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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 2 discusses a broader, more holistic definition of prosperity and provides a guide to help attain it. Rather than simply describing the economy, community prosperity should include basic needs, quality of life, and community attachment; an example comparing two fictional cities is given. The idea of a prosperous community is mapped onto Maslow's hierarchy of needs. A strong economy is needed to help a community gain social characteristics its residents want. A roadmap is offered to help explore ideas on how to enhance the prosperity of a community and how to approach community-level decisions. Community budgeting is also discussed, comparing it to companies' investment decisions and providing steps to create an effective budget.

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 3 describes the process of community development as a tool to position a community for prosperity. The chapter begins with a discussion on the fundamentals of community development, including strategies such as leadership development, planning, and identifying assets in the community. Community development depends on believing that positive things can happen and on residents working together; having a vision and being creative are also vital. Two types of communities ("sunrise" and "sunset") are described. The community development chain is offered as a framework for community development. Well-being and sustainability are also factors that must be considered. When there is a good foundation of a prosperous-ready community, economic development can then build on that foundation to achieve prosperity.

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 4 builds on the previous chapter, exploring how to create a prosperous community through economic development once there is a solid foundation. A model is given to visualize money flow and wealth within a community. Economic development can be defined differently by different communities; communities should try to avoid economic development outcomes that happen "to them" and try to achieve those that happen "for them." Certain factors, such as transportation infrastructure and available sites, can attract a business to a community; a practical approach to attracting businesses is offered. The economic development stool describes three ways prosperity can increase: business recruitment, business retention and expansion, and new startups. Each of these methods, as well as community enterprise, is discussed. Guidelines on how to organize and fund economic development are also provided.

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 5 offers a summary of key lessons from the text and provides more examples of successful communities. COVID-19 created different challenges for different communities around the world, and long-term changes (a "new normal") may differ between communities. In order to build a prosperous community, what is being built needs to be defined; strategic and budget decisions should be based on the community's vision and definition of prosperity. Community development, or community building, can create a foundation for a prosperous-ready community to build off of with economic development. Once a community achieves its prosperity goals, it needs to continue putting in the work to maintain and support that prosperity.

The case elaborates the relaunch of Chetak, the iconic scooter brand by Bajaj Auto Limited (BAL), from the perspective of brand identity, legacy brands, and brand extension authenticity. It traces the journey of Chetak from being the market leader in the Indian two-wheeler segment in the 1970s and 1980s to its gradual exit from the market in 2005. With the discontinuation of Chetak, BAL completely withdrew from the scooter market in India to build a motorcycle-focused business. The case locates the reader in December 2019, 14 years from BAL's exit from the scooter market. BAL had decided to bring back Chetak and wanted to launch it as a modern electric scooter in 2020. Although Chetak carried a positive legacy from the past, it needed to reconfigure its brand identity to fit with the new electric vehicle category. However, in this reconfiguration, the brand needed to be careful about not losing the authenticity connected to its past. The case focuses on the dilemma facing the protagonists regarding the brand positioning of the revived Chetak.

Through the example of Lenovo Group Limited, this case provides students an opportunity to learn about emerging and advanced digital technologies for supply chain management and operations, and the critical issues that are targeted by these technologies. It can help students learn about technology aspects of 21st century strategies for small and large companies. This case also serves as part of a broader discussion on strategic management and digital transformation of business and supply chain models. Given Lenovo's remarkable rise in the PC business over a relatively short span of three decades, this case is an evolving example of how a company can grow and compete in a mature industry.

This field-based case introduces iFixit, a small business with a mission to change consumer behavior around prosperity so that they would no longer toss away broken products. iFixit offered repair guides and the sale of parts and tools to make repairs on over 30,000 different devices-mostly electronic. iFixit's business model was based on creating more value than it captured-repair was sustainable. iFixit intended to keep electronics out of landfills by providing accessible and easy information for free, so anyone could fix their devices. That plan put the founders Kyle Wiens and Luke Soules head-to-head against industry leaders in the electronics space-large manufacturers that worked against iFixit's efforts to offer repair guides. For nearly 20 years, Wiens and Soules had worked toward giving consumers the right to repair what they owned. What would it take to move the needle so manufacturers would work with, instead of against, iFixit? This cases also explores the concept of forward and reverse loops within the electronics value chain. It's recommended for use with two technical notes: "Regulations and Standards: Electronics Supply Chain" (UVA-OM-1714) and "Electronics Supply Chain Overview" (UVA-OM-1716).

The case presents the real-life situation of XRM Vision, an SME IT consulting firm specializing in the design and implementation of CRM solutions. Like most SMEs, XRM Vision faces major, sometimes conflicting, management challenges such as which growth strategies to pursue while simultaneously increasing process efficiency and urging employees to identify business opportunities while fostering operational excellence. This case focuses on the challenges and difficulties SME managers face in their struggle to strike a balance between exploiting and exploring. The case describes the exploitation-exploration tensions faced by XRM Vision's management since the company's founding and outlines the strategies and actions/practices it has deployed to navigate the choppy waters between exploitation and exploration.

Janice Greer works for NVX Pharmaceuticals, a US firm with increasing global operations. Not long after Greer's promotion to country head for Japan, their boss suggests that widespread layoffs will be needed to help bring performance of the international units in line with domestic operations. Cultural differences between US and Japanese work practices and traditions complicate the decisions Greer faces in dealing with members of their team. How should they navigate this delicate situation?

Mei-Ling Liu has come a long way from her humble beginnings in a small town on the coast of Taiwan. She is in New York City to interview for an assistant professor position at Columbia University's business school. After completing undergraduate studies in Taipei-and following much soul-searching-she had departed for the United States to earn her PhD. Now, six years later and against long odds, she is a step away from a faculty position at the prestigious school. But she finds herself face to face with an unexpected and formidable foe-a very combative interviewer. Can she collect her wits, parry the thrusts, and win the job?

Paul Waddle works for Tripod Capital (Tripod), a venture fund focused on investing globally in fintech start-ups. Ambitious and a self-starter, Waddle is in pursuit of fast-growing the Nigerian payments platform DigitApt. As he enters the final stages of closing a deal, he is confronted with cultural differences between US and Nigerian work practices and traditions. Understanding and appropriately integrating these differences could be the key to adding DigitApt to his portfolio and continuing his steady upward rise at Tripod. This vignette is meant to serve as the kind of scenario one encounters increasingly in the world of business (and society in general) where seemingly opposing forces coexist and require careful analysis, interpretation, and synthesis.

Vimeo, Inc. (Vimeo), led by Anjali Sud, was a New York City-based listed company that operated across the entirety of the video creation and distribution value chain. When the company was spun off from its corporate parent in a May 2021 initial public offering, Vimeo was growing but not yet profitable. As the country and the world was recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, Vimeo and a fast-growing set of competitors were facing the end of a nearly two-year tailwind that had helped them grow very quickly. Sud and her team had to respond to growth and profitability challenges to help Vimeo maintain its industry leadership position.

On December 29, 2021, the independent shareholder advisory firm InGovern Research Services (InGovern) published a report accusing Asian Paints Limited (APL) of corporate governance lapses. Nearly 53 per cent of the shares of APL, which was based in Mumbai, India, were owned by its promoters and their families. InGovern had followed up on a whistle-blower's report claiming that APL had engaged in several related-party transactions but had failed to adequately disclose them in its annual report. InGovern demanded large-scale changes in APL's board of directors, and APL's share price fell by approximately fourteen per cent after the charges were made public. The seven independent members on the company's board had to respond to the accusations.

Integrated Centre for Consultancy Private Limited (ICCPL) was a small company operating in India's public relations (PR) industry. ICCPL was a successful and established company in this industry, with a focus on a niche segment of the market-real estate firms that offered affordable housing and operated on thin margins. ICCPL's strong client relationships had resulted in an excellent track record for executive brand building and a client retention rate of above 75 per cent, which the company boasted as the highest in the market. In December 2018, one of ICCPL's clients requested that the company lower its pricing or risk losing the contract to either a new in-house PR department or a small competitor that was offering a similar service at half the price. ICCPL refused to lower its price and, in June 2019, the client announced its plan to cancel the contract. ICCPL was analyzing all data for client satisfaction and loyalty to determine what went wrong. Should the company attempt to retain this important client? If so, what strategy can the company use?

Spreadsheet supplement for case W27236.

In January 2022, Maha Research Labs Private Limited (MRL) needed to boost its sales force effectiveness (SFE). Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, MRL experienced losses in sales revenue and saw dwindling profits through 2020 and 2021. The pandemic had changed the sales ecosystem of the pharmaceutical industry, with many physicians and retailers now preferring online sales presentations. MRL's managing director was concerned about the increased marketing and selling expenses that were affecting the company's profitability, and he had identified gaps in the company's sales process, performance, and SFE. The managing director proposed investing ₹40 million for the implementation of an SFE program, and he had one week to convince his team that this investment would create a smarter, more efficient sales force, restrain operating costs, and generate much-needed profitability for MRL.

Our story starts in 2001. Mike Caswell, an engineer and early Starbuck's employee, creates a technology that permits better flavor and increased margins, for fresh-roasted coffee in retail stores. Years of engineering and fundraising, franchising, disputes, hopes and frustrations ensue. Jamie Robertson joins in 2017, as both investor and CEO of a new unit in the UK and opens a store in London. The Covid pandemic hits, but Jamie perseveres, as he has realized that it is the customer experience that will make the difference. Jamie and his team open additional stores in London, Jamie is named CEO of the group, and eventually they are successful in raising significant funds for expansion in the UK and the US.

ShotSpotter, Inc. is a company that leverages Internet of Things (IoT) technology and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to provide services to police departments. In 2022, ShotSpotter had over 20,000 sensors deployed in over 125 cities to alert customers when gunshots were detected. In addition, a tool known as Connect uses AI to analyze data and predict where crimes might occur during each patrol shift. The case presents the different products that ShotSpotter offers and describes the roles of data, AI, and IoT in developing the capabilities within the products. The case also presents the ethical dilemma in the use of AI and data-driven policing. The case asks students to assess ShotSpotter's capabilities in 2022 and determine what steps senior management should take to enable the continued growth of the company.

Lucia Fargolo is a dynamic high potential who joined FoodCo - a global fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) company at the beginning of their digital transformation journey. After a promotion to department head, Lucia is preparing the global Social Media Marketing strategy. The implementation should start be piloted with a few brands. While Lucia is planning for the launch of the pilot with the brand category managers, there is however a hiccup: one seasoned brand manager seems to be totally off-board with Lucia's plan. He doesn't even show up for the strategy workshop she organized. What should Lucia do now? The company, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this case are fictitious. No identification with actual persons, places, companies, and products is intended or should be inferred.

In January 2022, Microsoft announces its acquisition of the video game company Activision Blizzard, in a deal valued at $68.7 billion, which would make Microsoft the world's third largest video game company. The deal came as Activision Blizzard faced gender pay disparity and sexual harassment allegations.