The EFMD Case Writing Competition celebrates outstanding case writing and teaching since 1988. Over the years, it has brought together educators from around the world who are committed to making management education more relevant, rigorous, and impactful.

We continue our 2025 interview series by speaking with the authors behind the winning cases to learn more about their work, their motivation, and the stories behind their submissions.

We are pleased to feature Maria Ballesteros-Sola, California State University Channel Islands, and David Choi, Loyola Marymount University, winners in the “Responsible Leadership” category.

The category “Responsible Leadership” is kindly sponsored by Cork University Business School. EFMD is grateful for their continued commitment to advancing case-based learning and supporting the Case Writing Competition.

‘Scaling for a Purpose: Homeboy Industries’ Potential Acquisition of B Corp Isidore Recycling’ 

1. Could you briefly introduce yourself and provide an overview of the case you have written?

My name is Maria Ballesteros-Sola, and I am an Associate Professor of Management at California State University, Channel Islands. I have been actively involved in the case method community for many years, following my 2016 award of the Paul R. Lawrence Fellowship from the Case Research Foundation.

My name is David Choi, and I am Conrad N. Hilton Chair of Entrepreneurship at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. I write cases mostly about fascinating social enterprises.

This case describes the challenges Homeboys Industries’ (HBI) CEO, Tom Vozzo, faced in early 2017 regarding the acquisition of Isidore Recycling, a Los Angeles-based certified B Corp. Vozzo had to build a rationale before the board to convince them to take this unusual and risky move for a nonprofit organisation. HBI was a thirty-year-old nonprofit organisation founded in downtown Los Angeles by Father Boyle to rehabilitate incarcerated ex-gang members who couldn’t find a job. In 1992, without any formal business background, Father Boyle decided to buy a bakery that would provide homies with on-the-job training. Fast forward to 2017, and HBI was managing an annual revenue of more than $16 million, with 37% coming from several social enterprises. Acquiring Isidore Recycling could expand quality job opportunities, but the financials didn’t look too promising.  This case provides students with an opportunity to explore the complexities of a nonprofit acquiring a for-profit social enterprise, emphasising the need to evaluate both financial and social impact-related metrics.

2. Every case is built around a central tension that resists easy resolution. What is the tension at the heart of your case, and why does it matter?

At the heart of the case is an unusual acquisition decision: a nonprofit organisation considering the acquisition of a for-profit company. While mergers and acquisitions are typically evaluated through financial and strategic lenses, this situation introduces a much more complex question: How should leaders assess an acquisition when social impact is as important as financial performance?

Homeboy Industries must determine whether acquiring Isidore Recycling will advance its mission of creating employment opportunities and economic mobility for formerly gang-involved and previously incarcerated individuals. At the same time, the organisation has a responsibility to ensure the nonprofit’s financial sustainability and to steward donor resources responsibly. This creates a tension between traditional business considerations and mission-driven objectives.

The case matters because it challenges students and practitioners to think beyond conventional M&A frameworks. It highlights the need to incorporate nonfinancial metrics—such as social impact, workforce development outcomes, mission alignment, and community benefit—into strategic decision-making. As the boundaries between nonprofit, for-profit, and hybrid organisations continue to blur, leaders increasingly face decisions that cannot be evaluated solely through financial returns.

We believe the case offers a useful roadmap for nonprofit leaders considering growth through acquisition, while also providing valuable lessons for traditional for-profit organisations. Increasingly, businesses are being asked to account for environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors and other forms of stakeholder value. The case, therefore, encourages a broader conversation about how organisations can integrate both financial and social considerations into major strategic decisions.

3. What did writing this case reveal to you that you did not expect to find, and how has it influenced the way you think about your field?

One of the most rewarding aspects of writing this case was the opportunity to reconnect with its protagonist, Tom Vozzo. I first interviewed Tom in 2015 as part of my Ph.D. research on nonprofits’ earned income strategies. Nearly a decade later, I had the chance to interview him again while developing this case, which offered a unique perspective on both his leadership journey and Homeboy Industries’ evolution.

What struck me most was the remarkable clarity with which Tom approached decision-making. While financial sustainability remains important, it was evident that mission and impact had become the organisation’s true north star. Rather than treating social impact as a constraint or a secondary consideration, Homeboy Industries viewed it as the primary lens through which strategic opportunities—including acquisitions—should be evaluated.

4. What broader themes or concepts in management does your case illuminate, and why are they important for students to engage with today?

This case illuminates several important themes in contemporary management, including strategic decision-making, mergers and acquisitions, social entrepreneurship, stakeholder management, and impact measurement. At its core, however, the case challenges students to think critically about how organisations define and evaluate success.

Traditionally, acquisitions are assessed primarily through financial metrics such as profitability, return on investment, and shareholder value. The Homeboy Industries–Isidore Recycling acquisition invites students to expand that perspective and even use different metrics, such as number of jobs (scalability) that the acquisition can offer now and in the future as well as the number of high quality (income) jobs the acquisition can offer, or the relative (in comparison to other social enterprises) investment or economic loss needed to train a new employee until she is ready for employment elsewhere.

The case also highlights the growing convergence of nonprofit, for-profit, and hybrid organisational models. As social enterprises, B Corporations, and purpose-driven businesses become increasingly common, managers must learn to navigate environments where financial and social objectives coexist. This requires new frameworks for leadership and decision-making that move beyond traditional sector boundaries.

For students, these issues are particularly relevant today because organisations across sectors are under increasing pressure to demonstrate value to a broader range of stakeholders. Whether they work in nonprofits, corporations, government agencies, or entrepreneurial ventures, future leaders will need to make decisions that balance economic performance with social and environmental impact.

Ultimately, the case encourages students to grapple with a fundamental management question: How can organisations pursue growth and sustainability while remaining true to their mission and creating meaningful value for society? Developing the ability to answer that question will be essential for the next generation of leaders.

5. If your case continues to be taught a decade from now, what do you believe it will say about the period in which it was written?

If this case is still being taught a decade from now, we believe it will reflect a period in which organisations were actively rethinking the role of business in society. The years in which this case was written were marked by growing concerns about inequality, climate change, social polarisation, and, more recently, the disruptive implications of artificial intelligence. Many of these challenges have been linked, at least in part, to the unintended consequences of traditional capitalist systems focused primarily on economic growth and shareholder value.

At the same time, this period was characterised by a search for new models. Rather than rejecting capitalism outright, many leaders began exploring how market-based approaches could be harnessed to address social and environmental problems. The case of Homeboy Industries and Isidore Recycling captures this moment. It illustrates how organisations were experimenting with hybrid structures and innovative partnerships that sought to align financial sustainability with social impact.

We also hope the case will demonstrate that leadership was evolving. Traditional corporate leaders like Tom Vozzo brought valuable business expertise to mission-driven organisations, while also embracing new measures of success. Instead of allowing financial metrics alone to drive decisions, they increasingly consider mission, stakeholder well-being, and long-term societal impact. In many ways, they helped bridge the worlds of business and social enterprise.

Ultimately, we hope future readers will see this case as evidence of a broader transition in management thinking—one in which leaders recognised that business could be part of the problem, but also part of the solution. The case suggests that organisations do not have to choose between economic viability and social purpose. Instead, they can use the tools of business to create meaningful and lasting impact, while remaining guided by a clear mission and a commitment to human dignity.

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The Sponsor’s Commentary

The category “Responsible Leadership” is kindly judged by Cork University Business School. EFMD deeply appreciates the invaluable expertise and the dedicated efforts of Cork University Business School in supporting the Case Writing Competition. Anthony McDonnell tells us more about case writing and the winning case: 

1. Could you share a brief overview of your institution?

Cork University Business School (CUBS), University College Cork, Ireland, is a triple-accredited business school shaping leaders for a sustainable future through providing internationally recognised education and engaged research.

CUBS was established in 2015 and comprises almost 4,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students, over 140 faculty members, and 45 professional staff. CUBS is based in Ireland’s fastest-growing economic region and at the heart of a thriving ecosystem of multinational companies, indigenous enterprises, entrepreneurs, and public-sector organisations. This means that CUBS provides students, professionals, and partners with unparalleled access to talent, multi-disciplinary ideas and expertise, and opportunity.

CUBS combines world-class research with strong industry partnerships to shape a future where work, organisations, and communities are more inclusive and sustainable. We are driven by our mission to cultivate an inclusive environment where knowledge thrives through impactful research and learning, developing future leaders to transform business and advance a more sustainable future.

We firmly believe that the future of our planet and communities requires business leaders, workers and citizens to be active agents of change, working across disciplinary and national divides to deliver a sustainable future for all.

The world is evolving at a rapid pace, driven by exceptional geo-political conditions, digital and technological innovation and shifting consumer and worker expectations. Students in CUBS are challenged and empowered to become responsible, digitally savvy leaders and global citizens.

2. What qualities distinguish a truly great teaching case from a merely good one, in your view?

A great teacher goes beyond showcasing an interesting situation or a successful outcome, but creates a rich learning experience that challenges and encourages critical thinking. It seeks to provide safe and realistic learning experiences where students can apply entrepreneurial and innovative thinking to arrive at potential outcomes and decision-making that prepares them for a complex business world. Good cases provide good stories to engage with, but great cases pull students into real dilemmas, are evidence-based and challenge all to consider things from different perspectives, making students wrestle with ambiguity through enabling deep thinking and discussion.

3. Why is sponsoring a case writing competition a meaningful way for your institution to contribute to management education?

Case writing competitions support the development of high-quality, practice-based learning resources which have a long-standing relevance to bridging academic theory and research with real-world complexity and scenarios. High-quality cases encourage critical thinking and the application of concepts in complex environments, which not only expands the depth of teaching materials available to us as academics but also provides materials for future leaders to apply to their own research and teaching.

Our continued sponsorship of case writing competitions reflects our commitment to the Cork University Business School to curate learning experiences for student success. We need to continue to push the boundaries and challenge our students to enable them to become responsible, digitally savvy, ethical, entrepreneurial thinkers and doers. Case studies are a key ingredient in delivering relevant, high-quality educational experiences and supporting EFMD in this continuous quest is highly important to us in CUBS.

4. What does the winning case in your category reveal about the kind of thinking business schools should be cultivating in their students?

The winning case in the responsible leadership track, “Scaling for a Purpose: Homeboy Industries’ Potential Acquisition of B Corp Isidore Recycling,” challenges traditional approaches to opportunity assessment. It offers a compelling academic foundation for cultivating responsible leadership because it requires students to integrate rigorous financial and strategic analysis with a principled commitment to organisational mission. By challenging traditional profit‑versus‑purpose logics and conventional M&A valuation techniques, it reframes opportunity assessment as a multidimensional exercise in which social impact is not a secondary consideration but a central evaluative criterion. The decision facing Homeboy Industries—a nonprofit dedicated to providing healing, training, and employment for formerly incarcerated individuals—highlights the complexity of weighing financial risk, managerial capacity, and industry unfamiliarity against the potential to expand high‑quality jobs and deepen social value creation.

Consequently, this case models the type of decision environment that contemporary leaders increasingly encounter: one in which financial sustainability and social mission must be held in productive tension rather than treated as mutually exclusive. For business schools like CUBS, this underscores the imperative to educate students to deploy analytical tools in the service of mission‑aligned objectives, to justify socially oriented decisions to the most sceptical stakeholders, and to tolerate calculated risk when pursuing public good. Embedding these principles into curricula strengthens our capacity to shape responsible future leaders who can scale impact, yet maintain commitment to organisational purpose.

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About Sponsorship

EFMD Case Writing Competition is proud to have dedicated sponsors who drive management education towards impactful teaching and learning. Sponsoring a category allows you to showcase your institution’s expertise in the specific field of management education in the wide EFMD network. The choice of category, its exact definition and any specific conditions are the privileges of the sponsor. Sponsorships for the following categories are currently available: Continuous Improvement: the Journey to Excellence, and Finance and Banking. To find out more, please contact Petra Grestenbergerova at petra.grestenbergerova@efmdglobal.org.

More information about the 2025 EFMD Case Writing Competition winners can be found at the EFMD Case Writing Competition page. Please visit The Case Centre’s webpage to access the collection of the winning cases. See other interviews from this series.