Culture can serve as a lever for implementing organizational change. Leaders must start the process by determining the type of change they’re seeking â€" change that involves reinforcing magnitude, reimagining activity, or rethinking direction. Each approach to change requires leaders to make certain choices about culture. The authors use examples from direct experience in corporate human resources leadership at three different companies to illustrate three different strategies in action.

The case presents Imptek Chova, an Ecuadorian manufacturer of waterproofing solutions for residential infrastructure looking for agility and efficiency gains through digital transformation initiatives. Juan Pablo Sotomayor, Imptek's general manager, was analyzing two ideas: the first, raised by the operations manager, considered automating the asphalt membrane production line through an Internet of Things (IoT) application; the second, suggested by the commercial manager, contemplated collecting critical information about final users through a physical warranty shield with a printed QR code installed in the company's residential infrastructure to geographically identify areas with a greater or lesser presence of Imptek solutions.

A survey of more than 1,600 Bed Bath & Beyond shoppers reveals why a business recovery strategy set in motion by a new management team in 2019 failed: The BB&B leadership team's focus on cost cutting overlooked the importance of creating value for customers. The story of the retailer's bankruptcy is a cautionary tale for other businesses that are struggling to adapt and at risk of losing sight of customer value creation amid increased competition in a changing market.

The KIWA: INTERNATIONAL TRADE WITH A PURPOSE case tells the story of Kiwa, an Ecuadorian company competing in the snacks industry, whose central purpose is to help small farmers in the country get out of poverty and fight climate change through alternative agricultural practices. To do this, it designed a business model that avoids intermediaries and transfers these fees to farmers, who get a higher price for their raw materials. The company exports to 16 countries where retailers or food-processing companies buy its products under private-label agreements, in bulk or under Kiwa brand. However, private-label and bulk sales are increasing steadily, in detriment of Kiwa products that communicate the social and environmental efforts of the firm to final consumers.

Daniel Jones and Niki Lewis of Bext360 are struggling to persuade a potential corporate client to use their software as a service (SaaS) solution that focuses on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) metrics. In a meeting with a big-box retailer, initial enthusiasm for the platform's capabilities, including measuring Scope 3 emissions, turned to caution when a senior corporate attorney raised concerns about legal liability. The deep transparency offered by the platform could expose the company to risks related to their suppliers' actions, leading the executives to postpone their decision. Jones and Lewis now face a paradox. Their technology offers in-depth ESG oversight, which companies should theoretically want. However, this transparency also introduces risks and responsibilities that potential clients may be hesitant to assume. The challenge lies in persuading clients to see the transformative potential of their ESG practices despite these risks.

Contextually effective leadership comprises three essential tasks drawing the map, establishing the mindset, and communicating the message that drive desired change. Each task will vary according to the type of change that the leader seeks to achieve. The authors describe three main tasks (map, mindset, and message) that are key to leaders' contextual effectiveness and illustrate how the objective of those tasks varies according to the type of change that the leader is trying to achieve.

To get more from your innovation efforts, you must first know what type of change you want to achieve, whether it be strengthening the trajectory of your existing path or fundamentally reinventing your business. The authors identify the forms of innovation well suited for each of the three primary types of strategic innovation and suggest specific strategies to help businesses achieve their goals.

In traditional shareholder capitalism, the only stakeholders that have mattered are investors, as the providers of financial capital, and customers, as the source of revenue. But great strategy recognizes the significance of other valuable stakeholders. The authors highlight the successes that a range of companies have achieved by addressing the needs of employees, business partners, and local communities as well.

At the end of November 2020, Demetrio Santander and Juan David Gómez were finalizing the details for a pitch scheduled to take place in a few days. After three years of effort and dedication, the entrepreneurs had positioned Waykana as a fast-growing Ecuadorian company with a national and international presence. The company was selling bulk guayusa leaves (a tree located in the Ecuador rainforest) and branded products in more than 10 countries. To accelerate the firm's growth and social and environmental impact mission, the entrepreneurs believed that the time had come to secure additional growth capital and formalize the firm's expansion strategy. Waykana's business model had three sources of income. First, brand product sales in Ecuador-tea boxes and energy drinks-through the country's largest retailer. Second, brand product sales in the United States- tea boxes and loose-leaf-through Amazon and Shopify. And third, bulk guayusa sold to big international traders and extractors. Facing increased competition while deeply committed to Waykana's social mission, the entrepreneurs knew they had to prioritize their growth efforts. But which income stream should be given more attention-without overly weakening the others? Given Waykana's mission-driven interests, which one would generate a better social and environmental impact? Did they need to choose just one or could they secure enough funding to reinforce the three businesses simultaneously? Answering these questions would not only help the entrepreneurs to fine-tune their funding pitch, but also provide insight into the company´s next strategic moves.

IBM launched Rapid Supplier Connect, a blockchain-based solution to help battle medical supplies supply chain shortages due to the COVID-19 pandemic. At the April 31 launch, the company also announced that this solution would be offered at no cost, until August 31, 2020, to qualified buyers and suppliers in the United States and Canada. The solution provided healthcare procurement professionals with secure lists of vetted suppliers. Each supplier's available capacity, quality and regulatory compliance data were stored in the blockchain. An integrated supply chain solution provided details on order fulfillment status.

In dynamic environments, understanding when and how to change is the essence of strategy. The most successful businesses today are those that identify when and how to change to improve strategic advantage. Tools that can help business leaders spot the opportunities and challenges that exist or are emerging in their company's specific context are now more relevant than the traditional strategy frameworks of the past.

Many of the changes seemed to occur at the confluence of three major trends that characterized the industry; namely, (1) the advent of extremely cheap computing power and ubiquitous connectivity; (2) the increasing impact of customer centricity, and (3) the rising influence of wide-ranging new technology tools such as predictive data analytics, artificial intelligence, and neural networks that promised to reduce operating costs while at the same time making a quantum leap in product design and customization. Loosely referred to as the 4thIR (4th Industrial Revolution), these technologies were a small subset of fundamental shifts that were reshaping the industrial world. The financial services industry in the United States was dominated by a handful of very large players who dominated both the active management as well as the passive fund management sides of the business. Most of the industry revenues originated from the fee income for investment advisory services and active fund management services that the companies provided through its legions of financial advisors and branch networks that spread across the country. Black Rock, Vanguard, State Street, JP Morgan, and Fidelity managed approximately $23 trillion. However, life at the top was far from secure. The advent of distributed payment systems, new investment opportunities and approaches such as blockchain-powered Bitcoin and Ethereum, along with the rise of chat bots and digitally enabled user-friendly advisory interfaces, threatened to upset the balance in this once staid industry. The case discusses attempts by Fidelity Investments to navigate the changing landscape through the establishment of Fidelity Labs, an in-house innovation engine that was chartered to experiment, validate, and develop new technological solutions that would allow Fidelity to retain its edge in the changing world of financial services.

This case study focuses on enterprise considerations when entering into new sales modalities. Retail shopping models had long been considered binary - either e-commerce or brick and mortar. In practice the retail industry involved a long spectrum with pure e-commerce on one end and pure brick and mortar on the other end. In between, many different models were emerging like ordering online and picking up in-store (Walmart's Grocery Pickup), shopping in-store and ordering online (Warby Parker and Bonobos made their name in this space - largely facilitating the showroom behavior of consumers), digitally-enhanced physical shopping (several companies hold patents in this space with virtual reality promising to push this model), and many others. By 2019 Amazon, was the world's most valuable online retailer at around $1 trillion (USD). So, when the company announced the purchase of Whole Foods and further committed to the expansion of Amazon Go store locations many questioned the strategic value. Why would a company so clearly successful in the digital realm seek to enter the more traditional brick and mortar space?

At the end of 2018, international markets were no longer paying a premium for Ecuadorian roses. Despite globally recognized product quality, mainly attributed to a longer vase life, Ecuadorian rose growers found it extremely difficult to achieve attractive levels of profitability. A multi-year analysis of US-based data showed just how pronounced this trend was (see Exhibit 1). Being one of Ecuador's chief exportable products, and generating more than 100,000 jobs, the industry needed a change. How could this small Latin American country reimagine how it competes in this global market?

Coda Coffee's commitment to ethical coffee came at a high cost. The company paid three times the commodity exchange rate for raw coffee beans, or cherries. By late 2018, their supply chains reached from Denver all across the world. Could AI, machine vision, blockchain, IoT help Coda Coffee, and in turn, their customers, receive assurance that this premium pricing translated into fairer wages for farmers? It is this assurance that Coda continually strived for through the relationships they built and the methods of sourcing they pursued. This case describes a partnership between relatively new Coda Coffee and Bext360, a technology startup, to leverage Industry 4.0 technologies to ensure greater transparency in Coda Coffee's supply chain. Specifically, the case addresses the motivation behind conducting a pilot study in Uganda. The case can be used to stimulate discussion about the strengths and limitations of Fair Trade certification and how companies can go beyond Fair Trade with their own certification programs supplemented by increased supply chain transparency. The case can also be used to generate discussion about how Industry 4.0 technologies can serve both business and the greater good.

This case study focuses on the creation of SingularityNET, a blockchain-based marketplace for AI. SingularityNET was conceived by Ben Goertzel, Simone' Giacomelli and David Hanson in a series of brainstorming sessions at Hanson Robotics in Hong Kong in 2017. A key goal for creating this democratized marketplace platform was to accelerate the development of artificial general intelligence, or AGI. Companies that could not afford customizing their own AI could access AI Agents that would subcontract to and collaborate with other AI agents to create customized solutions to meet specific needs. The distributed blockchain-based network allowed for stitching together clusters of narrow AIs that could mimic sections of a brain. Collectively, these clusters could eventually function like a global brain.

The push beyond traditional semiconductors signaled that Intel was positioning for new growth. The firm even sponsored an Industry 4.0 (term to highlight trends in automation and data exchange - largely centered on cyber-physical systems, IoT, cloud computer, cognitive computing, and AI - and their related productivity gains) informational series to shape the agenda around next generation technologies - and their implications. Company executives reasoned that the emerging future would be more interconnected and data-driven than ever - requiring a proactive digital convergence strategy. Robust AI capabilities (and related machine learning) were central to this design. But acquiring and developing leading-edge technology is different from winning wide-scale adoption. How could Intel develop compelling use-cases for still emerging technologies? If successful, what could be next for Intel in Industry 4.0?

IBM needed a win. Facing flattening sales and increasing analyst concerns, the century-old giant that had reinvented itself so often before was in search of market game-changers. The company believed they found such an opportunity in 2014 when employee Jerry Cuomo and other IBM technologists dug deeply into the secure and decentralized ledger that powered cryptocurrency Bitcoin.2 Similar to open-source software, IBM saw widespread potential for blockchain technology outside of the currency it powered. But seeing a technology's promise is different from monetizing it at scale. How could IBM distinguish blockchain technology from the cryptocurrency for which it was known and attract large clients to adopt IBM's approach to the emerging technology? If successful, what could be next for IBM blockchain?

Many companies in mature markets assume that the only reason to enter emerging markets is to pursue new customers. They haven't yet realized the potential for innovation in developing countries-though a few visionary multinationals are tapping that potential for much-needed ideas in products and services. General Electric, with its portable ultrasound technology, and Intel, with its inexpensive Classmate PC, are two examples. Other companies see the potential but find it hugely difficult to develop ideas in unfamiliar settings, much less turn them into global businesses: C-level executives may resist disruptive concepts, or their organizations may lack the processes necessary for absorbing outside innovation. The authors' research shows that a new kind of manager-a "global bridger"-can help these companies take advantage of the innovative energy that permeates emerging markets. Global bridgers tend to be good at developing and maintaining relationships of trust; they understand emerging markets; they have long tenure with their companies; and they are skilled at selling their ideas internally. They have learned to intentionally observe customers, suppliers, and competitors. They cultivate "translators"-people with insights into the local environment. And they test their ideas before taking them back to headquarters, where they rely on advocates to help promote their ideas.