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In June 2020, Steven Zwane, founder and chairperson of the Youth Leadership and Entrepreneurship Development (YLED) program, based in Johannesberg, South Africa, faced managing the uncertainty of COVID-19’s impact on the program’s long-term sustainability. YLED, a non-profit social enterprise aimed at empowering underprivileged youth, relied on donors and sponsorships to deliver its face-to-face entrepreneurship and leadership training program to grade eleven learners from township schools around Gauteng Province, South Africa. YLED's funding sources were affected by their sponsors’ and donors’ economic constraints during the pandemic, leaving uncertainty about the program's future. Should Zwane suspend YLED’s operations until the end of the pandemic or find an alternative means of delivery? If he suspended operations, what would happen to the young people, whose hopes and dreams could be crushed? If Zwane continued and found other means of delivery, how would he be able to do so without support from donors and sponsors?

In February 2023, the Care for Wild founder and her team were planning for the future of their organization. Care for Wild had recently received a request from a potential international donor to outline the interdependencies for the social, ecological, and organizational aspects of the operation to determine how funding could help strengthen these areas. Care for Wild was a not-for-profit rhinoceros sanctuary based in South Africa that was facing various challenges and opportunities. Over the course of the organization’s first 12 years, Care for Wild had been committed to helping rescue and rehabilitate injured and orphaned rhinos, a species that was at threat of extinction. The founder was aware that a healthy and holistic system approach was needed for Care for Wild’s future. She was now tasked with articulating the complexities and interdependencies between these two areas. Her response to the potential donor’s request would also reinforce the importance of resilience within the organization’s socio-ecological environment.

In their final year of studies, many engineering students in Canada eagerly anticipate reciting their obligation and receiving their “ring” as part of the century-old iron ring ceremony (i.e., the Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer). Most students are unaware of the specifics of the ceremony or its history until they attend it. The Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer has been an important rite of passage for Canadian engineering graduates for almost a hundred years and upholds a culture of engineering that is male-dominated, hierarchical, and elitist, in addition to being implicated in environmental abuse and degradation. Over the last century, the ritual has remained largely unchanged, even in the face of public pressure. As a member of the Corporation of the Seven Wardens, what decision, if any, would you make about changing the Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer?

<p align="justify">The Solidarity Fund (the Fund) was established in March 2020 by a business group in South Africa to support the South African Government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. By September 2022, the Fund had proven highly effective and helped stabilize the healthcare system, provided economic support to the most vulnerable, and also encouraged the population to get vaccinated. Gloria Serobe, the Fund’s chairperson, was happy to have seen it succeed and complete its objectives. She pondered its future as lockdowns eased and the initial hardships of the pandemic slowly dissipated. The President of the Republic of South Africa personally contacted Serobe and asked that the Fund not be closed so that it could be maintained for future crises. Serobe and the board of directors needed to determine what options were available for the Fund—should it remain dormant or be closed?

In March 2018, the executive committee of the Shree Sharanam Co-op Housing residential society in the state of Gujarat, India attempted to bring transformation at the community level. The committee members knew that water was a precious natural resource that had to be used judiciously. Everyone wanted water to be available as and when required, but the challenge was to apply principles to people’s behaviour. The residents agreed that water conservation was essential but did not have any impetus to this common cause because it involved a price—both monetary and non-monetary—along with other daunting tasks of organizing resources and managing resistance. The committee gathered evidence and decided to propose installing water meters in each household of the residential society to curb the misuse of fresh water.

In 2014, Samuel Holmström and Jens Lundqvist took over Lundqvist Trävaru, the conservative construction company owned by the Lundqvist family for the last 80 years. Through a revolutionary digital transformation process, they redefined the company as a technology-enabled logistics and building kit company. In the last eight years, they expanded operations and manufacturing space in Sweden and other parts of the world, and they added 52 new employees in approximately 10 years. Holmström and Lundqvist had many questions on their minds: Should they pursue all the growth options that were available to the company? Should they identify and focus on a few key opportunities? And what kind of resources would they need to mobilize to achieve their technical and growth objectives?

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.

Amid the global shift towards remote working, Brad Merchant of Triovest uses a systems thinking approach to examine the evolving dynamics of office spaces. As corporations debate remote work, the demand for physical offices is in question. Triovest, a Canadian commercial real estate firm, is strategizing with a working investment thesis, "The Future of the Office." This approach involves buying undervalued office properties, modernizing them, and reselling them. Merchant and his team need to predict the interplay between remote and communal workspaces in their investment decisions. Would Triovest’s investment thesis affect these trends—or vice versa?

The mission of Fairphone, an Amsterdam, Netherlands-based social enterprise company, was to design, produce, and sell smartphones that had a more positive impact on the environment and society. Fairphone was rated as the most sustainable smartphone in 2021 and was considered as a champion for the circular economy in the smartphone industry. Since 2018, Fairphone had been headed by Eva Gouwens. Under Gouwens’s leadership, Fairphone had more than doubled sales between 2018 and 2019. Sales were an important measure of impact for Fairphone and a driver for much of its strategy. In 2021, Fairphone announced a distribution agreement with Vodafone Group plc, the launch of a new flagship phone, and expanded recycling services. Fairphone now wanted to consider how to rapidly scale its impact in 2022 and beyond, and determine how it could increase sales. Should it consider new markets or new offerings? Or should Gouwens shift Fairphone’s focus from sales to some other strategic goal?

In March 2022, Nemus, an environmental planning, development, and sustainability consultancy based in Lisbon, Portugal, released a series of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) through its Nemus Earth initiative with the goal of supporting reforestation in the Amazon rainforest. The company purchased at-risk land in rainforests, created collectible NFTs, and used proceeds from the NFT sales to support reforestation and economic and social development in the region. While some purchasers praised the company for the NFTs, other stakeholders, such as activists, government officials, and Indigenous groups, questioned the efficiency and legality of the project. By July 2022, Nemus faced a decision: should it continue with its mission, or should it leave it up to governments and non-governmental organizations to lead the way on climate action? Could NFTs be effective in protecting rainforests, or were there better alternative paths?

A business world characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) presents many leadership and governance challenges to businesses large and small. Smaller family firms, in particular, need to demonstrate resilience both in navigating changes that arise from VUCA conditions and in staying firm on the core purpose with which their enterprises were founded.<br><br>Cases A and B present the approach of a family firm based in Toronto, Canada, that manufactures and markets industrial vacuum systems. The cases provide an opportunity for instructors to convey the trials and tribulations faced by the founder and his successor in building a purpose-driven organization and in staying on the committed path of responsible leadership and governance.

Planet Abled is a woman-led, for-profit social venture based in New Delhi, India, offering customized tours around India and South Asia for people of all disabilities. Planet Abled was formed in 2016 by its chief executive officer, Neha Arora—herself a daughter of two disabled parents. Planet Abled’s start-up story explains how social ventures can repurpose traditional travel to reveal and reverse multiple types of stigmas (public, cultural, social, and structural) as well as defy and defend against the self-stigmatization of the one billion disabled people in the world (15 per cent of the global population).<br><br>Part A of the case presents the real-time conundrum of continuity of mission in the time of COVID-19 given the complete cessation of travel following the declaration of the pandemic and the lack of economic assistance from the Indian government. Part B describes real-time experiments Planet Abled undertook in a concerted and creative team effort to survive against all odds in the first year of the global pandemic—a period of unprecedented hardship for the global tourism industry. Part C jumps forward to discuss how Arora’s mid-2022 epiphany culminated in an early 2023 tipping point for Planet Abled and the global tourism industry. The three-part Planet Abled case series invites learners to drive system change by engaging them in real-time dilemmas about diversity and inclusion in the specific context of disability rights.

Supplement for product W33795.

Supplement for product W33795.

<p align="justify">The Beijing Stars and Rain Education Institute for Autism (Stars and Rain) was established in 1993 as the first private non-profit organization to provide educational services for children with autism in China. As a social enterprise, Stars and Rain worked to connect with various partners, raise funds through multiple channels, and co-operate with social welfare organizations. In addition to providing better autism rehabilitation services, it was also dedicated to facilitating family intervention and pre-employment training for adolescents with autism through its professional service and social influence. Since 2020, the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic had led to a continued downturn in the global economy, which greatly affected Stars and Rain’s operations and funding. How could the organization obtain a more stable source of funding, achieve sustained viability, and execute on its mission, vision, and strategic priorities?

In June 2022, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Worn Again Technologies (Worn Again), a polymer recycling technology company based in London, United Kingdom, was examining the way forward with a new technology that the company had developed and fine-tuned. The technology had been tested successfully at the company’s demonstration plant in Switzerland and was capable of processing fifty thousand tons of material per year. The CEO now needed to find new markets where the technology could be set up and scaled for commercialization.

Child Rights and You (CRY) was a non-governmental organization (NGO) started in 1979 in India. The organization experienced pan-Indian growth and later expanded to international locations. While CRY was partnering with state governments to increase its impact and reach, the global environment was shifting toward sustainable development. At the same time, the Indian government statutorily mandated companies with a specific turnover or net worth to spend 2 per cent of their profits on corporate social responsibility activities. In 2022, CRY’s chief executive officer, Puja Marwaha, had four focus areas: education, health and nutrition, child safety and protection, and children’s participation in improving their lives. She was looking at scaling up the organization and faced four major challenges: funding, regulatory compliance, employee retention, and technology infrastructure. Marwaha was in a dilemma about how to obtain more support from corporates as well as increase the impact of funding.

<p align="justify">On April 12, 2022, a devastating mudslide covered 87 hectares of the Toyota South Africa Motors factory located in Durban, South Africa. The company’s president and chief executive officer was facing various immediate issues including mud flooding of the plant, employees stranded within the plant, growing concerns over electrical shorting and possible electrocution due to rising water levels, and the plant’s closure in response to the flooding. As a result of the flooding, the plant had to shut down for five months, which deeply impacted the entire supply chain of original equipment manufacturers and dealers who depended on Toyota South Africa Motors for their sustainability. The consequences of a prolonged plant closure could affect multiple stakeholders, including 8,000 employees and the larger South African economy. Toyota South Africa Motors contributed approximately 130,000 Toyota vehicles per year for the local market and for global export. The company’s president needed to contain the immediate crisis and work with Toyota South Africa Motors stakeholders to lead a substantial recovery from the disaster.

This is Part II of the exercise set: Toyota South Africa Motors: Flood Devastation and A Plant in Crisis (W32218).

This is Part III of the exercise set: Toyota South Africa Motors: Flood Devastation and A Plant in Crisis (W32218).