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Birla Carbon, a flagship business of the nearly $60-billion global conglomerate and India-headquartered Aditya Birla Group (ABG), is one of the world's top manufacturers and suppliers of high-quality carbon black. The largest among its 16 manufacturing plants is Birla Carbon Egypt (BCE), situated in the port city of Alexandria. BCE started its operations in 1994, to become the first carbon black manufacturing unit in Egypt and the Middle East. Over three decades it has grown to become a leading exporter in the region, playing a significant role in the Egyptian economy. However, the journey has not been without its challenges as BCE has tackled political unrest and frequent changes in government, besides growing concerns about pollution. Given Egypt's recent volatile political history, would BCE be able to successfully continue to separate business from politics? More broadly, what would BCE's success or failure mean on a global scale? As India seeks to grow into a great power, how would its economic footprint abroad distinguish it from other great powers? Could BCE represent a new, Indian version of FDI?

In 1898, two Black entrepreneurs from Durham, North Carolina-barber John Merrick and medical doctor Aaron McDuffie Moore-put pen to paper and founded the North Carolina Mutual and Provident Association (the Mutual). They would soon be joined by a third partner-an energetic young salesman named Charles Clinton Spaulding. This "triumvirate" faced long odds. While there was a long tradition of Black mutual aid societies-religious organizations that charged dues and paid members a small sum in the event of a death or emergency-operating a for-profit insurance company catering to the Black community presented several challenges. By the 1890s, an increasing number of Southern Blacks had the resources to afford a basic life insurance policy, but few had experience buying life insurance or knew why it was necessary.

In May 2021, Warner Bros. Discovery was created as a merger of AT&T's WarnerMedia division with Discovery Inc. In mid-2022, this company would begin to operate as a standalone company, led by CEO David Zaslav and a 13-person board of directors. In this case, students will learn about the competitive dynamics driving the media industry, the major players, and the M&A process.

In January 2020, two social entrepreneurs were looking back at the first five years of operation of their venture JioVio Healthcare. The entrpreneurs had designed, developed, and implemented their cloud-based Internet of Things software Savemom. Using feedback from key stakeholders, Savemom assisted in the early detection of preventable complications during pregnancy and safe delivery, especially for expectant mothers in rural India, with a goal to reduce India's maternal mortality ratio (MMR). Using an iterative process, Senthilkumar collaborated with various stakeholders in central and southern parts of rural India to enhance and implement the Savemom software. To achieve the socially-conscious goal behind the Savemom software, the team developed a wearable device for use by each expectant mother, as well as a medical measurement device and an online platform for healthcare providers to access the health information of patients. After several iterations of prototypes based on process outcomes and feedback from stakeholders, the Savemom software, devices, and process seemed to have achieved its ultimate goal. But when one of the entrepreneurs visited doctors to get their feedback, they expressed great dissatisfaction with the vast amount of patient information to check each day on the portal, which was increasing their workload almost ten times. The two social entrepreneurs had to find a way to address the genuine issues the doctors had raised.

USV Private Limited (USV), an Indian pharmaceutical company, launched three comparative advertising campaigns for its Sebamed cleansing bar in January 2021, targeting the soap bars of Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) based on the bars' pH values. Without delay, HUL filed a lawsuit against USV on grounds of disparaging its brands, infringing upon its trademarks, and misleading of consumers. The Bombay High Court restrained USV from continuing with the campaigns, but later vacated that order and delivered another order that permitted USV to continue with one of the three campaigns, directed modifications for the other two, and restrained the company from categorizing soaps as "safe" and "not safe" based on their pH values. HUL eventually began a campaign to refute the pH rationale used in USV's advertisements. USV now had questions to consider: Would consumers buy its Sebamed cleansing bar for the bar's "ideal" pH level as communicated in the ads, or was it time to change its advertising strategy?

In May, 2020, Rio Tinto PLC, a global mining company, blasted a 46,000-year-old Aboriginal site in the Juukan Gorge, an area in Western Australia. While Rio Tinto's actions were legal, the company was nonetheless widely criticized for its blasting of the sacred site, which contained remains and artefacts dating back tens of thousands of years. Furthermore, investigations revealed that Rio Tinto had knowledge of the sacred nature of the site. Internal investigations also revealed that the company had earmarked the site as being important to the Aboriginal peoples. The reaction to the blast was swift and unforgiving.

Role play assignments for product W26681.

Patrice Mousseau was an Indigenous woman in Canada who founded an organic skin care company, Satya. From Satya's modest beginnings and early challenges, the company had several subsequent successes before Mousseau faced significant challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Mousseau' s Indigenous values and influences shaped her approach to launching and developing Satya. Additionally, Mousseau's collaboration with a women-only network of investors (SheEO) and the support they offered not only aligned with her desire to achieve social change and impact through Satya, but also proved to be a vital virtual lifeline during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In June 2020, the vice-president of Ginjalrein India Corporation was meeting with three members from the client organization Nierejia Care. The meeting was to discuss the deteriorating relationship between the two companies. The relationship between the two companies had been difficult for most of 2019, something which had threatened the contract between the two partners. These initial issues had been resolved in March 2020 following high-level interventions and collaborations between key members from both organizations. <br><br/>Unfortunately, the subsequent outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 threatened to derail the partnership once again. Both organizations faced significant challenges as a result the pandemic; lockdowns and pandemic measures forced escalated costs, increased uncertainties on various fronts, and threatened the survival of both organizations. Ginjalrein India Corporation was required to make manufacturing operations decisions that Nierejia Care viewed as a breach of contract. The upcoming round of negotiations in June 2020, as these companies sought to find middle ground and yet support their own interests, would be critical for both parties.

Student Spreadsheet to accompany product W26681.

This case set is part of the Giving Voice to Values (GVV) curriculum. To see other material in the GVV curriculum, please visit http://store.darden.virginia.edu/giving-voice-to-values. Dax Enzo is the director of the ethical machine learning and responsible artificial intelligence (AI) team at a large US-based social media company, SOCIALCORP. In their young tenure, Enzo must decide whether to release research that their team conducted on the algorithmic amplification of political content on SOCIALCORP. The research shows that SOCIALCORP's content recommendation algorithm amplifies political content of right-leaning individuals and news outlets more than it amplifies content from the political left, but it does not (yet) explain why. Additionally, the research is difficult for laypeople to understand because it is very technical, complex, and multilayered. The research is submitted to a peer-reviewed journal, but the journal takes a long time to conduct the review, in part because it can work only with an aggregated data set: the complete data set cannot be made accessible due to user privacy concerns. Enzo decides it is their responsibility to publish the research as soon as possible, even without peer review and with the risk that the research could be perceived as unsubstantiated or superficial. In this A case, Enzo's challenge is to devise a strategic action plan that facilitates SOCIALCORP's support of releasing the research without peer review. This case set is intended for use at the graduate level in business and science, technology, engineering, and math, (STEM) classrooms, for example in courses on ethics and technology, responsible data and computer science (including machine learning and AI), or technology management. It could also be taught to advanced undergraduates who have developed a foundation in GVV or ethics and technology.

This case set is part of the Giving Voice to Values (GVV) curriculum. To see other material in the GVV curriculum, please visit http://store.darden.virginia.edu/giving-voice-to-values. Dax Enzo is the director of the ethical machine learning and responsible artificial intelligence (AI) team at a large US-based social media company, SOCIALCORP. In their young tenure, Enzo must decide whether to release research that their team conducted on the algorithmic amplification of political content on SOCIALCORP. The research shows that SOCIALCORP's content recommendation algorithm amplifies political content of right-leaning individuals and news outlets more than it amplifies content from the political left, but it does not (yet) explain why. Additionally, the research is difficult for laypeople to understand because it is very technical, complex, and multilayered. The research is submitted to a peer-reviewed journal, but the journal takes a long time to conduct the review, in part because it can work only with an aggregated data set: the complete data set cannot be made accessible due to user privacy concerns. Enzo decides it is their responsibility to publish the research as soon as possible, even without peer review and with the risk that the research could be perceived as unsubstantiated or superficial. In the A case, Enzo's challenge is to devise a strategic action plan that facilitates SOCIALCORP's support of releasing the research without peer review. In this B case, students learn about Enzo's actual action plan, discuss its implications, and reflect on how these strategic steps can inform their own professional practice vis-à-vis the enactment of their values. This case set is intended for use at the graduate level in business and science, technology, engineering, and math, (STEM) classrooms, for example in courses on ethics and technology, responsible data and computer science (including machine learning and AI), or technology management. It could also be taught

Sylvia's Restaurant, approaching its sixtieth anniversary this August, is a testament to the values instilled by the matriarch herself, Sylvia Woods. Despite living through an era of racial oppression and poverty, Sylvia accessed financing and established her financial independence within the restaurant community in Harlem, NY. It was there she cultivated a community inside the walls that would eventually stand as Sylvia's. Ten years since her passing - amid business expansions, succession planning and a global pandemic - the legacy of Sylvia Woods continues to live on. The question now is: what should the next 60 years of Sylvia's look like?

In 2015, David Crane was the CEO of NRG, the second-largest energy producer in the United States. NRG got most of its power from fossil fuels, but Crane - hired as CEO in 2003 as NRG emerged from bankruptcy - had invested heavily in alternative energy, loudly proclaiming the business benefits of being a leader on climate change. But by 2015, facing investor and board pressure, Crane was forced to spin off NRG's renewable assets, marking the end of his bold strategy.

Kovi, a car rental startup located in Sao Paulo, Brazil, provides affordable access to rental cars for rideshare drivers. The case examines the origins of the company, provides background on the auto and rideshare industries in Brazil, and follows the CEO, Adhemar Milani Neto, as he evaluates options for growing the company.

Doodlage Retail LLP (Doodlage), a sustainable fashion brand based in India, was based on an idea that had come to the co-founder while she was interning with export houses. There, she witnessed large-scale discarding of fabric waste, which found its way to landfills and became a major source of pollution. Doodlage utilized the practices of circularity-repairing, reusing, refurbishing, and recycling-to transform industrial waste into women's apparel. With time, the company came to collaborate with numerous players and extended into categories like home furnishings, accessories, and men's apparel. Relying primarily on social media and e-commerce sites to market its wares, Doodlage slowly built a niche for itself. After nearly a decade, awareness of sustainable fashion, ethical fashion, and slow fashion had risen, and a number of competitors had emerged, heating up the competitive landscape. Doodlage thus faced multiple future challenges and needed to decide whether to continue to focus on the niche it had created for itself or to go mainstream. What was the optimal way forward?

Second Place Winner; 2022 DEI Global Case Writing Competition. This case features a high-performing employee, Fatima Hassan, with an invisible disability and whose career may also be affected by her gender and religious identity. Traits related to Hassan's autism contribute to her success but also present challenges, so she seeks out a disability accommodation that could be perceived as a perk by her peers. She would also like to be considered for a promotion. Her manager must decide how to respond to the initial accommodation request while also assessing whether Hassan's disability is relevant when making a promotion decision. All this takes place in a unionized setting in which the collective agreement must be respected, creating decision-making constraints. The case is fictionalized but based on actual experiences and companies.

Third Place Winner; 2022 DEI Global Case Writing Competition. Ashima Patel, senior vice president and chief diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) officer at Shoppers Market, a global retailer, has made progress but needs to do more, especially regarding decreasing representation of women of color in the company. In the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd and effects of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Shoppers Market, like other companies across corporate America, has been called upon to show that it is advancing racial equity with how it hires, promotes, and does business. While Shoppers Market had established a diversity office in 2007, the company wanted to redouble its commitment to DEI and hired Patel in October 2020 to lead the charge. With Patel's leadership, the company made significant strides in DEI and released its first-ever mid-year DEI report in September 2021. However, Shoppers Market was facing a challenge that most of corporate America was grappling with: a lack of improvement in representation for women of color. Though women of color represented about one in four U.S. employees at Shoppers Market in mid-year 2021, they made up just 4.3% of people at the officer level-people with president or vice president in their titles. Despite an increase in hiring, the representation of women of color at Shoppers Market had declined by 8% overall, and by 33% in leadership positions, over the last five years. This declining representation was a growing cause for concern for the CEO, James Spyers. He had committed to showing sustained improvement in representation for women of color in leadership positions by 2025 and was due to present a solid plan to the board of directors by the end of 2021. Patel and her team knew they needed to quickly understand and address the underlying causes. This case provides insights into a key aspect of DEI: intersectionality and its implications for the corporate world. Students will explore the challenges facing women of

First Place Winner; 2022 DEI Global Case Writing Competition. Cara Sabin (she), a Black woman, became the CEO of Sundial Brands in 2019. The Sundial beauty brands focus on the personal care needs of Black women and men. In 2017, Unilever acquired Sundial Brands in a deal valued at $1.6 billion, one of the largest beauty and personal care deals in the United States to date and the largest consumer products deal involving a majority Black-owned company. Key to the acquisition was that Unilever agreed to allow Sundial to operate as a separate, autonomous company. As Sundial's CEO, Sabin was the public face of the brand. She was regularly interviewed and her picture was used for in-store marketing materials. Her personal values aligned strongly with Sundial Brands' mission and purpose. However, the company was still owned by Unilever, where the top executives were white men. As part of the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, customers started increasing their support for Black-owned businesses while calling for the boycott of white-owned businesses that marketed to the Black community. It was in this environment in June 2020 that Sabin reviewed online attacks on SheaMoisture, Sundial's flagship brand, for being owned by Unilever. Sabin needed to decide how SheaMoisture should address this crisis. Should she wait to see if it would blow over? If not, what was the correct communication strategy? As a Black woman, was she willing to incur the personal attacks that would inevitably occur if she responded?

Communities can thrive and grow, or they can struggle and decline, but what causes these two outcomes? Attracting and nurturing businesses and organizations is essential to creating vibrant economies, successful communities, and a higher quality of life. Political leaders and average community residents should know about economic and community development; shared knowledge and full participation from everyone will ultimately help communities flourish. In Rebooting Local Economies, the authors use their experience helping domestic and global communities prosper to offer a practical guide for others who want to help communities reach their goals and thrive; each chapter gives real-life examples and suggests concrete actions anyone can take within any community. In a constantly changing environment, communities and even larger regions can attain and maintain prosperity through better jobs, public services, and amenities. Chapter 1 explores the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, looking at it through a community and economic development lens and putting it in historical perspective. Change, especially sudden change, can be difficult.. The phrase new normal is being used to describe how society has changed long-term due to the virus; the validity of this idea is discussed by looking at generational impacts, economic impacts, and how the structure of jobs has changed. Some pandemic-related changes will probably continue, and these changes can offer both challenges and opportunities for communities. For example, COVID-19 increased the rate of people moving out of big cities; this shift could be beneficial or not depending on how companies and communities react.