This case tells the story of Bas Fransen, who evolved from a senior executive at Fortune Global 500 companies to founder of EcoMatcher - a socially responsible enterprise planting trees for planet and profit. This story has two particularly interesting themes. This case focuses upon the human side of the story: how a corporate baron overcame the skepticism of his friends and colleagues, giving up his economic perks and social status to find a more meaningful career as a social entrepreneur. Its companion case (EcoMatcher: Beyond the Triple Bottom Line, USTXXX) focuses upon the end result: EcoMatcher as a truly socially responsible enterprise with a profitable and scalable business model.

This case tells the story of EcoMatcher - a green and socially responsible enterprise that has found a scalable and profitable business model planting trees. EcoMatcher is interesting partly as an excellent example of strategic corporate social responsibility (CSR); its core profit-making activity of planting trees is intrinsically good for the planet and its people. This differs from the triple bottom line approach employed by some other companies, which use green or prosocial activities to offset core profit-making activities that may harm society or the environment. Both strategic CSR and the triple bottom line approach can underlie improvements in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) reporting. This case focuses on EcoMatcher as an exemplar of strategic CSR while a companion case (EcoMatcher: Daring to Make a Difference, USTXXX) focuses on how EcoMatcher's founder made the difficult leap from corporate executive to social entrepreneur, trading off power, status, and wealth for more meaning in his work.

Over the past few decades, the market for used books had declined and many used bookstores around the world have closed. Sydney, Australia, where Ampersand Bookstore and Café was located, was no exception to this trend. Yet, Vangel Cvetkovski, co-owner and operator of Ampersand, has steered it towards financial success. Established as a bookstore café, a familiar environment accessible to most university students, this case examines how Vangel and his partner overcame the limitations of the used bookstore and café industries to create a hybrid business model and how they got it to work.

This case study, a companion case to "Ampersand Bookstore and Café (A): Surviving the Bookstore Apocalypse" (HBP Product ID: ST90), extends the main case (A) by taking the Ampersand story further. While the main case focused mainly on how Ampersand had previously succeeded, this companion case examines how the protagonist might continue to grow and expand the business. Thus, it is suggested to be taught as an extension to the main case (A).

This case study is based on a Hong Kong technology start-up, Morllex (Morllex is a disguised name of a real company), specializing in chemicals for the electronics industry. The company received substantial private funding, as well as funding from a government-backed incubation program, Hong Kong Science and Technology Park. The three founders encountered conflicts in various strategies, including relationships with the two non-executive shareholders, several key suppliers such as a marketing consultant, and a China sales agent. There were substantial pressures to build sales and marketing traction and ensure timely delivery of the product to distributors. Over two years, the three founders and two non-executive shareholders (all anonymized here) had nurtured Morllex from an award-winning concept to a market-ready product. Yet, the partners struggled to reach an agreement on some major decisions, such as whether to register the business in Shenzhen or Hong Kong. Also, the partners had an ongoing debate about whether to manage marketing and distribution in-house or to outsource it. One partner favored the former option while the other partners had a different point of view. These conflicts left the founders questioning the future of a company in which they had believed so strongly and invested so much time and energy. In this case study, students will play the roles of the founders and shareholders. The case is designed to set up conflicts among the players to teach students how hostile team dynamics can make inherently solvable problems intractable.

Guanxi, political connections in China, can provide unique competitive advantages, but can expose business leaders to regulatory and political risks in the region. The fictional case focuses on how U.S. banks in Hong Kong, a major financial center for the Chinese market, are pinned upon the horns of a dilemma. Banks can abide by the letter of the law and not win any business; alternatively, they can break the law, in spirit if not actually the letter, and win business at the cost of incurring legal jeopardy and possibly violating one's own sense of morality by hiring the children of well-connected senior management of a Chinese business who can direct substantial mandates to the employers.

While Samsung remains one of the largest and most profitable companies in the world, it is facing a need to re-invent itself. Chinese competitors like Huawei have benchmarked Samsung's business model, taking market share away from Samsung's core smartphone business and compressing its margins. To stay ahead of these competitors, Samsung has been transforming itself into a Silicon Valley entity that aims to create new markets for new product categories. In order to take advantage of Silicon Valley and its rich innovation ecosystem, however, Samsung must overcome strategic and organizational challenges. This case examines Samsung's traditional strengths as a technology manufacturing powerhouse and its emerging strengths as an innovator, and challenges students to leverage both strengths in re-imagining Samsung.