The entrepreneurial beach vendor industry is culturally vibrant on the famous beaches of Zona Sul, including Copacabana Beach and Ipanema Beach, in Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro (commonly known as Rio). Vendors, who mainly reside in low-income working-class districts known as a favelas, sell a variety of goods and services to locals and tourists from around the world. In addition to the numerous characteristics associated with Rio’s beach vendors, four key insights can be highlighted as being particularly noteworthy: the highly entrepreneurial and largely informal industry; the value created for consumers, vendors, and supply chains; the unique challenges; and the addition to Brazil’s economic and cultural fabric.
The insurance industry’s potential for growth in India has attracted numerous organizations, each armed with their most efficient strategies. India’s life insurance market is undergoing a transformation, marked by fierce competition and changing consumer preferences. Public and private life insurance companies and emerging insurtech (insurance technology) companies coexist, intensifying the competition for coverage in a rapidly expanding market. This comprehensive case study delves into the complex world of India’s life insurance distribution, examining the strategies employed and challenges faced by all contenders as they strive for market share, customer loyalty, and sustainable growth. The study critically evaluates the performance of existing distribution channels, raising questions about their relevance and effectiveness in this dynamic environment, in order to gain insights into the intricacies of India’s life insurance sector and shed light on the strategies and innovations required to realize the vision of the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India’s (IRDAI) Insurance for All by 2047.
Stablecoins represent digital assets whose value is pegged to that of a fiat currency, commodity, or financial instrument. As non-volatile assets that enable relatively easy cross-border transfers and minimal price fluctuation relative to the reference asset, stablecoins are especially useful as a medium of exchange.
This note is about tokenization and tokenized assets. Tokenization refers to the process of creating a representation of a particular asset on a blockchain via digital tokens. Tokenized assets typically derive their value from the value of the underlying asset. This note explores the benefits and risks of tokenization, as well as use cases. Moreover, it explores Security Token Offerings, considerations for tokenized asset issuers, and the Howey Test. It concludes with a consideration of how possible future trends may affect tokenization.
This technical note provides introductory to intermediate accounting and finance students with an introduction to the construction of a discounted cash flow analysis. The scenario is a plausible and moderately complex “real-world” managerial decision of whether or not a business owner should purchase labour-saving farm equipment. This decision includes tax implications and long-lived assets. One of the greatest challenges that managers face is understanding exactly what type of problem they are facing. Before we can learn to invoke and apply the appropriate structure, we have to identify the essence of the problem. The next step is to identify the required information to make the right decision, after an appropriate framework has been applied.
Entity-Relationship (ER) data modelling is a critical technique used by data experts to help design new systems, utilize existing systems, and replace old systems. This note describes the different levels of data modelling, as well as its objectives and benefits, provides a brief history of graphical modelling approaches, and focuses on a particular graphical rule set for creating logical data models called Barker notation.
Indigenous people “continue to have shorter life spans, poorer health, higher unemployment, lower educational levels, and generally far poorer socio-economic conditions than the Canadian average.” To address these issues and build economic self-sufficiency, First Nations communities must be able to exercise their rights to the land they have occupied for millenniums. In British Columbia, most First Nations have never extinguished their Aboriginal title rights, so according to the Canadian Constitution and multiple Supreme Court of Canada rulings, First Nations hold the legal rights to most of the public land in British Columbia (BC), although they must fight in court to prove this for each and every parcel. Although title was never legally extinguished for private land either, private land is not addressed in this note.<br><br>As of 2021, real estate comprises the largest portion of Canada’s gross domestic product, and property values have reached historic highs. This presents an opportunity for First Nations to use their land to generate wealth and address the socio-economic issues that are keeping their communities from meeting the same standards as the rest of Canada. First Nations in Vancouver and beyond have been buying large parcels of land from the federal and provincial governments for residential development, offering long-term leases and rental properties on the developed land. To be clear, this is land in the First Nations’ own territories—which they could pursue rights to and might very well win—but proving this would likely involve very long court cases lasting many years and costing many millions of dollars. During this time, a great deal of money would be spent but none generated. So instead, out of pragmatism, some First Nations have chosen to buy land fee simple and develop it. The note specifically does not ask students to comment on the conduct of Indigenous Peoples.
A balance sheet is a key financial statement that provides a snapshot of a company’s financial position at a specific point in time. This note offers a concise overview of the basics of the balance sheet.
Corporate ownership structure shapes corporate governance in profound ways, impacting decision-making speed, risk management, strategic alignment, and firm performance. The effectiveness of governance mechanisms varies with ownership structures, from sole proprietorships to shareholders in public firms, as each structure entails unique challenges in balancing control, oversight, and incentive alignment. This note explores governance strategies across various ownership structures—grounded in theoretical insights from agency, stewardship, and stakeholder theory—offering recommendations to create stability, promote strategic alignment, and foster trust.
Lebanon is a country with many contradictions; and yet, it has a special place in the heart of the many admirers. The famous Lebanese-American poet Khalil Gibran conveyed this contradiction in his poetic works. He unambiguously declared that the way you view Lebanon is a matter of perspective; you choose what to see. His words still hold true today, without a doubt. Lebanon is a country that has an exceptional beauty of nature and the unmatchable hospitality of its people. But this is just one side of the coin. The other side reveals a reality that has been haunting the country for the past 50 years, a reality that has been extremely difficult to escape, involving wars, crises, and instability.
In February 2022, an emergency registered nurse who worked a night shift in a Toronto, Ontario hospital was appalled at the overwhelming number of patients arriving at the emergency department with mental health issues. In recent times, the increase in the number of mental health patients arriving in the emergency department, especially with the novel COVID-19 pandemic exacerbating the rise in mental health disorders, made the registered nurse aware of the need for effective strategies to address this issue. The growing interest and changing attitudes about psychedelic-assisted therapy was a potential treatment for mental health, which has the potential to disrupt the health care industry. From the beginnings of psychedelics use and research, starting with the creation of lysergic acid diethylamide (commonly known as LSD) in 1938 and the experimentation with psychedelics during the Cold War, questions were raised about the use of psychedelics in therapy and the need for further research to fully understand their potential as a treatment option. Based on the growing interest and changing attitudes about psychedelics in psychotherapy, the potential benefits and challenges of this field raised important ethical considerations that needed to be discussed and examined.
The role of marketing in any organization is to improve performance by establishing and nurturing worthwhile relationships (for companies, “worthwhile” usually means profitable) with customers, clients, sponsors, or other stakeholders. The professional practice of marketing, however, is more complicated than the unfortunate media-created stereotypes of fast-talking salespeople and manipulative advertisers. Indeed, marketers have many ways to win. This note explains the major choices that all marketers face and the ways in which marketing decisions can be made to obtain winning relationships with stakeholders.
Many companies are very bad at hiring people—although they often don’t realize this—and they cannot get better if they don’t recognize that they need to improve. This note explores the common errors organizations make when attempting to hire employees and outlines the steps they should take to hire better and with improved diversity outcomes. The note is written from the perspective of someone who not only has interviewed thousands of job candidates but also is familiar with the literature on recruitment and selection. It serves as a practical guide that leans heavily on existing research.
In November 2022, OpenAI launched the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT on the web. Demonstrating the ability to understand human language and generate human-like, high-quality dialogues, answers, essays, jokes, and even poetry, ChatGPT attracted 100 million users within two months—setting the record of the fastest-growing consumer app in history. This case introduces ChatGPT and generative AI, elaborates on ChatGPT’s underlying large language models, examines the drivers of the technology’s rapid adoption, and investigates potential use cases, risks, and societal impacts. Finally, through an optional design exercise, the case leads the students to explore how the technology can shape the future of business and society.
This note can be used in any case class. A strong analysis should be followed by a solid action plan. Unfortunately, a lot of action plans are not worthy of the solution they are meant to support because they are vague and open-ended. A beautiful action plan is specific and clear, with lots of detail. This note offers careful instruction on how to build a beautiful action plan. For instance, action plan builders should ensure the action plan flows from the analysis; be specific, especially in the early stages; make steps realistic; plan on overcoming natural resistance to change; state and justify assumptions; address the short and long term; define critical steps; and outline ways to measure progress. Examples of good and poor plans are included.
This note introduces some fundamental concepts regarding Indigenous peoples and their relationships to the land in Canada. It revisits injustices experienced by Indigenous peoples since the arrival of European settlers and investigates attempts at addressing those injustices. In the context of this note, “Indigenous” refers to the original inhabitants of North America and their descendants. Indigenous peoples in Canada describes three distinct groups, the First Nations, Métis, and Inuit, all of which are individually discussed later in this note. This note is based on a literature review of academic and governmental information sources.
<p align= "justify">Many factors influence corporate governance in a family firm, the most prevalent form of business entity in Latin America. National culture affects a family firm's societal values, as well as economic, political, and legal systems of governance. Normative behaviour and expectations are also key factors that affect both individual and organizational norms. The firm’s characteristics are another major source of influence. In addition to these major factors, various other variables play a role on shaping the firm's corporate governance, including family unity, patriarchal expectations, and inclusivity of the family definition. All of these factors can influence the numerous decisions that family businesses make in regard to their corporate governance, which makes it impossible to apply one approach for all family firms in Latin America. Each organization’s board of directors may have specific characteristics that require different mechanisms to make effective governance decisions. This technical note discusses an evolutionary pattern of corporate governance, rather than a single approach, that could be effectively applied to the decision-making board of a family firm in Latin America.
Data cleaning, data preparation, and model development are the crucial steps in data analytics. The first two steps aim to improve data quality for higher accuracy, improved productivity, and better efficiency in modelling and obtaining results. The last step, model development, seeks to improve accuracy of prediction, especially in predictive modelling. In this technical note, we use a sample to illustrate how to work with a multivariate dataset in Python. This dataset’s massive number of variables requires different approaches to data cleaning, preparation, and model development, such as data normalization and dimension reduction.
This note provides an overview of asset management and capital markets, the different types of firms in this industry, types of investments, the different investment styles and strategies employed by asset managers to help them achieve their goals, and asset manager roles and responsibilities.
Boards of directors have important responsibilities in the context of top management succession processes. However, their role has not been sufficiently studied in the setting of family-controlled firms. Meanwhile, family executives often play a major role in the performance of family firms. In fact, replacing those family managers has important implications and needs to be treated as a priority by boards of directors. In this industry note, we explore the unique challenges that succession processes pose for the boards of family firms. We conclude that boards of directors should be particularly conscious of the need for planning, coordinating, and overseeing succession processes to meet both the business challenges and the controlling family’s expectations.