The founder of Shanshi Rock Climbing Gym in China faced a critical decision in July 2024. After building Chongqing’s largest indoor climbing facility through innovative strategies—including women-centric programs, dynamic route updates, and social media-driven community engagement—she had to now choose between expansion and consolidation. China’s climbing market was booming, and Chongqing’s untapped potential tempted the founder to expand. Yet challenges .....more

This case describes the largest bankruptcy in corporate China. The China Evergrande Group (Evergrande), founded in 1996, became a major player in the real estate industry through aggressive, high-leverage strategies. However, it faced a severe financial crisis due to overexpansion, financial fraud, and regulatory tightening implemented by the government. In December 2024, a senior financial analyst at one of Evergrande’s major creditors, was assessing .....more

Whether to adapt its business model to fit the local market or to educate the local market to embrace its existing business model—this was the question confronting Costco Wholesale Corporation (Costco) in China in May 2024. The world-leading warehouse wholesaler had entered China through an online store in 2014 and then branched offline in 2019. By May 2024, it had built seven locations across major cities. However, Costco’s unique business model .....more

Founded in 2005, Juewei Food Co., Ltd. (Juewei) was a leading Chinese company specializing in the research, development, and production of marinated snack foods. Originating in Changsha, Hunan Province, Juewei initially achieved significant success through its aggressive large-scale offline store deployment strategy, which resulted in more than 10,000 stores established across China by 2019. This expansion strategy played a critical role in the company’s .....more

Tongwei Co. Ltd., founded in 1995, initially focused on producing and selling aquaculture and livestock feed. In 2006, the company entered the photovoltaic (PV) new energy industry. Since then, it has consistently maintained leading production volumes in high-purity silicon and solar cell modules. Tongwei adopted a specialized, decentralized, and differentiated development model, concentrating on three key segments of the PV industry chain. In early .....more

Zhejiang Ideal Technology Co. Ltd. (ZITC), a high-tech enterprise affiliated with Zhejiang University and Zhejiang University of Technology, was dedicated to system integration and software technology. Founded in 2005, ZITC provided informatization solutions for government and city agencies and design and engineering services for buildings with intelligence. As China’s health care informatization path became apparent, accompanied with strong policy .....more

Shenzhen Pagoda Industrial (Group) Corporation Ltd. (Pagoda), established in 2001 and listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2023, was a nationally recognized key enterprise in agricultural industrialization. Guided by its business strategy, Pagoda fulfilled its environmental responsibilities by fostering a green organizational identity, driving continuous green innovation, maintaining a green reputation, and striving to build a sustainable ecological .....more

On May 31, 2021, Hisense committed RMB 1.3 billion to acquire Sanden Co., Ltd., the erstwhile global leader in automotive air-conditioning compressors and systems, which was then on the brink of insolvency. Hisense’s post-acquisition review determined that Sanden’s exclusive supplier model had driven up costs and undermined its competitive position. To remedy this, Hisense proposed welcoming high-calibre Chinese suppliers to introduce cost competition .....more

In January 2025, Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence Basic Technology Research Co. Ltd. launched a breakthrough large language model (LLM) on the generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) landscape. DeepSeek was a disruptive application: it had modest hardware requirements and low training costs and was released as a modified open-source app, allowing users access to the weights and codes DeepSeek used in its learning process. Users could run .....more

FOTILE Group (FOTILE), established in 1996 in Zheijiang, China, was a leading manufacturer in the country’s high-end kitchen-appliance market. However, it had seen stagnant growth in recent years owing to the downturn of the country’s real-estate industry and decreased demand for built-in kitchen appliances. To overcome its predicament, FOTILE had transformed itself through initiatives such as brand reinvention, business refocusing, and cultural symbiosis, .....more