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The realities of boardroom dynamics can often reveal a different story than how things appear on paper. Boards need the right dynamics and culture to effectively carry out their responsibilities. At their best, boards can catch budding issues before they negatively impact the firm and can partner with management to lead through change, like they did with Indra Nooyi's transformation of PepsiCo. Given the dual mandate of boards to both monitor and advise management, how can boards strike the right balance? This case begins with a brief discussion of director and board performance, along with an analysis of the role of government regulation in promoting healthy board dynamics. Then you are asked to act as a consultant to evaluate the board dynamics and culture of three companies presented below in vignettes: GE, Theranos, and PepsiCo.

In 2018, the chairman of Sichuan Mt. Emei Zhuyeqing Tea Co., Ltd. (ZT), a tea enterprise founded in 1998, faced a strategic decision. ZT had become an economic entity in China, having successfully integrated tea plantation, cultivation, processing, and marketing. Since 2013, however, ZT had experienced sluggish growth. According to a third-party research report, the company's development bottleneck was caused by fuzzy strategy and an out-of-focus operation. The company's chairman needed to decide the next steps for ZT. Should ZT continue to pursue its cost leadership strategy by developing multiple brands and expanding geographically? Or should ZT adopt a focusing strategy, by building its green tea brand, and moving in stages toward the goal of national market expansion?

In early 2020, James Quincey, the 14th chair of the 133-year old The Coca-Cola Company, was in the midst of a years-long transformation of Coca-Cola from being the leading carbonated soft drink (CSD) beverage company into a total beverage company. The company's flagship product, Coca-Cola, had been the world's best-selling beverage for 100 years, yet some consumers were turning away from CSDs due to health concerns over sugar consumption and a proliferation of other beverage options. The company had both acquired and developed many new beverage brands. It was in the process of changing its culture to be faster moving and more willing to take risks, and a culture where the new brands meant as much to the company as did its flagship product, which was still the company's largest selling beverage. Coca-Cola was also working to improve its environmental sustainability and social consciousness activities, and building a company where people were proud to work. The case also provides a historical look at the company's development, its relations with bottlers, competition with rival PepsiCo, and ends with emerging issues in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Via (a) captures the early days of the data analytics startup as founders Gounden and Ravanis considered which markets offer the right opportunities for their firm and what kinds of experiments will help them narrow their choice. Supplement Via (b) reveals the experiments they ran, and what they learned. Via (c) explores the strategic choices they face about product and service offerings once they determine which market(s) to target.

In May 2020, the chief executive officer (CEO) of the liquor delivery company LiqHub was happy with his company's initial success. The company's first steps in the Indian market had been propitious, and the founders were happy with the government's validation of their business model. Now, they needed to determine how to replicate their success on a larger scale across India. The CEO needed to evaluate various growth options and make a decision about which operational strategy would most effectively grow the business during the COVID-19 pandemic and into the future. Should the company focus on diversification, product development, market penetration, or market development?

The General Electric Company's (GE's) iconic Appliances division enjoyed a significant role in the company throughout the 20th century, representing one of the most recognized engines of the GE brand. By the 21st century, however, GE had changed its focus to technology and infrastructure businesses, and GE Appliances' contribution represented less than 5% of GE's revenue and profit. Recognizing GE Appliances' lack of fit with the strategic direction of the company, GE embarked upon a sale process in 2008, but when the financial crisis struck, it pivoted to a spin-off, went back to a sale process, and then canceled the process altogether and decided to invest more than $1 billion in GE Appliances-including new products, renovated factories, and reshored manufacturing. It wasn't long before corporate thinking and an active board of directors pushed to restart the sale process of a more attractive GE Appliances asset. On September 8, 2014, GE announced it had signed an agreement to sell GE Appliances to global consumer-goods company Electrolux for $3.3 billion. This case examines GE Appliances' journey through a 7-month single-party sale negotiation, followed by a 15-month integration planning, government approval, and a court case.

Our Santa Fe River, Inc, is a nonprofit organization committed to protecting the waters and lands supporting the aquifer, springs, and rivers that drain into the Santa Fe River in northern Florida. Michael Roth, president of Santa Fe River, is faced with the decision of how best to lead this organization in protecting the Santa Fe River watershed from Seven Springs Water Company (Seven Springs) and Nestle Waters North America's (NWNA) intent to withdraw 1.152 million gallons of spring water per day for NWNA's bottled water business. Seven Springs Water and NWNA had filed an appeal to the Division of Administrative Hearings (DOAH) preempting the Suwannee River Water Management District's (SRWMD) proposed denial of the renewal of the water use permit to source water from the springs at Devil's Eye Complex, which was part of the watershed for the Santa Fe River. Michael Roth and Our Santa Fe River (OSFR) board needed to decide on the optimal response to support efforts to finalize the denial of this water use permit.

Monday, January 13, 2020, was David Calhoun's first day on the job as President and CEO of Boeing, Incorporated. Prior to Calhoun's first day, two separate Boeing 737 MAX planes had crashed, killing 346 people. In the wake of the second crash, all 737 MAX planes worldwide had been grounded. Something had gone terribly wrong with Boeing's best-selling airplane. Calhoun will need to investigate and evaluate Boeing's actions preceding and following the two crashes to identify a strategy that restores the company's reputation, repairs relations with its stakeholders, and returns the 737 MAX to worldwide service.

Excited yet apprehensive after being named CEO of P.F. Chang's beginning July 1st, 2020, Damola Adamolekun was well aware of the extraordinary challenges facing the firm. The closure of businesses deemed "nonessential" owing to the COVID-19 pandemic had devastated the restaurant industry in the United States and abroad. The shock had been particularly unwelcome to P.F. Chang's, an upscale-casual restaurant chain known for serving made-from-scratch, wok-cooked Asian cuisine in contemporary bistros. In recent years, P.F. Chang's had shown weak results in restaurant sales and financial performance. Investment management firm Paulson & Co. had joined hands with TriArtisan Capital Advisors to acquire the firm in 2019, determined to turn it around. However, the new leadership team had not anticipated the havoc a pandemic would soon wreak on the economy and the industry. Adamolekun felt that the opportunity to lead the firm at age 31 was extraordinary, but the future was extremely uncertain in this turbulent environment. He was acutely aware that the future of the company, the returns investors hoped for, and perhaps the trajectory of his own career were all riding on the strategic plan he was developing for P.F. Chang's.

The case describes the growth trajectory of Vodafone Gujarat, one of the most successful circles of Vodafone India. Successive leaders of Vodafone Gujarat followed a highly entrepreneurial approach for building a market leadership position in urban and rural markets. The case provides a detailed description of how to execute growth strategies in the telecom sector, especially by designing a decentralized distribution structure, cementing first-mover advantage through trust, customizing products and services, and integrating with network rollout. The context of the rural market and bottom of pyramid customer segments makes this case relevant to other emerging economies.

In mid-2014, revenue market share of Vodafone Gujarat declined slightly ending decades of consistent growth. The cirlce had emerged as the market leader against some stiff competition from other leading players, viz. Airtel and Idea in one of key circles- Gujarat- in western India. Successive leaders had followed growth principles of superior network coverage, customer centricity, and innovation. The aggressive entrepreneurial approach was supported by autonomous structure. The new head of circle had the onerous task of arresting the decline and reviving local team.

There has been a growing interest in fintech companies in recent years. The case describes how Privé Technologies has grown from a fintech startup to gain a firm foothold in Hong Kong and become a leading innovator in the financial and wealth management industries. The company was co-founded by Charles Wong and Julian Schillinger in 2011. The company uses modules similar to Lego building blocks to enable financial institutions to meet their customers' needs throughout the wealth management process, from customer onboarding, portfolio construction and recommendation to portfolio reporting and execution. With more than 100 staff and 6 offices in Asia and Europe, Privé has served over 60 financial institutions and its system has been used by over 3,000 financial advisors. This case study sheds light on how a fintech startup in Hong Kong can cope with different challenges and how to search and grasp growth opportunities and sell their products and services effectively.

Toyota Argentina (TASA) and the union representing automotive industry workers in the country had been working together since 2011 to address the challenges faced by Toyota's manufacturing plant in Zárate (Argentina). In 2019, after achieving all the goals set forward in its plan for the "Reborn Plant," Daniel Herrero, TASA's CEO, looked forward to the future.

Wearable electronics were endpoint devices designed to be worn, sense the human body and interact with the environment around the wearer, connecting humans to the Internet of Things. Wearable technology received a great deal of attention in the past decade and reached a peak state of hype in 2015. After 2015, there was increased doubt in the future of the technology after early product releases were underwhelming. Wearables in 2020 provides an in-depth analysis of wearable development in recent years across eight different form factors.

Founded in 2000, Dalian Xinhe Leather Clothing Co. Ltd. (Dalian Xinhe) mainly produced men's and women's leather clothing; it had become the largest leather garment manufacturer in northeast China. At the beginning of 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Dalian Xinhe began to produce medical protective clothing, which brought the company through the business challenges created by the pandemic and earned it wide recognition from the government and society. As the pandemic situation evolved, two opinions emerged within the company with regard to Dalian Xinhe's further development. Chun He, the chairman of Dalian Xinhe, needed to determine whether the company should continue to expand production of medical protective clothing or whether it should concentrate on returning to original garment manufacturing and developing the company's own brands.

After launching a Danish esports company in July 2019, and going public in December 2019 with multiple brands associated with different games, the Astralis leadership team was contemplating a shift to a single, corporate brand. While the original arguments for multiple, team-based brands were that esports fans differed by game and the holding company structure made it easier to acquire and divest teams, Jakob Lund Christensen, the firm's chief commercial officer (CCO), now believed that a single, corporate brand strategy made more sense as the popularity of esports continued to grow-the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 was causing interest and participation in esports to grow rapidly. Rather than a holding company, Christensen saw the possibility of creating a leading esports company under the Astralis brand. In addition to being easier to manage corporate resources, he argued it would be easier and more lucrative to monetize a single brand. He was scheduled to meet with the firm's other leaders-CEO Anders Hørsholt and Chairman Nikolaj Nyholm, in just over a week to discuss whether they should indeed change the firm's branding strategy.

As Google incorporated in 1998, in the midst of dot-com mania, it faced the need to raise growth capital after the 2000 dot-com crash, when VC investments and IPOs had considerably slowed. Yet despite the crash's lingering chill, which crushed thousands of new ventures, Google survived and ultimately prospered. This case reviews the early history of search engines and discusses the four key components of Google's success: strategy pivots to protect its search dominance; horizontal integration to expand information capture and revenue growth; vertical integration to extend digital-ad-industry penetration; and "moonshots" to exploit its technology and financial depth. In making the case for Google's industry leadership, the case also enumerates the key threats to Google's dominance in its field-including rivalry with major competitors Amazon, Facebook and Apple-while suggesting that the company's past successful strategic pivots bode well for its future nimbleness

The rise of financial technology companies-"fintechs"-is changing the way money moves around the world, leading to greater financial inclusion and closing a credit gap that historically has hampered small businesses. According to the World Bank, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is the engine driving world economies, representing 90 percent of all businesses worldwide, providing 50 percent of all employment, and responsible for up to 40 percent of national income in developing economies. Even so, research has shown that 65 million businesses-or 40 percent of SMEs in developing economies-face an unmet financing need of $5.2 trillion per year. This gap translates to 19 percent of the gross domestic product of the 128 countries surveyed and attests to the vital role that SMEs play in the world economy as a driver of employment and overall economic health.

In late 2018, the chief executive officer and president of Domino's Pizza Japan Inc. was convinced that a substantial expansion in the Japanese market was needed and feasible for continued growth. His company had already grown to nearly 550 stores across Japan, which was over double the number only five years earlier. The company had numerous opportunities to grow further, including opening new markets; opening stores closer to the company's customers; and building on customer insights, new menu offerings, and a new marketing approach. In particular, the chief executive officer wondered whether priority should be given to new markets in Japan that the company had not yet entered, or if priority should be given to greater penetration in Japanese locations where it already operated. What strategy was the best option for expansion in the Japanese market?

Zip Co Limited (Zip) was a market follower in the Australian buy now, pay later (BNPL) sector. In September 2020, PayPal Holdings Inc. entered the growing sector, which was expected to disrupt the credit card industry, with better incentives for retailers and consumers. Although investors were concerned, Zip's chief executive officer remained confident about the company's future growth. How could he combat competition against large players like PayPal in the United States? What competitive strategies could he opt for-and could Zip disrupt the credit card industry?