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Phumlaphi Rita Zwane, founder of Busy Corner, a thriving Shisanyama (African barbeque) business in Thembisa, South Africa, faced a pivotal decision amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Motivated by aspirations for business expansion and the pursuit of new opportunities, Zwane established a company-owned restaurant in the Mall of Thembisa. However, insufficient consideration of crucial factors during the decision-making process led to an alarming debt of $825,971, as of February 18, 2023, posing a significant threat to the business's survival. At this juncture, Zwane grappled with the dilemma of whether to close, sell, or franchise the Thembisa Busy Corner location, underscoring the critical need for a strategic resolution to secure the future of her entrepreneurial venture.

The case traces the 25-year-long journey of SELCO (Solar Electric Light Company) from its inception in 1995 to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. SELCO's aim was initially to provide solar home lighting systems for India's impoverished rural communities. After the success of this phase, SELCO's first phase (SELCO 1.0),the organization, under founder Harish Hande's leadership, began to explore how it could better serve the communities it was helping. This led to SELCO 2.0, which focused on creating livelihood opportunities through solar-powered appliances. SELCO realized that it had the potential to do more. It evolved further, progressing to SELCO 3.0, which strove to deepen its social impact with SELCO Foundation and the development of a unique SELCO ecosystem. The case explores how for-profit social enterprises such as SELCO evolve with time, how the landscape of the field they work in changes, and how their success is often determined by multiple factors: a unique organizational culture, exceptional leadership, and an on-ground understanding of real issues. The case questions how an organization like SELCO should proceed as it tries to apply the SELCO model in new locations, and how the SELCO culture can be preserved as the leadership changes.

This case set uses the example of Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) Justice Sonia Sotomayor to discuss issues of communicating identity at work and to explore possible options for impression management over the course of one's career. As a law student, attorney, and lower court judge, Sotomayor leaned into her Latina identity, often referencing it as an important part of who she was. When then President Barack Obama nominated Sotomayor for SCOTUS, she faced scrutiny over past comments, some identity related, that were construed to be evidence of judicial bias and that, in the eyes of some, made her unfit for the job. Sotomayor is faced with various options as to how she should respond in her nomination hearings before Congress. This case recounts Sotomayor's early life, education, and career history, as well as the controversy surrounding her nomination. Opponents were disturbed by her "wise Latina" comment, interpreted as Sotomayor advocating for individuals' past experiences to shape their judicial decisions. This case offers an overview of conversations about Sotomayor in the political, legal, and public arena leading up to her nomination hearings. This case set examines the choices that many professionals, particularly those who are underrepresented in a professional space, face at various career stages when managing their identities at work. To what extent should individuals adjust their self-presentation if they are receiving signals of disapproval? Might identity-communication strategies vary depending on one's career stage? Students have an opportunity to proactively ponder how they want to present themselves at work while uncovering the benefits and costs of trying to merge aspects of their authentic selves with expected professional standards. This case series would be appropriate in courses on gender and leadership or ones about diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) more broadly. The cases could also be used in a leadership communication course to discuss how individuals communicate aspects of themselves in professional settings.

Montecarlo Limited (MCL), a 25-year-old infrastructure and construction company in India, had invested in building effective human resources (HR) processes and a better employee experience. While it was unconventional for companies in this industry, whose outlook generally favoured production and profitability, to focus on these issues, MCL had endeavoured to create not only an effective training function, but also a culture of learning and development that empowered its employees to become better professionals and individuals. Given the nature of the industry, such efforts posed challenges in understanding and implementation. In January 2021, the company's senior vice-president of HR wondered both how this focus on employees would help MCL and whether the company should continue to invest in its people and in building a culture of learning. If it did continue, how could it adjust its training process to make the learning and development process more effective?

Indus Motors was a large automotive dealer and service provider in the state of Kerala (India), with a network of five zonal warehouses and 76 service centres. The company was grappling with inventory management issues, such as excess stock and procurement and distribution practices that accounted for higher costs. Although the company had recently implemented an enterprise resource planning system, the management believed that benefits accruing from the digital system and supply chain capabilities were not put to good use. The management was looking to streamline inventory management and procurement and sourcing practices, leveraging technology and analytics capabilities.

In April 2023, an issue emerged around the elevated level of sugar found in Mondelez India's nutritional beverage, Bournvita. The sequence of events began with the posting of a 90-second video by a prominent social media influencer, which rapidly gained widespread attention, accumulating more than 12 million views within a short period. The video emphasized the high amount of sugar in Bournvita and brought attention to the company's transparency procedures. Mondelez India, owner of the Bournvita brand, promptly refuted the assertions put forth by the influencer and categorized the video as "unscientific." In response to the accusations levelled against it, Mondelez India opted to issue a legal notice to the individual responsible for creating the video. The company's legal action yielded positive results, as the influencer ultimately removed the video and issued an apology to the company. Nevertheless, public opinion remained mostly unaltered, and the dispute persisted on many social media sites. The leadership team faced a series of inquiries in the following weeks on the wisdom of issuing a legal notice to the social media influencer. Did Mondelez India effectively address the crisis and utilize the appropriate communication channel? What message should Mondelez India have conveyed and what was the most effective method to do so?

Set in 2023, the case features Sanergy, a Kenya-based social enterprise founded by three MIT graduates. Sanergy's circular sanitation model comprised a not-for-profit toilet unit, which provided safe access to sanitation and waste collection, and a for-profit agriproducts unit, which treated the waste and upcycled it into saleable organic products. Ten years after Sanergy's 2011 launch, cofounders David Auerbach, Lindsay Stradley, and Ani Vallabhaneni decided to split the two business units into distinct entities--Fresh Life (the toilet unit) and Regen Organics (the agriproducts unit)--that would operate under a new umbrella platform called The Sanergy Collaborative. Both units had high growth potential, but operating under the same brand name had impeded their ability to pursue strategies suitable for their distinct business models. This split would allow each entity to scale and explore opportunities that the sanitation value chain had unlocked in related domains. Although the new structure held clear benefits, it raised concerns, too. Would the enterprise be able to strike a balance between generating profits and creating impact? Most important, would Fresh Life and Regen be able to establish credibility among key stakeholders in the industry? Should the two organizations align their missions to leverage synergies, or should they forge their own paths based on individual priorities? Through this case, students will learn about circular economy models, Maslow's hierarchy of systemic economic value, and various share of wallet (SOW) strategies that enterprises like Sanergy could adopt.

At a conference in November 2020, the chief executive officers (CEOs) of two exceptional healthcare start-ups-AliveCor Inc. (AliveCor) and Neurobit Inc. (Neurobit)-discussed their paths to innovation: AliveCor, a trailblazing health tech company, had emerged in 2011 with electrocardiogram (ECG) hardware and software that had since garnered global recognition. Neurobit, a digital health start-up, entered the scene in 2018 with sleep biomarker-based health analytics that could predict adverse cardiopulmonary or neurological outcomes. As the CEOs shared their stories, common challenges emerged regarding data acquisition, privacy concerns, and regulatory compliance. Amid their successes, the two companies experienced the necessity of addressing data challenges to achieve AI's full potential in healthcare. They made trade-offs between time and resources amid a rapidly evolving industry and employed various strategies and solutions, from academic collaborations to extensive data collection, in their quest to determine the best strategy to use to overcome the challenges of efficiently and cost-effectively acquiring and utilizing data to drive innovation and gain a competitive edge.

Within a single year, Lebanon experienced multiple adversities, from the economic crisis in October 2019, to the COVID-19 pandemic, to the Port of Beirut explosion on August 4, 2020. Many start-ups had to shut down during this period. This case investigates the role of organizational culture in how Toters Delivery, a high-tech Lebanese-based start-up, responded to these challenges and adapted its business model to overcome adversity. Its co-founder believed that organizational culture was a key factor in its survival. The case examines questions such as: How can a start-up maintain its culture in the face of grand challenges? and What strategic changes does a start-up need to make during challenging times, and how?

This case study explores how the VINCI Group, a French multinational operating in concessions, energy, and construction, bolstered awareness and adoption rates of new technologies within the organization. Through its separate innovation hub, Leonard, VINCI aimed to foster learning, creation, and experimentation to improve the group's day-to-day activities. However, while the company's highly decentralized structure encouraged entrepreneurial innovation, some argued it hindered collaboration by fostering internal competition instead. Were there opportunities being overlooked because of this structure? And how could Leonard continue to promote innovation in such a large group?

Sequoia Capital, a venture capital firm founded in 1972, quickly grew to become one of the most storied venture capital firms in the world. Fueled by a strong culture, Sequoia's investment track record included the names of some of the largest global successes. However, times were changing. The venture capital industry at large was facing several challenges. Additionally, Sequoia had made some major decisions to restructure the firm. In a market environment in which investors in venture capital were increasingly cautious, Sequoia seemed to be making several changes to their core identity as a firm. What would all of this mean for the future of Sequoia, and would the firm still be able to maintain their historical dominance in spite of several headwinds?

Early on the morning of April 27, 2020, Justin Oppenheimer stood outside the entrance to the lobby of the Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) Pavilion Building with mixed emotions. On one hand, Oppenheimer, HSS' Enterprise Chief Operating Officer and Chief Strategy Officer, was excited that HSS was only two weeks away from resuming in-person outpatient office visits (i.e. physician visits not requiring admission to the hospital). Since the middle of March 2020, the global COVID-19 pandemic had forced HSS and other hospitals in New York to suspend nearly all outpatient office visits in an effort to slow the spread of respiratory illness. The Outpatient Care Task Force (OCTF) chaired by Oppenheimer had anticipated the difficulty of reopening while the future of the pandemic was still uncertain and made various accommodations, including dramatically limiting physicians' schedules. Simulations run by the OCTF, however, suggested that even with these accommodations, several patients would be forced to wait outside of the Pavilion building. Given HSS' reputation for patient experience and that many patients seen at HSS suffered from ailments that made it painful to stand, Oppenheimer knew that asking people to wait outside of the building would not (and should not) be tolerated for long, particularly during inclement weather. Oppenheimer opened his phone and sent an urgent meeting request to OCTF to see what further adjustments could be made to alleviate this problem.

OSUM, headquartered in Canada, is a privately held company in the oil and gas sector and enjoys being a significant producer in Western Canada. It is headquartered in Calgary, Alberta. In 2023, Canada was the single largest supplier of imported oil to the United States, responsible for over 35% of US imports, much more than Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and all the OPEC countries combined. OSUM uses steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) technology to extract heavy crude oil using an advanced form of steam stimulation. Water plays an important role in this extraction process. In an oil extraction plant, there are several interconnected systems that communicate with each other with established controls and interlocks. The plant operator's role is to ensure the plant runs smoothly without malfunctions, breakdowns, and other disruptions. To facilitate this, alarms and sensors are attached to different systems to signal any potential disruption and mandate a call for timely intervention. However, there are times when multiple alarms are set off, creating a conundrum for the operator, who is challenged with prioritizing which alarm to tackle first. Nuisance alarms, such as chattering, can be a source of distraction for the operator. Such distractions can negatively impact plant operations and result in plant downtime, costing the company significant dollar loss. Being concerned about the increasing cases of spikes in alarms, the company tied up with Drishya AI Labs to help solve this problem by leveraging machine learning algorithms so that such distractions could be reduced.

The present case examines new challenges, associated risks, and the bold decisions that start-up leaders may need to make to navigate through an environment filled with volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA). Sanjib Jha, a seasoned entrepreneur with experience in several start-up firms, is confronted with this predicament in May 2020. Varun Dua and Devendra Rane started Coverfox Insurance Broking Private Limited (Coverfox) in 2013 as an insurtech start-up with the aim to radically change the Indian insurance market. The company's founders quit in November 2016, leaving a leadership void. The new management continued focusing on the top line by running the business model, but they lost sight of the runway and cash burn, which put the organization's future at risk. Coverfox wanted to be the Razorpay in the insurance ecosystem aggregator. Coverfox had already been dealing with issues such as investor exit, cash burn, and operating costs far exceeding the budgeted levels, and the COVID-19 pandemic further compounded these issues. When the existing management's ability to turn the business around was called into question, the investors appointed Jha, an investor of Coverfox, as its chief executive officer (CEO). In May 2020, a few months after becoming CEO, Jha was faced with a decision dilemma. He had to make a firm choice- to suspend the business operations, sell it off or lower the monthly cash burn of US$1.1 million significantly thus increasing runway and continue toward break even and profitability. How can Jha, the new CEO, manage the confidence of investors, optimize cash burn, increase the runway, and envision Coverfox's future?

At 25 years old, Terence Hon found himself spending most of his time thinking about how to retain the young staff in his company. As a second-year student at the University of Hong Kong, Terence had cofounded GreenPrice, Hong Kong's first sustainable supermarket, with teammates Allison Chan, Ben So, and Cherissa Hung. The venture had found its target customer base among middle-class consumers who were attracted to the concept of purchasing short-dated products at heavily discounted prices. Each GreenPrice store had 1,000 to 1,200 stock-keeping units (SKUs) at any given time, and the supermarket chain saved over 2.55 million items that were set to expire annually. While the eight stores in GreenPrice's retail network were profitable, the high turnover rate among the nearly 100 employees at GreenPrice was keeping Terence awake at night. Terence and his cofounders pondered whether they should have emphasized GreenPrice's social mission more in the recruitment and retainment of its staff, since the commitment to sustainability could be a means to attract young people. They needed to determine whether GreenPrice should favor those who were most capable but were not interested in sustainability or those who were less capable but cared deeply about the environment.

At the height of the COVID-19 crisis, Terence Hon, cofounder of Hong Kong's first sustainable supermarket, GreenPrice, had the option of selling pandemic necessities that were in high demand in addition to his core business of selling short-dated products. Having founded the venture several years ago with teammates Allison Chan, Ben So, and Cherissa Hung when they were still university students, Terence and his cofounders pondered whether they should accept an offer that was tempting for its high margins, even as they needed to determine whether it contributed to their business objectives and their social mission as the first supermarket chain in Hong Kong that sold short-dated products that otherwise ended up in landfills. In addition, while GreenPrice had faced the challenge of high rents in the expensive, real estate-driven city, the ongoing health crisis caused vacancies in shopping malls to go up, resulting in a significant decrease in shop rental fees. Terence and his cofounders needed to make strategic choices on whether to enter the market for pandemic products while determining the optimal locations for expanding their retail network and the customer segments that they should target.

Soha Hayat, CHRO at GST Retail, a fashion retail brand based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that had stores across the Middle East region, had just returned from a monthly leadership review meeting. Although the reviews so far in 2022 had been difficult, the October 2022 review was perhaps the most shocking for Hayat. The Human Resources department had been under severe scrutiny for some months, and in this meeting, the leadership team had categorically stated that HR was slowing the entire firm down. Hayat believed that the problem had much deeper roots than what was being projected. GST was recuperating from a massive slowdown induced by the COVID-19 pandemic, which had begun early in 2020 and persisted throughout much of 2021. In the past few months, as customers returned to shop, sales had grown, signaling recovery. The leadership team, which wanted the company to bounce back quickly and instill confidence in their investors, had set ambitious new targets. This came with its own downside for GST, whose workforce count was at an all-time low. Hayat and her team wanted to initiate a revamp of the HR department through a dynamic technological transformation. The existing software deployed at GST was familiar to everyone but incapable of the transformation that was needed. Recently, Hayat had heard a lot about the capabilities of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based solutions into HR. However, this was a relative new technology which would require substantial planning and as she leaned back in her chair, the question looming over her was, how should she proceed?

In August 2022, two interns at Miravo Healthcare (Miravo) needed to present a comprehensive marketing plan for Miravo's over-the-counter (OTC) head lice treatment product, Resultz, to two vice-presidents of the company. Resultz had not been actively advertised in recent years, and the company identified an opportunity to capitalize on an increasing need for head lice products as a result of children returning to school after the COVID-19 pandemic.