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Many factors influence corporate governance in a family firm, the most prevalent form of business entity in Latin America. National culture affects a family firm's societal values, as well as economic, political, and legal systems of governance. Normative behaviour and expectations are also key factors that affect both individual and organizational norms. The firm's characteristics are another major source of influence. In addition to these major factors, various other variables play a role on shaping the firm's corporate governance, including family unity, patriarchal expectations, and inclusivity of the family definition. All of these factors can influence the numerous decisions that family businesses make in regard to their corporate governance, which makes it impossible to apply one approach for all family firms in Latin America. Each organization's board of directors may have specific characteristics that require different mechanisms to make effective governance decisions. This technical note discusses an evolutionary pattern of corporate governance, rather than a single approach, that could be effectively applied to the decision-making board of a family firm in Latin America.

This case introduces the challenges and decision criteria for businesses seeking to sponsor student athletes in the advent of the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA's) landmark decision to authorize collegiate student athletes to monetize their name, image, and likeness (NIL), just as professional athletes and other celebrities have always done. The case follows Jonathan Cotten, president of Easy Step Enterprises (Easy Step), a franchisee for the Good Feet Store based in Richmond, Virginia, as he explores the possibility of using college athletes from the University of Virginia (UVA) as social media influencers to stimulate demand for the Good Feet Store locations his company operates. The primary focus of this case is not on franchisee-franchisor relations, but rather on the strategic decision processes a business must consider when exploring the emerging opportunity to engage college student athletes as social media influencers. Because of their youth and relative inexperience, college student athletes pose different challenges and issues compared to the longer-established engagement of professional athletes and celebrities in similar roles. This case highlights these differences and encourages careful integration of criteria for executing these decisions.

Dr Amin Shokrollahi, a mathematician who loves research, becomes an entrepreneur by accident. He discovers a software solution to decelerate Moore's Law, and his friend, entrepreneur Steve Papa, pushes him to create a company and bring the solution to market. For five years they "wander in the woods" building the team, raising money, developing the technology, fruitlessly talking with potential customers and working with some of the world's most important technology companies... but without commercial success.

Dr Amin Shokrollahi, a mathematician who loves research, becomes an entrepreneur by accident. He discovers a software solution to decelerate Moore's Law, and his friend, entrepreneur Steve Papa, pushes him to create a company and bring the solution to market. For five years they "wander in the woods" building the team, raising money, developing the technology, fruitlessly talking with potential customers and working with some of the world's most important technology companies... but without commercial success.

Having developed a blockchain product to track the end-to-end movement of goods being transported along the pharmaceutical supply chain, Zuellig Pharma also has tested it in real life situation involving distribution during the critical Covid-19 phase. The company's Vice President and Head of Digital and Data Solutions is now seeking ways to scale up product for multiple markets, multiple users, and multiple applications even while blockchain, as a bourgeoning technology, is itself facing scaling limitations.

Gram Oorja's mission was to make energy available to people in remote areas in India where the government power supply grid had not reached. They installed solar microgrids and biogas plants in locations where these technologies were found to be viable. The microgrid projects were funded primarily through corporate social responsibility spending by interested corporates approached by Gram Oorja. The community of households receiving electricity was made responsible and accountable for maintaining the grid and replacing batteries by charging users on consumption measured with meters. The case discusses the inception of Gram Oorja and the evolution of their unique community-based business model. It describes the process of project implementation and the post-implementation activities. The case also presents the perspective of the consumers and highlights the potential for long term development of remote rural locations through energy access. New domains of energy access including irrigation and biogas, along with future plans are also discussed. The financial performance of Gram Oorja over the years gives an indication of its journey of learning and growth. Lastly, the case highlights the challenges being faced by the organization in an evolving environment. It challenges students to find new pathways for Gram Oorja to grow towards its mission.

The case discusses the dilemma faced by Archit Shah, a practicing Chartered Accountant (CA) and portfolio manager based in Ahmedabad, India, for investment in foreign stocks to diversify the existing portfolio of his clients. The decision to invest was pertinent and urgent as few of his clients were reducing their funds due to stagnant growth of existing securities in the portfolio. He had heard about the benefits of investing in foreign markets from experts in different financial conferences as well as from his fellow friends in the field. To start safe, he decided to invest in FANMAG stock and do a detailed financial analysis. It was his first endeavour in a foreign stock, and he did not want to risk his clients' money. He did not restrict his analysis to P/L and balance sheet ratios and decided to first analyse the past free cash flows (FCFs) to understand the actual performance of the companies. While past performance cannot be the decision factor, he also decided to refer valuation as per discounted cash flow (DCF) model to put an end to his confusion. Portfolio or fund managers use FCF as one of the most important indicators for valuation as per DCF model to evaluate the true performance of a company. Market ratios like P/E ratio help to track the earnings and investor's perception while FCFs help to understand the actual cash available for shareholders. So, to get a true picture of FANMAG stock's performance, Shah decided to analyse it through various parameters like quality of earnings ratio, FCFs, and valuation ratios for a period of 5 years from 2016 to 2020. Additionally, the intrinsic value as per DCF model (valuation approach) was referred to finalize the investment decision. Thus, the case deals with the challenges faced by CA Shah for investment decisions by assessing the earnings quality and the cash flow-based valuation ratios.

Implicitly or explicitly, product-development teams in digital spaces will go through a process of gathering and employing data to help them create and iterate upon a user experience that invites high engagement. An important part of gathering this data is having actual users test the product, but in order to learn what testable criteria constitute successful user behaviors, managers and teams can employ user stories, testable micronarratives about user experience. User stories give managers and teams important tools they can use to focus their observations, bring actionable ideas, and facilitate productive work on development-ready designs. In particular, they can give general managers a focal point for their work on continuous design and a way to prioritize with purpose as they decide on a backlog for development, iteration to iteration. This technical note takes readers on a deep dive into user stories as they apply to continuous design, prototyping, usability testing, and analytics. It explores how managers and teams can create, refine, and prioritize them to help create the best possible user experience within the products they are designing.

Public service union Local 892 was the union representing faculty at North City College (NCC) in Kingston, a mid-sized city in Canada's Ontario province. NCC had approached Local 892 to request a local agreement exempting the college from following the collective agreement's clause forcing it to hire someone permanently if they were on contract for over twelve months. The union had to decide whether to allow NCC to hire librarian Sharrod Alasa for an additional twelve-month contract or force the college to decide to either end Alasa's contract or hire him to a permanent position.

In late 2020, Lynn Wilson, a social entrepreneur and chief executive officer of SparqU, Inc., gave himself one year to turn his company around. SparqU, which offered digital literacy training to underserved and underrepresented communities, had been funded by a workforce grant. But when the grant expired, Wilson left his academic teaching position to focus full-time on SparqU and fulfill his passion for helping Colorado's people of colour, low income, and underserved to become digitally literate and improve their job opportunities. Wilson was all in. But he wondered, would his current promotional strategy targeted towards those needing to build digital literacy skills eventually be profitable ? Or should he consider other segments?

In 2020, Banco del Barrio (BB) celebrated its12th anniversary since its establishment as a non-bank correspondent. BB had successfully reduced the traditional barriers to accessing financial services for its users at the base of the pyramid. However, the financial services offered had a low utilization rate, so BB was not making significant progress in promoting financial inclusion. In the midst of this scenario, the Vice President of Personal Banking responsible for managing BB's operations, had to develop the 2020 plan. The dilemma involves evaluating the options of expanding services in women's banking or transitioning towards a platform of services for micro-businesses.

'Betting on Green Steel' traces the innovative journey embarked upon by a group of MBA students who have set out to conceive a novel steelmaker that pioneers the production of green steel. The ensemble is confronted with a series of critical choices that will shape the venture: Should the operation base be in India or Oman? What would be the best method for green steel production - carbon capture and storage, or green hydrogen? Who should they aim to cater to with their green steel - the automotive sector or the wind turbine manufacturing industry? And lastly, which business model would drive sustainable profit - green premium pricing or carbon credits? One of the team members is set to return to his family's steelmaking enterprise post-graduation, escalating the stakes to a personal level. This dynamic case study offers a thorough exploration of these key decision-making factors in the context of environmental sustainability and business strategy, providing fertile ground for engaging classroom discussions.

On December 6, 2022, in Phoenix, Arizona, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) Executive Chairman Mark Liu outlined the company's ambitious plans to invest $40 billion to build semiconductor manufacturing plants in Phoenix. The event also celebrated the passing of The Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors and Science Act of 2022 (CHIPS and Science Act), which aimed to inject $280 billion in financial subsidies and incentives to boost domestic manufacturing of advanced semiconductors in the US and increase production capacity. As Mark Liu stared out at the desert and the soon-to-be TSMC plant, he wondered if the decision to move to the US was driven by geopolitics or business opportunity. Could the US create a credible and robust domestic manufacturing ecosystem? Time would tell whether the CHIPS Act would yield long-term results or if it was too late for the US to regain its dominance in the semiconductor industry.

In July 2022, Horst Kayser, Chairman of Siemens AG Portfolio Companies (POC), was reflecting on the advice he could offer Roland Busch, Chief Executive Officer of the parent company Siemens AG, about whether and how to operate a private equity-like approach inside the large German industrial company. The POC had been established in 2019 to maximize the value of operating units that had struggled to perform as part of the core industrial divisions at Siemens AG. Given freedom to replicate some of the processes and policies of private equity and avoid some corporate constraints, by 2022, €3.6 billion in value had been created by improving the performance of these operating units and preparing them for sale or retention inside the parent. Kayser wondered whether he should recommend moving additional businesses into the POC to repeat the process, and, if not, what lessons could be applied to the core operating businesses in order to replicate some of the benefits of the POC approach. More generally, was it possible to operate like a private equity organization inside a large, well-established industrial company?

Verve Therapeutics, a public biotech company based in Boston, created a novel approach to addressing cardiovascular disease (CVD) - a leading cause of deaths globally. The company's approach was a single shot treatment to permanently lower cholesterol, thus reducing the risk of heart attacks. Built on decades of post-doctoral and lab research led by CEO Sekar (Sek) Kathiresan, a trained cardiologist and academic, Verve used gene editing - akin to a molecular surgical procedure-for a curative intent. Not only had the medicine reached human trials in record time, but Verve incorporated new innovations that could allow the technology to be used more widely. The company successfully built a solid syndicate of investors and raised a total of $860 million. Unlike other gene editing or gene therapy companies that focused on rare diseases affecting small populations, Verve's approach was the first example of a gene editing treatment that could potentially benefit millions of people. Verve's lead investor was interested in creating Verve 2.0 and apply the company's expertise to cure a range of rare metabolic diseases. Should Sek continue to build out the core product aimed at treating heart disease, or should he apply the technology to other adjacent diseases? Would this be a potential distraction from Verve's core mission?

Participants in the New England power market are exploring several strategies to meet the region's renewable power goals while also providing its residents with inexpensive and reliable electricity and heating fuel. New England was a first-mover into natural gas power generation in the U.S., yet has a dearth of pipeline capacity and the most expensive gas prices in the nation. The region has excellent wind power resources off its coasts, but a checkered past of permitting and legal delays. The case considers several key questions for the climate transition from an economics lens, including what we should call a clean resource; whether supply or demand-side incentives work better for reducing emissions; which types of generation resources are most effective for reducing emissions; and the societal impacts of these choices on consumers across the income distribution.

Marine transport is the most cost-effective way to move large volumes over long distances, and container shipping is the backbone of international trade in goods. Yet shipping contributed 3% of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions, and the deep-sea segment, which included long distance trade lanes such as Asia to Northern Europe and Asia to North America, warranted special focus because they accounted for 80% of maritime transport's total emissions in 2019. New International Maritime Organization regulations that came into force in January 2023 mandated the annual calculation and grading of each ship of more than 5,000 deadweight tons. Vessels that received a grade of A, B, or C were compliant, while those graded D or E had time limits for getting back into compliance or removal from service. More significantly, the standards for grading required annual improvements in efficiency. This meant that a brand-new vessel built with the latest technology that was initially graded A could over time become graded E and no longer be legally operable if no upgrades were made. This case affords students the opportunity to consider different fuel and operational choices and calculate their impact on greenhouse gas emissions and ship grading. It exposes some of the choices that an operator might choose to make.

This case series focuses on Theranos Inc. (Theranos), a health care technology start-up founded by Elizabeth Holmes in 2003. Theranos focused on developing a revolutionary blood-testing technology that was supposed to be able to detect diseases using only a few drops of blood. Once valued at US$10 billion, the company never demonstrated its alleged technological breakthrough, and Holmes was eventually charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission for fraud and deceit. In 2018, Theranos was forced to shut down its operations, and in January 2022, Holmes was found guilty of three counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The case series explores Theranos's history, as well as the role of overconfidence bias in Theranos's downfall.

In March 2023, two strawberry producers in Ontario, Canada had to decide how many acres to plant with each of four strawberry varieties at Xanadu Farms. They had committed to providing 275,000 pounds of berries to a local independent grocery chain and also required some of their berry crop to make strawberry preserves. Complicating this decision was the impact that weather had on the yield of each type of berry. If the weather reduced the yield, the two producers would need to make up for the loss by sourcing berries from several nearby farmers. However, if the weather was favourable, they would be able to sell any excess berries at their own storefront. What current decision should the two strawberry producers make to ensure they achieve the best outcome one year later?

Spreadsheet Supplement for Exercise W33716