It's been a rough few years for ESG-the popular shorthand for measuring and managing a company's environmental, social, and governance performance. Critics on the political left believe ESG is insufficient for addressing major societal issues such as climate change; critics on the right say ESG pushes a liberal agenda. The barrage of criticism has caused ESG to lose its luster among many executives. Yet the need for a transparent way to connect a company's financial performance with its ESG performance remains. It's time, says Oxford professor Robert G. Eccles, to take stock of ESG and chart a path forward. He acknowledges the complex challenges that still need to be resolved. Chief among them is whether to use single materiality (which focuses on shareholder value) or double materiality (which includes societal impact). In this article Eccles recommends a pragmatic approach for corporate leaders: clearly define corporate purpose, improve transparency in ESG reporting, and engage stakeholders constructively. These strategies will help companies manage ESG pressures by focusing on material issues that affect shareholder value while also acknowledging and addressing broader societal impacts.

In January 2024, Mei Lin was appointed as Chief Sustainability Officer of Bamboo Bridge Logistics (BB), a mid-sized logistics operator based in Singapore. Her key task over the next three years is to support the newly-formed sustainability committee that would report to the Board of Directors (BOD). Mei faced significant challenges in weaving environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles into BB's fabric. She not only had to put in place measures for ESG goals on climate change, but also to link these goals to executive remuneration. She was also aware that the company harboured ambition to become publicly listed on Singapore's stock exchange, the SGX, likely not long after implementing its sustainability initiatives. How could Mei help BB's sustainability committee in selecting the appropriate indicators that reflect the company's commitment addressing climate change challenges, while mitigating the potential negative financial impact? What roles should BB's BOD play to ensure the effective implementation of ESG metrics in executive remuneration, bearing in mind the balance between short-term financial profitability and long-term environmental sustainability?

In 2023, Israel-based AI health care company Aidoc evaluated its future. The company, founded in 2016, had grown from commercializing a single AI product for radiologists to a software platform that could detect 20 conditions and immediately notify care teams of critical results for priority patients. Aidoc's products detected over 75% of common acute pathologies visible on CT scans. The company had 20 algorithms used by over 900 global hospitals and had 17 FDA clearances-the highest number of any clinical AI company at the time. The company, which had initially produced point solutions, had evolved to manage a multisided network platform that hosted its own as well as its partners' algorithms. Aidoc had a rich history of producing highly accurate AI products, but partnership allowed it to bring more innovative products to market. The company needed to determine how to continue to grow. Should it focus more on developing highly technical AI health care solutions or on developing and managing a platform to bring other company's products to its growing customer base?

In a collective prisoners' dilemma or commons problem, self-interested behavior by firms results in poor outcomes for all. Can self-regulation through an industry association solve the commons problem? Specifically, what explains NASSCOM's (National Association of Software and Service Companies) success in saving a scandal-ridden member company, Satyam, from going out of business? Satyam's demise would have shattered client trust in all Indian IT firms; saving it was an unprecedented feat for an industry association. The case provides concrete examples for instructors to highlight the varieties of commons problems faced by industry. It also provides background information on how NASSCOM established its identity and credibility with the government, formulated its values, and crafted its governance model. This background helps students relate to Elinor Ostrom's core design principles that characterize robust institutions for solving commons problems.

At the end of 2023, the Swedish startup H2 Green Steel was mid-way through construction on an integrated steel plant in Northern Sweden that would use abundant local hydro power to create Europe's first commercial-scale green steel. Their goal was to help European manufacturers to decarbonize their upstream (Scope 3) inputs, and they had successfully negotiated offtake contracts with the big European car companies. Their aspiration did not stop there, however. Maria Persson Gulda, chief technology officer at H2 Green Steel, was already thinking about how to take their green steel technology to other regions, and for use by other kinds of customers. They could play a critical role in addressing a core cause of climate change, but achieving this would require that they scale up their technology as rapidly as possible. How should that be done?

This case presents a comprehensive overview of the BOJ's ultra-easy monetary policy which started in 2012. After years of sustained government and central bank intervention, Japan's monetary policy has reached a critical stage. Then world questioned how the BOJ's new Governor, Kazuo Ueda can find a way to extricate the nation from years of economic inertia, stimulate domestic consumption, boost GDP growth, and stabilize inflation at a 2% threshold. And world questioned this could be achieved without damaging the global economy. On March 19, 2024, with prices seemingly on track toward the bank's goal of sustained 2% inflation, Japan's persistently weak yen and robust wage hikes offered by Japanese companies, the BOJ ended the negative rate policy (NIR) and raised interest rates for the first time in the past 17 years. The BOJ also ended its yield curve control policy (YCC) of keeping 10-year Japanese government bond yields at around 0%. It has fulfilled their roles but will continue the large-scale monetary easing (QE). The BOJ's policies have stood in contrast to other central banks, which have raised rates sharply over the past two years to combat inflation sparked by the COVID pandemic, the Ukraine war and supply chain issues

The case profiles the economic development of the Gothenburg region in Western Sweden, and the efforts of the regional economic development agency. During this period the region's traditionally strong automotive cluster started to transform towards e-mobility technologies. The case discusses the role of Business Region Göteborg (BRG), the regional economic development agency, in this process. The case includes exhibits with some key facts about the regional economy, the institutions engaged in economic development in the region, and the structure of BRG.

In February 2023, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo weighed signing off on a Notice of Funding Opportunity ("NOFO") with at least one unconventional provision: a pre-application ("pre-app") to the actual application for parts of $39 billion in direct semiconductor manufacturing incentives. The funding had been made available through the U.S. Department of Commerce by the CHIPS and Science Act ("CHIPS") passed a few months earlier. Her team had also proposed additional measures for the NOFO. They'd added upside sharing provisions to align incentives. They'd included funding milestones so that only awardees making progress would receive additional funds. And they'd drafted a rolling process, so apps didn't have to be evaluated all at once. Each mechanism, along with the pre-apps, they hoped, would help regain U.S. technological leadership while protecting taxpayer funds. Raimondo would have to decide whether the NOFO as conceived set the stage to do precisely that.

The case gives readers an overview of key factors of doing business in Brazil, including Brazil's economic transformation since its colonial years until 2023, when leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was sworn in for his third term, after the most polarized elections in the country's recent history and having to deal with an attack against government buildings in Brasília. The case's ultimate goal is to foster a discussion about how political and economic uncertainty impacts consumer behavior and companies operating in Brazil. For that, it summarizes the key obstacles faced by these businesses, such as the country's logistical bottlenecks, complex bureaucracy and arcane tax system. At the same time, the case sheds light on the sectors that are thriving despite these difficulties and on some valuable opportunities offered by Brazil's huge consumer market and diversified economy.

In 2013, Trumpf, a global market leader machine tools from Germany, acquired the majority shares in JFY, a smaller machine tool manufacturer from China. With this acquisition, Trumpf wanted to enter the fast-growing low-cost segment of the market. Until then, JFY had performed very well on the Chinese market, but the company's success increasingly waned after the acquistion. Other Chinese competitors performed significantly better. After JFY even had to report losses for the first time in 2019, Trumpf changed the management at JFY. Under the new management, initial successes were achieved, but even two and a half years later, JFY still did not reach the profit targets which all business units at Trumpf had to meet. In a Trumpf management meeting in October 2022, a decision was therefore to be made as to whether JFY should remain part of Trumpf or be sold off again.

Six new books come down on both sides of the debate: The Alternative, by Nick Romeo; The Road to Freedom, by Joseph E. Stiglitz; Capitalism and Crises, by Colin Mayer; Climate Capitalism, by Akshat Rathi; Venture Meets Mission, by Arun Gupta, Gerard George, and Thomas J. Fewer; and Slow Down, by Kōhei Saitō.

Le Thi Thu Thuy, Vice Chairwoman of Vingroup, the largest private conglomerate in Vietnam, and Global CEO of VinFast, Vingroup's automotive subsidiary established in 2017, was contemplating VinFast's future strategy. Domestically, the EV market in Vietnam was in its infancy with many hurdles including a shortage of charging stations, potential electric overload, a lack of consumer incentives, poor road conditions, and traffic congestion. Internationally, VinFast faced fierce competition from more established EV makers. Should VinFast put more emphasis on the domestic market or the international ones? How could VinFast adjust its strategy and resource allocation for better growth?

The global renewables sector was in a slump, but the Indian market was booming. India's largest renewable electricity generator, ReNew, faced a dilemma: it traded on the Nasdaq in New York, but saw huge opportunity in the Indian market. In response, CEO Sumant Sinha was broadening the company's mission and activities to become a decarbonization solutions provider. The new scope included green hydrogen, manufacturing, storage, and contract power agreements. As India's decarbonization accelerated, has Sumant made the right choices?

DiDi Global Inc. (滴滴出行) (NYSE: DIDIY) was a mobile transportation platform that monopolized the Chinese ride-hailing and taxi-hailing market having a user base of 550 million worldwide. On 16 June 2021, China's State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) launched an investigation of DiDi for unfair competitive practices and controlling pricing. DiDi's prospectus disclosed this but did not fully disclose the warning from the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) to postpone the listing for cybersecurity review and the risk involved from this noncompliance with information security. DiDi was listed on the NYSE on 30 June 2021, raising around USD4.4bn. Within nine days after the listing, CAC had banned all of DiDi's 25 ride-hailing apps from app stores over the mishandling of customer data and to safeguard national security. This led to a significant drop in DiDi's share price. On 16 July 2021, seven Chinese government departments, including those responsible for national security and cybersecurity, visited DiDi's office. Reports suggested that heavy fines, suspension of operations, and even delisting. As the largest shareholder with a 20.1% stake, how would the Chief Investment Officer of SoftBank's Vision Fund recommend to decrease risk exposure of its investment in DiDi?

This epilogue accompanies, "Fallen Idol? Aung San Suu Kyi & the Rohingya Humanitarian Crisis," HKS Case Number 2139.0. Soon after Myanmar's longtime democracy crusader and opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, was released from a long house arrest and elected to the country's parliament in 2012, intercommunal violence began to escalate in the western state of Rakhine between local Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims. Over the next five years, the long-persecuted Rohingya minority faced increasingly violent waves of attack, culminating in a humanitarian catastrophe in August and September of 2017 characterized by indiscriminate killing, mass rape, and the wholesale incineration of villages. To the shock of her many admirers around the world, Suu Kyi did nothing to try to prevent or stem the military-led attacks, nor did she condemn the military after-the-fact, instead accusing international monitors and fact-finders of spreading false reports. This case explores the evolution of anti-Rohingya sentiment in Myanmar and details the escalation of intercommunal violence against the Rohingya between 2012 and 2017. It describes Suu Kyi's reaction to the growing Rohingya crisis in these years and ends with assorted theories about why a leader long revered as an icon for democracy, symbol of peaceful protest, and crusader for human rights-having finally become her country's civilian head of state-would choose not to take a stand against the brutal campaign against the Rohingya. This brief epilogue-an acknowledgment of the changed political situation-describes Suu Kyi's sweeping electoral win in Myanmar's 2020 election, the military coup d'état that followed in February 2021, and Suu Kyi's prison confinement from that point forward, virtually incommunicado, as she faced trial and conviction on some 19 criminal charges, a process roundly condemned as illegitimate by the United Nations, many international organizations, and many heads of state.

In May 2023, Colbún, Chile's second-largest electricity generator, plans capacity expansions using renewable energy and storage. This strategy supports Chile's commitment to carbon neutrality (also known as net zero emissions) by 2050. The case delves into the advantages and disadvantages of several energy sources and storage technologies, taking into account Chile's energy transition pathway. Colbún aims to expand while ensuring a reliable 24/7 power supply, a challenge due to the intermittent nature of some energy sources, such as solar and wind technologies. To this end, the company must consider complementary energy sources and storage solutions. Additionally, there is a need for new or upgraded transmission lines to transport electricity from new plants, along with regulatory changes to accommodate energy source characteristics. However, these changes are not unfolding as rapidly as renewable energy projects across the country. Chile has become a global hotspot for solar and wind energy developers, but several companies are already running into obstacles. José Ignacio Escobar, who became Colbún's CEO in 2022, must navigate this intricate landscape to determine whether to expedite the company's shift into renewable energies. This choice includes selecting the most suitable technologies to invest in while striking a balance among competitiveness, energy security, reliability, and the sustainability of the energy system. Taking a close look at Colbún's operations, this case illustrates the intricacies of conducting business in the context of global energy markets. It particularly underscores the challenges posed by the ongoing decarbonization of energy systems.

Though evidence suggests that conservatives are generally more risk-averse than liberals are, the reverse is true when it comes to foreign expansion. A recent study showed that conservatives leaned toward overseas acquisitions, which are more perilous than alliances (an approach liberals favored). Why? Because acquisitions gave them greater control, and the desire for it outweighed their fear of loss.

The expression "think before you speak" brings up a question that this technical note answers: What should someone think about before communicating as a leader? This note recommends taking an audience-centered approach. Through a short vignett

In the past two decades, shareholders agreements have become important instruments of corporate governance. The agreements have to be distinguished from the company, which itself is a contract. The case involved the Northern Ireland brick-making company, Tyrone Brick Limited, which had five shareholders-four individuals and a bank that financed the company. Each individual owned 10% of the allotted shares and the bank owned the remaining 60%. The shareholders and the company entered into an agreement which statedthat the authorised share capital of the company could not be increased without the written consent of all the parties. A decade later, without seeking the written consent of a shareholder, the company issued a notice for a meeting of the company to pass a resolution to increase its authorised share capital. A shareholder, who was a party to the shareholders agreement, disputed that the company could not convene the meeting in violation of the shareholders agreement.