Megan M za is a half-Mexican female entrepreneur who quit her high-paying job in marketing to launch Bandida, a cold-brew horchata beverage brand. As a social enterprise, Bandida aims to manufacture its product using only partners that are women and people of color. M za soon struggles with issues of cultural identity and ponders whether she can launch her product if she hasn''t met all of her social goals. As M za strategizes how to break .....more

As they deal with a business landscape that is evolving constantly, rapidly, and unpredictably, executives all over the world are full of questions about change: "How much?" "How fast?" "How sustainable?" And sometimes just "How?" They can''t hope to answer those questions unless they understand their companies'' capacity for change--but they''ve lacked good tools for measuring that. .....more

To create long-term value, corporate boards must focus on managing talent, strategy, and risk. But they also have to satisfy their shareholders, who often have competing demands. Activists, for example, might press for short-term profits, while index funds and other long-term shareholders are more concerned with the company''s longevity. Drawing on years of work with boards, top executives, and the investment community and on interviews with .....more

An analysis of 1,172 public companies over 19 years reveals that the more uncommon a leader''s given name is, the more his or her strategy deviates from the industry norm.

Asset management firm Capital SAFI wanted to attract new strategic investors and expand to other countries. Having the right corporate governance in place was critical to achieve this goal.

In 2019, after completing her postgraduate work in dentistry in Mangalore, India, an entrepreneur decided to set up a chain of clinics in Bengaluru, in the Indian state of Karnataka. She was not considering any partnerships for her venture, which she planned to fund with personal capital and a bank loan. The entrepreneur consulted her long-time friend, an independent business consultant, who introduced her to the manager of the Indian government-owned .....more

Group Business Services (GBS), a shared services organization predominantly based in India, provided support services to Koninklijke DSM NV (Royal DSM), a multinational corporation headquartered in the Netherlands, which produced nutrition- and health-related products. When the COVID-19 pandemic created a set of "new normal" circumstances for business organizations, GBS India, like many businesses, introduced remote working for all of its .....more

This case explores incentives for rare disease drug development by chronicling the role of the Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) Foundation in forming strategic partnerships with the scientific research community and pharmaceutical developers to transform the trajectory of innovation for the disease. In the 17 years since its inception, the Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) Foundation has helped transform SMA from an underfunded and poorly researched disease .....more

This package begins with "What the West Gets Wrong About China," by Rana Mitter and Elsbeth Johnson, which discusses three fundamental misconceptions: that economics and democracy are two sides of the same coin; that authoritarian political systems can''t be legitimate; and that the Chinese live, work, and invest like Westerners. "The Strategic Challenges of Decoupling," by J. Stewart Black and Allen J. Morrison, contains .....more