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In 2019, the president of On Track St. Thomas (OTST), was considering the future of St. Thomas Elevated Park, a public park built on an abandoned railway bridge and now under the care of OTST. The park was built after much lobbying and community fundraising, and a decision had to be made on its future. What was going to happen to the park? Who would take responsibility for it? The president’s options were to recommend a gift of it to the city of St. Thomas, create a paid membership for members of the community, or attract corporate sponsors.

In October 2019, BYD Company Limited (BYD), a leading Chinese company in the new energy vehicle industry, was pursuing the goal of building a business ecosystem. The firm and its partners jointly launched a blockchain-enabled green ecosystem that delivered new value to customers by issuing carbon points to users who had made efforts to reduce their daily carbon emissions. Users could spend carbon points at partner merchants and get rewards. Blockchain, as the core infrastructure of the project, provided an ideal environment to cultivate a healthy and efficient business ecosystem that benefitted all stakeholders, including the firms, its users, and the environment. With the program still in its early stages, how could BYD and its partners further utilize the green ecosystem’s potential to achieve greater economic and environmental value?

In 2017, the general manager and head of business conglomerate Mahindra and Mahindra Limited (M&M)’s largest factory in Igatpuri, Maharashtra, faced several challenges related to the company’s goal of achieving zero-waste-to-landfill certification from an environmental agency. Since the Mahindra Group’s chief executive officer had decided to focus on sustainability as a key to long-term growth, M&M had to find practical ways to manage waste in the Igatpuri factory. Reducing the waste produced in the factory would require the company to deal with both production-related hazardous waste such as toxic camshaft-grinding waste and other waste such as the cotton gloves iemployees had previously discarded after every shift. The general manager knew that diverting a high percentage of waste from the landfill could produce material savings and cost reductions and boost M&M’s image as a sustainability-focused global brand. He wondered how best to embed waste management policies into the factory’s processes.

In late 2018, the chief executive officer and founder of Tunaiku, a new digital consumer-lending financial technology (fintech) company in Indonesia, faced a dilemma. Although he had set out in 2014 to revolutionize Indonesia's consumer lending by providing people in the underserved lower segment of society with small unsecured loans, he now faced his most crucial challenge—dealing with Indonesia’s changing regulatory environment. When he had launched the venture in 2014, fintech was unknown, and the founder had eventually decided to offer the product through a bank. But after Indonesia introduced a new fintech regulation, he needed to reconsider his earlier decision. Should Tunaiku move to a fintech licence or remain as a bank?

On September 9, 2019, thousands of Amazon.com Inc. employees threatened to join the global climate strikes planned for the week of September 20–27, 2019. Employees were protesting the e-commerce giant's customer-centric approach and its lack of transparency regarding its carbon footprint. Pressure for more transparency was mounting—not only from employees but also from various non-governmental organizations, politicians, and competitors. However, transparency could reveal environmental issues that might lead to a boycott of the company's products and services. Furthermore, transparency and environmental initiatives could work against Amazon’s customer-centric approach, and would likely not be approved by the shareholders. Amazon.com Inc. needed to make a decision. Should the company adopt a confrontationist approach and steadfastly pursue its customer-centric approach in the interest of shareholders? Or, should it adopt a co-operative approach and change the company's business model to minimize environmental damage?

Students need to practice talking about taboo topics. The ‘A’ case offers background on recent calls to end discrimination (e.g., #MeToo, Black Lives Matter protests) and highlights the struggles business schools, in particular, have faced in dealing with intolerance. It offers an opportunity for students to consider and role play eight mini-cases based on real events. Topics covered include gender, race, diversity/inclusion, socio-economic inequities, harassment, LGBTQ+ issues, white privilege, and ableism. The ‘B’ case asks students to consider similar past interactions in their own lives so they can personalize the process and make plans for how they will deal with such events in the future.

In the winter of 2019, the Brazilian entrepreneur and founder of Insolar was proud of what he had accomplished in the five years since the company’s launch. His vision to democratize access to solar energy in Brazil was finally starting to become a reality. Insolar had installed solar panels that were providing a sustainable energy source to 5,000 residents in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. The company had also founded an institute to train low-income residents on the installation of solar panels and was continuously designing new innovations to increase the institute’s impact. The founder was ready to make an additional investment and expand the Insolar brand. He had just received word from his research and development team that the final version of his most recent project, the solar kit, would be complete within the next year. However, he still had reservations about launching the product and had to make some key decisions before it could be ready for the market. What would be his next steps on the path to democratize solar energy?

Since early 2015, Uber had been investing heavily in research and development for its autonomous vehicles to revolutionize the ride-hailing industry and provide better ways of competing and fulfilling its promise of profitability to investors. Constant innovation was crucial to stay ahead of its competitors. While this strategy was groundbreaking for the ride-hailing industry, concerns were sparked when one of Uber’s autonomous vehicles was involved in a fatal accident involving a pedestrian in 2018. This accident brought safety lapses in autonomous vehicles into the public eye and was deeply controversial. Consequently, Uber was forced to examine its corporate strategy pertaining to its innovation portfolio. Should Uber continue its current investment in autonomous vehicles? If so, what business models and strategies could Uber adopt with autonomous vehicles to move the company towards profitability?

Eagles Nest Association of Waterdown (Eagles Nest) was a not-for-profit organization (NFP) in Waterdown, Ontario which focused on assisting women and children fleeing abusive situations. They closed a transitional home because the lease was not renewed on the property and the lease on their thrift shop was not being renewed. That left a centre which provided support to families. The executive director had to recommend a new strategy, one that left Eagles Nest less reactive to environmental factors. Should Eagles Nest look for another property for the transitional home? Should it move the thrift shop or find another source of funding? Should it just focus on The HOPE Centre; and if so, should it expand the Centre’s programming?

The president of Atotam Productions, a media production company near Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, was dedicated to helping industry meet its social licence to operate by creating positive stories of existing and mutually beneficial media projects. He wanted to show that partnerships among industry, the government of Canada, First Nations communities, and the Canadian public could exist, and Indigenous people could be consulted and engaged in major industrial projects. Though he was aware of the long-standing and inherent disconnect among these groups, he understood how changing market conditions in the oil and gas industry in Alberta could influence a First Nation member-owned media. Should his company continue pursuing work with the oil and gas industry or consider branching out into other industry sectors? If the company branched out, which sector(s) could it focus on? He wondered how industry could best convey to the communities that worthwhile benefits could be shared through cooperative and collaborative approaches in industrial development projects. How could the First Nations communities be assured that industry would take their culture and history seriously? More specifically, how could Atotam Productions best address the need for meaningful and respectful communication and knowledge sharing among these groups in the context of market volatility and change?

In November 2019, Saudi Arabia’s government officials and advisers had to decide whether or not to proceed with a plan to make the government-owned Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Aramco) a private company and list it on a stock exchange. At the time, Aramco was considered to be the most profitable company in the world. Therefore, its initial public offering would potentially be the largest in history. The company’s market capitalization would dwarf those of global giants Apple Inc. and Google LLC. Saudi Aramco managed the world’s largest oil reserves and had the world’s second-lowest cost of oil extraction. However, there were concerns about the targeted valuation of US$2 trillion. There were also various other questions to be answered: Should the government-owned Aramco become a private company? Was the timing right to list the company on a stock exchange? What fraction of shares should be offered to investors? How should the largest initial public offering in history be priced?

Google was once considered a dream place to work at for people in the technology industry. However, the company has faced fierce criticism in recent years for its attempts to suppress the voice of its employees. The past few years have been tumultuous for the company, which has had to grapple with employee protests over the mishandling of sexual harassment claims, retaliation for expression of their disagreement with company policies, and ethic crises related to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. For a long time, workers at Google have enjoyed what has become known as the legendary standards of a democratic workplace and corporate perks. Recently, however, they have taken to the streets to protest the destructive work culture of the company. Some discontented employees left the company; others were allegedly fired in retaliation for their actions.<br><br>Google had historically been characterized as “least bad” among technology giants in terms of the freedom of expression allowed to employees. Is this changing? Why were Google’s employees discouraged from voicing their challenges? What approach should company adopt to maintain the trust of employees in channels provided for freedom of expression of its employees? Could the termination of vocal employees be treated as unlawful retaliation? Has Google been struggling to handle workplace harassment complaints? Would alleged improper handling of workplace sexual harassment attract a legal action against the company? How Google should handle workplace harassment complaints in future to avoid legal battles?

The owner of All Women Recycling, a small manufacturing business in South Africa, is perplexed after the dawn of the COVID-19 pandemic. She wonders how she should structure business operations to ensure the safety of her staff and meet business goals. She debates between a remote staffing model and a limited staffing model. There will be compensation changes in either approach. The entrepreneur wonders how she should manage employee concerns while continuing to run a profitable business.

Based in India, Butterfly Edufields Pvt. Ltd. (BFF) designed, developed, assembled, and distributed educational activities and games for Grade 1–10 students to help them understand various science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) concepts. After more than a decade of existence, BFF had grown significantly in terms of production capacity, human resources, product portfolio, and geographical reach. Between 2010 and 2019, its revenues had grown 15 times. In November 2019, the company's chief executive officer faced three challenges: (1) the firm's inability to meet orders for newly introduced products; (2) its limited ability to tap and serve the huge market of 1.5 million schools across India; and (3) its failure to capture the enormous potential of selling educational toys online—a $300 million market. The chief executive officer believed that the traditional cost structure of centralized design, production, and distribution might not support the non-linear growth he envisaged for the company, so he had collected the value-added details for one of BFF's products with the intention of evaluating alternate value chain configurations for the company.

In February 2020, an entrepreneur and his team in China created a mobile application called Tong Cheng Lian Kang (TCLK), which crowdsourced information on publicly known cases of COVID-19, enabling users to find out if they might have been exposed to an infected individual. The application leveraged blockchain technology to record and validate user submissions of COVID-19 cases to ensure that submission and validation data were immutable, transparent, and decentralized. Users could volunteer to submit publicly recorded cases of COVID-19 or to validate the submissions of others in exchange for digital tokens on the blockchain platform, which they could use to redeem small gifts. As the number of new COVID-19 cases decreased, the entrepreneur wondered how to expand the blockchain concept to build a more sustainable business model. He was considering three options: expanding internationally, which would require building trust with users who lacked familiarity with Chinese applications; diversifying within the healthcare industry by expanding to a business-to-business model, possibly by linking prospective patients to hospitals and health care; and applying the blockchain concept to address issues in industries outside of healthcare. How could he best ensure the sustainability of TCLK?

Launched in 2010, CredEx Fintech Co. Ltd. (CredEx) operated until 2017 as a mobile credit platform, connecting lenders and borrowers in the Chinese small- and microcredit market. In 2017, the Chinese government introduced a regulation to address misconducts in the credit market. As a result, CredEx needed to transform by utilizing mobile credit technology to enable and support licensed financial institutions to explore mobile credit markets. In 2018, however, this change posed many challenges, such as how to add a new business model that served enterprise consumers as well as how to manage dual business models.

In June 2019, the cofounders of BharatAgri, an Indian agritech (agricultural technology)-focused entrepreneurial venture, were reviewing their strategy. BharatAgri leveraged information technology to provide crop-management related advisory services to Indian farmers and provided data analytics-driven decision dashboards to organizations that worked with farmers. They had onboarded nearly 6,000 Indian farmer-customers and had raised ₹40 million (INR) of venture capital funding to date. Their target was to onboard 20,000 farmers as paying customers by 2021. Could they also generate revenues by selling farm-management related data to agriculture-related organizations? In the next meeting, they were expected to present a comprehensive and cogent strategy to their financiers.

Between 2017 and 2019, The Walt Disney Company (Disney) faced two major scandals that threatened to damage its family-friendly brand image. Disney’s brand value decreased by 5 per cent from 2017 to 2018, although it remained the most valuable media brand worldwide. In November 2017, John Lasseter, Disney’s executive producer, was accused of illegal sexual misconduct at its Pixar Animation Studios (Pixar). Following the allegations, Lasseter left the company in December 2018. Further, during the June and September of 2018, Rian Johnson, the writer and director of The Last Jedi for Disney’s subsidiary, Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC (Lucasfilm), posted unprofessional, aggressive, and insulting responses on his personal Twitter account to fans who hated the film. In April 2019, Disney chief executive officer (CEO) Robert Iger announced that no new Star Wars movies written or directed by Johnson would be put into development. Why did Disney not take immediate action to address these two scandals? How should Disney mitigate the losses stemming from the two scandals and prevent them from happening again? What should Disney do to further grow its sustainably?

The owner and founder of The Talking Hands, a socially responsible restaurant, in Nagpur, India, had launched his company to create job opportunities for persons with disabilities. He wanted to find a balance between customer experience and customer service, but he also wanted to open two new outlets in his city and seriously consider his friend’s proposal of opening franchisee outlets of The Talking Hands in two Indian cites—Mumbai and Pune. He wanted to consolidate and expand his business without denting the restaurant’s brand identity. Also, as demand for the restaurant grew, the increasing delays in order taking and delivery needed to be managed. Could he hire some non-disabled staff members to manage rush orders and deliveries and still keep operating expenses under control? Should he go through with his expansion plans with the franchise model at this time? He needed to make a decision while renovations to his restaurant were underway.

The head of the South African subsidiary of the US consulting firm McKinsey & Company (McKinsey), has to address the implications of the firm’s involvement in a corruption scandal. The South African office was implicated in a scandal involving its local partner, Trillian Capital Partners (PTY) Ltd. (Trillian), and Eskom, a South African state-owned enterprise (SOE). McKinsey was required to partner with a local company as a condition of any contract with a South African SOE. McKinsey took on Trillian as its local partner after Trillian was recommended by a former client. Trillian was, however, associated with the Guptas, a family that the South African Public Protector (an ombudsman) had accused of using its influence with the South African president, Jacob Zuma, and his family for corrupt activities. The partnership (first with a company named Regiments Capital (PTY) Ltd. [Regiments] and then, following restructuring, with Trillian) directly benefited the Gupta family. More than three years into the relationship, McKinsey claimed to have discovered that its partner was politically exposed and under investigation by the South African authorities. McKinsey’s new global managing partner attempted to limit the damage to the company’s reputation by issuing an apology. However, the South African public appeared skeptical about the apology, and questions remained regarding McKinsey’s integrity. The questions left unanswered included the following: Was Sneader’s apology enough to enable McKinsey to quell the attack on its reputation? Should McKinsey do more to enhance its standing within the South African business community, or should it accept that its reputation had suffered irreparable harm?