Most companies know that they need to be greening their offerings-if not to gain advantage, then simply to keep up. In this article the authors offer a framework for embarking on the green-product development process, introducing three broad strategies that companies can use to align their green goals and capabilities. An "accentuate" strategy involves evaluating products in the company's current portfolio and playing up or extending latent or existing green attributes (as Arm and Hammer did when it repositioned its 150-year-old baking soda as "the #1 environmentally sensible alternative for cleaning and deodorizing"). An "acquire" strategy involves buying someone else's green brand-an approach used effectively by L'Oreal when it acquired The Body Shop, Unilever when it acquired Ben & Jerry's, and Colgate-Palmolive when it acquired Tom's of Maine. Finally, companies with innovation expertise can use an "architect" strategy, building green products from scratch, as Clorox did when it developed its celebrated Green Works line. Unruh and Ettenson offer case studies, outline benefits and hazards, and describe the optimal organizational and competitive circumstances for each strategy.
To achieve growth and profitability in the world's third-largest economy, multinationals need strong leadership-but China is tough on top executives. Pulsating with opportunity, China attracts foreigners, yet HR professionals continue to rank it as one of the most challenging destinations for expatriates. The problem, says the author, is that many executives sent to lead China operations are ill equipped to tackle the country's unique challenges. And it's hard to overcome that handicap, because leading in China calls for skills that go beyond and in some cases conflict with standard business teaching and practice. Foreign executives must be adept at reworking management orthodoxies in real time to do well there. The author's research-which includes interviews with the China business heads of around two dozen companies-confirms that success requires cultural understanding and adaptability, market knowledge, the ability to sense and respond to rapid change, and support from headquarters. Most important, effective leaders have the crucial ability to play roles that Westerners often view as contradictory: For instance, they are strategic yet hands-on; authoritative yet nurturing; and action driven yet circumspect. Above all, they have the intellectual dexterity to develop new frameworks and capabilities to meet China's particular circumstances. This article illustrates how CEOs have modified accepted wisdom to tackle their biggest challenges in China. Though some of the lessons may seem like common sense to experienced China hands, they're anything but to a freshman expat. Leaders must (1) understand the market, but work with the state; (2) adapt to local conditions, but implement global standards; (3) pay for performance, but build a people-centric workplace; (4) drive costs down, but maintain quality; and (5) recognize complexity, but define clear priorities.
India's HCL Technologies has, according to Fortune, the world's most modern management. BusinessWeek says that HCL is one of the top five emerging companies in the world to watch. That's mainly because of a transformation effort that the author, who took over leadership of the $5 billion IT services company in 2005, launched. Nayar learned from talking with customers that what they valued most-above products, services, and technologies-was HCL's employees. So he came up with a radical idea, Employees First, Customers Second, to bring about organizational change. In this article, he explains how he got stakeholders-HCL's founder and chairman, the board of directors, senior executives, managers, and employees-to back his campaign for radical change.
If you're unhappy at work, and changing roles or companies may be unrealistic given the tough economy, what can you do? A growing body of research suggests that a process called job crafting can be a powerful tool for reenergizing and reimagining your life at work. It involves redefining your current job description to better incorporate your motives, strengths, and passions. The exercise prompts you to visualize your job graphically, map its elements, and reorganize them to shape the job to better suit you. In this way, you can put your own personal touches on the way you see and do your job; and you'll gain a greater sense of control at work-all of which is especially critical at a time when you're probably working longer and harder and will be retiring later. Perhaps job crafting's best feature is that it's driven by you, not your supervisor. Research with a range of organizations indicates that employees who engage in job crafting often end up more engaged and satisfied with their work lives, achieve higher levels of performance in their organizations, and report greater personal resilience. And organizations have a lot to gain by enabling job crafting: The exercise lets managers turn the reins over to employees, empowering them to become "job entrepreneurs." And when pay resources are constrained or promotions impossible, job crafting may give companies a different way to motivate and retain their most talented employees.
Each year the DM Bicycle Company focuses its CSR efforts on fighting childhood obesity, a program that's popular with everyone and in line with the company's mission. This year, though, the CEO's nine-year-old daughter has been diagnosed with Batten disease, and that's all he can think about. For the next fiscal year, he'd like the company to focus on Batten disease research instead of obesity prevention. The HR director, the protagonist of the case, wonders if the effort is more personal crusade than corporate social responsibility. Is it ethical for the CEO to ask employees to share in his family's struggle? Two experts comment on this fictional case study in R1006L and R1006Z.
Joe Girardi had wanted to play for the Chicago Cubs since he was a boy. He achieved that ambition, went on to coach for the Yankees, and is now the New York team's manager. He reflects in this interview on the value of numbers, how to keep players focused, and the challenges that come with being the most successful sports franchise in American history.
Each year the DM Bicycle Company focuses its CSR efforts on fighting childhood obesity, a program that's popular with everyone and in line with the company's mission. This year, though, the CEO's nine-year-old daughter has been diagnosed with Batten disease, and that's all he can think about. For the next fiscal year, he'd like the company to focus on Batten disease research instead of obesity prevention. The HR director, the protagonist of the case, wonders if the effort is more personal crusade than corporate social responsibility. Is it ethical for the CEO to ask employees to share in his family's struggle? Two experts comment on this fictional case study in R1006L and R1006Z.
Each year the DM Bicycle Company focuses its CSR efforts on fighting childhood obesity, a program that's popular with everyone and in line with the company's mission. This year, though, the CEO's nine-year-old daughter has been diagnosed with Batten disease, and that's all he can think about. For the next fiscal year, he'd like the company to focus on Batten disease research instead of obesity prevention. The HR director, the protagonist of the case, wonders if the effort is more personal crusade than corporate social responsibility. Is it ethical for the CEO to ask employees to share in his family's struggle? Two experts comment on this fictional case study in R1006L and R1006Z.
A highly progressive and award-winning regional museum is trying to create a comprehensive balanced scorecard. The case shows the linking of causally related performance measures that support the museum's strategic vision and mission.
Private equity and venture capital firms are starting to share details about their investment strategy in public forums like social media-and it's paying off.
A new study found that denying people access to a product made them desire it more and work harder to get it-but also made them less satisfied with it. That has important implications for companies that do not meet the demand for their products.
Successful enterprises create and adhere to distinct business ideologies-such as the Toyota Way and the Xerox Way-over time. These doctrines contain specific ideas about how to compete, performance measures, organization structures, and whom to reward. Every employee knows: That's the way we do things here. The problem is that those success factors turn into entrenched orthodoxies over time, and no one challenges them. That's why during a corporate transformation, the forgetting curve is sometimes more important than the learning curve.
Ten Thousand Villages (TTV) is a nonprofit fair trade retail organization with a store located in Cincinnati, Ohio. During the store's opening and first two years of operations (2002-2004), Karen, the chair of the board of directors, and Cheryl, the store manager, struggle to develop a customer-focused plan to ensure sales increases for their unique operation. Marketing issues ranging from store location selection to inventory selection and promotion are presented. In addition to covering an alternative method of doing business - nonprofit enterprise - the case provides a platform for customer relationship management (CRM) implementation in a small, nonprofit environment.
The vice-president of human resources at Sandcore Instruments has to make a recommendation to the company's president regarding a sales representative with a history of poor performance. The vice-president must decide what action to take, including whether the sales representative should be terminated. The vice-president must consider how his decision will affect other employees in the Quebec sales network.
The vice-president of human resources at Sandcore Instruments has to make a recommendation to the company's president regarding a sales representative with a history of poor performance. In this supplement to Sandcore Instruments (A), product #910C11, the vice-president discovers that the sales representative has offered to perform service work for a customer on his own time at a much lower price if cash is paid. The vice-president must update his action plan accordingly.