As Lorena Scaloni sat in her office at Riverwalk Wealth Management, she was starting to get just a little nervous. The end of the week marked the day when she would be standing before a room filled with her peers and investment professionals, ready to present her vision for the future of Riverwalk’s financial advisory practice. The audience had no qualms about challenging her ideas or casting doubt if her vision lacked persuasiveness or her action plan failed to convince them.<br><br>As one of the three partners at Riverwalk, Scaloni had a reasonable understanding of the challenges confronting both the industry and her firm. Although not entirely clear, she knew that the financial advice industry was undergoing a significant reckoning. Scaloni identified her vision to ensure a thriving future for Riverwalk. Now she had to present that vision to her peers.
This role-playing exercise aims to tackle issues related to inter-organizational collaboration to scale up innovations. The role-playing experience helps learners discover, appreciate, and learn to govern inherent tensions in inter-organizational collaboration. The exercise is set in the Canadian auto parts industry, which could benefit tremendously from more sophisticated robotic technology to assist the manufacturing process. The role play asks learners to engage in an inter-organizational collaboration agreement. Each participant will represent a company whose in-house knowledge, resources or capabilities can contribute to developing a robot.
Masai Ujiri, the President and General Manager of the Toronto Raptors (Raptors), had an illustrious career on and off the basketball court; he had not shied away from making bold, even controversial, decisions; and he had led his franchise, the Raptors, to the National Basketball Association (NBA) Championship. Following the Raptors’ clinching the NBA Championship in 2019, Ujiri faced an altercation with an Officer in Oakland, California. At the height of his success, Ujiri explicitly called out his mistreatment because of his being a Black man, highlighting the racism prevalent against Blacks and minorities. Contemplating his future as an executive, Ujiri would need to decide whether to continue, and if so, how to marry the worlds of sport and activism, charting his own path for social change.