After three years of development, Paramount Health and Beauty Company is preparing to launch a new technologically advanced vibrating razor called Clean Edge. The innovative new design of Clean Edge provides superior performance by stimulating the hair follicles to lift the hair from the skin, allowing for a closer shave. The company has already decided to introduce Clean Edge into the men's market where it has a strong presence. Jackson Randall, the product manager for Clean Edge, struggles with how best to position the product for the launch. One strategy is to release Clean Edge as a "niche" product, targeting the high-end market of fastidious groomers looking for superior skin care products. Another strategy is to release the product into the highly competitive mainstream razor market where the product can be positioned as the most effective razor available. Randall meets internal resistance to the mainstream strategy from the product manager for the company's current, but aging, mainstream razor products and he must consider the effects of cannibalization in his plan. Randall must recommend an optimal strategy and provide supporting economic analysis of his decision--not just for Clean Edge, but for its effect on the entire company.
Serious Materials is a start up who is moving into clean tech markets. The company's first product, QuietRock, originated the sound proofing drywall category and created a steady stream of revenue. It was now considering how to expand its product line to compete in the rapidly developing green building markets. How should Serious Materials go to market when they launch their highly anticipated Serious Windows and EcoRock product lines? What do they need to do to develop their brand?
The (D) case describes aspects of the Jan 2011 report by the Goldman Sach's Business Standards Committee on how the firm might strengthen its practices with respect to clients and other stakeholders.
Investment manager James Franey confronts an apparent arbitrage opportunity during the global financial crisis of 2008 when he notices a wide yield spread between two U.S. Treasury bonds that mature on the same date. Franey must decide if there is an opportunity, how to structure a trade to exploit it, and how much of his fund's capital to allocate. Case exposition includes considerable detail on financing arrangements, particularly short-selling, margin lending, and repurchase agreements, that support relative-value strategies. Careful attention is paid to the bond math calculations that support the protagonist's analysis and decision. All quoted prices in the case are real and historical, and corresponding Bloomberg commands are provided for each as footnotes.
The B case briefly recounts the action that investment manager James Franey takes in the matter of two U.S. Treasury bonds with identical maturity dates but widely different yields. He must decide what to do next.
Investment manager Albert Mills confronts an apparent arbitrage opportunity during the global financial crisis of 2008 when he notices an unusually low-- and briefly negative-- thirty-year U.S. dollar fixed-floating swap spread. Mills must decide if there is an opportunity, how to structure a trade to exploit it, and how much of his fund's capital to allocate. Case exposition includes descriptions of fixed-floating swaps, important interest rates and spreads (LIBOR, TED spread, swap spread), and financing arrangements, particularly repurchase agreements, that support relative-value strategies. Attention also is paid to bond math calculations that support the protagonist's analysis and decision. All quoted prices in the case are real and historical, and corresponding Bloomberg commands are provided for each as footnotes.
The D case briefly recounts the action that investment manager Albert Mills takes in the matter of an unusually low U.S. dollar fixed-floating swap spread. He must decide what to do next.
This article examines workplace bullying from a personal resources perspective. As workplace bullying emerges in unsupportive and stressful work environments, the threat of personal resource loss triggers the low cost, high reward resource-seeking behaviors that are typically reported as indicative of bullies in the workplace bullying research. Herein, we propose that these resource-seeking bullying behaviors allow bullies to create reinforcing resource gain cycles for them, but also create reinforcing resource loss cycles for targets and bystanders of bullying. As a potential remedy, we discuss recommendations for organizations to reduce the occurrence of workplace bullying.
Recently, we have seen a number of high profile examples of workplace violence. Large organizations are armed with many of the programs that have been developed to minimize the occurrence of workplace violence. In contrast, smaller organizations-which constitute the majority of businesses in the United States-possess neither the resources nor the manpower to implement the aforementioned programs. Additionally, due to a number of individual, social, and situational factors, small businesses appear to be more vulnerable to workplace violence than large businesses. Despite these disadvantages, however, it seems that small businesses do not experience higher levels of workplace violence than their more sizeable counterparts. In this article, we uncover a number of small business practices that may counteract the threat of workplace violence, and proffer these as lessons for all managers who wish to work toward that goal.
Over the last 10 to 15 years, a disturbing number of well-publicized cases of unethical worker behavior have made national headlines. These events have been associated with tragic consequences: countless people have lost their jobs and the associated health insurance and retirement benefits on which they depended; investors have lost their nest eggs; and the trust in the corporate world that is so critical to a thriving economy has been sullied. Pundits have offered simple explanations for these events (e.g., greed) and equally simple solutions (e.g., punish the wrong-doers). In this article, I draw attention to a trigger of unethical work behavior that has received less attention than is warranted: pressure to behave unethically (PBU) perpetrated by organizational authorities. Many instances in which employees violate ethical standards reflect acquiescence to managerial pressure. Herein, I introduce a comprehensive approach to reduce the frequency with which managers execute acts of PBU. My approach draws on a recent influence framework to target managers' motivation to perform PBU, and ability to achieve personal and organizational goals without resorting to PBU.
One of the more difficult responsibilities of employers is dealing with problem employees. Employee misconduct and poor performance can lead to productivity issues, morale problems, and inferior quality products. For these reasons, it behooves employers to address performance issues rather than allow them to fester. By understanding which federal employment laws can be triggered when making employment decisions, avoiding common mistakes in applying these laws, and implementing key policies, employers can provide structures in the workplace that allow them to address problems effectively and minimize their legal exposure.
While diversity has enjoyed significant popularity in the corporate world for the last two decades, researchers continue to put forward conflicting results regarding the business benefits of workplace diversity. Some say workplace diversity is good for businesses; others argue it is an undertaking full of challenges; and, yet others assert that it doesn't really matter. With this in mind, we attempted to synthesize the research that evaluates the impact of workplace diversity on the organizational bottom line. We find an over-emphasis on demonstrating the business case of diversity in economic denominations, which-to some extent-has limited our understanding of the complex dynamics associated with diversity. We identify a lack of attention toward institutional forces as one of the reasons that has restricted our focus on mere economic gains. Overall, we recommend broadening our definition of goals that organizations have when adopting diversity initiatives by including 'gain of legitimacy' and 'creation of goodwill' as part of the essential consequences of diversity programs.
In today's environment of fragmented mass media and popular technologies, such as DVR and TiVo, it is increasingly challenging for marketers to obtain quality face time with audiences. As more customers try to avoid advertisements, there has been growth in brand placement: the practice of integrating brands into entertainment media, particularly television and film. Brand placement engages the audience, limits viewers' ability to ignore commercial messages, and even impacts purchase behavior-as evidenced by the surge in Blackstone pinot noir wine sales after the brand's placement in the movie Sideways. Despite the prevalence of this practice, however, the industry often operates in a somewhat unfocused manner. In this article, we draw from academic literature and industry publications, offer insight regarding the growing popularity of brand placements, and suggest a specific set of guidelines to enhance the efficacy of placements in accomplishing a brand's marketing objectives.
Continued attention in both the popular and academic press regarding negotiation and the related concepts of influence and persuasion is nothing short of astonishing. The topics on which we focus in this article, however, are rarely-if ever-vetted in such outlets. We venture, with some measure of caution, into the dark side of negotiation: those tactics that may be duplicitous, unethical, and unprincipled. Such tactics provide a quintessential moral hazard, as they are both brutally effective and rarely illegal. It is not our intent to provide a treatise on unsuitable behavior. Rather, our objective is to establish that no one need be victimized by such behaviors, as all of these tactics are avoidable. It is in this spirit that we provide some guidelines on self-defense in a negotiation context to avert and attenuate the consequences of these behaviors.
Corporate entrepreneurship necessarily entails both risk and high levels of uncertainty; yet, established organizations are typically positioned as efficient engines that function best via cautious and routine progress, which can hinder attempts to inject innovative ideas into mature businesses. As such, conscious effort is required to build a corporation's capacity for sustainable entrepreneurship. While a few exceptional companies have built and maintained an enduring capability for entrepreneurship, the majority of firms possess a general resistance to these initiatives. Commitment to entrepreneurship may cycle between high or moderate support for the activity, to floundering interest or disbanded initiatives, as conditions in the internal and external environment shift. This cycling pattern, unfortunately, prevents the development of enduring capabilities. Herein, it is revealed how companies can progress their entrepreneurial capabilities over time, adjusting and improving them as the firm learns and adapts to change. To accomplish this, companies must develop strategic objectives to guide entrepreneurs, a management structure to support their work, and processes that inform assessment and decision making. Through an Evolve and Connect model, these three contexts can adjust to shifts in the external environment and the changes and progress happening within the organization. Over time, however, managers need to maintain a link between entrepreneurial activity and the organization's mainstream.
MacAfee Building Supply, a distributor of building supplies and heating and plumbing products, had grown to become the largest company of its kind in the world by incentivizing profit-maximizing behavior at the local level. John Smith, a senior manager at the company's Build subdivision, had nevertheless grown concerned that MacAfee's incentive scheme, which incentivized profits at the branch level, was actually hindering long-term global profitability by creating a lack of cooperation among branches and discouraging branch manager's investment in long-term endeavors. In this three-part case students first recommend strategies for better aligning employees to a long-term focus, and then evaluate the results of the program the company selected.
MacAfee Building Supply, a distributor of building supplies and heating and plumbing products, had grown to become the largest company of its kind in the world by incentivizing profit-maximizing behavior at the local level. John Smith, a senior manager at the company's Build subdivision, had nevertheless grown concerned that MacAfee's incentive scheme, which incentivized profits at the branch level, was actually hindering long-term global profitability by creating a lack of cooperation among branches and discouraging branch manager's investment in long-term endeavors. In this three-part case students first recommend strategies for better aligning employees to a long-term focus, and then evaluate the results of the program the company selected.
MacAfee Building Supply, a distributor of building supplies and heating and plumbing products, had grown to become the largest company of its kind in the world by incentivizing profit-maximizing behavior at the local level. John Smith, a senior manager at the company's Build subdivision, had nevertheless grown concerned that MacAfee's incentive scheme, which incentivized profits at the branch level, was actually hindering long-term global profitability by creating a lack of cooperation among branches and discouraging branch manager's investment in long-term endeavors. In this three-part case students first recommend strategies for better aligning employees to a long-term focus, and then evaluate the results of the program the company selected.