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STEPN was a one-year-old lifestyle app designed to incentivize routine physical activities like walking, jogging, and running by providing individual financial rewards for participants. The app was part of the move-to-earn (M2E) category of blockchain games. Within a short time, STEPN had established an exceptional track record of both financial performance and enterprise valuation and had achieved unicorn status. However, by January 2023, the Web 3 app was on the verge of being caught in what was known in the world of blockchain games as a death spiral. The prices of its flagship product and its exchange medium were both dropping, and the company's net profits were also in decline. The co-founders needed to determine not only how to head off a death spiral in the short run but also how to sustain the business in the long run.

Ghost Tree Invitational (Ghost Tree) was established in 2007 as a non-profit organization. In the past, Ryan Chackel, the president of Ghost Tree, had organized a yearly two-day event in Bend, Oregon, to raise funds for donations to local non-profit organizations. The event included a golf tournament on the first day and a large outdoor dinner event on the second day. Ghost Tree had relied on sponsor dollars, donations, and ticket sales in a business model that had worked well until a recent change with the participating venue. In all previous years, the venue was donated free of charge to Ghost Tree, but this changed in 2022; Green Links Golf Resort would no longer be able to support the tournament, and the venue would now be an additional expense. Chackel needed to develop a new business model that would make financial sense while also staying true to the non-profit organization's values. Was there a way to address the financial burden while also maintaining the ability to continuously donate to other non-profit organizations? How could Ghost Tree overcome these financial difficulties?

Zakir Khan, a celebrated Indian comedian, commanded an impressive and vast fan base. Khan's unreserved exhibition of his authentic nature had earned him acclaim not only from his fans but also from fellow artists and the media. It had also allowed him to build a personal brand, leading to widespread appeal that had, in turn, unlocked diverse creative avenues for him that typically remained beyond the reach of conventional comedians. What else had contributed to Khan's personal brand, and what would enhance and sustain that brand identity?

While Microsoft and its allies received immense praise from industry insiders for creating GitHub Copilot, a tool that greatly improved programming accessibility, it faced scrutiny from regulators and ethicists shortly after its launch. A class action suit was filed against them for using the publicly available codes to develop Copilot without informed consent. Ethicists raised concerns about their commitment to ethical and responsible innovation. While Microsoft and allies were being questioned they and several other big technology firms terminated a large numbers of AI ethics personnel. This raised several concerns about ethical and legal oversights in design, development, and deployment of AI-powered innovations like GitHub Copilot.

Established in August 2011 in India, Frontier Markets (FM) was one of the largest social commerce platforms working with women influencers and with a strong following of rural customers. Starting out as a clean-energy product company, FM adopted a gender-smart strategy to bring rural-based women entrepreneurs on board as the company's representatives in rural villages. The company leveraged an extensive network of women entrepreneurs, known as Sahelis, through the Meri Saheli e-commerce app. Using the app, the company delivered products and services in finance, agriculture, health care, climate, digital, and essential services. In 2022, FM had over 20,000 Sahelis working with 432,000 rural families, implementing over 25 million solutions through direct sales and doorstep delivery. The firm's founders considered expanding geographically to become India's largest women-led commerce platform. They wondered how they could add 10 million new customers and generate over US$54.16 million in revenue in the next two years. What was the best option for achieving this ambitious growth: expanding in new markets; adding new product categories; or adding new strategic partners?

Outland provided a global communication and exhibition platform for artists and collectors. Outland conducted art transactions in the form of cryptocurrencies, addressing challenges prevalent in the traditional creator economy. Renowned artist James Jean collaborated with Outland in 2022 to release a new hand-drawn digital art series called Fragments. The series received widespread acclaim. The fans had high expectations for Fragments' narrative derivative work, "Adrift," set to launch in 2023. The platform aimed to establish a fan community centred around Jean and his work. However, fans wanted to interact with the artist and participate in the secondary creation of his work, while also receiving better financial returns. How would Outland establish an intellectual property licensing mechanism to increase non-fungible token (NFT) creators and holders an enhanced financial return?

Global health and wellness industries worldwide have been changing rapidly. In China, traditional Chinese supplements brand Guanzhan was founded in 2014 with the aim to provide younger consumers with new types of supplements that would satisfy their changing needs. The company employed a "New Retail" model to best serve the targeted consumer groups, who, compared to their older counterparts, knew little about traditional medicine and had higher taste and convenience requirements for supplement products. As of when the case was written, Guanzhan's ready-to-eat fish maw products had become one of the leading supplement product categories in the Chinese market. Looking into the future, the company sought to expand their footprint offline and develop new products that would satisfy the offline markets.

The production supervisor of Gupta Furniture was tasked with selecting a mode of production that not only met the demand for the company's best-selling product, the office interior chair, but also minimized the overall cost of production. The firm's operations manager had stressed that the chosen production strategy should enable the company to meet demand at the lowest possible cost. As such, the brief was to prepare a comprehensive aggregate plan based on the forecasted demand scenario, considering how much to produce and when to produce in addition to determining which strategy among those traditionally applied would give the best results. The major challenge lay in planning and scheduling inventory, and determining regular production, overtime production, subcontracting, and employment levels over a medium term of 9 to 15 months, though both the short-term and long-term implications of these quantitative decisions also had to be taken into account.

Steven Erickson, cofounder of the hedge fund Anbec Partners, is trying to determine whether the all-cash offer D.R. Horton has just made for Vidler Water Resources, Inc. (Vidler) is a fair value for Vidler. Vidler's most valuable project is the Fish Springs Ranch pipeline, which was developed to supply water to fast-growing Reno, Nevada. Reno is in Washoe County, which shares water from the Honey Lake aquifer with Lassen County, California. This case presents a history of Reno's water projects, an overview of water regulation and the prior appropriation system in the western United States, and the development of Vidler. There is significant opposition to the Fish Springs Ranch pipeline from California and the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe. The case delves into the legal battles and the financial risks and rewards of Vidler's investments, and ultimately is a discussion of the challenges of investing in water. At the Darden School of Business, this case is taught in the second-year elective, "Global Economics of Water." It fits in the policy module that deals with pricing water, which is a necessary condition for addressing the current water scarcity challenges, at least in water-scarce industrialized countries. The discussion of Reno follows a session on water markets in Australia, and how these have been installed in response to the ongoing droughts there. Needless to say, the case can be taught on its own; it is especially suitable for classes about the water rights system of the western United States, and more broadly, for those about investing in water.

Spreadsheet for Case UV8897.

As a leading education company in China, the New Oriental Education Technology Group is constantly responding to the challenges. In 2021, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and China's "double reduction'"policy, New Oriental was actively engaged in a strategic transformation, seeking new directions. Major actions include joining the live e-commerce track, partnering with farmers and rural enterprises, and selling agricultural products on e-commerce platforms. New Oriental has achieved remarkable results in 2022 by highlighting its unique approach to live e-commerce. However, the company is finding it hard to sustain its current success, so New Oriental needs to determine its future directions.

The founders of SENS Foods (SENS), a Czech sustainable-food small and medium-sized enterprise (SME), wanted to expand the business beyond their home market. SENS was operating in the rapidly growing alternative-protein market using products derived from edible crickets. Due to its increasing profitability and international expansion potential, SENS saw an opportunity to expand into one of more Nordic markets-Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland. SENS had to explore the possible modes of entry and evaluate the most suitable ones. In the short term, SENS had a sustained competitive advantage with its Thailand-based Cricket Lab Ltd. farm and its brand name. SENS's intangible resources-business positioning and messaging, innovation, and research-represented a temporary competitive advantage. For market selection purposes, five cluster criteria were proposed to assess the attractiveness of the identified markets: estimating the level of primary competition, market maturity, market size, country environmental performance, and transportation costs. The founders needed to evaluate the four Nordic countries using these five selection criteria to identify the top two countries for further examination regarding mode of entry and level of competition.

Rijul Jain, the operations supervisor at Grooves Distillery Records (Grooves), is trying to decide if and how to address capacity issues at this boutique vinyl record production facility after receiving a large contract that increased demand significantly. Based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, the small business was started by Josephine "Fina" Leite and her wife, Theresa, to produce vinyl records of modern indie music for vinyl record enthusiasts. Jain must figure out where a bottleneck exists, balance Grooves' line of production workers, and increase production to meet demand.

The case study revolves around Amir Hashem El Dandarawy, the leader of the El Amara tribe in Upper Egypt, who faces two pressing conflicts. El Dandarawy must navigate these conflicts, mediate between the embattled families, and assert his tribe's rights while maintaining neutrality and integrity. The case examines El Dandarawy's leadership style; prominent Western leadership models such as servant leadership, transformational leadership, situational leadership, and ethical leadership; and different approaches to conflict resolution in Arab culture, including mediation, negotiation, consultation, and consensus-building. Students are challenged to compare and contrast Western and Eastern approaches to leadership and conflict resolution.

In late 2022, a difficult period for the cryptocurrency industry persisted, marking the middle of what many considered a "crypto winter." Popular tokens and currencies like Bitcoin and Solana lost over 50 per cent of their value, with other Web 3.0 adjacent technologies following the same path. Debate surrounded the industry at large, and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) flexed its regulatory muscle on a "poster boy" non-fungible token (NFT), Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), in efforts to provide more structure to the NFT market. The chairman of the SEC, Gary Gensler, who was extremely knowledgeable in the crypto space and also considered a tough regulator among the community, had to determine how to classify BAYC. Ultimately, questions surrounding BAYC's legal interpretation were being posed in the SEC's investigation: Should BAYC be regulated as a security? Were investors protected? Should NFTs be considered art? Did BAYC violate security regulations? As one of the leading representatives of the entire $2 trillion crypto industry, the potential regulation of BAYC had major implications for its peers, the underlying technology, and a spectrum of investors.

For over two decades, Paul Delp, the President of Lansdale Warehouse, had faced a daunting challenge; the Stony Creek rail line, which provided rail service to his warehousing business in Lansdale, Pennsylvania (PA), USA, had suffered from deteriorating track conditions and poor service. These issues resulted in delayed and disrupted shipments, lost customers, increased costs, and a decline in customer satisfaction, causing Delp to fear for the viability of his business. Despite several efforts, Delp had struggled to gain the attention of the two Class I railroad companies that jointly owned the rail line to his facility. With over 60 years of business under his belt, Delp faced one of his most significant challenges yet-finding a solution to keep his business afloat.

Innovation in aged care offers opportunities to create positive and inclusive change. Globally, healthcare systems are realizing the importance of customer-focused care, especially, when funding is limited. Residential aged care providers have traditionally focused on ensuring the health and safety of their residents. However, there are opportunities to address residents' needs and enhance their well-being without compromising their health and safety. The case explores a not-for-profit healthcare service organization seeking to make improvements to meals that will improve nutrition, but do not require a significant financial investment. This case examines the role of food and nutrition and also positions the dining experience as a mediator for residents' quality of life.

Digital transformation can be particularly complex in manufacturing because it requires the multistaged integration of physical assets with digital technologies. The authors’ research finds that manufacturers that succeed in adopting transformative tech take a three-stage approach â€" making efficiency gains, leveling up digital capabilities, and then growing via innovation â€" and that they apply the right metrics during each stage.

Target Malaria, a non-profit research consortium, is exploring the application of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology to combat malaria in Sub-Saharan Africa. Its approach uses gene drives, a revolutionary tool, to suppress the population of malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Although gene drives are 5-10 years from being tested in the wild, Target Malaria's strategy of staged implementation has been driven by a thoughtful, highly regulated, and long pathway. The case describes the complexity and technical intricacies of gene drive technology, the stakeholder and community engagement process, ecological and ethical risks with releasing genetically modified organisms into the wild, and the regulatory structure. Since a gene drive has the potential to alter not just a single organism but an entire species, the case raises critical questions central to the deployment of transformative technologies in public health: How can the global community govern technologies when their effects transcend national borders? What are the potential long-term ecological impacts, and how can they be mitigated? How do you balance risks and benefits of a technology like gene drives, given that malaria kills hundreds of thousands of people (mostly children) every year?

In early 2022, Courtney McColgan, founder and CEO of Runa, a human resources and payroll Software-as-a-Service platform, faced an unexpected tech market downturn. Founded in 2018, Runa catered to small and medium-sized businesses in Mexico, offering an affordable and easy-to-use cloud-based solution. McColgan, a serial entrepreneur from Southern California, firmly believed the platform could disrupt Mexico's vast industry, and become a billion-dollar business. After an initial period of rapid growth during its first 18 months of operations, and amidst hiring a new executive team, Runa's growth began to falter as attracting new clients became increasingly hard, and customer acquisition costs increased. In August 2021, Runa raised more funds amidst an unprecedented expansion in venture capital investment in Latin America, and it deployed additional marketing strategies and developed new products to entice customers. However, by early 2022, the venture scenario grew gloomier, and tech companies began to take cautionary measures. How should Runa adapt to a potentially more limited funding scenario and perhaps even less favorable growth prospects in the short run? Would dramatic structural and strategic changes be needed? Or should McColgan consider shutting down her business and create a new venture?