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While millennials appear motivated to support the evolution of stakeholder capitalism and solve challenging social problems via entrepreneurship, the challenges they face as business founders are also greater than those experienced by previous generations. Canadian start-ups can experience significant challenges when trying to secure financing, which is why some of our best and brightest entrepreneurs relocate to the United States. In Canada, there are three categories of business incorporation: charity, non-profit, and for-profit. Charities and non-profits are heavily reliant upon government grants, but they pay no taxes because they exist to contribute to society. Social enterprises are required to incorporate as for-profit ventures and so they pay the corporate tax rate. Now imagine a Canada with a fourth category of incorporation, one designed to give social enterprises the same tax benefits that are offered to charities and non-profits. This fourth “social enterprise” category could make our nation a tax haven for social entrepreneurship. Instead of pushing entrepreneurs away, Canada would attract top social entrepreneurial talent from the global talent pool. In addition, this simple policy adjustment has the potential to mitigate long-term fallout from pandemic measures that have left too many entrepreneurs struggling to survive.

In early April 2020, COVID-19 began impacting trade, commerce, and industry globally. The founder and president of Innovative Automation Inc., a custom machine builder in the small and medium enterprise sector in Ontario, Canada, was facing two main dilemmas. First, how should he ensure that the internal channels of communication at the company remain open as its employees—like everyone in the rest of the province and indeed the rest of the world—dealt with a largely unknown virus? Second, how should the company enforce social distancing—made mandatory by the provincial government in its bid to contain the spread of the virus—at its manufacturing facility?

In 2020, the Indonesian bank PT Bank Tabungan Pensiunan Nasional Tbk (BTPN) had to make a decision regarding a digital transformation strategy for its future. BTPN had started as a small bank that focused on pensioners, but became known for its innovation after a private equity partner bought a stake in 2008. Initially innovating successfully in microfinance, BTPN decided to go digital by creating an in-house start-up in 2015 called Jenius, thereby leapfrogging to become one of the forerunners in Indonesian digital consumer banking. The COVID-19 pandemic had accelerated digital financial services, and BTPN had to decide how to scale Jenius to transform the company. Was the in-house start-up model the best choice after all, or would the large incumbent banks digitalize faster?

In late 2019, the Colombian company Agrícola Himalaya SA was undertaking a strategy to double its sales by 2030. The company’s popular Hindú brand of teas, developed over six decades, had expanded to include not only black and green teas but also herbal teas, fruit teas, ready-to-drink products, and an iced tea line. Over the past 10 years, the company had enjoyed steady growth, distributed its products throughout the Americas, and developed a communications strategy focused on health and wellness. Now the company’s chief executive officer (CEO) had to decide whether or not it was time to expand into other product categories, and if so, how. The CEO and marketing team needed to develop a brand strategy to present to the board of directors and create a new product portfolio that would support the company’s growth strategy. Which channels should the company target for growth? Should it continue to grow in the same category, extend the brand to other categories, or expand the demographic mix of its customer base?

Isaac Park was only six weeks into the role of leading all technology operations for Primal Leadership Solutions, a global leadership advisory organization that offered consulting services and executive recruitment. The lifeblood of the business was its database, which contained the critical and comprehensive information for all of the organization’s past and current projects as well as its employees, clients, and recruits. The legacy system had to be replaced by a single, efficient, and reliable database. Although implementing a new database sounded straightforward, about halfway through implementation, pandemonium had broken out. The project’s leader was asked to step aside, and Park was asked to step in as the new leader. Park knew that going back to the old system was not the right answer; it was imperative that the company find a way forward. Both Park’s own credibility and the credibility of the project were on the line.

In 2016, the University of Calgary (U of C) was celebrating its 50th anniversary with a variety of events, such as the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, which brought visiting scholars from across the globe. At the same time, Alberta, ON, had been hit with significant forest fires, and many residents that were evacuated from northern communities had moved into U of C residences. The campus was alive with activity when its information technology (IT) systems were encrypted in a ransomware attack. The university’s emergency response team had to act quickly to identify and isolate the root cause of the problem and to decide how to contain it, whether to pay the demanded ransom, and what to tell members of the university and the wider community. The university’s response to this threat and its management through the crisis would ultimately shape the IT team and future investment decisions.

By January 2020, Microsoft Corporation’s (Microsoft’s) Microsoft for Health healthcare vertical had become the company’s most important vertical. Microsoft’s chief executive officer, Satya Nadella, wanted the company to be viewed as a strategic partner of the healthcare industry and its clients. However, several challenges remained regarding the success of this vertical: both doctors and patients were unwilling to rely on artificial intelligence (AI) for diagnostics and prescriptions, while machine learning was even less accepted. Additionally, not many companies were willing to transfer more than 10 per cent of their data to the Microsoft Azure cloud platform, which raised concerns about whether or not the decision to focus on vertical versus horizontal clients represented an appropriate strategic decision. As enterprises were not shifting the majority of their data to the cloud, should Nadella reconsider his decision to focus on verticals? How could he overcome the challenges associated with the use of cloud computing and AI in healthcare? If Nadella wanted to address his clients as partners, what approach should he follow to develop such collaborative relationships?

Formed in 1997, Star Alliance was the first global airline network or constellation. Its aim was to shift the airline industry away from a network of loose bilateral agreements between individual airlines to a more comprehensive network of multilateral agreements between members. A wave of deregulation in the industry in the 1970s and 1980s, which opened free travel between countries, led to the creation of three major global constellations: Star Alliance, Oneworld, and SkyTeam. These networks conferred many benefits on their members, such as cost sharing, loyalty program management, and increased flight load. However, in early 2020, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic had devastating effects on the airline industry. The focus of airline alliances thus shifted from greater connectivity between members to survival in the new global landscape. Would this strategy help airlines survive the COVID-19 crisis? Was group-based competition needed to thrive during a pandemic? Their main concern was whether or not the powerful frameworks they created would be able to help member airlines survive this crisis and regain their pre-pandemic financial stability.

In 2019, the global airline industry generated revenues of over US$880 billion. One year later, as the COVID-19 pandemic raged, demand had fallen to half of its previous level and airlines faced tough challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic was a new and severe crisis. The responses of airlines and their alliances depended on the fundamental economics and structure of the industry. To devise new strategies for their futures, global airlines had to consider the economics and market structure of their industry. Would the fundamental economics of the airline industry be forever affected? Would the industry return to a “new normal” at some point?

Broadband-X, is a small-sized electronic contract manufacturing company. The company had been using QuickBooks accounting package and Excel sheets to manage its processes. As the company grew, Brian, the owner, noticed that the current model was not capable of efficiently managing the production processes and decided to acquire an enterprise resource planning (ERP) package. Brian tried to implement the system employing its current human resources. However, he realized that ERP implementation required a company-wide change management effort. Brian hired Zayan Preet to champion the ERP implementation project. Preet analyzed the system, conducted interviews to figure out the issues and the priorities, and began working on an implementation strategy and a project plan.

In September 2017, Uber Technologies Inc. hired a new chief executive officer with instructions to prepare the company for an initial public offering and repair its internal culture and reputation. By the end of 2019, however, the company’s past wrongdoings were continuing to haunt the organization. The new leader had to deal with ongoing legal issues related to driver classification and a new ruling in the US state of California that would require drivers to be paid minimum wage and receive sick days and health benefits. The company also faced accusations by a former manager who claimed that employees had engaged in questionable tactics to steal trade secrets. The public learned that the company had paid US$100,000 to hackers to conceal a November 2016 data breach, which exposed the personal information of 57 million riders and drivers. In July 2019, Uber Technologies Inc. came under investigation by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over accusations of gender discrimination. Later that year, its licence to operate in London, UK was revoked. Almost 18 months into the new leader’s tenure, the path to repairing the company’s character reputation and struggling market value was still not clear.

The founder and chief executive officer of impak Finance Inc. had grown his financial technology start-up, based in Montreal, Canada, into a company with two main business lines: an extensive and comprehensive assessment and rating agency that used advanced social impact measurement and scoring software, and an online marketplace platform that used the cryptocurrency impak Coin and connected like-minded consumers, investors, and businesses to support socially sustainable and responsible firms aligned on their economic and financial principles. In case A, after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, the founder wondered which strategic direction he should take to ensure the long-term sustainability of impak Finance Inc.—invest heavily in developing the rating agency or grow the impak marketplace?

In case B, in late summer 2020, the founder has decided to prioritize the company's rating agency, advocating for robust and standardized impact assessments for all firms. He felt confident about his company's new strategic direction and focus during the pandemic. But how could he ensure impak Finance Inc. grew toward its mission and attained financial sustainability?

In July 2020, Hindustan Unilever Limited, the Indian subsidiary of global fast-moving consumer goods company Unilever plc, renamed its Fair & Lovely skin-lightening cream in response to criticism that the product’s positioning and advertising reinforced a pre-existing bias toward fair skin in India. India's market for skin-lightening creams, the largest in the world, was valued at US$450 million–US$535 million, and Fair & Lovely was the market leader with a 70 per cent share. However, the company had been criticized for its positioning and advertising of Fair & Lovely, which many saw as reinforcing a pre-existing bias for fair skin in India. Did the company make the right strategic move by renaming the popular brand? Or should the company have instead followed the path of some competitors and withdrawn the brand from the market? What else could the company do to support the brand?

<iframe width="725" height="395" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/la4NQo-cse8" title="Challenges in radical innovation adoption: The beautiful Concorde!" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe><br> <p align="justify">The Concorde, a British–French supersonic jet, captured the hearts and minds of aviators, business professionals, and celebrities around the world through its iconic design, superior features, and unique inflight experience. Despite its transcendent appeal, the jet became surrounded by controversy, catastrophe, an environmental movement, and changing consumer trends, all of which led to its grounding in 2003. In almost two decades, no aerospace program had been successful in recreating commercial supersonic air travel. The Concorde’s story showed that these non-technical aspects of technology adoption and diffusion were strong enough to force the retirement of a superior, breakthrough technology and replace it with an inferior one. In 2021, did it make sense to aim to commercialize supersonic travel by imitating the good in the Concorde and tweaking the downsides, or was there a hidden reason why the Concorde had failed and supersonic transport had not been recreated?

Founded in 1996, Dalian Leasun Food Co., Ltd. had become one of the largest canned food manufacturers in northeast China by 2020. In 2016, it began a digital transformation, adopting digital technologies such as data mining and cloud computing. The company also revised its internal operations and adopted an omnichannel sales strategy. Digital transformation enabled Dalian Leasun Food Co., Ltd. to move beyond the traditional retail and distribution market, which was becoming oversaturated. Its successful transition also helped the company maintain a stable sales growth rate during the COVID-19 pandemic. The next stage for its digital transition however, presented a dilemma. One option for the chairman of the company was to develop a customer-oriented platform and create value for customers. The other option was to digitalize the company’s supply chain and internal management system. The chairman had to decide which direction to follow.

After almost a year of rebranding and renovations, the Bitter Sisters Brewery opened to rave reviews on February 14, 2020, in Calgary, Alberta. Just 29 days later, the COVID-19 pandemic would force the brewery’s doors shut for over three months. Two further closures would come in 2020, and times remained uncertain as of December of that year. The owners had to pivot—and quickly—to ensure the viability of their business in volatile times.

Spreadsheet to accompany product W25167.

Shake Shack was a fast, casual restaurant chain with a strong focus and great efforts on sustainability and corporate responsibility. Despite its stated environmental commitments, however, its core product offering—the hamburger—was extremely taxing on the environment. Between 2009 and 2021, various new alternative protein sources had emerged that were much more sustainable and environmentally friendly. Shake Shack’s chief executive officer had to make some decisions. Should the company’s products shift away from beef toward alternative protein sources? If so, which of these new products should Shake Shack consider and over what timeline?

Governments are implementing policies to require vaccination for employees in certain settings while rolling out programs that require vaccination passports for public access to certain non-essential services. In this political and legal landscape, employers who are not directly impacted by government orders mandating vaccination are contemplating mandatory vaccination policies of their own. As employers implement a mandatory vaccination policy, the authors recommend the following safeguards: 1) Employees who cannot be vaccinated or who refuse the vaccine for human rights reasons must be provided with accommodation (i.e., regular testing, masking and social distancing measures, remote work options, etc.), unless it would amount to undue hardship. 2) Require vaccination for employees who will report to work at the office. 3) Employers should tread carefully when considering the termination of employees who refuse to be vaccinated. 4) In accordance with privacy legislation in certain provinces and at the federal level, employees must be notified of the purposes for which information on their vaccine status will be used. 5) Employers should minimize the information that they collect.