This case describes Saudi Telecom Co.'s (STC's) transition from a government-run entity to a business competing on the open market. Early in its transition phase, STC recognized it would need to transform its employee and company culture to succeed. Led by Dr. Khaled Biyari and his immediate predecessors, STC's cultural transformation was widely heralded as successful by 2018. But Biyari left the CEO role that year, leaving Nasser Bin Sulaiman Al Nasser to take over the position. The change at STC's helm represented a critical inflection point for a company that, as the incumbent provider of all telecommunications in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, was seen as critical to the success of the country as a whole. The case is intended to show how a management change might be handled during a firm's critical years. Could Al Nasser continue the cultural improvements of his predecessor? And how would he go about building on the legacy of Biyari, whose personal vision and leadership presence was seen as essential to STC's achievements? Could Al Nasser push STC to become the modern, digital company it would need to be to attract talent in the highly competitive technology pool?

Setting a strategic direction for a business school, initiating a culture change, and overcoming a massive financial deficit were challenges faced by the incoming dean of the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, Alison Davis-Blake. Of the four strategic pillars adopted-analytical rigor, action learning, boundarylessness, and a focus on the positive-the positive pillar was both the most controversial and the most differentiating. After experiencing dramatic success over a five-year period, Davis-Blake stepped down and a new dean was appointed, Scott DeRue. He had to determine whether to keep the positive pillar or abandon it.

Positive environment in the workplace is usually assumed to be beneficial to employee morale, but not always a necessity for achieving the firm's strategic goals. Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS) is a field of study that focuses on how leaders and organizations can achieve extraordinary results while focusing on positive deviance. In April 2004, Prudential Financial acquired CIGNA's full-service retirement business and various challenges in integrating the two firms became present. The challenges included aligning the cultural aspects of the organizations. This case describes how senior management led the merger of Prudential and CIGNA while implementing various POS practices throughout the organization in hopes of creating a successful culture for the staff, compelling results for the clients, and a strong value for the shareholders.