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The case describes OpenIDEO, an online offshoot of IDEO, one of the world's leading product design firms. OpenIDEO leverages IDEO's innovative design process and an online community to create solutions for social issues. Emphasis is placed on comparing the IDEO and OpenlDEO processes using real-world project examples. For IDEO this includes the redesign of Air New Zealand's long haul flights. For OpenIDEO this includes increasing bone marrow donor registrations and improving personal sanitation in Ghana. In addition, the importance of fostering a collaborative online environment is explored.

While there is widespread support for the notion that organizations with better reputations outperform their rivals, there is uncertainty about how to create such a reputation, especially among the managers responsible for this task. For example, organizations often give money to worthy causes or create social responsibility programs in the hope that this will appeal to their stakeholders. When approaches such as these are only loosely coupled to the strategy of the organization they appear to be "bolted on" rather than "built in." Thus, they are likely to foster a reputation that is less consistent with the principal actions of the organization and less credible. They are also easy for competitors to imitate. Because of this, a reputation grounded in the strategy of the organization has a better chance of providing a sustainable competitive advantage. This article presents a normative framework that illustrates a strategy-led approach to reputation building.

At the end of 2011, the founders of the China Greentech Initiative (CGTI) wanted to grow the company while respecting its unique hybrid business model that combined a collaborative open source community with more traditional strategic research services. The case follows CGTI from its initial goal of establishing a road map for the Chinese green technology market, to further catalyzing the sector through a combination of collaborative network building and customized advisory services. CGTI's hybrid business model and dual mission of profit and social value creation complicated the founders' decisions as they considered different expansion options, including new product and service offerings, and potentially expanding geographical coverage.

Teaching Note for Product #MH0004 Following Ray Anderson's guidance and vision, Interface, a modular carpet and commercial broadloom company, had implemented a business model focused on sustainability. The results had been not just good for the environment but also for Interface's costs and bottom line. When larger companies such as Wal-Mart came to see Interface's sustainability practices in person to learn how sustainability could benefit their companies, Anderson started InterfaceRAISE, a sustainability consulting company, and made Jim Hartzfeld Managing Director. Now faced with growing the business, Jim must consider what he will need to do to increase InterfaceRAISE's influence for sustainable business on the corporate world.

Who are the right investors for a for-profit company targeting the world's poor? Before this start-up spends hundreds of hours pursuing venture capital (VC), Movirtu must decide whether a profit-oriented VC investment will fit its vision for both growth and social impact. Movirtu's "Cloud Phone" software is designed for the nearly one billion people who cannot afford mobile phones and, as a result, borrow phones from friends and family. Movirtu provides phone sharers with a private number that sends and receives calls. Movirtu already secured two seed-round impact investors, Gray Ghost Ventures and Grassroots Business Fund. For its next round of financing, Movirtu was approached by TLcom Capital, an experienced VC. Students must decide: will having TLcom as an investor allow Movirtu to not only survive but achieve maximum financial and social impact?

The Westons reflect on how they have changed and on the lessons they have learned.

The Sundance case raises the question of how markets for innovative cultural products can be created and what the role of intermediaries in creative industries ought to be. The case describes the history of the Sundance Institute, which was founded by actor/director Robert Redford to promote independent filmmaking. Started as a "Lab," where independent filmmakers could work on their film projects, the Institute soon expanded to organize the Sundance Film Festival in order to facilitate the exhibition and distribution of independent films, including those not supported by the Sundance Labs. Thirty years after Sundance was founded, its top management team wonders whether the mission of Sundance would be best served by increasing and improving the supply of independent films in the market, or by educating consumers to create an audience for independent cinema.

The Nature Centre was a non-profit organization created in 1972 to manage public outreach and access in the Gault reserve on the Mt St-Hilaire mountain, 40 km south of Montreal. Beyond conservation and recreation, the 2001 new mission included the promotion of the conservation of the region's natural environment. The inclusion of this new regional focus led to the recruitment of Marc-André Guertin and the creation of the Conservation Team. The case introduced the challenge faced in early 2006 by Marc-André Guertin, Project Coordinator of the Conservation Team at the Nature Centre when he received a contract proposal for a biodiversity assessment to be conducted in a regional municipal county located 58 km away, i.e., far out of the Nature Centre's usual scope of action. He was considering this decision based on (1) the broader context of the organization's mission, (2) the management of his team, (3) the scientific value of this assessment for his team, and last, (4) the financial dimension of this assessment on his team's tight resources

In 2002 Ziqitza Healthcare, a for-profit company based in Mumbai, was launched with the goal of providing accessible, high-quality emergency medical care. Though the initiative, which became known as Dial 1298, expanded rapidly, it needed a sharper marketing strategy, and in particular, a way of increasing its usage rate among the poorest residents of Mumbai. This case illustrates how marketing principles apply to consumers in emerging markets. The main teaching objectives of the case are to have students learn: 1) Marketing communications strategy-to evaluate the options an organization has in targeting different customer audiences; to weigh different strategies available for reaching each audience 2) Consumer behavior-to assess research findings from primary and secondary sources to identify different audiences, understand their varying needs, and select the best message and media for each target group 3) Message and media planning-to craft compelling messages that convey a brand's essence to existing and new customers; to select appropriate media to reach different audiences; to consider the impact of BPL factors on communications planning, e.g., low literacy rates, a complex physical environment, diverse paths to purchase, and various cultural dynamics 4) Segmentation-to explore the many different ways that consumer audiences can be segmented, using demographic, psychographic, behavioral, and influencer-oriented variables 5) Targeting-to prioritize target audiences and assess the risks, opportunities, and obstacles that arise when a brand is communicating with several different groups simultaneously 6) Social enterprise-to evaluate the similarities and differences that arise in marketing decision making for organizations that operate with a dual bottom line, versus the processes used in traditional corporate and non-profit structures.

Chris and Alison Weston describe how they, a well-educated middle class couple, ended up committing mail fraud, for which they each served a year and a half in federal prison. The case highlights for students how otherwise upstanding individuals much like themselves can commit crimes without being truly aware that they are doing it.

Prepare students to make ethically charged decisions by exploring moral disengagement, a process that enables individuals to engage in negative behaviors, from small misdeeds to great atrocities, without believing they are causing harm or doing wrong.

New Resource Bank was founded in San Francisco in 2006 with a mission focused on environmental sustainability. The case illustrates the opportunities and challenges of banking on values and the challenges of organizations defining a social and environmental commitment. The case also highlights the tension and potential synergies between social mission and shareholder value in the context of the crisis of 2008, the taken-for-granted expectations and norms arising from a commercial bank charter, and the distinct perspectives of bank regulators, founders, investors, and other stakeholders of the newly founded bank.

Hassina Sherjan was born in Afghanistan but grew up and was educated in the United States. A trip to Afghanistan when she was an adult inspired her to move back to her home country with two missions. The first was to educate young women through a non-profit organization she started called Aid Afghanistan for Education and a for-profit company, Boumi, that manufactures and distributes products for the home such as curtains, cushion covers, tea cozies, coasters, bedclothes, and bathroom accessories. The mission of Boumi is to create jobs in Afghanistan, especially for women, based on traditional Afghani designs and using only locally grown cotton. Sherjan wants to grow Boumi so that it can be a substantial, if not major, funding source for Aid Afghanistan for Education. In order to grow Boumi, Sherjan must confront a number of challenges including funding, finding and managing skilled workers, and getting distribution for Boumi products in major markets such as Europe and the United States.

Narayana Hrudayalaya (NH) has expanded into a multi-specialty health city in Bangalore and has grown to twelve locations across India. The hospital plans to build 300-bed secondary-care hospitals in smaller cities across India, with a goal to operate 30,000 beds in seven years, which will make it comparable with the world's largest hospital chains. NH operates the world's largest tele-cardiology network, which provides consultations to people in 800 locations across the world, including 53 African countries. Management also plans to open a 2,000-bed hospital in the Cayman Islands to provide underinsured Americans with tertiary care procedures at 40% below U.S. prices, thereby bringing Dr. Shetty's model of compassionate care at affordable prices to the developed world.

The case "Mother Earth - Great Design, Great Values" can be used in a Competition and Strategy course to illustrate a firm employing a focused differentiation strategy and to explore the growth and execution strategies employed by the firm. The case also has a specific focus on the bottom of the pyramid and can be used to study sustainability issues in electives pertaining to Corporate Strategy and the Environment and Social Enterprises. Besides this, the case can also be used in entrepreneurship and marketing courses. The case describes the journey of Mother Earth (ME) since its inception as a company that believes in social sustainability and aims at discussing the strategic challenges at the end of 2010. The focus at the beginning was to utilize market mechanisms to create demand for Indian craft both in India and globally. The export markets turned out to be inconsistent in terms of demand and the financial downturn further aggravated matters; hence ME shifted its focus to expand domestically. The focus was now on giving artisanal products a new contemporary identity with better design and increased utility. ME had achieved significant growth over the last couple of years but was yet to turn profitable. With investment from Future Group, the company is poised for rapid expansion in the local market with significant efforts on building the brand ME and what it stands for.

The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, focused on building the organizational capabilities of nonprofits that served the disadvantaged youth in the United States, has recently been named an intermediary in the federal government's new social innovation fund (SIF), which is intended to bring together public-private funds to help expand effective solutions across three issue areas: economic opportunity, healthy futures, and youth development. SIF intermediaries would be responsible for directing resources to innovative community-based nonprofit organizations that were seeing results. Edna McConnell Clark Foundation had long been a promoter of evidence-based accountability and grantmaking and saw the absence of an efficient capital market in the nonprofit sector as a major impediment to funding growth, increasing scale, and building the sustainability of successful nonprofit organizations. With its Growth Capital Aggregation Pilot (GCAP), Edna McConnell Clark Foundation had seen positive results in taking a "syndicate" approach to funding a select group of nonprofits. With it being named an SIF intermediary, Edna McConnell Clark was ready to build on its GCAP experience and continue to evolve a model that would provide, at increased efficiency, growth capital for successful organizations. The foundation hoped to build a capital aggregation approach that would serve as a model for philanthropy.

The case describes the process of integrating environmental, social, and governance issues into valuation models and research analyst recommendations.

The case study presents facts pertaining to the Community Preservation and Development Corporation (CPDC), one of the best-known nonprofit housing development companies in the United States, at a time of fundamental transition--a new chief executive officer has been installed after several months of the board of directors running the company. Working with the founder, Eugene Ford, the first chief executive had made a specialty of using a variety of complicated financial arrangements to revive assisted low-income housing projects that had become or were at risk of becoming dilapidated, crime-ridden disasters. The organization had become famous for blazing new trails in providing services for the low-income residents of its housing projects, particularly related to technology. Federal, state, and local government agencies, private corporations, foundations, and universities had joined with CPDC in its development and resident service projects. But despite the worthy redevelopment projects and dazzling programs, CPDC was a house divided. Concerned about CPDC's difficulties in accounting and reporting its revenues and expenditures, members of the board of directors became more involved in running the organization and contributed to the departure of the organization's founding CEO. Fundamentally, CPDC was afflicted with what might be called organizational schizophrenia, with two different lines of business, each with its own organizational structure, funding mechanism, and supporters on the board of directors. The case presents the reader with the question of what strategies and ultimately business model the incoming CEO should adopt to keep the organization viable and fulfill its mission. HKS Case Number 1924.0

In recent years, the idea of conscious capitalism has emerged as an important alternative approach to the problems confronting American capitalism. Embraced by a number of corporations and prominent business leaders, it represents a new strategy for reconciling business, social, and environmental objectives. While this movement is an inspiring one and worthy of admiration, we believe the assumptions that underlie it suffer from a number of important limitations that make it unlikely for the movement to achieve the ambitious promises of its proponents. In fact, it is often difficult to do well by doing good, and few firms have been able to sustain superior social performance over the long run. Moreover, reconciling the interests of all the firm's stakeholders is often hard to achieve in practice. Most important, the adherents of conscious capitalism overlook the critical role that governments must play in reconciling corporate interests with broader public objectives.

Discussion of new model of Social Enterprise that applies the venture capital model to social enterprise.