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During the summer of 2022, carmaker BMW introduced postpurchase, subscription-based "functions on demand," and the online response was furious. Having purchased a car with functionalities preinstalled, consumers expect to use the functionalities as and when they wish and without additional charges. BMW was changing this norm and so became the object of derision. We live in an age of "x as a service" and amid a subscription economy, and electronics and software are making their way into all kinds of products-products that are connected to the internet at all times, controlled through apps on mobile devices, and subject to the product maker's "off" and "on" instructions. "Preinstalled functionality as a service" is now technologically possible, the economic pull of recurring revenue is enticing, and perhaps BMW should not be blamed: We are possibly at the threshold of a new way of thinking about durable products and their preinstalled bundle of functions. This article introduces the concept of preinstalled functionality as a service and characterizes how this business-model innovation changes the concepts of durable products, product lines, after-purchase add-ons, and functionality usage rights. I conclude by examining whether and how the innovation may be implemented.

White-collar crime continues to be a central challenge for individuals, organizations, and consumers. Due to the substantial social harm caused by white-collar crime, there has been a focus on prevention and detection strategies, including profiling offenders in an effort to understand their motives, targets, and modus operandi. Despite advances in profiling white-collar offenders, these profiles have relied heavily on the same thirty-year-old, federal-level database limited to major urban areas, which may obscure changes in the sociodemographics of white-collar offenders. Based on Utah's more recent White-Collar Crime Registry, this article seeks to better identify the profiles of modern white-collar offenders. Our findings uncovered three distinct types of white-collar criminals: The Tech Scammer, the Ponzi Schemer, and the Insurance Fraudster. Despite the registry's limitations as a database, we offer recommendations regarding the prevention and detection of such offenders. With a more in-depth understanding of the modern white-collar criminal, managers will be better positioned to manage white-collar crime in the workplace.

The case describes how Zhuiyi, a leading conversational artificial intelligence (AI) start-up in China, developed its growth strategy and made transitions in the face of product commercialization challenges. The crux lies in the low customer satisfaction rate of AI products, which could be endogenously attributed to mismatched expectations among customers and the founding team in the product development process as well as to the lack of vertical industry knowledge among executives and employees. Zhuiyi needs to make a strategic choice between: a) developing new AI products by making large and risky research-and-development investments or b) devoting more resources to product customization and expanding the market through client diversification.

Child Rights and You (CRY) was a non-governmental organization (NGO) started in 1979 in India. The organization experienced pan-Indian growth and later expanded to international locations. While CRY was partnering with state governments to increase its impact and reach, the global environment was shifting toward sustainable development. At the same time, the Indian government statutorily mandated companies with a specific turnover or net worth to spend 2 per cent of their profits on corporate social responsibility activities. In 2022, CRY's chief executive officer, Puja Marwaha, had four focus areas: education, health and nutrition, child safety and protection, and children's participation in improving their lives. She was looking at scaling up the organization and faced four major challenges: funding, regulatory compliance, employee retention, and technology infrastructure. Marwaha was in a dilemma about how to obtain more support from corporates as well as increase the impact of funding.

Student spreadsheet for Ivey product W21155.

In May 2021, the majority shareholder and chief executive officer of Ontrak Inc., a US health care services company, established two 10b5-1 trading plans to sell approximately one million shares of stock he acquired by exercising expiring warrants. Before he began the process to execute the first 10b5-1 plan, Ontrak Inc. had just lost its largest client. Three days into the process for the second 10b5-1 trading plan, the company announced that it was losing another major client. On March 1, 2023, two concurrent insider trading lawsuits were filed against the chief executive officer by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and by the United States Department of Justice. The lawsuits contended that he sold his stock the day after filing the plans instead of waiting a set number of days, commonly known as a "cooling-off" period. However, the chief executive officer was arguing that a cooling-off period was not mandatory when he sold his stock, insisting that the "government [had] clearly overreached in this case." He was forced to prepare a defence against two separate lawsuits filed against him.

Lisa LaFlamme was the trusted face of CTV National News. In 2022, she was at the height of her career. It was therefore a shock to her colleagues and viewers when, on August 15, 2022, she posted a video on Twitter to announce that she had been abruptly ousted from CTV by its parent company, Bell Media Inc. (Bell Media). Bell Media was hit with seemingly never-ending waves of negative press, including speculation that sexism and ageism had been the reasons behind LaFlamme's ousting. The choice to get rid of LaFlamme, and the manner in which that choice was exercised, had lasting negative effects that Bell Media surely had not anticipated. Looking back, was replacing LaFlamme unequivocally the wrong choice? Or could it have been handled in a way that would have prevented such backlash?

First Place Winner; 2023 DEI Global Case Writing Competition American clothing company Levi Strauss & Co. (LS&Co.) had a diverse workforce and prided itself on not discriminating against employees based on their race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender. LS&Co. reported treating its employees equally and with gender pay parity. It had diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) initiatives in place. However, in May 2020 the company recognized that women held a minority of higher-level positions and Latinx/Hispanic and Black employees were underrepresented, as well. Consequently, the company hired Elizabeth A. Morrison as its new chief diversity, inclusion & belonging officer. Morrison's challenges included developing a talent pipeline of Black designers; ensuring pay equity in all the company's markets; improving the recruitment and retention of a diverse workforce; and establishing an ongoing inclusive culture. With LS&Co. as an example of a firm with both DE&I shortcomings and accomplishments, students can understand the concepts of diversity, racial discrimination, pay parity, gender equity, and inclusion, and how to apply them in business settings.

"This case follows the decision-making process of Erik Wolfe, senior product marketing manager at Sound Agriculture, an agriculture technology company, to develop a go-to-market strategy for a new product. Founded in 2013 and financed through venture capital, Sound Agriculture was generating revenue by 2020 thanks to the success of its flagship product, the foliar spray SOURCE. It is now April 2022 and Sound Agriculture needs to quickly explore options for continuous revenue growth to hedge against a potentially slower venture capital investment pace. An initial feasibility study identified a viable opportunity in entering the turfgrass market with a SOURCE-inspired derivative product. The study suggested that a 5% share of the golf course market was obtainable within five years. Wolfe has a timeline and high-level strategy but faces many challenges including: Defining the target market and developing a product name, logo and packaging; projecting future financial scenarios based on assumptions; aligning Sound Agriculture's sustainability mission with the golf course market. Students will use a supplemental MS Excel worksheet (that accompanies the case) to guide them in preparing and analyzing financial data to support their marketing strategy decisions."

"This case follows the decision-making process of Erik Wolfe, senior product marketing manager at Sound Agriculture, an agriculture technology company, to develop a go-to-market strategy for a new product. Founded in 2013 and financed through venture capital, Sound Agriculture was generating revenue by 2020 thanks to the success of its flagship product, the foliar spray SOURCE. It is now April 2022 and Sound Agriculture needs to quickly explore options for continuous revenue growth to hedge against a potentially slower venture capital investment pace. An initial feasibility study identified a viable opportunity in entering the turfgrass market with a SOURCE-inspired derivative product. The study suggested that a 5% share of the golf course market was obtainable within five years. Wolfe has a timeline and high-level strategy but faces many challenges including: Defining the target market and developing a product name, logo and packaging; projecting future financial scenarios based on assumptions; aligning Sound Agriculture's sustainability mission with the golf course market. Students will use a supplemental MS Excel worksheet (that accompanies the case) to guide them in preparing and analyzing financial data to support their marketing strategy decisions."

Second Place Winner; 2023 DEI Global Case Writing Competition Rhino Foods is a U.S.-based Benefit Corporation (B Corp) owned and operated by the Castle family. A food ingredients supplier to global brands, the company grew to $60 million in annual revenue by 2019. Rhino Foods was best known for inventing and manufacturing the cookie dough found in Ben & Jerry's top-selling ice cream flavor. The case's central topic is how Rhino creatively emphasized inclusive hiring and retention, though balancing people-centric, product quality, and financial goals were continuing challenges. Many Rhino employees were new Americans who came through waves of refugee resettlement programs. Integrating these non-English-speakers into a production floor laden with heavy machinery necessitated investments such as translating the operations manual, adding subtitles to training videos, and pairing new employees with experienced workers with the same native language. Religious and cultural factors new to Rhino became important, as well. Rhino then began to recruit people who had dropped out of the labor force, including coming out of incarceration or rehabilitation for substance use. It created a No Background Checks program to remove barriers to entry like proof of past experience or having a criminal history. Students are challenged to suggest how the leadership team can better understand employee turnover, provide innovative methods of support, alleviate employee concerns regarding new hires, and continue to grow the company in a healthy way.

Honorable Mention; 2023 DEI Global Case Writing Competition This case combines a strategy issue (merger) encompassing the disciplines of organizational behavior and human resource management. Issues related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) are intertwined in the case, ranging from gender discrimination to sociocultural and hierarchical social class discrimination. The case provides a glimpse into one context (Peru), using a realistic fictional situation, as an example relatable across cultures and a variety of industry and organizational settings. In less than two years, Sweet Mountain Bakery (SMB) lost substantial market share in Peru's cookie market. Top management was shocked to find the main reason was the high-growth performance of a relatively small firm in the country's Andes Mountains area, All You Knead (AYK). The competition became so fierce that employees of SMB and AYK regarded each other as rivals to defeat. In late 2022, after several aggressive yet ineffective competitive moves, SMB solved the situation with a buyout of AYK. Unanticipated in this merger was a set of serious DEIB challenges that emerged post-acquisition. Negativity between the two groups of employees undermined company efforts to attain synergy and efficiency and increase productivity. Students put themselves in the shoes of Victoria Huaman, SMB's new human resources vice president. She is the only woman and the only previous AYK manager among the direct reports to the CEO. Her task is to prepare a report addressing not only DEI issues but also the issue of belonging.

Spreadsheet Supplement for Case UV5969

Israeli generative artificial intelligence company AI21 Labs was founded in 2017 to realize the vision of true machine intelligence. It sought to reinvent writing and reading and in 2020 it launched Wordtune, an app using GenAI software to offer alternate text suggestions to help improve users' prose; in 2021 it released Wordtune Read, an app that summarized documents. In 2021 the company unveiled its first Large Language Model (LLM), and it also offered five application program interfaces on its Studio platform. Following a 2023 partnership with Amazon Bedrock, AI21 Labs' LLM was available to third parties. After Generative AI burst onto the global scene in 2022, AI21 Labs considered the best strategy to stay relevant among tech giants in the GenAI arena.

As 2017 was drawing to a close, birddogs' founder and CEO, Peter Baldwin, was working with his CFO Jack Sullivan to prepare for 2018. Their task at hand? To predict the demand for their product in the coming season, determine the appropriate investments in working capital, and explore financing options. birddogs was a nascent direct-to-consumer apparel brand that had carved its niche in men's athletic shorts. The firm was coming off a stellar year, having more than doubled its sales over the previous year. This swift expansion, however, wasn't without its fair share of challenges-primarily in managing working capital, with inventory being the chief concern. The speed of birddogs' growth caught its inventory management off-guard, resulting in out-of-stock situations for about one-third of its products during 2017. Historically, the company had followed a conservative approach to inventory investment, which often led to stockouts. Baldwin had always favored this prudent approach to ensure the company did not overextend itself. Yet, times were changing. Encouraged by the prospect of increased visibility from upcoming publicity, Baldwin and Sullivan began to entertain the idea of a bolder, more aggressive investment strategy. The future was bright, and they were prepared to seize it.

As 2017 was drawing to a close, birddogs' founder and CEO, Peter Baldwin, was working with his CFO Jack Sullivan to prepare for 2018. Their task at hand? To predict the demand for their product in the coming season, determine the appropriate investments in working capital, and explore financing options. birddogs was a nascent direct-to-consumer apparel brand that had carved its niche in men's athletic shorts. The firm was coming of a stellar year, having more than doubled its sales over the previous year. This swift expansion, however, wasn't without its fair share of challenges-primarily in managing working capital, with inventory being the chief concern. The speed of birddogs' growth caught its inventory management off-guard, resulting in out-of-stock situations for about one-third of its products during 2017. Historically, the company had followed a conservative approach to inventory investment, which often led to stockouts. Baldwin, had always favored this prudent approach to ensure the company did not overextend itself. Yet, times were changing. Encouraged by the prospect of increased visibility from upcoming publicity, Baldwin and Sullivan began to entertain the idea of a bolder, more aggressive investment strategy. The future was bright, and they were prepared to seize it.

In late 2021, Ben Carr, Director of Analytics and Capital Modeling at Aviva Plc (Aviva)-a leading insurer with core operations in the UK, Ireland and Canada,-was preparing for an upcoming presentation before the company's board which included its CEO, Amanda Blanc, featuring the results of Aviva's performance in the Climate Biennial Exploratory Scenario (CBES) exercise mandated by the Bank of England. The CBES required all major banks and insurers in the country to formally assess the financial risks arising from both the physical impacts of climate change and the transition to a net zero economy. As Carr was in the final stages of refining and updating the CBES findings, he and his team were tasked with discerning how potential climate change consequences might influence each element on Aviva's balance sheet. Additionally, the team was charged with not only evaluating the existing assets and liabilities on Aviva's balance sheet, but also pondering the future operations of the business. Carr was aware that assessing climate risk was a complex task, fraught with its unique set of challenges and limitations. He was prepared to further discuss these issues, as he knew the board would be keen to delve deeper into their intricacies.

In January 2022, the vice-president of technology for Nata Supermarkets was reviewing the company's performance against its competitors for the 2021 calendar year. The company had been performing poorly both based on its internal metrics and against competitor growth rates. The vice-president also noticed that many competitors began revealing new data analytics initiatives in their annual reports. Many companies experienced industry-leading growth because of these changes and upgraded their guidance for the following year. To compete with an increasing number of data-driven competitors, Nata Supermarket created its internal data set to collect information on customer shopping habits and customer demographics such as age, educational background, and frequency of complaints. With the emergence of visualization tools and data analytics, the vice-president was wondering what useful insights could be drawn from its internal data set. Could this information be useful to resolve various issues such as targeting promotions and forecasting demand?