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On January 2, 2019, Canada-based Barrick Gold Corporation (Barrick) and Randgold Resources (Randgold) merged to become the largest gold mining company in the world. Following the merger, Barrick’s new executive team communicated a financial strategy that emphasized a long-term focus, particularly on sustainability. Barrick’s executive performance scorecard—a key management tool used to direct executive attention and evaluate performance—had been introduced in 2013, after an overwhelming majority of shareholders voted against a proposed compensation plan at the annual general meeting. No changes had been made to the scorecard since 2015, despite changes in the organization and in the mining industry overall. An external human resources professional who was proposing a new executive scorecard for the company faced several questions: Should she emphasize the short-term or long-term incentive plan? Which metrics and weightings should be changed? Were the existing financial and non-financial measures still appropriate, and did they adequately reflect Barrick’s sustainability goals? Was Barrick doing enough to satisfy regulators, institutional investors, and the many guidelines and standards that had been released in recent years?

Suning Logistics, a retail logistics enterprise, was located in Nanjing, Jiangsu, China. As a subsidiary of Suning Holding Group (Suning), Suning Logistics represented the core competitiveness of Suning in occupying the leading position in China's retail landscape. Suning Logistics was registered as a company in 2012 but was a subsidiary of Suning before growing into Suning Logistics Group (Suning Logistics) in 2015. During the 30-year development process, Suning Logistics had repeatedly iterated and upgraded its logistics model to support the transformation from a physical retailer to online retailer. With the China's new retail wave, experiential shopping and digital consumption brought challenges to the logistics upgrade. To win competitive advantage, the general manager of Suning Logistics had to make a choice between two transformational directions: Should the company improve the logistics efficiency of multi-scenario retail? Or, should it explore the reverse supply chain with emerging technology?

Amazon.com Inc.’s (Amazon’s) global expansion from 1998 to 2020, started with investment in the United Kingdom and Germany and ended with investment in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). In 2019, as one of the world’s largest e-commerce companies, Amazon had a 15.1 per cent share of the worldwide e-commerce market with operations in 16 countries, including both developed and emerging markets. However, the company was showing unbalanced performance across countries. For example, in 2019, Amazon was the market leader in the United Kingdom (23.3 per cent market share) and Germany (48.3 per cent market share), while it only held 0.2 per cent of the Chinese online retailing market, far behind the market leader who had a 42.7 per cent market share, and it held only 1 per cent market share in Brazil with the market leader having 23.2 per cent. Amazon faced critical challenges in developing its future international strategies. Should it continue its global expansion into new markets? What should the company do with less successful markets such as China and Brazil? Also, how should Amazon deal with the ramifications of an unexpected global pandemic event in its international strategy?<br><br>This case is an updated version of Amazon Goes Global, former Ivey product 9B14M122.

The Maple Leaf Foods (MLF): Changing the System case explores how a major food processor pivoted its vision and operations in an attempt to become the world’s most sustainable protein company. Instead of focusing solely on financial goals, the organization's new purpose clearly recognized MLF’s potential impact on both society and the natural environment. In the anchor case, senior leaders considered the background and progress of this initiative. The supplemental cases (A to E) offer the perspectives of five stakeholders, each of whom is critical to the MLF initiative. Since an organization is part of an open system, these views allow a consideration of how the different parts of the system may experience, and impact, any change attempt.

Supplement to 9B20M174.

Supplement to 9B20M174.

Supplement to 9B20M174.

Supplement to 9B20M174.

On September 25, 2019, an activist investment management company, which was sometimes referred to as the biggest activist hedge fund in the world, publicly released a detailed report advocating for Marathon Petroleum Corporation to be split into three separate companies, divided along three major business lines: oil refinery, midstream services (i.e., pipelines), and retail. The refinery company would consist primarily of 16 oil refineries in the United States and would retain the Marathon name. The midstream company, which would consist of pipelines, logistics, and oil terminals, would be formed from MPLX LP, the publicly traded subsidiary that was 63 per cent owned and fully operated by Marathon Petroleum Corporation. The retail company would be formed from Speedway LLC, the wholly owned subsidiary of Marathon Petroleum Corporation that operated 3,923 retail locations across the continental United States. The investment company argued that Marathon Petroleum Corporation's shareholders stood to benefit considerably from the proposed split. Was the proposition a good idea?

The City of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (COE), recognizing that its once world-class waste management system needed major transformation, published an ambitious and progressive waste management strategic plan (“The Future of Waste”) on October 4, 2019. Among numerous initiatives, policies, and frameworks, the plan made reference to the concept of extended producer responsibility (EPR), a public policy mechanism for increasing the responsibility of producers for post-consumer (i.e., end-of-life) product and packaging waste. Although such policies were typically enacted at a provincial level, it seemed inevitable that, if EPR came into reality in Alberta, the COE would have some involvement in promotion and/or physical post-consumer collection logistics (a critical enabler of any successful EPR system). There was, thus, an opportunity for the COE to consider how its new direction for waste management should incorporate logistical support for EPR, from a coordination/leadership and/or a physical perspective.<br><br>The issue at hand was whether and how the COE should be involved (logistically) in any potential EPR manifestation, which would include an analysis of what made a good post-consumer collection system; what existed in the COE at the time from current industry players, such as retailers, third-party logistics (3PL) providers, and providers of last-mile delivery services; and what specific role the COE could play (e.g., through waste and recycling collection).

Instructor Spreadsheet to accompany product 8B20N036.

Student Spreadsheet to accompany product 9B20N036.

Instructor Spreadsheet to accompany product 8B20E018.

In April 2020, amid the global pandemic resulting from the spread of Covid-19, the president of the Broadway League, which represented theatre owners, producers, presenters, and general managers for Broadway and across North America, faced a challenge. On March 12, 2020, Broadway had suspended all plays and musicals. The president and her team needed to determine when Broadway might be able to reopen, what the Broadway League should be communicating to producers and guests, and what the reopening of Broadway would look like amid the global coronavirus pandemic. However, to reach these decisions, she first needed to determine the reliability of the recently released New York State antibody study and estimate the true prevalence of antibodies in the population.

On a cold Monday morning in January 2018, the founder and chief executive officer of dcs plus was sitting in a taxi on his way to catch a plane to Dubai, United Arab Emirates. In Dubai, he would be visiting the Middle East subsidiary of his company, a Romanian technology start-up focused on business-critical enterprise software for the travel industry. The one-year-old subsidiary, which was responsible for marketing, sales, and customer support in the Middle East region, had experienced performance problems and managerial issues since the start, leading to major changes in the local management team. The Romanian company was planning to open two new subsidiaries in São Paulo, Brazil and in Singapore, so it was important to avoid similar problems to those incurred in Dubai. The founder was reflecting on the dcs plus approach to internationalization for the overall organization, as well as how to manage a subsidiary.

Maliks, a major stationery retailer and provider of photocopy and printing services, had operated in Beirut, Lebanon, for over 25 years. The company’s founder was considering the most suitable strategy for his goal of 100 branches by 2020. He was assessing the advantages and disadvantages of adopting the franchising business model as an expansion strategy and wondered what operational problems he would encounter. The Maliks management team was also assessing the viability of using the franchise model to expand beyond the greater Beirut area to achieve substantial growth. The company enjoyed strong brand-name recognition, but there were still many questions about the company’s next steps, including whether the franchise business model was the most suitable strategy for Maliks. Did the company have the necessary resources and skilled management team to adequately monitor and support prospective franchisees? How would prospective franchisees be selected? What marketing and operational costs was the company likely to incur as a franchisor? Most importantly, did the Maliks management team have the required skills to effectively manage the franchise model?

In October 2019, BYD Company Limited (BYD), a leading Chinese company in the new energy vehicle industry, was pursuing the goal of building a business ecosystem. The firm and its partners jointly launched a blockchain-enabled green ecosystem that delivered new value to customers by issuing carbon points to users who had made efforts to reduce their daily carbon emissions. Users could spend carbon points at partner merchants and get rewards. Blockchain, as the core infrastructure of the project, provided an ideal environment to cultivate a healthy and efficient business ecosystem that benefitted all stakeholders, including the firms, its users, and the environment. With the program still in its early stages, how could BYD and its partners further utilize the green ecosystem’s potential to achieve greater economic and environmental value?

In part A of the case, Melissa Law was offered a position as a human resources operations manager only a few weeks after completing her final course in a graduate industrial relations program at a prestigious Canadian university. She was ecstatic when Elias Ferenc, the person she would report to, offered her the position. Her enthusiasm, however, was quickly deflated when Elias expressed his reservations about hiring her. He worried that she would rely too heavily on her formal education rather than getting to know her new work environment and the employees that she managed, many of whom had significantly less formal education than she did. Melissa had to make a quick decision about the job offer. How would she respond to Elias? In Part B of the case, after Melissa accepted the position, she was challenged with making changes in a workplace where the staff members were much older, with much lower formal education. How would she relate to employees that would be reporting to her?

Supplement for product 9B20C031.

In 2019, the president of On Track St. Thomas (OTST), was considering the future of St. Thomas Elevated Park, a public park built on an abandoned railway bridge and now under the care of OTST. The park was built after much lobbying and community fundraising, and a decision had to be made on its future. What was going to happen to the park? Who would take responsibility for it? The president’s options were to recommend a gift of it to the city of St. Thomas, create a paid membership for members of the community, or attract corporate sponsors.