The Asian economy, particularly China's, is experiencing explosive growth. China needs capital to fund the growth, and this presents a tremendous opportunity for an investment bank that can penetrate the market. Morgan Stanley establishes a joint venture with the China Construction Bank and three other partners to form China's first investment bank. The case discusses problems associated with establishing joint ventures and penetrating into developing markets.
The vice-president Operations of Spartan Plastics, is facing a trade-off. As an avid proponent of the Toyota production system, just in time manufacturing (JIT), ISO 9001, and continuous improvement, he has reduced setup times, batch sizes, and throughput times. On the other hand, the scrap rate has shot up. This case would be appropriate for use in a production and operations course, to introduce students to the concepts of JIT and world class manufacturing.
On February 9, 1995, the purchasing officer at Fisher & Paykel Limited in Auckland, New Zealand, was preparing for the next meeting of the evaporator pad cover team. Recent supply problems had threatened to close down the refrigerator assembly line and the purchasing officer's task was to propose a workable and cost effective solution.
Rubbermaid, a consumer-products company widely praised for its innovation, has instituted a company-wide experiment to stimulate innovation even further. The experiment consists of creating small cross-functional business teams within each division, with each team being responsible for the creation, management, and profitability of a particular product line. The staffing, reporting structure, and management of the business teams vary across divisions; and clear differences emerge in the performance of four highlighted teams. Specific topics include: options for staffing, structuring, and managing cross-functional business teams; the difficulty of implementing cross-functional teams in a company with a strong functional structure; the difficulty of balancing accountability and empowerment in "entrepreneurial" teams within established firms; and the impact of different management approaches on the functioning of business teams.
Hospital Equipment Corp. is a very successful maker of hospital beds. Due to outstanding performance in new product development, it grew to dominate its primary market and is searching for other opportunities to grow through new product development. It discovers that its internal system for identifying new, high-growth markets actually screens out some exciting growth possibilities.
A residence manager at a College, is faced with deciding what disciplinary measures should be taken when a majority of male residence assistants storm out of a mandatory training session. In reviewing the series of events that transpired since the beginning of her employment at the College, other problems have become apparent, including leadership, communication, structure of the organization, management of change and employee training issues. The manager must resolve these problems and come up with a plan to restore harmony within the Residence Assistants committee at the College.
The residence manager is left wondering what to do next as a training session resumes following the storming out incident. This short continuation of Elmdale College (A) provides further information on the incident described in the (A) case.
The owners of the company were concerned with the rapid rate of growth facing their company. The company had revenues of $6.3 million and employed 30 highly skilled workers. These numbers were expected to double or triple in the next couple of years. To determine how well the company was structured to achieve its future goals, they hired a consultant he had worked with successfully in the past. The consultant's major role was to make recommendations as to the appropriate organizational design (culture, people, layers of management and administrative systems) in the event that the company grew from 30 to 60 or even 120 employees. Among other issues, questions regarding compensation were surfacing, and the owners wanted to address these questions as soon as possible.
A small team of Canadian managers from a large financial institution is faced with the challenges of managing a recently acquired Mexican operation. Managers must cope with a language barrier and cultural differences as they try to restructure the over-staffed Mexican financial institution. A second teaching note (5A97L01) discusses how to use this case from a cross-cultural orientation perspective.
The director of human resources must contend with internal and external pressures to make changes quickly and smoothly for the new year. She had been with the company for six months. In her capacity as director of human resources, she had spent her time establishing a baseline for the division so that she could then create a departmental vision and strategy for 2000. It would be one of the most interesting challenges of her career. Since joining, she had gained an understanding of the division's future direction from its leadership team. The team was under the direction of the division's new general manager.
This case describes the process that entrepreneur Paul Farrow went through to establish his kayak company between 1992 and 1996. After being laid off from a more traditional corporate position, Farrow came across an idea that suited his business skills, experience, and values. The case chronicles the steps he took to be the first in the industry to design and produce an inexpensive, high-performance recreational kayak from recycled plastic materials. Key to Walden Paddlers' $1-million sales in 1995 was the company's ability to forge close alliances with key suppliers and customers while keeping fixed costs down by managing a virtual corporation.
A bank loan officer must determine whether to waive convenants and extend terms on a line of credit granted to SureCut Shears. At issue is whether the inability of SureCut to pay down its line of credit is due to a temporary cyclical downturn or other long-term financial problems.