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This note describes some of the most significant agricultural innovations in the Netherlands, their drivers, environmental performance implications, some challenges facing the sector, and the potential replicability of these innovations to other contexts.

Generative AI refers to a type of artificial intelligence (AI) that can create new content (e.g., text, image, or audio) in response to a prompt from a user. ChatGPT, Bard, and Claude are examples of text generating AIs, and DALL-E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion are examples of the image-generating variety. During training, a generative AI learns the underlying structure of the desired output by absorbing a mass of relevant data - all of the books in the public domain, for example, or petabytes of text scraped from across the internet. Once trained, generative AIs work by creating outputs that recreate, with calculated variation, the underlying patterns learned in training. In 2023, all these types of generative AI were created in a similar process. At the core of any generative AI system is the model, a mathematical representation of patterns that forms the basis of 'knowledge' for the system. The structure of the model is determined by its architecture, the theoretical organization of parameters in an artificial neural networks that the system uses to generate its outputs. To learn, the model relies on a mountain of training data, a collection of examples relevant to the task the model is being trained to perform. During an initial pre-training process, the model learns to adjust its parameter-weights (assumed by the architecture), improving its prediction quality with many iterations over time; that model is further refined through a fine-tuning process. Training an AI system requires specialized hardware, like GPUs in data centers, that consume enormous amounts of electricity to handle heavy and massively-parallel computational loads.

Women's empowerment means empowering women on multiple dimensions: economically, psychologically, socially, and politically. Historically, women have suffered from disproportionately reduced access to resources and opportunities. Financial literacy and inclusion are especially important to overcome the dependence of women on their husbands. This aspect is more important in situations where the husband-wife relationship was strained for a variety of reasons. Shikha Mittal founded Be.artsy to empower women to speak up and manage their finances, with financial literacy and consequent empowerment acting as the impetus for overall women's empowerment. Experiences of sexual harassment at the workplace and domestic violence prompted Mittal to design and offer programs to corporates. These programs aimed to address the above problems through customized training programs for employees of these companies, which comprised Be.artsy's business to business (B2B) markets. Although these programs were supplemented with street plays and interventions in colleges, the B2B channel was the primary channel Be.artsy used to reach out to women; it generated revenue and created an impact. Be.artsy chose financial literacy as the key pillar for women's empowerment and drove its programs through tie-ups with institutions. With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mittal launched an online program, Be Your Own Lakshmi (BYOL), that imparted financial literacy education. With free initial sessions that demonstrated the importance of financial planning and promotions through social media, BYOL had garnered some traction, with many people wanting to sign up for the paid BYOL offering. However, Mittal's desire to use BYOL as a vehicle to speed up the achievement of her vision of empowering millions of women remained unfulfilled. She needed to choose the right approach to scale BYOL, but the dilemma remained: Should she scale BYOL using the B2B or business to consumer (B2C) route?

In December 2021, Valiant Capital Partners (VCP) is in the middle of bidding for Citrix Systems, Inc. (Citrix), to take the company private via a leveraged buyout (LBO). The auction of the renowned desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) company had attracted a number of bidders. VCP's initial bid of $15 billion ($92 per share) had allowed the fund to move to the final bidding round. Now with broader access to the company and its management, VCP has to revise its bid. Mohan Bhargav and William Hill, both with VCP and working on the Citrix deal, learn that Vista Equity Partners (Vista) has partnered with Elliott Investment Management (Elliott) to enter the bidding. Elliott bidding was not a big surprise. This activist investor had a subsidiary private equity (PE) firm created specifically to pursue private investments in mature tech companies. Plus, by December 2021, Elliott had amassed more than 10% of Citrix shares. Joined by Vista, an established leader in the field of technology-focused PE investments, the pair made a formidable opponent. It didn't help that one of Vista's portfolio companies, TIBCO, was a perfect roll-up candidate to pair with Citrix. In this David-versus-Goliath situation, Bhargav and Hill needs to figure out how much higher they can push VCP's bid and what the chances are that the VistaElliott consortium could outbid VCP. The case offers an opportunity for students to (a) evaluate classic LBO structures, cash flows, incentives, returns, and risks; (b) introduce the related roll-up PE investing strategy and associated risk/return investment profiles; and (c) evaluate the role of leverage in LBOs' success.

Spreadsheet Supplement for Case UV8879

The case outlines how the strategy for launching rice bran oil, a less consumed edible oil, was modified with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Tirupati oil by NK Proteins is one of the top 3 edible oils sold in Gujarat. Three months before the launch of the rice bran oil, the director passed away. With pandemic restrictions still in force, there was a change in the management with the next generation taking over. Amidst this chaos, the rice bran oil was launched. Within a year of its launch, it became the market leader in Gujarat. To achieve this goal, the company did three things differently from the competition. First, it focused on affordability and marketed it to the masses unlike their competitors who portrayed it as a premium product for a niche customer base. Second, they weighed on their huge distribution network and created a push product by directly supplying rice bran oil to the distributors rather than going through the traditional via the traders, and third, they positioned the oil as an immunity booster vis-à-vis the heart-healthy positioning adopted by other players. After this successful launch, the next plan of action was to professionalise NK Proteins from its traditional way of working. The new MD, Priyam Patel, felt that this was the only way to expand the business and take it to the next level. But would the personnel working with the company since before Priyam was born be receptive towards the change? Furthermore, the nearest competitor, Fortune, was looking to gain lost ground and thus posed a new challenge. Tirupati had always positioned its product as a healthy and immunity booster oil. With other competitors also highlighting the health benefits of their oil, Tirupati needed to strengthen its competitive positioning. Could a consumer survey provide them insights to evaluate their positioning strategy?

Critics of stock buybacks allege that the practice is a form of market manipulation that allows insiders to unfairly profit and sacrifices long-term growth. The authors conducted a large-sample study of stock buybacks over the past 30 years in the U.S. and did not find a correlation between share repurchases and price manipulation, return reversals, excess CEO compensation, or underinvestment. A ban could, however, impose costs on U.S. public companies and other stakeholders.

This field-based case introduces students to the challenges of building a professional brand through the lens of a college athlete. Since the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA's) landmark decision in 2021, college-level student athletes have been able to monetize their name, image, and likeness (NIL). Brian Gursky is finishing his collegiate pitching career at the University of Virginia after playing for four years at the University of Southern California and earning a business degree there. He hopes to play professional baseball, and his backup plan is to work in business. Gursky realizes that he might not have been fully leveraging social media to achieve either of his professional goals. Students investigate Gursky's tweets and assess what they communicate about him to potential scouts, coaches, NIL sponsors, and business recruiters. They learn that as athletes (and students) seek to become more professional, they need to use social media not as a vehicle to communicate with friends but as an advertising and promotion platform to establish their athlete or professional brands. This case is well suited for undergraduate and graduate (e.g., MBA) courses in core marketing, marketing strategy, sports marketing, sports management, advertising, promotion, strategic partnerships/alliances, brand management, or brand strategy. It can also be used in executive education courses to help business leaders identify, analyze, and recommend improvements in leveraging social media to build a professional brand. Finally, athletic departments can use it to introduce collegiate athletes to the rules and protocols for conducting themselves appropriately in today's high-pressure collegiate sport environment.

In December 2022, Maruti Suzuki India Limited (Maruti Suzuki), the undisputed leader in the Indian car market, was evaluating the various alternatives for its continued growth and sustained performance. In 2015, building on the company's success selling no-frills cars, Maruti Suzuki launched its New Exclusive Automotive Experience (NEXA) line to attract customers who were seeking advanced car models. However, the emergence of electric vehicles posed a key challenge for Maruti Suzuki specifically because it lacked capabilities in this arena. To achieve continued growth and performance, Maruti had to prioritize among three alternatives: building upon its success in selling used cars, further building on the NEXA line, and aggressively trying to launch new electric vehicle models.

In October 2022, Priyanka Bhat, the project manager leading a project for Fintech Solutions, was contemplating her options to handle issues plaguing the project. Foremost among them was to find an effective solution to the many conflicts between the team's business analyst, Jada Goodwin, and the other team members. Although Goodwin was a competent employee and liked by the client, she had been accused by several team members of creating a hostile work environment. Bhat needed to quickly devise a plan that restored a collegial team environment and ensured on-time delivery of the project to the client.

In this Executive Focus, the authors follow up with Dr. Brian Kropp, chief of research and group vice president at Gartner Research, Inc., on a previous interview about the work-from-home trend. Dr. Kropp explains where the trend stands currently as well as where managers can expect it to change in their organizations.

Many industries and their offerings have fallen victim to managerial shortsightedness. Firms often believe they are invincible and see themselves as immune to threats from seemingly unrelated technologies. There seemed to be no apparent link between bound paper books and the emerging internet, no discernible ties between the video rental business and streaming technologies, and no obvious connections between photography and cellular phones. When these associations were established by means of other, newer technologies, major incumbent firms such as Barnes & Noble, Blockbuster, and Kodak came crashing down. CRISPR is the technology of the moment, one that will enable the programming of evolution. While we might think about gene editing in terms of cures for diseases, its repercussions will impact almost every domain of human and planetary development, and sooner than one might think. In this installment of On The Horizon, we adopt an evolutionary perspective to understand the impact of the genetic revolution on firms regardless of industry.

Resistance to change can be a significant factor in the success or failure of changes. As such, researchers have spent more than a half century studying the causes of resistance and how to manage it. Much can be learned from resistance literature that applies to today's unparalleled, nonstop change in which an organization's ability to manage resistance to change can not only impact the change's success or failure but also determine whether an organization will survive or thrive. This article explores important lessons revealed via resistance literature, and more importantly, how such knowledge applies to managing change in the modern world. The article emphasizes the urgent need for organizations to become skilled at effectively managing change and resistance to change and offers recommendations on how they can do so.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is ubiquitous in today's public discourse, underpinned by societal recognition of inequality and demands for less discrimination. Further, DEI increasingly serves as a resource for brands to express their identity and align with consumer values. However, implementing DEI as a brand management strategy requires more than lip service and poses risks if not properly embraced. For instance, consumers can perceive DEI initiatives as inauthentic, or initiatives can miss the mark with target consumer groups when poorly executed. Because brands are now more inclined to take responsibility and a public stance on sociopolitical issues, we take a step back and discuss key considerations and opportunities for brands to embrace DEI. We first document the case for DEI in brand management. Next, we present the consumer and brand perspectives of DEI before unpacking the considerations and opportunities of embracing DEI for brand management. Overall, our manuscript provides guidance for brands, marketers, regulators, and policy makers to better understand the role of DEI for brand management.

The digital data available online is currently measured in zettabytes. These vast repositories of big web data are increasingly viewed as a strategic resource comparable in value to land, gold, and oil. This big web data can be extracted and analyzed by organizations to gain a better understanding of their internal and external environment and improve organizational performance. Because of these opportunities, automated retrieval and organization of web data (i.e., web scraping) for research projects is becoming a common practice. This article outlines the data-related, technical, legal, and ethical issues related to web scraping. Awareness of these issues can help researchers save time and resources and, most importantly, mitigate the potential risk of ethical controversies or lawsuits related to the retrieval and use of big web data.

This article introduces the next major generational evolution of the web: Web3. We review the fundamental evolution of the internet and the web over the past 3 decades, including a brief presentation of the publications in Business Horizons that are important in a discussion of the emergence of Web3. We then discuss what these recent developments mean to organizations, consumers, and the public. Though the degree to which Web3 will be widely adopted is uncertain, these technologies are already creating both exhilarating and terrifying implications for e-commerce, digital media, online social networking, online marketplaces, search engines, supply chain management, and finance, among others. We propose the consideration and management of technical, organizational, and regulatory interoperability for Web3 to deliver on its promises of value and that failure to consider these interoperability components may destroy economic value, consumer confidence, or social issues online. We also call on our fellow researchers to focus on these interoperability issues and how they might impact the positive and negative sides of Web3 technologies to help us understand and shape our Web3 future.

Nonfungible tokens (NFTs) have experienced exponential growth over the past few years. Many companies and creators have experimented with various ways to develop NFT businesses, but often without clear guidance on how NFTs shape property rights and business models. In this article, we examine the roles of NFTs in establishing digital property rights, creating value for creators and collectors, and empowering business model innovation. As NFTs unlock digital property rights, they can spawn new business models centered around digital ownership, portable and composable digital assets, and decentralized communities. We believe our framework can help businesses and creators formulate and implement actionable strategies to create and capture value in NFTs and Web3.

Speaking Up at Work is intended for individuals who fear speaking up about their ideas or have done so but are frustrated by their lack of success, It provides stories of others who have been a "lone voice" or an "independent thinker" and their attempts at change-both successful and unsuccessful. It offers insight into effective tactics and pitfalls to avoid. It also offers various tools and tactics to leaders who want to get the best ideas from their teams. The book explores the individual characteristics and situational conditions that lead an individual to develop an independent point of view and to openly voice this view regarding an organizational performance issue. The implications are to better understand how to encourage independent thinking and to understand the personality characteristics and developmental experiences that foster this ability. The author conducted over 50 interviews with individuals about numerous "voice events" throughout their working lives. Chapter 1 begins this effort with stories of speaking up as an "independent thinker" and what that experience is like.

Speaking Up at Work is intended for individuals who fear speaking up about their ideas or have done so but are frustrated by their lack of success, It provides stories of others who have been a "lone voice" or an "independent thinker" and their attempts at change-both successful and unsuccessful. It offers insight into effective tactics and pitfalls to avoid. It also offers various tools and tactics to leaders who want to get the best ideas from their teams. The book explores the individual characteristics and situational conditions that lead an individual to develop an independent point of view and to openly voice this view regarding an organizational performance issue. The implications are to better understand how to encourage independent thinking and to understand the personality characteristics and developmental experiences that foster this ability. The author conducted over 50 interviews with individuals about numerous "voice events" throughout their working lives. Chapter 2 examines some of the individual and situational factors that support the capacity for thinking independently.

Speaking Up at Work is intended for individuals who fear speaking up about their ideas or have done so but are frustrated by their lack of success, It provides stories of others who have been a "lone voice" or an "independent thinker" and their attempts at change-both successful and unsuccessful. It offers insight into effective tactics and pitfalls to avoid. It also offers various tools and tactics to leaders who want to get the best ideas from their teams. The book explores the individual characteristics and situational conditions that lead an individual to develop an independent point of view and to openly voice this view regarding an organizational performance issue. The implications are to better understand how to encourage independent thinking and to understand the personality characteristics and developmental experiences that foster this ability. The author conducted over 50 interviews with individuals about numerous "voice events" throughout their working lives. Chapter 3 discusses examples of being an independent thinker without formal authority and considerations in how to become more persuasive with our ideas.