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Blackbird, a Delhi-based advertising agency, agreed to let a star designer leave to start his own firm and then became his first customer, enlisting his help as a contractor. Now other employees are asking for same arrangement--right in the middle of a crucial client project. How should Blackbird's HR director respond? This fictional case study by Rakesh Bohra and Jyotsna Bhatnagar features expert commentary by John H. Chuang, Craig Millon.

Blackbird, a Delhi-based advertising agency, agreed to let a star designer leave to start his own firm and then became his first customer, enlisting his help as a contractor. Now other employees are asking for same arrangement--right in the middle of a crucial client project. How should Blackbird's HR director respond? This fictional case study by Rakesh Bohra and Jyotsna Bhatnagar features expert commentary by John H. Chuang, Craig Millon.

Companies should focus on not just what they give employees but also how their offerings make employees feel.

After rising up the corporate ladder to become the first Indian American woman to make partner at Deloitte, Deepa Purushothaman took her career in a new direction, as an author and cofounder of the nFormation community for women of color. In an interview with MIT Sloan Management Review, Purushothaman discusses how women of color experience the corporate world and suggests ways we can all work to combat issues like bias and discrimination in the workplace.

In 2016, BlewMinds Consulting LLP was launched as a storytelling consulting start-up with the vision of touching and transforming five billion lives by 2030. One of the two co-founders was already well-known on the LinkedIn social network platform, with more than 600,000 followers. He was also recognized as one of the 25 Top Voices in India by LinkedIn for 2019. The company transformed 725,000 lives directly and 200 million readers indirectly through social media stories, one-on-one training, group coaching sessions, webinars, and speaking engagements, driven mainly by the co-founder’s extensive LinkedIn follower base. However, to realize the company’s vision, several questions remained: How could the co-founders create a community of storytellers within the organization who could effectively establish trust through communication and contribute collectively to the company’s growth? How could they engage a wider audience by effectively leveraging the co-founder’s strategic influencer communication on social media? Should the company continue its bootstrapped business model or should investors be sought?

In May 2021, the chief executive officer of Telkom SA SOC Limited (Telkom) in South Africa was facing a dilemma. Fifth generation (5G) technology was about to be introduced to the country’s communications industry. While Telkom had fared well during the COVID-19 global pandemic, even managing to gain market share from its much larger competitors, the anticipated release of additional coverage spectrum for the new 5G technology was going to put pressure on Telkom’s finances and business model. The chief executive officer, appointed in 2013, had helped transform the company’s business model from a struggling state-owned enterprise with a monopoly and unhappy customers to a thriving business in open competition with complementary strategic business units. However, with continuous evolution in the industry, Telkom was forced to innovate again and possibly reposition its strategic business units.

Anyone who leads an organization has issues that can potentially hamper success, so it’s time to eradicate the stigma surrounding mental health

The note provides a qualitative and quantitative overview of the North American airline and airport industries with data covering 2016 to 2020. Specifically, the data covers five airlines—American Airlines Group Inc., Delta Air Lines Inc., Southwest Airlines Co., United Airlines Holdings Inc., Air Canada, and WestJet Airlines Ltd.—and five airports—New York’s LaGuardia, Los Angeles International, Chicago’s O’Hare International, Toronto Pearson International, and Tucson International. The objective is to provide students with a basic understanding of the business and operations of the airline and airport industries.

Student Spreadsheet to accompany product W26084.

Established in 2015 in Shanghai, China, Shanghai Kmind Enterprise Management Co., Ltd. was a strategy consulting firm that specialized in helping enterprises overcome market competition through the provision of its consulting services. It not only provided strategy consulting reports to clients but also acted as a business partner in assisting clients in implementing the reports. Among its many clients, nine leading enterprises had achieved rapid growth, and five had reached revenue of ¥10 billion. However, behind its success, the firm was facing a shortage of consultants. Although its clients had increased in number since the firm's founding, it had had to turn away many high-quality clients because of the consultant shortage. The firm’s chairman had to consider how to rapidly improve the firm’s service capability.

In order to build diverse and inclusive business ecosystems, leaders and organizations must be authentic and move beyond performative allyship. The authors argue that by taking a cue from successful Black business communities of the past and robustly engaging in cooperation, companies can play a role in building the communities needed to facilitate social sustainability in underserved communities today.

In 2021, new CEO Karen Lynch (named the most powerful woman in business) considered the next transformation phase for CVS Health (a Fortune 5 corporate giant. The 2018 acquisition of Aetna insurance brought her to the company as part of its long evolution from a pharmacy chain to a multi-faceted health benefits and services provider. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated innovation and improvisation, with quick launching of testing and, later, vaccination, as well as new products, services, and in-store clinics. Now the question was how to continue transforming itself and health care delivery in America.

Spreadsheet to accompany product W27019.

Mitsuharu Kurokawa was the 18th generation leader of a family firm that produced and sold premium Japanese sweets, Toraya Confectionery Co., Ltd. He had succeeded the business from his father, Mitsuhiro Kurokawa who had led the firm for thirty years. Mitsuharu was committed to following his predecessors who had strived to please customers with delicious Japanese sweets. The challenge was how he could further improve product quality and diversify the product line to please the customers of today without affecting Toraya's brand image. Mitsuharu also believed that plant-derived "yokan" (a traditional sweet using azuki bean paste) was healthy and had the potential to become a global popular sweet, like chocolate. Thus as a long-term goal, Mitsuharu had an ambition to offer Japanese sweets to customers around the world. In planning ways to further grow the business, Mitsuharu had to pin down exactly how the family business was defined in relation to his family. He also needed to identify what role of prominence his family's position within the highest tier of decision-making meant for the rest of the larger "Toraya family," which included longtime employees. Would Mitsuharu's endeavor to expand the product line to reach a wider customer base be in line with the well-being of the company? Would there be a risk of damaging Toraya's image as a luxury brand? Would global expansion be the right decision for the firm with a long history of offering traditional sweets to premium customers in Japan?

On May 24, 2021, Peloton Interactive, Inc. (Peloton) announced its intention to build a new US factory to produce its stationary bicycles and treadmills. The new factory, which would be located in Ohio, was an addition to the company’s investments in its manufacturing facility in Taiwan and its purchase of fitness equipment manufacturer Precor Incorporated. In deciding to invest in its own production facilities to supply exercise equipment, Peloton was in stark contrast to its competitors, who predominantly outsourced production overseas. Would Peloton’s plans to build its own fitness equipment in Ohio help or hinder its ability to fulfill its goal of market leadership?

Buckeye Chiller Systems and International Steel Corporation formed MicroFin Incorporated in 2017, in South Carolina, United States, as a joint venture to produce tubing for industrial chillers. After four years of losses, the chief executive officer of Buckeye had lost patience with the joint venture. He gave his chief operating officer until the end of March 2021 (less than three weeks) to turn around MicroFin or dissolve the partnership. With no chance of making money in the short term, the chief operating officer focused on three options for terminating the joint venture. Time was running out, and something needed to change.

<p align="justify/">In 2021, the chair of the admissions committee at The School of Management in Gandhinagar, India, had only three months to prepare for the start of the school’s next master of business administration program. During these three months, prospective students who had received admission offers could decide to decline offers, even though some had already paid relevant fees. Understanding the uncertainty of those decisions was critical to estimate the number of additional offers to send out to other candidates. If the final number of prospective students joining the program was lower than the school’s available capacity, The School of Management would lose contributions toward its fixed business costs and potential profit. It would also mean that the school’s resources would be underused. On the other hand, denying admission to students who had received offers to join the program, due to a lack of space, could adversely affect the school’s brand image and future admissions. Understanding the decision-making process of prospective students was critical over the long term to develop appropriate retention strategies and encourage all candidates to accept their admission offers.</p>

Instructor Spreadsheet to accompany product W27746.

Student Spreadsheet to accompany product W27745.