While not every organization will need to build a brand in the metaverse or transact with cryptocurrencies, all organizations manage credentials as issuers, holders, and verifiers. That's why the one piece of Web3 technology that managers should begin looking at is decentralized credentialling systems based on blockchain. While it's still early days for this application area, pilot projects are showing promise, in addition to highlighting issues that must be addressed.

This teaching case explores the business and ethics of prison sourcing, the practice of training and hiring prisoners to perform work for the private or public sectors. Although most prison employment programs train and hire workers for manual labor, such as furniture building or textiles, some prison employment programs now train and hire inmates to perform low-level Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) services like call center work, data entry, and document preparation. Prison sourcing is highly controversial. Besides the usual concerns about security and quality of work performed by prisoners, the ethical aspects of prison sourcing are hotly debated. Proponents argue prison sourcing is ethical because it defrays the costs of corrections, helps individuals successfully complete their confinement and prepares them to reintegrate into society, benefitting the individuals, their families, communities, and ultimately tax payers. Opponents argue that prison sourcing is a form of slavery, hurts small businesses, and steals jobs from law-abiding citizens. The authors developed this teaching case to allow students to explore these issues. The case is a dramatized version of an actual case study of prisoners performing BPO work for a private sector company.

The case shows how a technology services company shaped and reshaped - and reshaped again - its IT governance structure to better integrate the IT function with business clients. The company is a large Italian telematics provider - Octo Telematics - which is specialized in the provision of telematic services and systems for the insurance and automotive markets. During the period described in this case, the company was growing and globalizing rapidly. The desired alignment between IT and the business units is needed to promote behaviors consistent with the organization's mission and strategy. As Octo experimented with new processes, committees and reorganizations the company 'traveled' through several governance archetypes.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Although the initial concept for the human cloud was to create an eBay-like marketplace for talent and labor, there were obstacles. The simple auction model seemed ill-suited for large, complex undertakings. The model was also often perceived as too risky by managers, who had a hard time developing "virtual"rapport with workers. Today, four new human cloud models have developed, each aiming to overcome these problems in a distinct way: 1. The Facilitator model connects suppliers and buyers directly through a bidding process but offers increased visibility into the supplier's identity and work processes. Elance and oDesk are examples of this model. 2. The Arbitrator model enables buyers to compare the inputs of multiple providers before choosing which to purchase. Arbitrator platforms such as CrowdSpring and InnoCentive follow this approach. 3. The Aggregator model breaks down a job, such as proofreading, translation, transcription or tagging, into tiny bits of work -microtasks -and finds workers willing to complete these tasks, sometimes in the context of a game. Platforms like Amazon Mechanical Turk and CrowdFlower offer such capabilities. 4. The most sophisticated model, the Governor, provides project management, supplier certification and quality control to assure qualified coordination and management of complex projects. The authors note that harnessing the human cloud's power will -as with earlier outsourcing waves -require hard work and learning. Buyers may find it helpful to think about managing a human cloud initiative much the same way that they manage the main phases of any outsourcing engagement.

A small US-based crowdsourcing platform illustrates the entrepreneurial challenges in a new 'industry' - the crowdsourcing industry. The firm's president founded and manages a virtual firm, which he launched even before the term crowdsourcing was coined. He has chosen to focus his firm, initially, on selling labor services to the American real estate market. Now that he has successfully built a network of reliable providers and repeat clients, his dilemma is how to grow his firm.

Healthware, a digital communication agency specializing in healthcare, is based in Salerno Italy. The firm has 72 employees in two countries as well as clients in 14 countries. The case illustrates the location trade-offs of operating - and growing - a global digital company far from the epicenter of Italian business. The theme is universal. Once the firm is far from a nation's epicenter, a dynamism may be absent but the advantages are quite tangible: lower costs and employee stability. This teaching case is based on actual companies, people, and events, though some details have been dramatized or disguised.

In 2005, a successful Peruvian-based software company was seeking to grow by exporting its software products. The case illustrates the entrepreneurial challenges in selling software products from a developing nation that is not on the forefront of the technology world. LOLIMSA has successfully grown its market into several Latin countries outside of Peru. The firm is considering trying to enter the lucrative American market for the second time, but knows that the investment in market entry is substantial.