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For the first half of 2020, the COVID-19 crisis seemed on the verge of spiraling out of control. The business world struggled to figure out what COVID meant for macroeconomics. Extended restrictions limiting human interaction meant an end to normal economic production, and a resulting global economic crisis. France, Germany and the United States tackled the economic side of the COVID crisis through complex fiscal policy measures, with differing levels of success.

By early 2020 Harvard University was facing growing pressure from students, faculty, and alumni to divest its $40 billion endowment of financial stakes in fossil fuel producers. Its previous policy of avoiding the issue was quickly becoming outdated-$21 trillion of institutionally managed money now gave some consideration to sustainability. This case considers the two important questions surrounding a potential divestment: 1) Should the University alter its endowment's portfolio to meet broader social objectives, and 2) If so, how should it integrate climate objectives, or ESG considerations more generally, into its investment strategy and portfolio construction? In the case, the University is being advised on these questions by Nicole Abramson, an investment management professional specializing in ESG products. To formulate her recommendation, Abramson considers the views of Harvard's stakeholders and the sustainability best practices of institutional investors and asset managers around the world.

Suning Logistics, a retail logistics enterprise, was located in Nanjing, Jiangsu, China. As a subsidiary of Suning Holding Group (Suning), Suning Logistics represented the core competitiveness of Suning in occupying the leading position in China's retail landscape. Suning Logistics was registered as a company in 2012 but was a subsidiary of Suning before growing into Suning Logistics Group (Suning Logistics) in 2015. During the 30-year development process, Suning Logistics had repeatedly iterated and upgraded its logistics model to support the transformation from a physical retailer to online retailer. With the China's new retail wave, experiential shopping and digital consumption brought challenges to the logistics upgrade. To win competitive advantage, the general manager of Suning Logistics had to make a choice between two transformational directions: Should the company improve the logistics efficiency of multi-scenario retail? Or, should it explore the reverse supply chain with emerging technology?

High-speed rail (HSR) is a high-performance transportation technology that is time competitive with airplanes and automobiles, and is an environmentally preferable alternative due to its low carbon dioxide emissions. Brightline is a Florida HSR system in Phase II of its development and aims to connect West Palm Beach and Orlando. As construction continues, Brightline needs to determine to what extent it should target the leisure and business traveler segments when Phase II launches. Given a limited marketing budget and high upfront investment, it is critical for the company to gain ridership quickly and establish a foothold in relevant consumer segments. This decision is contingent on evaluating not only consumer characteristics and needs for each market segment, but also pricing strategies and potential incentives Brightline could offer.

Megan Huddleston, head of marketing for Tyson's Hillshire Farm brand, seeks new growth with a brand extension. But which product line and brand envelope would most effectively leverage Americans' shifting eating habits? This case allows students to explore the key tradeoffs in brand extension with the overarching goals of gaining revenue growth while protecting brand equity.

In 2015, Union Square Hospitality Group (USHG), helmed by famous restauranteur Danny Meyer, sent shockwaves through the restaurant industry by announcing the end of tipping in its restaurants. Under its new policy, Hospitality Included (HI), USHG would charge higher menu prices and pay higher base wages to its employees, replacing tipping with a system of revenue sharing. The change sought to reduce inequality between front and back-of-house staff and to provide more stability and fairness for servers, whose tip-based compensation depended heavily on the whims of sometimes-biased patrons. However, five years later, the organization was still struggling to implement HI, and evidence was suggesting that employees, customers, and owners were losing out under the policy in unanticipated ways. Chip Wade, the President of USHG and Patti Simpson, Chief People officer of USHG, had to determine a better path forward.

Four diverse women entrepreneurs launched their ventures in a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem that was part of a shift to a creative technology-driven economy for Miami. Although Miami was rated the #1 U.S. city for startups in 2017, the region contained structural barriers and cultural biases unfriendly to women and people of color, including lack of access to capital and relationships. The case highlights women founders' backgrounds and experiences with an ed-tech startup, a coding school and events for Black entrepreneurs; an incubator for green businesses with a Black leadership focus; and an accelerator for social impact ventures that also runs social media campaigns for problems such as climate change. The women CEOs reveal the barriers they faced, how they overcame them, and how they attempt to enrich the ecosystem for other women and people of color. This case raises the question of what must be in place for cities to take advantage of the innovation and job-creating potential of a wider population of entrepreneurs and gain the benefits of diversity, and for women founders to thrive.

At 6:27 a.m. on May 14, 2018, an Airbus A319, Flight 3U8633 of Sichuan Airlines took off. It was dawning. Flight to and from Lhasa was very difficult. The route was featured with rough terrain and changeable weather, and there were several high mountains beneath. The airplane was passing Chengdu and heading for the Tibetan Plateau at 7:08pm when a heavy thud was heard in the cockpit. In a blink, Capitan Liu Chuanjian found himself in a dreadful situation--the front windshield on his right was gone, and his copilot was almost out of the cockpit, being held only at legs by the safety belt. Wind at over 800 km/hr and -40℃ was blowing in and cutting Liu's face and body. In the cockpit, oxygen was very thin. Wind pressure and extreme coldness were tearing him. The dashboard failed and the airplane was diving at a large angle with port-wing down. Holding the sidestick in his left hand and the throttle lever in his right hand, Liu was intensely trembling in his seat due to coldness. He had to quickly pull himself together. He knew that the lives of all passengers and the crew depended on him.

On September 25, 2019, an activist investment management company, which was sometimes referred to as the biggest activist hedge fund in the world, publicly released a detailed report advocating for Marathon Petroleum Corporation to be split into three separate companies, divided along three major business lines: oil refinery, midstream services (i.e., pipelines), and retail. The refinery company would consist primarily of 16 oil refineries in the United States and would retain the Marathon name. The midstream company, which would consist of pipelines, logistics, and oil terminals, would be formed from MPLX LP, the publicly traded subsidiary that was 63 per cent owned and fully operated by Marathon Petroleum Corporation. The retail company would be formed from Speedway LLC, the wholly owned subsidiary of Marathon Petroleum Corporation that operated 3,923 retail locations across the continental United States. The investment company argued that Marathon Petroleum Corporation's shareholders stood to benefit considerably from the proposed split. Was the proposition a good idea?

The Maple Leaf Foods (MLF): Changing the System case explores how a major food processor pivoted its vision and operations in an attempt to become the world's most sustainable protein company. Instead of focusing solely on financial goals, the organization's new purpose clearly recognized MLF's potential impact on both society and the natural environment. In the anchor case, senior leaders considered the background and progress of this initiative. The supplemental cases (A to E) offer the perspectives of five stakeholders, each of whom is critical to the MLF initiative. Since an organization is part of an open system, these views allow a consideration of how the different parts of the system may experience, and impact, any change attempt.

The City of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (COE), recognizing that its once world-class waste management system needed major transformation, published an ambitious and progressive waste management strategic plan ("The Future of Waste") on October 4, 2019. Among numerous initiatives, policies, and frameworks, the plan made reference to the concept of extended producer responsibility (EPR), a public policy mechanism for increasing the responsibility of producers for post-consumer (i.e., end-of-life) product and packaging waste. Although such policies were typically enacted at a provincial level, it seemed inevitable that, if EPR came into reality in Alberta, the COE would have some involvement in promotion and/or physical post-consumer collection logistics (a critical enabler of any successful EPR system). There was, thus, an opportunity for the COE to consider how its new direction for waste management should incorporate logistical support for EPR, from a coordination/leadership and/or a physical perspective. The issue at hand was whether and how the COE should be involved (logistically) in any potential EPR manifestation, which would include an analysis of what made a good post-consumer collection system; what existed in the COE at the time from current industry players, such as retailers, third-party logistics (3PL) providers, and providers of last-mile delivery services; and what specific role the COE could play (e.g., through waste and recycling collection).

Amazon.com Inc.'s (Amazon's) global expansion from 1998 to 2020, started with investment in the United Kingdom and Germany and ended with investment in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). In 2019, as one of the world's largest e-commerce companies, Amazon had a 15.1 per cent share of the worldwide e-commerce market with operations in 16 countries, including both developed and emerging markets. However, the company was showing unbalanced performance across countries. For example, in 2019, Amazon was the market leader in the United Kingdom (23.3 per cent market share) and Germany (48.3 per cent market share), while it only held 0.2 per cent of the Chinese online retailing market, far behind the market leader who had a 42.7 per cent market share, and it held only 1 per cent market share in Brazil with the market leader having 23.2 per cent. Amazon faced critical challenges in developing its future international strategies. Should it continue its global expansion into new markets? What should the company do with less successful markets such as China and Brazil? Also, how should Amazon deal with the ramifications of an unexpected global pandemic event in its international strategy? This case is an updated version of Amazon Goes Global, former Ivey product 9B14M122.

In April 2020, amid the global pandemic resulting from the spread of Covid-19, the president of the Broadway League, which represented theatre owners, producers, presenters, and general managers for Broadway and across North America, faced a challenge. On March 12, 2020, Broadway had suspended all plays and musicals. The president and her team needed to determine when Broadway might be able to reopen, what the Broadway League should be communicating to producers and guests, and what the reopening of Broadway would look like amid the global coronavirus pandemic. However, to reach these decisions, she first needed to determine the reliability of the recently released New York State antibody study and estimate the true prevalence of antibodies in the population.

On a cold Monday morning in January 2018, the founder and chief executive officer of dcs plus was sitting in a taxi on his way to catch a plane to Dubai, United Arab Emirates. In Dubai, he would be visiting the Middle East subsidiary of his company, a Romanian technology start-up focused on business-critical enterprise software for the travel industry. The one-year-old subsidiary, which was responsible for marketing, sales, and customer support in the Middle East region, had experienced performance problems and managerial issues since the start, leading to major changes in the local management team. The Romanian company was planning to open two new subsidiaries in São Paulo, Brazil and in Singapore, so it was important to avoid similar problems to those incurred in Dubai. The founder was reflecting on the dcs plus approach to internationalization for the overall organization, as well as how to manage a subsidiary.

At the height of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, following reports of dozens coronavirus infections among its Sioux Falls, South Dakota, pork-processing employees Smithfield Foods, Inc., the nation's largest hog-processing company, closed the plant "until further notice. Less than one month later, the plant was sanitized and retrofitted to the best of its abilities and reopened. This emergency situation opened the door for Smithfield and other meat processing plants to reevaluate capital expenditures on plant automation and related employee protection investments. Since meat processing was usually a low-margin business, companies were wary of overspending on equipment-- but people were sick and some workers had died.

This case describes the evolution of MHFC, a player in the Indian informal housing sector. As a new entrant offering micro home loans to the financially excluded lower income families of urban India in 2008, MHFC had grown to an annual number of 18,000 loans worth INR 8 billion with an average ticket size of INR 0.43 million (USD 6,000). With a 53.5% purchasable equity stake in MHFC, Chopra and his team were left with certain decisions to make. Should the company on-board a new social investor? Or should it bring on the more readily available and capital-rich private equity investors interested in the lucrative prospects of the microfinance housing sector?

The case describes the champagne house Krug and their turnaround process. In the late '90s, the house had a troubling financial situation. After being acquired by the French conglomerate LVMH, and despite the efforts and investments, the house did not seem to recover and, by 2008, was once more suffering financial distress. In 2009, Margareth (Maggie) Henríquez arrived as CEO. Based on her previous turnaround expertise in larger firms, Krug seemed like a less challenging project. However, her first year at Krug, with continuous declining sales, proved that Krug's situation was more complicated than anticipated. The case allows a discussion of the real complexity in setting the strategic rationale of a turnaround. It describes the initial missteps and the search for guidance in the roots of the house, which brought Maggie on a journey of discovering the visionary approach of its founder, Joseph Krug. The case is rich in detail across all firm facets to allow a discussion on all the transformation measures taken and its rationale. It is well suited to a debate on strategy implementation. Likewise, it might also be appropriate to discuss the adjustment of the marketing policies for a turnaround. Lastly, the case emphasizes the role of Maggie as a transformational driving force - a woman from a different culture in a selective, and to a certain extent, conservative market. Her strategic approach and her decisive leadership in challenging traditional policies are also fundamental pillars of the transformation.

Twiga is a leading agricultural produce supplier in Kenya offering services to mostly informal retailers. Under Peter Njonjo, a co-founder and Twiga's new CEO, the company is considering multiple options for expanding its business, including offering packaged foods and services like insurance. Njonjo must also decide the ideal team and organizational structure for supporting Twiga's growth plans.

Maliks, a major stationery retailer and provider of photocopy and printing services, had operated in Beirut, Lebanon, for over 25 years. The company's founder was considering the most suitable strategy for his goal of 100 branches by 2020. He was assessing the advantages and disadvantages of adopting the franchising business model as an expansion strategy and wondered what operational problems he would encounter. The Maliks management team was also assessing the viability of using the franchise model to expand beyond the greater Beirut area to achieve substantial growth. The company enjoyed strong brand-name recognition, but there were still many questions about the company's next steps, including whether the franchise business model was the most suitable strategy for Maliks. Did the company have the necessary resources and skilled management team to adequately monitor and support prospective franchisees? How would prospective franchisees be selected? What marketing and operational costs was the company likely to incur as a franchisor? Most importantly, did the Maliks management team have the required skills to effectively manage the franchise model?

In September 2014, a week before the UN Climate Summit, MSCI launched an innovative family of indices designed to allow investors to manage carbon risk in their portfolio. The MSCI Low Carbon Indices were developed at the request of, and with critical insight from two pension funds - AP4 of Sweden and FRR in France - which committed €2 billion, and Amundi, Europe's largest asset manager, which licensed the indices in order to offer low carbon funds (index mutual funds, ETFs) to other investors.