able to help member airlines survive this crisis and regain their pre-pandemic financial stability.
In 2019, the global airline industry generated revenues of over US$880 billion. One year later, as the COVID-19 pandemic raged, demand had fallen to half of its previous level and airlines faced tough challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic was a new and severe crisis. The responses of airlines and their alliances depended on the fundamental economics and structure of the industry. To devise new strategies for their futures, global airlines had to consider the economics and market structure of their industry. Would the fundamental economics of the airline industry be forever affected? Would the industry return to a “new normal” at some point?
By January 2020, Microsoft Corporation's (Microsoft's) Microsoft for Health healthcare vertical had become the company's most important vertical. Microsoft's chief executive officer, Satya Nadella, wanted the company to be viewed as a strategic partner of the healthcare industry and its clients. However, several challenges remained regarding the success of this vertical: both doctors and patients were unwilling to rely on artificial intelligence (AI) for diagnostics and prescriptions, while machine learning was even less accepted. Additionally, not many companies were willing to transfer more than 10 per cent of their data to the Microsoft Azure cloud platform, which raised concerns about whether or not the decision to focus on vertical versus horizontal clients represented an appropriate strategic decision. As enterprises were not shifting the majority of their data to the cloud, should Nadella reconsider his decision to focus on verticals? How could he overcome the challenges associated with the use of cloud computing and AI in healthcare? If Nadella wanted to address his clients as partners, what approach should he follow to develop such collaborative relationships?
Formed in 1997, Star Alliance was the first global airline network or constellation. Its aim was to shift the airline industry away from a network of loose bilateral agreements between individual airlines to a more comprehensive network of multilateral agreements between members. A wave of deregulation in the industry in the 1970s and 1980s, which opened free travel between countries, led to the creation of three major global constellations: Star Alliance, Oneworld, and SkyTeam. These networks conferred many benefits on their members, such as cost sharing, loyalty program management, and increased flight load. However, in early 2020, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic had devastating effects on the airline industry. The focus of airline alliances thus shifted from greater connectivity between members to survival in the new global landscape. Would this strategy help airlines survive the COVID-19 crisis? Was group-based competition needed to thrive during a pandemic? Their main concern was whether or not the powerful frameworks they created would be able to help member airlines survive this crisis and regain their pre-pandemic financial stability.
In 2019, the global airline industry generated revenues of over US$880 billion. One year later, as the COVID-19 pandemic raged, demand had fallen to half of its previous level and airlines faced tough challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic was a new and severe crisis. The responses of airlines and their alliances depended on the fundamental economics and structure of the industry. To devise new strategies for their futures, global airlines had to consider the economics and market structure of their industry. Would the fundamental economics of the airline industry be forever affected? Would the industry return to a "new normal" at some point?
Isaac Park was only six weeks into the role of leading all technology operations for Primal Leadership Solutions, a global leadership advisory organization that offered consulting services and executive recruitment. The lifeblood of the business was its database, which contained the critical and comprehensive information for all of the organization's past and current projects as well as its employees, clients, and recruits. The legacy system had to be replaced by a single, efficient, and reliable database. Although implementing a new database sounded straightforward, about halfway through implementation, pandemonium had broken out. The project's leader was asked to step aside, and Park was asked to step in as the new leader. Park knew that going back to the old system was not the right answer; it was imperative that the company find a way forward. Both Park's own credibility and the credibility of the project were on the line.
In 2016, the University of Calgary (U of C) was celebrating its 50th anniversary with a variety of events, such as the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, which brought visiting scholars from across the globe. At the same time, Alberta, ON, had been hit with significant forest fires, and many residents that were evacuated from northern communities had moved into U of C residences. The campus was alive with activity when its information technology (IT) systems were encrypted in a ransomware attack. The university's emergency response team had to act quickly to identify and isolate the root cause of the problem and to decide how to contain it, whether to pay the demanded ransom, and what to tell members of the university and the wider community. The university's response to this threat and its management through the crisis would ultimately shape the IT team and future investment decisions.
inFeedo leveraged its understanding of artificial intelligence (AI), NLP, and machine learning (ML) techniques to develop a chatbot named Amber. With CEO sponsorship within client organizations, Amber engaged with employees at pre-defined periods as a "virtual assistant of the CEO." The aggregated chat sentiment provided employee engagement analytics to the leadership team. The platform predicted disengaged employees and identified the attrition risk. Besides, compared to the annual engagement surveys, the broad-based sentiment analysis was more effective in reporting employee engagement. Employee engagement measurement involves massive spending by organizations. However, these engagement surveys are costly, face delays in translating information to action, and lack actionable insights for the practitioners. The case touches upon issues such as the use of "Amber" as a replacement for the conventional practices within HR, the changing role of HR, the efficacy of the use of AI in transactional HR work, ethics of using AI, and challenges of instituting a culture change within the HR divisions. Can leveraging AI help the function break out of its "administrative" image and emerge as a strategic contributor to the organization's direction-setting exercises? Additionally, the ethics around the use of AI-based chatbots and the resulting data analytics present challenges to both the users and the advocates of this new system.