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Minnesota’s rural communities are becoming increasingly more racially, ethnically, and culturally diverse. The state shares territory with 11 Sovereign Nations and one in five Minnesotans identifies as Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) today, compared with just 1% in 1960. In collaboration with communities, University of Minnesota’s Extension Department of Community Development works to develop leadership capacity for residents to address inclusiveness, belonging, community climate and culture. The Welcoming and Inclusive Communities Program (WICP) focuses on measurement of community readiness within seven sectors combined with an educational stakeholder cohort experience leading to identification of challenges and best practices happening across a community. Curriculum includes exploring concepts of race and intersectionality and emphasizes the growth of leadership as participants work to promote equity and inclusion. Growing Local, another program in our community toolkit, is an intentional cohort series for BIPOC growth into leadership, more specifically, into decision-making arenas and positions of leadership, like their town/city/county committees, boards, and commissions. From learning the language of the oppressor (e.g., Robert’s Rules of Order) to understanding the dynamics and nuances of power-mapping and social capital, participants address the barriers facing BIPOC. This chapter highlights program design elements, assessments and evaluation, and lessons learned from program implementation to date. Scholars, researchers, practitioners, and leaders will find globally relevant and replicable tools to support the development of leaders who can shape their communities through the lens of inclusive leadership, increase and strengthen capacity to lead, build networks, and facilitate community-owned change.

The case is designed to be used with the digital business model framework developed by Peter Weill and Stephanie Woerner of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (Weill and Woerner, 2015) and is referred to as the W & W framework. This approach provides a useful structure for thinking through the strategic options facing environments ripe for digital transformation.

Research for this case was conducted through face-to-face interviews with the protagonist, as well as through a review of their business planning documents and other data and documentation provided by the founder. Some of the market and industry data were obtained using secondary research and industry reports. Interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed to ensure accuracy.

The case follows the story of Kurt Waltenbaugh, a Minnesota entrepreneur who shared the dream of using data analytics to reduce costs within the US health-care system. In early 2014, Waltenbaugh and a physician colleague founded Carrot Health to bring together their personal experience and expertise in both consumer data analytics and health care. From the beginning, they focused on how to use data analytics to help identify high-risk/high-cost patients who had not yet sought medical treatment. They believed that they could use these insights to encourage early medical interventions and, as a result, lower the long-term cost of care.

Carrot’s initial success found them in a consultative role, working on behalf of insurance companies. Through this work, they honed their capabilities by helping their clients combine existing claims data with external consumer behavioral data to identify new potential customers. These initial consulting contracts gave Carrot the opportunity to develop its analytic tools, business model and, importantly, to earn some much-needed cash flow during the start-up phase. However, they also learned that, while insurance companies were willing to purchase data insights for one-off market expansion projects, it was much more difficult to motivate them to use data proactively to eliminate costs on an ongoing basis. Waltenbaugh believed that Carrot’s greatest potential lay in their ability to develop predictive models of health outcomes, and this case explores Carrot’s journey through strategic decisions and company transformation.

This case is intended for either an undergraduate or graduate course on entrepreneurial strategy. It provides an effective introduction to the unique structure and constraints which apply to an innovative start-up within the health-care industry. The case also serves as a platform to explore the critical criteria to be considered when developing a digital transformation strategy and exposing students to the digital business model developed by Weill and Woerner (2015) at MIT (referred to in this instructor’s manual as the W&W framework). The case was written to be used in an advanced strategy Master of Business Administration (MBA) class, an undergraduate specialty health-care course or as part of a health-care concentration in a regular MBA, Master of Health Care Administration (MHA) or Master of Public Health (MPH). It may be taught toward the end of a course on business strategy when students are building on generic strategy frameworks and adapting their strategic thinking to the characteristics of specific industries or sectors. However, the case can also be taught as part of a course on health-care innovation in which case it also serves well as an introduction to the health-care payments and insurance system in the USA. Finally, the case can be used in a specialized course on digital transformation strategy in which case it serves as an introduction to the MIT W&W framework.

The case is particularly well-suited to students who are familiar with traditional frameworks for business strategy and business models. The analysis builds on this knowledge and introduces students interested in learning about the opportunities and challenges of digital strategy. Equally, the case works well for students with clinical backgrounds, who are interested in how business strategy can influence changes within the health-care sphere. Finally, an important aspect of the case design was to develop students’ analytical confidence by encouraging them to “get their hands dirty” and to carry out some basic exploratory data analytics themselves. As such, the case requires students to combine and correlate data and to experience the potentially powerful combination of clinical and consumer data. Instructors should find that the insights from these activities give students unique insights into the potential for of data analytics to move health care from a reactive/treatment ethos to a proactive/intervention ethos. This experience can be particularly revealing for students with clinical backgrounds who may initially be resistant to the use of clinical data by commercial organizations.

Beginning Farmer and Rancher programs are available for operators with ten years of experience or less on any farm. These programs support farmers who are starting operations, often without an initial asset allocation. However, some beginning farmers acquire operations that are already established, with substantial assets in place. The authors investigate whether a profitability gap exists between beginning farmers entering the industry ex novo and those operating a preexisting operation and if so, what factors contribute to the gap.

The authors utilize the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition to determine what drives financial differences between first-generation beginning farmers, second-generation beginning farmers and established farmers using a unique farm-level panel dataset from 1997 to 2021.

Results indicate that first- and second-generation beginning farmers have similar operating profit margins, but first-generation beginning farmers have a statistically higher rate of return on assets than second-generation beginning farmers. Established farmers outperform second-generation beginning farmers on both the operating profit margin and rate of return on assets. These results suggest that economic viability for beginning farmers differs depending upon the initial status of their operation, suggesting that heterogenous policies may be more impactful in supporting various pathways to enter agriculture.

This analysis is the first to identify beginning farmers that enter the industry without an asset base and those that take over a principal operator role on an established farm through an assumed farm transition. The authors quantify differences in financial performance using detailed accrual-based financial data that tracks farms over time in one dataset.

The information used in the case study was obtained from secondary sources, such as internal documents, reports, news, and organization websites. Three of the four authors played a hands-on role in the case.

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the global challenge of hiring and retaining health-care workers. To address its own challenges, Mayo Clinic decided to fundamentally transform its 30-year-old tuition assistance program: from a model centered on the premise that tuition assistance was an employee benefit for professional development purposes, to one that was more driven to meet the business needs of the employer by preparing internal talent for important roles throughout the institution. Herein, this case study first describes how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted health-care organizations like Mayo Clinic. Next, this study provides details on the original employee tuition assistance program, and then, focuses on the reasons for its need to be changed. Afterward, this study introduces the new tuition assistance programs. Finally, this study follows with examples of how both Mayo Clinic and its employees navigated through initial challenges, such as resistance to change and lack of engagement. In sum, this case study provides critical insight into designing workforce education programs that provide professional development for meeting the workforce needs of the organization.

This case can be used as teaching material in relevant undergraduate- and MBA-level courses, such as human resource management, human resource development and compensation and benefits. This case allows students to critically analyze workforce education programs (e.g. tuition assistance programs) and to plan how to strategically align those with the workforce needs of the organization.

Background: Geostatistics focuses on spatial or spatiotemporal datasets. Geostatistics was initially developed to generate probability distribution predictions of ore grade in the mining industry; however, it has been successfully applied in diverse scientific disciplines. This technique includes univariate, multivariate, and simulations. Kriging geostatistical methods, simple, ordinary, and universal Kriging, are not multivariate models in the usual statistical function. Notwithstanding, simple, ordinary, and universal kriging techniques utilize random function models that include unlimited random variables while modeling one attribute. The coKriging technique is a multivariate estimation method that simultaneously models two or more attributes defined with the same domains as coregionalization.

Objective: This study investigates the impact of populations on traffic volumes as a variable. The additional variable determines the strength or accuracy obtained when data integration is adopted. In addition, this is to help improve the estimation of annual average daily traffic (AADT).

Methods procedures, process: The investigation adopts the coKriging technique with AADT data from 2009 to 2016 from Montana, Minnesota, and Washington as primary attributes and population as a controlling factor (second variable). CK is implemented for this study after reviewing the literature and work completed by comparing it with other geostatistical methods.

Results, observations, and conclusions: The Investigation employed two variables. The data integration methods employed in CK yield more reliable models because their strength is drawn from multiple variables. The cross-validation results of the model types explored with the CK technique successfully evaluate the interpolation technique's performance and help select optimal models for each state. The results from Montana and Minnesota models accurately represent the states' traffic and population density. The Washington model had a few exceptions. However, the secondary attribute helped yield an accurate interpretation. Consequently, the impact of tourism, shopping, recreation centers, and possible transiting patterns throughout the state is worth exploring.

The Child Friendly Cities Initiative (CFCI) is a UNICEF-led collective impact intervention aimed at promoting children’s rights at the city and community levels. The CFCI operationalizes the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) for local governments through a framework for action aimed at realizing the rights of young people under 18 years of age: (1) to be valued, respected and treated fairly; (2) to be heard; (3) to access social services; (4) to be safe; and (5) to participate in family, life, play and leisure. This chapter provides an historical analysis of the CFCI globally and in the United States, and how this intervention draws upon and advances sociological research on young people’s meaningful participation. We present three case studies to analyze young people’s participation in CFCIs and the lessons learned from Houston, Texas, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and San Francisco, California.

This study aims to explore how individual-level and organizational-level factors interact to influence pay information (PI) seeking and PI sharing preferences in PI conversations (i.e. the face-to-face communications context). The authors examine how an individual’s judgment of their pay relative to others – or pay equity perception – affects their PI seeking and PI sharing preferences and how those relationships are affected by organizationally created pay transparency policies and pay transparency practices.

Using a 2 × 2 × 2 experimental design on the MTurk platform, the authors used a scenario-based prompt method to manipulate employee perceptions of pay equity and organizational pay transparency and tested those effects on employee pay disclosure preferences. The authors consider both pay policy and pay practice dimensions of pay transparency and both PI seeking and PI sharing dimensions of pay disclosure preferences. The final sample had 597 participants.

The authors find employees’ pay equity perceptions are negatively related to PI seeking behaviors and are even more so when organizations have restrictive pay transparency policies. Also, both pay transparency policy and pay transparency practice increase PI sharing preferences.

The authors provide insight into how individual perceptions drive pay disclosure motivations and the role of organizational policy and practice in influencing pay disclosure preferences within PI conversations. The authors provide insight into the antecedents that shape pay disclosure preferences, which lead to a both PI conversations among coworkers and an increase in one’s pay understanding. This study shows the contextual nature of PI seeking and PI sharing preferences, which are a motivational antecedent to pay-related sensemaking behaviors.

There is a growing interest in applying the principles of biophilic design to hotel lobbies to enhance positive user experiences. However, there is little empirical research in this area, particularly for abstract or indirect biophilic approaches. The current study analyzed the biophilic strategy of “organized complexity” (which entails structured hierarchical patterns) in a hotel lobby in relation to attention restoration outcomes.

A virtual reality approach was used to create three lobby designs, differing only in their degree of organized complexity. A between-subjects study was conducted with 91 participants, evaluating reactions to the lobby designs in terms of perceived attention restoration, perceived environmental complexity and environmental preferences.

A strong positive relationship was found between participants' perception of environmental complexity and feelings of restoration. However, no statistically significant correlation was found between restoration and the objective measures of organized complexity. This suggests that individual preferences or baseline responses may play a crucial role in the benefits associated with this aspect of biophilic design.

The findings suggest a novel possibility – that responses to organized complexity may not be universal but may instead depend on an individual’s background and personal preferences. While the study found that perceived complexity was associated with restoration, the objective features of the environment that incited these perceptions were different for different participants. This indicates that more research is needed into potentially relevant personal factors.

This paper aims to provide evidence-based managerial advice for identifying, developing and managing a broad-based innovation system for organizations to reap optimal performance outcomes.

The general review is based upon large-scale peer-reviewed academic studies of innovation practices in organizations and their performance outcomes and synthesized here through two illustrative case studies. The first case deals with Brightsquid Secure Communications as they expanded their product-focused innovation practices to include broad-based organizational improvements, while the second case focuses on Trimet Building Products and their use of broad-based innovation to turn around declining revenue.

Using the SME context, this study outlines an innovation management model that highlights the importance of leadership attention on organization-wide innovation and the interdependence of investments across functions.[AQ2] To enhance their performance, SMEs must implement broad learning programs across the organization that provides formal and informal cross-training and takes a cross-functional approach to innovation and problem-solving.

Reviewing and integrating the literature on different innovation types and outcomes, this study proposes a novel broad-based innovation model that guides firms that overemphasize improvements within a single function. Further, drawing on the learning literature, this paper recommends an organizational learning and collaboration model to achieve organization-wide innovation for optimal outcomes.

This study aims to examine how three types of information technology (IT) capability (supplier technological capability, customer technology-sensing capability and relatedness of IT infrastructure) facilitate knowledge acquisition by the customer when the supplier is dominant in the supplier-customer relationship.

The unit of analysis was project. The authors designed two different questionnaires that were responded by the project manager of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) software supplier and the contact person of the customer organization in the same project, respectively. The two questionnaires were matched by means of project name. The final sample included a total of 136 projects. The authors used ordinary least squares to test the research hypotheses.

The authors found that supplier power advantage negatively influenced knowledge acquisition by the customer. The three types of IT capability did not have direct impacts on knowledge acquisition. The moderating effect of customer technology-sensing capability was not significant either. However, supplier technological capability and relatedness of IT infrastructure attenuated the negative effect of supplier power advantage on knowledge acquisition, indicating that both factors promoted knowledge acquisition.

Knowledge acquisition is important for the success of software implementation in the supplier-customer relationship. There is limited evidence in the literature on how to apply externally oriented IT capability to enhance knowledge management, improve knowledge acquisition and manage the business relationship that is typically dominated by the software supplier. The authors provide evidence to examine related issues.