Provides a hotel context in which to explore the link between customer loyalty and financial performance, using four years of hotel data. Challenges students to find the extent of the relationship between loyalty and performance.
An unconventional manager within IBM leads the creation of a business unit with multibillion-dollar potential, winning over customers and nudging the organization to make the changes needed to achieve dramatic growth. This case provides an example of how organizational design and leadership behavior shape performance. Also an example of ambidextrous organization design.
Mr. Alok Kumar Gupta is required to decide his company's response to a proposal for becoming a sub-contractor to A - One Confectioneries Privte Limited (APL) a large national player in the biscuit industry with aspirations to be a leader in every region. The case describes the details of the proposal, history of KCPL, a biscuit manufacturing company, and the impact of competition on its performance. It also describes the experience of alliance with another company in the industry. It presents the aspirations of the founders in becoming a leading national player in the industry. The advantages to the company are in getting assured return on investment and access to APL's manufacturing expertise. The disadvantages are a possible loss of independence in decision making, dilution of company's own brand, and family prestige.
Describes the major phases of an initiative designed to transform the organization and enhance patient safety. Raises interesting questions about how to encourage candid discussion about failures while continuing to hold people accountable for their performance.
One of the critical tasks in the marketing of new innovations is predicting demand and rates of diffusion for those products. Focuses on four innovative products from different domains. Although one can speculate on the scope and rate of diffusion for each of these products independently, it's helpful to compare and contrast diffusion across these products. Doing so allows one to focus on the "levers" or product characteristics that influence product diffusion, making one product a star and another a dog. Importantly, looking across products allows one to pick up on things that get lost in discussing a single product.
In 2001, Monster.com was an Internet site that, among other things, connected individuals seeking jobs with organizations wanting to hire. Its substitutes included help wanted classified advertising in newspapers. Monster was one of the few Internet companies that had weathered the bursting of the dot-com bubble and continued to grow both its revenues and profits at rates above 50% per year in 2001. This case examines why the company was able to prosper and discusses options for future growth. Also explores the question of how important focus is to an Internet company, asking how far from its core business Monster could diversify.
In March 1996, the ASIC division of Sub-Micron Devices received an inquiry from Western Digital: would ASIC be willing to supply 3 million chips annually for a period of 3 years at a price of $40/chip? ASIC's controller, Gary Ravenport, convened a meeting with Peter Parks, his assistant, to review the profitability of the Western Digital proposal.
Explores the legal and ethical responsibilities of a manager who believes that he has heard of a serious instance of sexual harassment, but who has been implored by the victim not to report it. Discussion can focus on the immediate problem or be expanded to a broader analysis of the difficult choices involved in crafting organizational policies governing conduct, as well as effective procedures for reviewing apparent infractions.
Outlines the recent development of legal principles regarding sexual harassment, including procedures in the United States and state courts, what circumstances constitute harassment, the resolution of these conflicts and the resulting consequences for the individuals involved and the organizations in which those individuals work.
This case presents a transcript of two professional negotiators of the Discount and Hawkins real estate negotiations. It highlights the challenges of creating value for both sides in the deal and provides a glimpse of how one set of professionals structured an agreement.
Why did Boeing's engineers and technicians strike for 40 days in early 2000? And what can other companies with large cadres of knowledge workers learn from the experience? The author contends that the morale of Boeing engineers was in a slump because management suddenly began emphasizing financial results rather than engineering excellence, and engineers felt their contributions were given short shrift. The indication is that top management failed to detect the decline in morale and made no preparation for weathering a strike; thus, it was caught by surprise when its knowledge workers walked out. The author examines the history and corporate culture of Boeing, changes in internal communications, and the motivational mindset of professional knowledge workers for clues as to the origins and development of conditions that led to the strike. It is suggested that, had Boeing been more sensitive to employee concerns, its new cost-cutting emphasis would have been far more readily accepted--perhaps even blessed--by all employees as the price for maintaining worldwide industry leadership.
Research on the structure and competitive behavior of such organizational forms as the Japanese keiretsu and the Korean chaebol has provided insights into alternative ways to organize economic activity. Somewhat overlooked, however, are the Latin American business groups, or grupos. The activities of Mexican business groups based in Monterrey are used to illustrate the historical development of kinship networks within Mexican groups as well as various issues concerning corporate governance. One of the primary characteristics of business groups is pluralistic composition, meaning they are generally composed of more than one family. Joint investments were not the only mechanism that brought together the Monterrey elite; it was also common for the offspring of the various families to intermarry. A clear set of behavioral norms and an overriding ideology developed within Monterrey's leading entrepreneurial families. These groups are able to compete successfully through their ability to create efficient internal capital, labor, and product markets not available to unaffiliated firms. However, in some cases, the needs of an entrepreneur's business are clearly secondary to those of the "grandfamily" (the three-generation family of grandparents, parents, and children). Implications are examined for the entry mode of multinational firms looking to expand in Mexico.
Examines the proposed merger between HP and Compaq and the impact of this merger upon the companies and the industry as a whole. Explores the challenges that a combined HP and Compaq will face in various industry segments.
CEO Michael Collins must decide if and how a process he developed to further innovation in the kids' industry could port over to other industries. The process was based on Collins' experiences as an inventor and as a venture capitalist, and it allowed his company to be an intermediary between inventors and innovation-seeking companies. The process seemed to be working quite well in the kids' industry and Collins had to decide what would "travel" to a different vertical.
In the 1970s, a series of unpleasant revelations about corporate conduct, culminating in the public disclosure about unsavory business practices abroad by more than 400 U.S. corporations, jarred popular perceptions concerning business ethics. Congress responded by enacting the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) in late 1977. However, as time passed, U.S. businesses complained that they were at a competitive disadvantage to foreign companies because many countries lacked an equivalent to the U.S.'s FCPA. In December 1997, OECD member countries and five nonmember countries signed a Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions. All signatories agreed to introduce legislation making foreign bribery a crime. This case discusses anticorruption measures and provides a fictional case study to illustrate the issues involved in a more concrete way.
This case describes the compensation system for portfolio managers at Harvard's portfolio management company, including its formulaic and bonus bank features. Harvard Management Co. President Jack Meyer explains the philosophy behind the incentive pay at his company.