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Business leaders, in increasing numbers, are looking to the creative power of the arts in their efforts to manage strategic change, to enhance innovation, or to strengthen corporate cultures. In this case study, we focus attention on what is widely regarded as one of the world's most extensive corporate arts‐based learning initiatives, the Catalyst program at Unilever.

In a wide‐ranging interview with James Hill, now a group vice‐president and Catalyst's leading executive sponsor, this paper explores the origins, operations, and outcomes of this innovative program.

Finds that Catalyst came about as a result of savvy leadership and a corporate willingness to take risks in developing an “enterprise culture;” it now flourishes in three divisions due to ownership at multiple levels of the organization as well as its ability to stimulate new product development, attract and retain creative people, and boost the company's marketing efforts; and it persists because its starting points are always actual business problems, the solutions to which improve financial performance and shareholder returns.

To management scholars, this case provides an additional data point in the ongoing study of strategy implementation and organizational change. To corporate executives seeking fresh ideas, the Unilever/Catalyst story offers a novel and intuitively appealing approach to the vexing challenges of leading strategic change, told from the perspective of an experienced executive.

The main purpose of this conceptual paper is drawing up a framework to assess the company responsibility regarding culture and fine arts. Since a rich cultural life requires variety and commitment to innovative and bold forms of cultural activity, the model should measure the corporate commitment to fostering axiological pluralism in the cultural sphere. A subordinate purpose is testing that model using primary data on the biggest Spanish listed companies. First, we define the corporate cultural responsibility (CCR) as a specific field of the corporate social responsibility. Second, we defend that corporate citizenship involves accepting some risks to be in line with the public expectations on arts and culture. Third, it is proposed an assessment model that takes into account the kind of cultural activities promoted by the firms, from conventional and uncommitted to innovative and provoking. The model makes possible to rank the companies according to the quality of their CCR and take into account the influence of size and sector. The model reveals whether firms support conventional versus challenging cultural activities. This should be taken into consideration both by CSR managers and policy makers. In spite of the mounting economic significance of symbols and creativity, there is still little literature that specifically addresses the role of firms regarding arts and culture as another facet of their responsibility as corporate citizens.

This study of a market-leader in a turbulent hostile telecommunications market uncovers how the competitive context influences strategy-making and cultivates central control that opposes autonomous initiatives. It shows how a highly competitive industry context reduces organizational slack that inhibits autonomy and drives central actions. Strategic initiatives primarily arise as deliberate actions induced by top management. This creates an information gap between ongoing experiences gained by employees operating in the periphery of the organization and the perceptions of decision-makers at the corporate center. In this organizational setting, the authors observe maverick behavior among entrepreneurial individuals that deliberately circumvent the formal rules to turn autonomous initiatives into viable strategic ventures in the best interest of the firm. Where conventional views presume that power delegation and organizational slack are necessary for autonomous strategic initiatives to emerge, the authors find that central control can provoke autonomous rule-breaking maverick behavior among resource-deprived entrepreneurial individuals inside the organization.

This case was developed through secondary sources in response to the environmental concerns being raised in legal actions, company documents, online forums, trade press articles and academic research relative to Li mining practices, a key material in Li-ion batteries. The case focuses on Tesla’s actual and potential response to the environmental and humanitarian concerns being raised with its battery supply chain

Tesla was one of the world’s leading producers of Li-ion batteries which were critical to its EV and battery offerings. Unfortunately, sourcing rare earth metals, such as Co and Li, which are key components in these batteries, raise several environmental and social concerns. This case highlights senior leadership considerations critical to environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues, including environmental tradeoffs and issue management. The case highlights the complexity of strategic decision-making in innovative and ESG contexts and challenges the students to contextualize the trade-offs behind each decision and the potential impact to associated stakeholders.

Level: Upper undergraduate and masters. Majors: Management; technology & innovation management; environmental science; science, technology & society; supply chain management; business ethics. Courses: Strategic management (social issues in management, strategic management, technological innovation); technology & society; ethics, supply chain management. Time: 60- or 90-minute class session. Supporting texts (depending on course context): Strategic Management of Technological Innovation. Schilling, M. McGraw Hill, 2017. Contemporary Strategy Analysis. Grant, R. Wiley, 2017. Society, Ethics & Technology. Winston, M., Edelbach, R. Cengage, 2014. Principles of Supply Chain Management. Wisner, J., Tan, K., Leong, G. Cengage, 2019.

The focus of this paper is the interrogation of an artistic approach with the purpose of understanding entrepreneurial marketing.

This is a conceptual paper although the evaluation is grounded in prior quantitative and qualitative research in entrepreneurial marketing, creativity and art.

An artistic approach to understanding entrepreneurial marketing matches the way in which the owner/manager behaves in practice by constructing a personalised approach to doing marketing.

The paper calls for more creative ways of understanding entrepreneurial marketing. This involves more experimentation in research methodology. The experimental approach also mirrors entrepreneurial marketing practice.

The outcomes address existing theory versus practice gaps so that a more meaningful understanding of entrepreneurial marketing practice can be obtained through the re‐imagining of the entrepreneurial marketer as an artist.

This is an under‐utilised approach to understanding entrepreneurial marketing. The approach matches the wider calls for artistic methods in the wider management academy.