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In the early twenty-first century the Native American populations of the United States continued to live with the legacy of colonialism, ethnic cleansing, and cultural destruction. Although other minority groups had increasingly been able to make their voices heard, Native Americans struggled to bring attention to the continuing consequences of this history. Native Americans were the most economically challenged group in the United States and were disproportionately victims of police violence and mass incarceration. This note provides background for these challenges.

The vice-president at Tencent LeXiang (LeXiang), the enterprise social networking platform of Tencent Holdings Limited (Tencent), had been overseeing the development of the platform from its inception. Since its official launch in 2017, LeXiang had been successfully adopted across a wide range of multinational corporations; it was also popular internally at Tencent, with many employees engaging with their fellow co-workers on the forums.<br><br>The vice-president was preparing for a meeting with Tencent’s leadership about the future of LeXiang and how the platform could bring value internally to the company. As part of her preparations, she received a data set that included many posts and replies within Tencent’s own LeXiang platform. While she thought there was significant value in the insight the platform provided about Tencent’s own employees, she was unsure how to organize the wide-ranging posts and demonstrate their potential value to Tencent’s leadership.

LOGSTOR is a Danish company that is a global supplier of pre-insulated pipe systems. This case focuses on the leadership of Kim Christensen, a former board member who became CEO in 2017. The company was in the throes of a major crisis: it had shifted its focus away from its core business, and bankruptcy loomed. Kim's mandate was to turn LOGSTOR around, bring it back from the brink and restore performance and growth. As an "inside-outsider" CEO, Kim had to focus on the financial, strategic and operational aspects of the turnaround, implementing an initiative known as "back to black." The case describes some of the key actions that Kim took during this period and the drivers of the changes he made, particularly with respect to company culture and getting employees and managers involved in the turnaround process. After two years, the company was solvent. Kim was gearing up to move LOGSTOR into a phase of profitable growth when the COVID-19 pandemic struck. The case explores some of Kim's initial actions. The pandemic-related crisis was very different from the company's previous crisis. The case closes in June 2020 and asks what type of leadership Kim will need to bring to address this crisis. During the case discussion, students will examine leadership, change management and organizational design issues.

The case describes Angela Merkel's background, her education, her ascent to power in Germany, and the development of her leadership style.

Dalian Bio-Chem Co. Ltd. (Bio-Chem) had been deeply involved in the field of industrial fungicides for nearly twenty years and occupied a place in both domestic and overseas markets. Since its establishment in 2003, Bio-Chem had adhered to a strategy of centralization, with industrial fungicides as its main business products. Bio-Chem was successfully listed on the A-share market in China in 2012, and it grew rapidly in the ten years that followed. Although Bio-Chem had become a leader in the field of industrial fungicides, its chairman believed that companies should not be content with the status quo. Some within the company believed Bio-Chem should carry out a diversification strategy because it had sufficient funds to do so; others thought it should carry out an integrated strategy because the downstream industry was very profitable; and others thought it should stick to a centralized strategy because the market demand for industrial fungicides was still very large, and adhering to a centralization strategy meant there would be room for growth. The chairman had to consider the opportunities and challenges of each strategy and determine which direction to take the company.

This case traces the rise of Leonard Bernstein from a middle-class family in Boston to the conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. The case describes how he studied music intensely as a young man and developed mentors to open doors for him. As his fame grew, he wrote widely acclaimed musicals such as West Side Story and introduced classical music to worldwide audiences through his popular television shows. Students will learn how Leonard Bernstein navigated life's choices to leave a lasting impact on the world.

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?

This note reviews the evidence that the world is undergoing an era of de-globalization. It shows that available metrics show some support for this theory. However there is also evidence that what is happening might be better described as regionalization. The nature of globalization is also changing with digitalization and a de-linking of globalization and Americanization. The note continues by an examination of four factors which have slowed or else redefined global economic integration in recent years: terrorism, the global financial crisis of 2008/9, the growth of populism; and geopolitical rivalty between China and the United States. The note ends by outlining four alternative future scenarios. They are a return to globalization as known in the past; widespread national autarky as in the 1930s; intensified regionalization with each regional block anchored by a major economic power; and full-scale military conflict replicating the first half of the twentieth century.

As a traditional retailer focused on selling home appliances, Suning.com Co. Ltd. (Suning) grew quickly and became a leading retailer in China, dominating the market until the 2000s. By 2021, however, Suning was facing challenges, including fierce competition from e-commerce giants such as Alibaba Group Holding Limited, Jingdong, and Pinduoduo Inc. and from its upstream brand manufacturers. It also faced financial pressure in its core business due to aggressive expansion. Suning’s revenue, assets, and equity declined, and its net income, which had significantly declined since 2018, had been in the red since 2020. Should Jindong Zhang, co-founder of Suning, change the company’s current business strategy? How could Zhang use an omnichannel structure to ensure Suning’s sustainable growth?

This note introduces students to two central concepts for ethical analysis: well-being and rights. It illustrates ways in which they figure in managerial decisions and challenges that arise, including how to frame trade-offs across individual well-being and paternalism.

The case tells the story of El Ordeño, an Ecuadorian company competing in the dairy sector, whose central purpose is to help small ranchers in the country's Andean (mountainous) region rise out of poverty. To do this, it designed a business model in which they were included as shareholders, received fair payment for their milk and avoid intermediaries by creating their own distribution centers. To better communicate the social impact of this enterprise, and provide more transparency to its supply chain, the company decided to build a blockchain solution, the first of its kind in Ecuador and Latin America. In January 2021, after almost two years since launching the initiative, senior management has to make a decision: Should El Ordeño strengthen or abandon the blockchain technology.

Digitization may be necessary for many businesses' continued success, but in our increasingly complex world, what companies really need to do is build new forms of competitive advantage and transform themselves for the future. And that requires fundamental changes in their top leaders--not just in individuals' capabilities but in the way they collectively steer the ship. Drawing on their research at 12 prominent global firms, the authors note the contradictory-seeming skills that leaders are expected to have--being both great visionaries and expert executors, for example. But in this article they focus on the urgent imperative to improve leadership teams, arguing that CEOs should: (1) Identify the roles that are needed at the top to reimagine and then deliver on the company's purpose. (2) Fill those roles thoughtfully, assembling a diverse group of people who think boldly and work together harmoniously. (3) Focus the team on driving transformation rather than managing the current business. (4) Take ownership of the team's behavior, fostering trust, collaboration, and a commitment to leading the company forward rather than dwelling on personal advancement.

Professional growth can get stymied for all sorts of reasons. But one of the most important is rarely discussed: You're contending with ghosts from your past. Early in life, family dynamics give rise to many fundamental behaviors and attitudes toward authority, mastery, and identity. When similar dynamics emerge at work, people often revert to childhood patterns. To enable change in the personal realm, psychologists often encourage clients to consider the nature of their original family system. This approach can--and should--be applied at work too. Guided by the tenets of family-systems theory and their own research, the authors have identified six elements of family dynamics that commonly play out in the workplace. To achieve your greatest potential as a leader, you need to recognize your own "family ghosts," understand how they influence your behavior at work, and decide which ones to celebrate and which ones to leave behind.

As people develop competence in a new domain of expertise, they move along an S Curve: Growth is slow and effortful at the outset, or launch point. It then progresses rapidly as people acquire new skills in a stretch known as the sweet spot. At the peak is mastery, when work becomes easier but the curve flattens. Understanding where your employees are on this S Curve of Learning will help you coach them appropriately, craft thoughtful succession plans, and build a team with diverse but complementary strengths. The S Curve is a tool that smart managers use to launch conversations with their reports and develop tailored development plans for them. It reveals when people are ready for bigger challenges--something that's especially critical when they're in mastery, which may mean they're getting restless and need to jump to a new S Curve. Often the employees don't even realize they're ready to take the leap, but their managers push them anyway. When that happens, it's key to surround an employee with the right supporting team. A good team will include members from all phases of the curve, who can contribute diverse perspectives and skills.

You have a great idea--a product tweak that will save your company money, a process change to increase your team's productivity, or a plan for heading off a looming crisis. There's just one snag: You're not sure how to approach your boss about it, or worse, you've tried and failed to get the attention of higher-ups. According to the author's research, two factors are key to a successful pitch: having the confidence to make your suggestion and knowing how to frame it to get the best reception from your boss. The key, the author says, is to understand the psychology of higher-ups--to get inside their heads. Doing so can help you recognize what tips the scales in your favor--and identify the (rare) instances when it's best to try to go around or above them. Here's how.

The actor, director, and entrepreneur on making choices and taking risks.