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The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the obsolescence and vulnerability of many existing auditing practices. While some progressive practices have been implemented (e.g., remote audits using rudimentary information and communication technologies), a new paradigm is needed not only to account for the risk of repeated lockdowns but also to align practices with the level of digitalization, automation, and use of artificial intelligence in the current business environment. In this article, we argue that the adoption of new technologies requires a fundamental rethinking of how auditing services are delivered. We argue that new technological possibilities have implications for five other auditing elements that enable a shift from the old to the new paradigm of auditing, namely actors, processes, spaces, training and skills development, and services. We explain how nonfinancial audits conducted under the new paradigm are key enablers of a firm's ability to participate and to thrive in a competitive international marketplace.

Blockchain, a type of distributed ledger technology (DLT), can be used for supply chain and is commonly discussed among distribution giants and small players. Blockchain's actual and perceived benefits, in addition to track-and-trace mandates from regulatory bodies, have driven these discussions. However, there is no mention of how existing dispute resolution processes have been overhauled in favor of blockchain smart contracts, which can be used to manage and resolve disputes. This conversation gap is critical as trust will erode if supply chain partners cannot settle disputes adequately. We highlight the importance of supply chain DLT management and suggest tactics for resolving the inevitable disputes that arise with disparate information. These guidelines, including adopting portable and enforceable contractual terms and a standardized dispute resolution process, can have practical applications beyond blockchain.

Signaling how virtuous a brand is has become an ever more common strategy. Brands have recently outcompeted one another to align themselves with various causes. We explore the rise in virtue signaling and review prominent examples of brands that have linked themselves to social movements--some successfully, some unsuccessfully. We draw on evolutionary theory to develop a conceptual framework to think about brand virtue signaling. Armed with this framework, managers can assess whether their brands should adopt virtue signaling as a strategy and assess the short- and long-term implications of such a decision.

Nonfungible tokens (NFTs) are a record of ownership of primarily digital media, where the NFT is stored on a blockchain. According to the 2021 Gartner Hype Cycle for Key Technologies, NFTs may significantly transform marketing functions. Marketing managers wishing to adopt NFTs therefore need to know something about the marketing implications. This article explains NFTs in broad terms and discusses the marketing implications using a modified AIDA hierarchy. These implications can give marketing managers and executives guidelines on how to persuade consumers to purchase NFTs owing to their unique characteristics, such as scarcity, nonfungibility, proven authenticity, proof of ownership, royalties, and direct distribution infrastructure.

Though more than a decade has passed, there are compelling reasons to revisit the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the most expensive nonnuclear industrial disaster in history. It serves as an exemplar of what organizations should not do. Recent tragedies in Nigeria and Florida also demonstrate how organizations might avoid the risk of being overtaken by readily predictable events. In this article, we look to advance research on risk mitigation and decision-making as we create a more succinct view of how managers create--and might prevent--inaptitude. To this end, we look at how the evolving concept of stupidity is defined in recent research and how it manifested in the critical case of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig. We present five proposals for organizations looking to address and avoid potentially unwise decisions that may lead to the next disaster.

The first communication an entrepreneur often has with a potential investor is submitting a one-page executive summary for consideration. Subsequently, the potential investor or investment group chooses which venture ideas to further consider by inviting a pitch deck or an actual business pitch. This investment funnel is competitive and, accordingly, anything we as scholars can share with entrepreneurs seeking advice about how to optimize that initial executive summary to increase chances of getting to the pitch would be immensely valuable. Unfortunately, scant research has focused on this opportunity-introduction stage, and there is precious little we can prescribe for entrepreneurs seeking investment. To address this, we developed four executive summaries that varied only in the type of capital mentioned. We found that executive summaries that mentioned human capital more prominently were viewed as more cognitively legitimate and as deserving of a higher opportunity-recognition valuation. Put succinctly, consistent both with our theorized findings from our Open Science Framework preregistered experiment (N Z 367) and with our qualitative follow-up study, we found that human capital signals have a greater positive influence on potential investors' decisions relative to social capital, intellectual capital, and financial capital. We discuss the practical and theoretical implications of this novel insight and include prescriptive recommendations for entrepreneurs.

Greening suppliers, or cultivating environmental responsibility throughout the supply chain, has become an important strategic issue for firms. While various approaches exist, green supplier development--that is, helping and collaborating with your suppliers to reduce their negative environmental impact--is a key method that can produce significant gains for both parties at multiple levels. Yet the benefits have not been sufficiently discussed and may therefore appear nebulous for managers. Focusing particularly on "What's in it for you, the buyer?", this article describes benefits at the intrafirm, interfirm, and market levels. Barriers to the realization of the benefits are also discussed, providing managerial guidance on supplier prioritization for green supplier development.

Family-owned Mittelstand firms have often been characterized as Janus-faced, meaning they can have two contrasting sides when it comes to innovation. On one side, they are technology leaders--especially in niche markets. On the other side, they can be slow adopters, deeply rooted in tradition. Digitalization is one of the biggest innovation challenges to firms of all sizes and ownership types. Research and observations in business practice show that while some family-owned Mittelstand firms master digitalization despite limited resources and traditional industries, others lag dangerously behind. So, how can family-owned Mittelstand firms prepare for a digital future, and which familial idiosyncrasies might help them? Based on current observations and interview data, we propose a framework for how these firms can use their unique resources to tackle challenges related to digitalization. To be successful in a digital world, they must leverage their family historical capital, family collaborative capital, and family venture capital. We highlight why and how these capital types should be linked to fully leverage their potential.

The mission of Business Horizons is to publish research that practitioners can understand to help them change their thoughts and actions. However, this mission remains an elusive ideal for many business school academics as they struggle to overcome the research-practice gap. To help scholars bridge this gap, we present social media as a boundary-spanning technology to be open to connecting with, learning from and working with academics and other stakeholders outside their field. Social media can be used as a boundary-spanning technology to help bridge the research-practice gap. To support this idea, we present a process model of five research activities--networking, framing, investigating, disseminating, and assessing--and describe how social media can make each activity more open. We present a framework of four social media-enabled open academic approaches--connector, observer, promoter, and influencer--and outline some do's and don'ts for engaging in each approach. We also discuss the potential dark side of openness through social media and offer some coping strategies. As per the mission and scope of Business Horizons, this article aims to help business academics rethink and change their practices so that our profession is more widely regarded for how our research positively impacts business practice and society in general.

Dolf van den Brink, CEO of HEINEKEN, left the company's global headquarters in Amsterdam for a company retreat. Over the next three days, the entire executive team would gather to discuss the company's future. The preliminary results for 2022, presented during the recent two-day Capital Markets Event, were positive, and the company's progress on its key strategic pillars painted an encouraging picture - a sign that HEINEKEN's EverGreen strategy was in full swing. However, rising prices and global inflation were expected to put pressure on operating costs and consumers' purchasing power. In addition, geopolitical and macroeconomic developments were threatening to create a post-pandemic world characterized by uncertainty and volatility. Finally, society was changing at a rapid pace, along with consumer and customer expectations. In June 2020, when van den Brink was appointed CEO at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, he was faced with a daunting task. Not only did he need to lead the company through an unprecedented crisis, he also had to future-proof the organization well beyond the end of the pandemic. In February 2021, after months of exchanges with over 200 colleagues around the world, van den Brink unveiled the company's new strategy, EverGreen. This multiyear plan was designed to turn HEINEKEN into a highly adaptive organization capable of thriving in a dynamic and fast-paced environment, while at the same time creating long-term sustainable value for stakeholders. The strategy was underpinned by HEINEKEN's analysis of its core strengths, emerging macro trends and perceived opportunities. As van den Brink made his way through the evening traffic, he thought about the upcoming company retreat, which he felt was coming at just the right moment. The team needed to reflect on EverGreen's implementation while deep-diving on key strategic initiatives that, if successfully implemented, would future-proof the company for years to come.

It was on Monday. 4 July 2022, when Swarovski's newly appointed, first-ever external CEO, Alexis Nasard, began his challenging journey of guiding the company back to a profitable growth trajectory. In past years, Swarovski experienced strong market growth and share gains from its well-established position in the costume jewelry segment. However, the company had started to face competition within the jewelry market and rampant digitalization trends threatened to weaken the company's stronghold on mid-range luxury jewelry and grand physical stores. In response, Robert Buchbauer, who had previously taken over the management of Swarovski as CEO in April 2020 in the midst of the pandemic, told a news agency at the company's headquarters, "We are forced to reimagine and rescale our entire Swarovski business." However, Buchbauer's vision for the company's growth was not well-received by Swarovski's family board members. Just 18 months after his appointment, he resigned from his role due to differences with the family. On Friday 22 July 2022, after just two weeks as Swarovski's newly appointed CEO, Nasard was reflecting on the journey ahead as he left the company's headquarters in Wattens, Austria. He knew he had important choices to make to get the company back on track. Building on the company's unique strengths and learning from the difficulties faced in the recent past, he pondered, which strategic initiatives should he prioritize to restore Swarovski back to its former glory?

Daniel Jones and Niki Lewis of Bext360 are struggling to persuade a potential corporate client to use their software as a service (SaaS) solution that focuses on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) metrics. In a meeting with a big-box retailer, initial enthusiasm for the platform's capabilities, including measuring Scope 3 emissions, turned to caution when a senior corporate attorney raised concerns about legal liability. The deep transparency offered by the platform could expose the company to risks related to their suppliers' actions, leading the executives to postpone their decision. Jones and Lewis now face a paradox. Their technology offers in-depth ESG oversight, which companies should theoretically want. However, this transparency also introduces risks and responsibilities that potential clients may be hesitant to assume. The challenge lies in persuading clients to see the transformative potential of their ESG practices despite these risks.

THE DRAX POWER STATION AND BIOMASS ENERGY case explores strategic decision making in the energy sector characterized by intensive government regulation and environmental sustainability concerns. The Drax facility was the largest electrical power plant in the United Kingdom, providing 7% of the country's electricity. It was also the largest coal-fired power producer - and therefore greenhouse gas emitter - in the UK. In response to governmental policy changes and rising concerns about climate change, Drax management began a conversion away from coal to a renewable source of energy, biomass and the plant quickly became the single largest biomass-powered facility in the country. The company was making expansive public claims that the plant was generating environmentally sustainable power, but the strategy was not without its critics. A growing set of experts were reconsidering the assertion that biomass was consistent with efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These shifts in scientific understanding and potentially policy threatened the long-term viability of the Drax biomass conversion strategy.

In 2002, Dr. Michael Crow was appointed as the 16th president of Arizona State University (ASU) which, at the time, was known to be one of the biggest party schools in the United States (U.S.). Under his leadership, ASU transformed into the New America University. The New American University was designed to enhance access to education and deliver social impact. In 2016, ASU was recognized by U.S. News and World Report as being the most innovative university in the U.S. Despite recognition as an innovative academic institution, ASU's own University Technology Office (UTO) considered itself the place where good ideas went to die. Terms such as digital transformation were buzzwords, and the culture hearkened back to the technological ideals of the 1970s. The case presents the benefits of digital transformation to enhance the higher education experience. These same benefits apply to any organizational cultures seeking large-scale digital transformation. The case offers a front row view on how digital transformation unfolds in a large organization with users who demand unique functionalities. It offers a realistic discussion of the integrated role that leadership, strategic thinking, and technology play in a successful transformation.

Simon Roca, founder of Neovida, a social enterprise startup, was contemplating next steps in striving to fulfill the company's aspirational mission and vision. Neovida created cascara-based superfood products by upcycling what had traditionally been the wasted husks of coffee cherries. This upcycling reduced methane emissions and had the potential to provide an additional revenue stream for small-scale coffee farmers in developing countries. He imagined a future in which the Internet of Things (IOT), machine vision, and artificial intelligence (AI) would create transparency in his cascara supply chain and offer fair and rapid payment to small-scale farmers. Simon was beginning to realize that some compromises had to be made before Neovida could become the type of social enterprise that he envisioned. His two founding partners resigned, and Simon was working with attorneys to dissolve his original and start a new LLC under the name Neovida. One of his former cofounders let a batch of biodynamically grown organic cascara spoil at a farm in Chiapas, Mexico, so Simon had to resort to different suppliers that further distanced him from fulfilling the startup's social and environmental goals. With a loan of $22,000 to keep the company afloat for six months, what should Simon do next?

The case focuses on the evolution of Einride, a Swedish startup that provides supply chain logistics capacity as a service (CaaS) and software as a service (SaaS) through its Saga platform. Initially, it may seem that Einride is a manufacturer of unique cabless autonomous electric trucks. In fact, the company doesn't manufacture anything. It is a tech company that designs the different elements of a trucking freight and logistics ecosystem that includes autonomous electric trucks, trailers, charging stations, remote operator pods and a software platform that consists of multiple apps needed to manage and optimize a fleet of electric trucks.

In August 2019, Paraguayan sports journalist Edgar Cantero, correspondent for various international media outlets and digital channels specializing in football (soccer in the US), wondered which of the world's football coaches was most qualified to receive 'The Best' award, granted annually by the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) in various representative categories (coaches, players, goals etc.). FIFA had 209 affiliated national associations in 2019, so its annual awards were an event of global interest. The voting system was designed to ensure votes were as impartial and transparent as possible, with the way in which each participant voted later being made public on the FIFA website. The final three nominees were generally somewhat predictable, however, usually based on the winners of the world's most prestigious footballing trophies the previous year. Cantero was surprised and honored to be invited to represent Paraguay for the first time in the voting. In an industry where several professional generations with long careers co-exist, Cantero was part of a new generation of younger journalists, all in their early thirties, who were beginning to receive recognition in various countries for their coverage of major international tournaments, such as the World Cup in Russia 2018 and the 2019 Copa America. Cantero was pleased generational diversity was being considered, as it was a topic that generated passionate debate. He only had a couple of weeks to make his decision and cast his vote, although he did favor four of the top ten candidates in particular: Jurgen Klopp (Liverpool FC coach), Pep Guardiola (Manchester City), Mauricio Pochettino (Tottenham Hotspur) and Erik ten Hag (AFC Ajax). Cantero and his colleagues were aware of the media importance of the FIFA awards, which is why their decision was far from an obvious one.

Pink, White and Blue is appropriate for undergraduate or graduate courses in management, business ethics, organizational behavior, leadership, or human resources management. Students analyze a right versus right ethical dilemma, are introduced to challenges that transgender people might experience in organizations and discuss ethical and other justifications for DEI management. The case includes epilogue and update, which provide an opportunity to discuss broader organizational issues regarding whether and how organizations should expand DEI programs. The case encourages students to critically examine their personal beliefs, attitudes, and biases about historically marginalized people. Landon Wilson, a transgender male, was a U.S. Navy sailor on a special assignment with the Army in Afghanistan. He worked as a cryptologic technician-collection specialist (CTR) collecting and analyzing top-secret data and creating special intelligence and was recognized as an excellent performer. Wilson enlisted as a female and began transitioning from female to male less than a year later, at his Navy home-base. When a special Army assignment in Afghanistan provided the opportunity, Wilson presented male. When he arrived in Afghanistan, his teammates and Army leaders accepted him as male. He was in male barracks, and his leaders and colleagues referred to him with male pronouns. At the time, Department of Defense (DoD) policy prohibited transgender people from entering the Navy and a sailor could be discharged for physical or mental conditions, including gender and identity disorders. Thousands of transgender individuals, however, successfully served in the military during the ban. Wilson was performing well in the critical assignment in Afghanistan. But then, Wilson's mentor revealed Wilson's secret to his Navy home-base leader in the U.S. The Navy home-base leader called Wilson and urged him to "come out" to his leaders in Afghanistan. Wilson had to decide if he should follow his

Payton McGriff, founder of the nonprofit S H E (Style Her Empowered) must decide on a plan to meet S H E's goal of sponsoring one million girls in primary schools in sub-Saharan Africa by 2030. The COVID pandemic has created a renewed sense of urgency for McGriff and her board. The specific decision McGriff must make is whether to continue to produce the innovative Dress that Grows in-house combined with the production and sale of fair-trade goods to fund operations or to outsource the production of school uniforms, relying on fundraising to generate the funds needed. Key to this decision is the fit with the multi-mission of S H E: 1. to educate girls, 2. to employ women, and 3. to practice environmental sustainability.

Entrepreneur Pau Bach, who has tetraplegia, built Batec Mobility with an inclusive business model in which profit and purpose are tightly integrated. A personal mobility device company, Batec was created by people with disabilities, employs people with disabilities, and that aims to revolutionize mobility for people in wheelchairs. In June of 2019, Bach is considering an offer to purchase his company. Accepting the offer is one of three available courses of action; he could also leverage the offer to speed negotiations with a pair of Spanish impact investors, or work to persuade his current investor to reinvest and sell for a higher price in the future. He must evaluate which course of action will best address his main goals: ensuring the continued growth of the business and its positive social impact, providing an acceptable exit to his current investor, and meeting his personal and family needs. Leading up to this moment, the case reviews the company's stages of development, the funding it has received, and the process Bach has undertaken to sell the company. In this way, students explore the opportunities and challenges of developing, funding, and selling an inclusive business.