• Chipmaking in the Desert: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's Global Expansion

    On December 6, 2022, in Phoenix, Arizona, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) Executive Chairman Mark Liu outlined the company's ambitious plans to invest $40 billion to build semiconductor manufacturing plants in Phoenix. The event also celebrated the passing of The Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors and Science Act of 2022 (CHIPS and Science Act), which aimed to inject $280 billion in financial subsidies and incentives to boost domestic manufacturing of advanced semiconductors in the US and increase production capacity. As Mark Liu stared out at the desert and the soon-to-be TSMC plant, he wondered if the decision to move to the US was driven by geopolitics or business opportunity. Could the US create a credible and robust domestic manufacturing ecosystem? Time would tell whether the CHIPS Act would yield long-term results or if it was too late for the US to regain its dominance in the semiconductor industry.
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  • NIO: A Chinese EV Company's Global Strategy

    Founded in November 2014 and based in Shanghai, NIO designed, jointly manufactured, and sold premium "smart" EVs. Its mission was to "shape a joyful lifestyle by offering high-performance smart electric vehicles and being the best user enterprise. At NIO Day 2021, Founder William Li shared plans for the company to expand to 25 different countries and regions by 2025, including the automobile juggernaut nation of Germany. Would users in other markets and cultures embrace his user enterprise and high-touch model? NIO faced tough competition ahead in the race for EV supremacy.
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  • Uber in China (C): The Cost of Success for Didi

    On June 30, 2021, ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing (Didi) raised $4.4 billion in its initial public offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the largest IPO of a Chinese company listed on an American exchange since Alibaba raised $25 billion in 2014. Celebration was short-lived. Two days after its IPO, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), a government agency that regulates China's internet platforms, launched a national security probe into Didi's network security and ordered a comprehensive cybersecurity review. Didi did not just end Uber's presence in China. With Uber gone, Didi's growth skyrocketed to become the largest online ride-hailing platform globally. How did everything change? Under Chinese President Xi Jinping, private companies faced emboldened regulators and increased government oversight. Was Didi's decision to move ahead with its IPO the correct business decision but the wrong political decision? What lessons could other Chinese tech companies learn from Didi's experience? How could Didi maintain its market position and rehabilitate its relationship with the Chinese government while local competitors tasted blood in the water?
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  • Esquel Group: Turning Crises into Transformation

    Focuses on a Hong Kong-based, globally-established textile and apparel manufacturer and its experience in navigating turbulent geopolitical environments. Identifies ways the company has pursued business priorities while upholding its sustainability values.
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  • Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited: Global Leadership in Chipmaking

    The general purpose of this case is to explore the evolving nature of business relations across the Taiwan strait, focusing on the prominence of Taiwan's high-tech industry. After the legendary founder of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) retired, the new chairman grappled with fresh challenges related to its market in China and growing competition. One of TSMC's major Chinese customers faced sanctions by the U.S. government; China invested billions of dollars in building its own powerhouse to compete in semiconductor production. A slowing of innovation in fabrication processes and rising U.S.-China geopolitical tension also added to the uncertainties facing TSMC. What had changed in the competitive landscape for TSMC, and how should it respond to the changes? Was TSMC positioned to be a truly global company? Students should understand how TSMC protects its competitive technology advantage, navigates geopolitical risks in the region, and blunts hungry competitors' efforts to gain market share.
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  • China Rapid Finance: The Collapse of China's P2P Lending Industry

    China's peer-to-peer (P2P) lending industry had over 3,000 platforms at its height in 2015. China Risk Finance (CRF) was one of the country's P2P success stories. With over 1 million borrowers using CRF's platform, it raised $60 million in its 2016 IPO on the New York Stock Exchange. Yet the pace of P2P's rise spooked financial regulators, sparking a crackdown on the industry that would lead to its demise in China. This B case tracks CRF's tumultuous attempts to salvage its business in the face of sudden and sweeping changes to the rules governing its industry as well as the lengths to which the Chinese government went to ensure the stability of its financial system, even at the expense of its development.
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  • HNA Group: Global Excellence with Chinese Characteristics (C)

    July 2017 was supposed to be a triumphant month for HNA Group. The latest Fortune Global 500 list showed the company had again skyrocketed in its ranking to no. 170, an improvement of over 200 positions from the year prior. Yet earlier that same July, the mysterious death of Co-Chairman Wang Jian portended a darker outlook. Over the next three years, HNA would fall as fast as it has risen. A liquidity crunch forced HNA to sell many of the assets it had purchased. The Chinese government, once a core supporter, also lost patience with HNA, fearing that the sprawling and deeply indebted conglomerate could threaten China's financial system. Chairman Chen Feng forged ahead with attempts to deleverage, but the COVID-19 crisis, which decimated HNA's core travel business, proved to be the last straw. A task force of officials, reported in the media as a "takeover" by China's Hainan provincial government, entered HNA to assess the situation. By 2021, it was clear that HNA Group would not just be humbled, it would also be broken up. Hundreds of HNA affiliates were to enter bankruptcy, the umbrella group would be restructured, and Chen Feng was legally barred from the luxuries leading HNA had afforded him. How could HNA, with its flight routes and reputation for good service, recover as an airline? Or were its founders' sky-high ambitions to see an Icarus-like end?
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  • ByteDance: TikTok and the Trials of Going Viral

    In 2020, TikTok became the most valuable start-up ever. The short-form, video-sharing social media platform emerged as the crown jewel of the Chinese technology firm ByteDance, realizing 850 million monthly users and an estimated worth of $180 billion. However, a crusade against Chinese technology companies launched by the United States' Trump administration threatened to jeopardize ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming's creation. How could Zhang assuage foreign government's concerns about TikTok's data security practices without also running afoul of the Chinese government's desire to keep China's most successful technologies under wraps? This case follows Zhang's entrepreneurial journey, from creative ambition to being caught up in the U.S.-China tech war.
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  • From Cradle to Heaven: Taikang Insurance Group

    Taikang Insurance Group was a leading Chinese insurance and financial services institution. It operated in the insurance, asset management, and health and senior care industries. Due to China's underdeveloped social welfare state, Taikang saw an opportunity for the private sector to offer a suite of lifelong services that would care for clients "From Cradle to Heaven." However, as Taikang broadened its brand from life insurance to lifestyle, the potential pitfalls facing the firm would proliferate, too. How could Taikang leverage its scale to ward off competitors? And, crucially, how could Taikang sustain strong relations with the state and regulatory bodies as the company moved into markets with great political sensitivities, such as health services and senior care?
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  • Huawei: A Global Tech Giant in the Crossfire of a Digital Cold War

    By 2020, Ren Zhengfei, CEO of Huawei, had transformed the small telephone switch manufacturer he founded in 1987 into a $120 billion telecommunications company poised to lead the lucrative rollout of fifth-generation (5G) cellular networks. However, an emerging U.S.-China tech war has jeopardized Huawei's prospects. The Trump administration is waging a global campaign to blacklist doing business with Huawei due to concerns in Washington about the company's relationship with the Chinese government and the security of its products. As Huawei attempts to answer the litany of questions being asked about its business, the company's corporate communications and government relations strategies are thrust onto center stage. How can a company so successful technologically-it is a global leader in 5G technology-struggle so mightily in telling its story? What would it take for Huawei to repair its relationship with Washington? Can Huawei protect itself from the crossfire of a growing digital cold war between the U.S. and China?
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  • Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited: A Global Company's China Strategy (B)

    After the legendary founder of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) retired, the new chairman had to grapple with fresh challenges related to its China market. A recently opened factory in China had to find ways to reverse its financial loss and meet its full capacity; one of its major Chinese customers was facing sanctions by the U.S. government; China was investing billions of dollars in building its own powerhouse to compete in semiconductor production. The transition from 4G to 5G technology in the telecommunication industry, and the U.S.-China trade war also added to the uncertainties facing TSMC. What had changed in the competitive landscape for TSMC, and how should it respond to the changes? What were the options for the company in doing business with China, when the country had become both a customer and a competitor?
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  • Yunnan Baiyao: Transforming a Chinese State-Owned Enterprise

    This case tells the story of how Wang Minghui, Chairman of Yunnan Baiyao Group since 1999, transformed a single-product traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) state-owned enterprise (SOE) into a major diversified consumer health player in China's highly competitive fast-moving consumer goods market. The case also traces the development of the company from a private business to an state-owned enterprise (SOE) and then to a SOE under mixed state-private ownership.
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  • HNA Group: Global Excellence with Chinese Characteristics (B)

    This case provides a brief overview of the success and challenges of the HNA Group between 2015 and late 2017 when it grew rapidly through global acquisitions to became a Fortune 170 company. How would HNA face the challenges of being a truly global and prominent company in an era of increasing scrutiny of big businesses?
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  • Wenzhou Kangning Hospital: Changing Mental Healthcare in China (B)

    This case updates Wenzhou Kangning Hospital Co, Ltd.'s activities since its IPO in late 2015, focusing on its strategy and growth since the IPO and challenges for the future.
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  • Wenzhou Kangning Hospital: Changing Mental Healthcare in China

    The city of Wenzhou in the Province of Zhejiang, long known in China for entrepreneurship, now hosts the country's largest privately owned mental health hospital group. This case traces the development of Wenzhou Kangning Hospital Co, Ltd. from founding to just before its initial public offering to illustrate the extraordinary entrepreneurship happening in China's healthcare space. It highlights the challenges of China's mental health sector and the means company founder Guan Weili employed to address some of them. How will the hospital grow in the future?
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  • Outrageous Ambition: Duke University

    Duke University had grown from an one room school house in rural North Carolina in 1859 to one of the leading research universities in the U.S. and the world. Since the late 1950s, Duke's leaders had consciously used the process of strategic planning to guide the development of the university as a whole, building up programs in interdisciplinarity and initiating ambitious projects in internationalization. Under the leadership of President Richard Brodhead, Duke first built a medical school in Singapore in collaboration with the National University of Singapore, then embarked on a journey to build a university on American standards in the People's Republic of China with its own four year liberal arts curriculum. Will Duke realize its many "outrageous ambitions" as it transitions to a new president?
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  • Public Mission, Private Funding: The University of California, Berkeley

    UC Berkeley, long known as one of the leading public universities in both the U.S. and the world, has seen turbulent times recently. While student enrollment and costs have increased steadily in recent years, the school, which has been fiercely proud of its public mission, received ever diminished funding from the State of California. Although Berkeley survived the financial crisis of 2008 under the leadership of Chancellor Robert Birgeneau, new Chancellor Nicholas Dirks inherited an ongoing structural deficit and a divided faculty. New controversies arose over the process of strategic planning, the building of a "Global Campus" in neighboring Richmond Bay, and allegations of sexual misconduct on the part of faculty and administrators. Can Berkeley overcome these challenges and maintain its distinguished reputation with its current governance structure and status as a privately funded public university?
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  • Uber in China: Driving in the Gray Zone (B)

    For two years since 2014 Uber had fought an intense, costly battle for China's ridesharing market with well-financed and well-connected domestic Chinese competitors. During this time, Uber also had to respond to an ever-shifting regulatory landscape that looked increasingly bleak in 2016. Then on August 1, 2016 Uber CEO Travis Kalanick shocked the global ridesharing industry by selling the company's China operations to arch rival Didi Chuxing. Given the competition from domestic rivals and the uncertainties of government regulation, was the decision to exit China the right one for Uber? What does this latest reconfiguration of the market mean for China's burgeoning ridesharing industry? What lessons could other tech companies learn from Uber's experiences in China?
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  • Yili Group: Building a Global Dairy Company

    From its humble beginnings as a local Chinese dairy company, the Inner Mongolia Yili Group has become one of the largest dairy companies in the world. To achieve this Yili has aggressively expanded its footprint overseas including building the world's largest integrated dairy production base in New Zealand and forming R&D partnerships in Europe and North America. As the company continues its growth in the context of a slowing Chinese economy, how can Yili integrate its now global resources and supply chain to meet local market needs and become a top five global dairy company in the process?
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  • University of Hong Kong: Bridging East and West

    In the early 20th century, the University of Hong Kong (HKU) was established in order to serve as a bridge between Mainland China and the British Empire. As an elite institution in the 21st century, HKU continued in its role as a bridge, connecting Mainland China, Hong Kong, and the world, but in a very different global context. President Peter Mathieson believed that HKU still had an important role to play, but knew that HKU needed to adapt to China's growing global presence and the increasing influence of Mainland Chinese universities. Mathieson needed to break through institutional complacency and unite HKU's oft-divided students, faculty, and administration behind a plan that would allow HKU to thrive in a landscape in which it competed not only with other institutions in Hong Kong, but also with the increasingly strong key universities in China, and with leading institutions around the world. Would HKU be able to maintain its position as a top institution linking East and West in an increasingly connected and complex global society?
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