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In 2021, Shein's app was ranked as the most downloaded shopping app in the e-commerce space, surpassing that of the technology giant Amazon.com Inc. A driver of Shein's high adoption was how it leveraged technology throughout its business model: from analyzing consumer data to designing garments and manufacturing products to shipping clothing in a timely manner, Shein disrupted the fast-fashion space through its use of information technology. With exponential growth came complex challenges. Shein faced questions related to sustainability and social responsibility. What were some future opportunities and challenges for Shein? How could the company balance its technology-enabled strategy and sustainability? What initiatives should Shein implement to integrate sustainability into its supply chain and promote circularity among customers?

AutoNation Inc. (AutoNation), the largest auto dealership group in the United States, found itself in an envious position at the end of 2022. Sales and profits were at an all-time high, and AutoNation had a strong cash position and growth aspirations. However, the auto industry was undergoing changes, driven primarily by the electric vehicle (EV) revolution that was in full swing in early 2023. Committed to an EV future, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) were set to introduce more than forty new models in 2023 alone and were exploring direct-to-consumer channels that would take the dealership out of the sales process. Importantly, EVs would cost half as much as internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles to maintain, taking a large chunk of margin away from auto dealerships' parts and service (P&S) business. How could AutoNation evolve and change its business model to ensure the company would not only survive but also thrive within these new industry dynamics?

Until 2015, the city of Indore, India was considered "dirty," with various sites serving as open dumping grounds for solid waste and open dustbins overflowing with mixed wet and dry waste. However, the strategic orientation of urban local body Indore Municipal Corporation led to a remarkable transformation in the city. In 2017, a series of change initiatives resulted in Indore being named the cleanest city in India-a jump from its 2016 low ranking of 25th, when the cleanliness drive was conducted for the first time. To reach this high point, Indore Municipal Corporation transformed its system and processes. The organization shifted to a revenue-generating sustainable waste management model that helped change the mindset and behaviour of Indore's citizens. Cleanliness was becoming a new way of life. However, Indore Municipal Corporation still faced key challenges including momentum, innovation, and sustaining the city's waste management model.

Until 2015, the city of Indore, India was considered “dirty,” with various sites serving as open dumping grounds for solid waste and open dustbins overflowing with mixed wet and dry waste. However, the strategic orientation of urban local body Indore Municipal Corporation led to a remarkable transformation in the city. In 2017, a series of change initiatives resulted in Indore being named the cleanest city in India—a jump from its 2016 low ranking of 25th, when the cleanliness drive was conducted for the first time. To reach this high point, Indore Municipal Corporation transformed its system and processes. The organization shifted to a revenue-generating sustainable waste management model that helped change the mindset and behaviour of Indore’s citizens. Cleanliness was becoming a new way of life. However, Indore Municipal Corporation still faced key challenges including momentum, innovation, and sustaining the city’s waste management model.

This case concerns the efforts of a multigenerational family business to leverage and benefit from the board on key related issues: succession of the CEO, chair, and other leadership roles; engagement of the fourth generation as future owners and potential business and governance leaders; and preservation of the family's unity, primarily through fair and transparent practices and processes. In early 2023, multibillion-dollar Wilbur-Ellis was more than 100 years old, with product lines including agribusiness, nutrition, and chemicals. Third-generation family member and CEO John Thacher had overseen organic and acquisition-based revenue growth, along with professionalization of the board, before transitioning to executive chair in 2018 and handing off operating leadership to nonfamily CEO John Buckley. Together, these leaders, along with the full board and family council (led by third-generation family member Matthew Rowland), had helped the business and family navigate multiple transitions, most recently the merger of Wilbur-Ellis's Asian chemical subsidiary into a global specialty distribution business. Readers will take the leaders' perspective as they consider how best to maintain continuity and engagement amid imminent business, governance, and family transitions.

Annapurna Seva Sangh was a non-governmental organization (NGO) located in the civil hospital compound in the Lalitpur district of Uttar Pradesh, India. The organization’s primary objective was to assist the patients and their families at the district civil hospital. Most patients were living below the poverty line and lacked sufficient funds to cover their daily expenses while receiving treatment. Since the patients were accompanied by their family members, they were all under considerable financial pressure. To cater to the patients’ needs, Annapurna Seva Sangh managed a clothing bank, an oxygen bank (to supply oxygen concentrators and cylinders), and a dining hall that provided free lunch and dinner. The NGO also offered ambulance services and frequently organized blood donation clinics. The organization, which had grown tenfold since 2016, efficiently used its resources under limited funding opportunities. However, it was also operating with very thin cash reserves and was therefore exploring other sources of revenue so that it could provide uninterrupted services to people in need.

Fibroheal Woundcare Pvt. Ltd. (Fibroheal) was the first company in India in the medical device sector to utilize the biomedical properties of silk. Launched in 2017, it focused on providing effective wound care to patients in a cost-effective manner. Fibroheal’s unique value proposition lay in its sustainable approach, ensuring balance across social, economic, and environmental dimensions. Results showed that Fibrocare's products could reduce wound-healing time by almost half. By the end of 2021, Fibroheal had about 15 products in its kit covering acute, chronic, and post-operative wounds. It had also engaged more than 1,000 farmers, as well as over 150 hospitals in more than 20 states across the country, and was affecting over 50,000 patients. However, there were challenges around building trust among stakeholders in the medical device market, where big multinational firms were already operating. Considering the challenges, how could Fibroheal expand in the medical device market under its founder’s strategic leadership? How could the company build on the existing positive customer responses? What should be the firm’s expansion strategy?

Bowtie Life Insurance Company Limited (Bowtie) was the first virtual insurance company licensed by the Hong Kong Insurance Authority. Since obtaining the licence in 2018 and raising two successful rounds of venture capital, Bowtie had developed into a reasonable size, of about a hundred employees, by early 2022. Bowtie was focused on developing and selling medical insurance products under the Voluntary Health Insurance Scheme (VHIS), while also selling term life insurance. The founders’ intention is to bring cheaper, more user-friendly insurance products directly to the mass market through online channels, while disrupting the traditional insurance industry by eliminating agents and brokers. The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020–2022 brought both opportunities and risks to the virtual insurance sector. While online purchases increased significantly during this period, the overall gloomy macroeconomic outlook put downward pressure on insurtech, fintech industries, and the venture capital that funded them. With Hong Kong’s mortality rates soaring, Bowtie had to consider the effects of the pandemic on its profitability and determine its future strategy. While continuing to focus on the VHIS segment, how should Bowtie expand into other product segments? When and how should the company expand to Mainland China and/or other neighbouring markets outside of Hong Kong?

Spreadsheet to accompany product W32456.

It was the afternoon of December 17, 2020, and Debojit Sen was concerned about the future of his educational technology (EdTech) start-up, Crack-ED, which was founded in March 2020 in Gurugram, Haryana, India. Crack-ED provided training to recent business school graduates in order to help them secure jobs in the competitive, post-COVID-19 marketplace. Several other EdTech start-ups such as such as Scalar Academy and upGrad Education Pvt. Ltd. had also emerged to address the gaps in the Indian education system. Crack-ED faced two challenges: it needed to differentiate its service from that of its competitors and promote its relatively new brand of EdTech service platform in a highly competitive market with stronger players. Most EdTech companies were aggressively promoting their brand digitally. Search engine optimization, video marketing, and social media promotion were among the options available for Sen to promote Crack-ED, and each option had its own pros and cons. Sen wondered which digital promotion strategy would be the best fit for Crack-ED as the company’s promotional budget did not allow him to choose all options available.

It was the afternoon of December 17, 2020, and Debojit Sen was concerned about the future of his educational technology (EdTech) start-up, Crack-ED, which was founded in March 2020 in Gurugram, Haryana, India. Crack-ED provided training to recent business school graduates in order to help them secure jobs in the competitive, post-COVID-19 marketplace. Several other EdTech start-ups such as such as Scalar Academy and upGrad Education Pvt. Ltd. had also emerged to address the gaps in the Indian education system. Crack-ED faced two challenges: it needed to differentiate its service from that of its competitors and promote its relatively new brand of EdTech service platform in a highly competitive market with stronger players. Most EdTech companies were aggressively promoting their brand digitally. Search engine optimization, video marketing, and social media promotion were among the options available for Sen to promote Crack-ED, and each option had its own pros and cons. Sen wondered which digital promotion strategy would be the best fit for Crack-ED as the company's promotional budget did not allow him to choose all options available.

Annapurna Seva Sangh was a non-governmental organization (NGO) located in the civil hospital compound in the Lalitpur district of Uttar Pradesh, India. The organization's primary objective was to assist the patients and their families at the district civil hospital. Most patients were living below the poverty line and lacked sufficient funds to cover their daily expenses while receiving treatment. Since the patients were accompanied by their family members, they were all under considerable financial pressure. To cater to the patients' needs, Annapurna Seva Sangh managed a clothing bank, an oxygen bank (to supply oxygen concentrators and cylinders), and a dining hall that provided free lunch and dinner. The NGO also offered ambulance services and frequently organized blood donation clinics. The organization, which had grown tenfold since 2016, efficiently used its resources under limited funding opportunities. However, it was also operating with very thin cash reserves and was therefore exploring other sources of revenue so that it could provide uninterrupted services to people in need.

In January 2022, Stephanie Owens, the administrative leader at StateU, an LGBTQ+-welcoming university in the United States, participated in a kick-off meeting for the pronoun project as the project lead. The goal of the project was to develop a centralized system for collecting and disseminating the personal pronouns of StateU’s students, staff, and faculty. The university embarked on the pronoun project to foster a community that recognized and celebrated the self-authorship of individual identities. It also saw personal pronoun data as useful to directing funding to initiatives that fostered justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion. These goals were important for Owens, who had always been a champion of student success and an advocate for historically marginalized student communities.<br><br>At a pivotal moment after the kick-off meeting, tensions emerged around possible technical solutions: while members of the technical team supported a more efficient, secure, and reliable solution that would include a drop-down list of pronouns, the stakeholders on the team—many of whom worked directly with LGBTQ+ students, staff, and faculty and had lived experiences that had exposed them to the potentially harmful effects of predefining pronouns in a drop-down list—were strongly in favour of using a free-form text field for pronouns. Faced with escalating conflict, Owens asked both teams to prepare outlines of the advantages and disadvantages of their solutions and any other potential solutions. Owens was reviewing these materials as the next meeting approached. She had to weigh all arguments and decide for herself first: should StateU implement the drop-down list, the free-form text field, or the validation table solution?

Mr. Dharamdas Desai was running a distribution agency in Madhopura, a town in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India. He asked his son, Paresh, to analyze the business’s financial situation. Paresh found that the business’s post COVID compound annual growth rate was around 4 per cent and the operating profits had also declined. Paresh looked at the business situation and wanted to revamp the business strategically. Paresh came out with three alternatives to revive their business, Manik Distribution Agency: diversify into new product categories distribution; adopt a hybrid model (distribution and retailing of the products); and enter into the digital/e-commerce market. Paresh wanted to keep the business, so he needed further clarification.

In January 2022, Stephanie Owens, the administrative leader at StateU, an LGBTQ+-welcoming university in the United States, participated in a kick-off meeting for the pronoun project as the project lead. The goal of the project was to develop a centralized system for collecting and disseminating the personal pronouns of StateU's students, staff, and faculty. The university embarked on the pronoun project to foster a community that recognized and celebrated the self-authorship of individual identities. It also saw personal pronoun data as useful to directing funding to initiatives that fostered justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion. These goals were important for Owens, who had always been a champion of student success and an advocate for historically marginalized student communities.<br><br>At a pivotal moment after the kick-off meeting, tensions emerged around possible technical solutions: while members of the technical team supported a more efficient, secure, and reliable solution that would include a drop-down list of pronouns, the stakeholders on the team-many of whom worked directly with LGBTQ+ students, staff, and faculty and had lived experiences that had exposed them to the potentially harmful effects of predefining pronouns in a drop-down list-were strongly in favour of using a free-form text field for pronouns. Faced with escalating conflict, Owens asked both teams to prepare outlines of the advantages and disadvantages of their solutions and any other potential solutions. Owens was reviewing these materials as the next meeting approached. She had to weigh all arguments and decide for herself first: should StateU implement the drop-down list, the free-form text field, or the validation table solution?

In January 2019, Mohit Sehgal, assistant manager in the marketing team of Legrand India (Legrand), part of a global conglomerate in the electrical and digital infrastructure sector, had been asked to propose initiatives to enhance the brand's visibility and deepen stakeholder engagement based on the chosen brand platform: Advantage Legrand. The Legrand brand, present in India since 1996, represented a vast product portfolio and was connected to multiple stakeholders with diverse needs. It had successfully grown its business in India with a focus on customer-centricity, a heavy investment in research and development, and a focus on innovation and design. While Legrand was well-respected and strongly associated with premium, ethical products, brand awareness was limited, especially among end-consumers, and the brand was perceived as distant. The Advantage Legrand brand promise was initiated as a first step in increasing the brand's charisma. Legrand had also worked to enhance customer and stakeholder experiences, expanding brand touchpoints to include experience centres and virtual showrooms and working to deepen its engagement with end-users through social media campaigns. One year after the launch of Advantage Legrand, Sehgal needed to propose a brand-building strategy for the coming year and work out the implementation details. He was excited as he prepared for his upcoming presentation.

Mr. Dharamdas Desai was running a distribution agency in Madhopura, a town in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India. He asked his son, Paresh, to analyze the business's financial situation. Paresh found that the business's post COVID compound annual growth rate was around 4 per cent and the operating profits had also declined. Paresh looked at the business situation and wanted to revamp the business strategically. Paresh came out with three alternatives to revive their business, Manik Distribution Agency: diversify into new product categories distribution; adopt a hybrid model (distribution and retailing of the products); and enter into the digital/e-commerce market. Paresh wanted to keep the business, so he needed further clarification.

In February 2022, Café Niloufer, based in Hyderabad, India, was contemplating transforming its product lines of Irani tea, onion samosas, and Osmania biscuits, to grow its customer base over several other competitive brands. Anumula Shashank, Café Niloufer’s managing director, wanted to update the brand by strengthening their product portfolio to meet the needs of new-age consumers. Cafes/lounges that provided a variety of beverages were projected to propel the competition in the coming years. Shashank wanted to grow the café business. He had three alternatives: add the products to the existing product line, add a new product line, or open new retail outlets. Shashank also wondered what analysis process and decision criteria he should use to make his decision.

Whistleblowing is extraordinarily controversial because its occurrence is often reflective of fundamental failures in organizational governance, making leadership look bad. I argue that this perspective is shortsighted; rather, whistleblowing is a critical self-regulatory mechanism that, when properly actualized, protects asset value. I build on new research exploring a whistleblower orientation and integrate it with existing research on internal whistleblowing programs and whistleblowing cultures. Against this background, I present a novel, three-tier integrated program focused on promoting, supporting, and protecting a specific group of value-driven, highly moral-herein termed offended-whistleblowers to enhance firm self-regulation against fraud, sexual harassment, toxic cultures, and other malfeasances that occur both within firms and by their own actions. Whereas previous research has focused on organizational responses to whistleblowing, central to this program is identifying, nurturing, and supporting an idiosyncratic whistleblower orientation within key employees for a firm's own protection. The implication is that owners and managers can harness the power of whistleblowing, thereby protecting their firms, with less risk of individuals taking their grievances outside, where they could instead harm firms.

In 2016, Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (RJio), a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited, disrupted the Indian telecom sector by offering consumers access to the latest cutting-edge fourth-generation (4G) data and voice services at affordable prices. Competitors alleged that RJio had indulged in predatory pricing to acquire customers, but they lost the litigation as the anti-trust regulator held that the company should enjoy the benefits of a start-up and no predatory pricing rules were applicable. Within five years of its launch, RJio had become the top Indian telecom company. In 2023, competitors had caught up by offering better services at equitable rates. Had RJio indulged in predatory behavior to establish itself in a price sensitive market? Could the company continue at the same pace in the future? Had RJio transitioned into a new role as a technology company? What role should retailers play in ensuring customer acquisition to support RJio’s future growth strategy?