Linda Doyle, president and CEO of Harvard Business School Publishing Corp., has succeeded in turning around the organization after several difficult years. She has launched several strategic and organizational initiatives, and has instilled a new philosophy and vision. Now, however, there are disagreements over the use of the centralized marketing organization and the degree of autonomy still held by the product groups.

Sime Darby is one of South Asia's largest regional conglomerates. In 1995, it is contemplating entry into the fast-growing financial services sector in Malaysia through the acquisition of a Malaysian bank. This is in keeping with its activities mirroring those of the Malaysian economy. The case discusses whether to proceed with the acquisition. Exposes the underlying sources of value creation of the conglomerate in the institutional context, which affect the costs and benefits of broad corporate scope, especially the evolving capital market and the tight interrelationship between business and politics.

Portrays Margaret Thatcher's rise to the leadership of Great Britain's Conservative Party. Thatcher's political career began with her election to Parliament's House of Commons in 1959. Sixteen years later she was elected the leader of her party, and then in 1979, she became prime minister. Thatcher's emergence as a world leader illustrates her unlikely transition from ultimate outsider to powerful insider.

Reynolds Consumer Products Division must decide whether to discontinue its program of case allowances in favor of discretionary trade dollars targeted for market development.

This case is the transcript of a student's report about her definition of leadership and includes some quotations from Frances Hesselbein, former national director of the Girl Scouts of America, to support it. The case is poignant because the author's background includes abuse as a child, and she demonstrates remarkable courage in moving out of that situation and establishing a strong foundation of what it means to be a leader.

This case concerns the development of a marketing plan for a southern Ontario dock builder, John Morrison, who is entering his second year of business. He has distribution and promotion decisions to make.

The management of the Samsung Group has to decide whether to enter the Korean theme park industry. The case focuses on three main issues in the context of the entry decision: (1) the underlying forces that shape industry structure, competitive interaction and profits; (2) the impact of globalization on industry structure; (3) the relationship between a firm's resources and its strategy. Porter's Five Forces model is used to analyze the impact of the competitive forces on profitability. A 15-minute video, product 7A96M006, can be purchased for this case.

Here's a familiar story: A nonprofit organization joins forces with a corporation in a cause-related marketing campaign. It seems like a win-win deal, but the nonprofit--and the media--find out several weeks into the campaign that the corporation's business practices are antithetical to the nonprofit's mission. The nonprofit's credibility is severely damaged. Is the moral of the story that nonprofits should steer clear of alliances with for-profit organizations? Not at all, Alan Andreasen says. Nonprofit managers can help their organizations avoid many of the risks and reap the rewards of cause-related marketing alliances by thinking of themselves not as charities but as partners in the marketing effort.

In early 1995, Karen Jimenez began implementing a project to boost morale and productivity at Acme Minerals Extraction Co.'s plant in Wichita, Kansas. The team-based productivity project, as it is known, was designed to induce similar results at all of Acme's plants. But now, in the fall of 1996, Jimenez seems to have run into a brick wall at the second site targeted for improvement--the plant in Lubbock, Texas. The tactics that worked so well in Wichita are failing. And, as a meeting with Acme's senior managers looms in this fictional case study, Jimenez must rethink the issues and explain how the project can be put back on track. What can be done? The company has earmarked big bucks for the project, and the CEO's ego and reputation are wrapped up in it. In 96602 and 96602Z, commentators Ravi Venkatesan, Lloyd Baird, Martha Maznevski, and Gary Banks offer advice on this fictional case study.

In early 1995, Karen Jimenez began implementing a project to boost morale and productivity at Acme Minerals Extraction Co.'s plant in Wichita, Kansas. The team-based productivity project, as it is known, was designed to induce similar results at all of Acme's plants. But now, in the fall of 1996, Jimenez seems to have run into a brick wall at the second site targeted for improvement--the plant in Lubbock, Texas. The tactics that worked so well in Wichita are failing. And, as a meeting with Acme's senior managers looms in this fictional case study, Jimenez must rethink the issues and explain how the project can be put back on track. What can be done? The company has earmarked big bucks for the project, and the CEO's ego and reputation are wrapped up in it. In 96602 and 96602Z, commentators Ravi Venkatesan, Lloyd Baird, Martha Maznevski, and Gary Banks offer advice on this fictional case study.

In early 1995, Karen Jimenez began implementing a project to boost morale and productivity at Acme Minerals Extraction Co.'s plant in Wichita, Kansas. The team-based productivity project, as it is known, was designed to induce similar results at all of Acme's plants. But now, in the fall of 1996, Jimenez seems to have run into a brick wall at the second site targeted for improvement--the plant in Lubbock, Texas. The tactics that worked so well in Wichita are failing. And, as a meeting with Acme's senior managers looms in this fictional case study, Jimenez must rethink the issues and explain how the project can be put back on track. What can be done? The company has earmarked big bucks for the project, and the CEO's ego and reputation are wrapped up in it. In 96602 and 96602Z, commentators Ravi Venkatesan, Lloyd Baird, Martha Maznevski, and Gary Banks offer advice on this fictional case study.

Diversify your product line. Stick to your knitting. Hire a professional manager. Watch fixed costs. Those are some of the suggestions that entrepreneurs sort through as they try to get their ventures off the ground. Why all the conflicting advice? Because in a young company, all decisions are up for grabs. Based on his observations of several hundred start-up ventures over eight years, Amar Bhide has developed a three-step sequence of questions that all entrepreneurs must ask themselves in order to establish priorities among the vast array of opportunities and problems they face: What are my goals? Do I have the right strategy? Can I execute the strategy?

Although today Intel is a titan, the company's history has been a roller-coaster ride. And no one is more qualified to reflect on Intel's close calls and spectacular successes than its CEO, Andrew Grove. Adam Brandenburger and Barry Nalebuff say that Grove's book, Only the Paranoid Survive, offers advice to managers in every business on how to bridge the narrow line between catastrophe and opportunity, and seize the opportunities. Grove's leadership of Intel has led him to conclude that some fear is healthy, especially in organizations with a track record of success. His prescription for ending complacency is a dose of paranoia--a suspicion that the world is changing against you. How can managers catch this mental condition? By stepping outside their organization and adopting the perspective of someone without a vested interest in the status quo.

The organizational world is awash with talk of corporate culture--and for good reason. Culture has become a powerful way to hold a company together against the recent tidal wave of pressures for disintegration, such as decentralization and downsizing. But what is culture? Perhaps more important, is there one right culture for every organization? And if the answer is no, how can a manager change an organization's culture? Addressing those three questions, Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones begin the article with the assertion that culture is community. Moreover, they contend, because business communities are no different from communities outside the commercial arena--such as families, schools, clubs, and villages--they can (and should) be viewed through the lens of sociology.

Manufacturers and retailers traditionally have seen each other as adversaries, but the benifits generated by trusting relationships between such old foes as Procter & Gamble Co. and Wal-Mart Stores show that fear and intimidation may not be the most effective way for manufacturers and retailers to deal with each other after all. Studies of manufacturer-retailer relationships in a variety of industries reveal that exploiting power has three major drawbacks: it can come back to haunt a company if the balance of power changes; victims will ultimately seek ways to resist such exploitation; and working as partners allows retailers and manufacturers to provide customers with greater value than they can when they try to exploit each other. Moving a relationship from the power game to the trust game is difficult, requiring a change in culture, management systems, and attitudes. But the success of organizations such as Marks & Spencer, Kraft, and E.J. Ekornes all testify to the benefits of making the effort. In rapidly changing environments, success will go to those who learn to make the leap of faith.

Is interactivity the greatest marketing opportunity of all time? Or does it represent 101 ways to lose money? If it is an opportunity, how will it manifest itself? What will interactive marketing look like, and what will it mean for customers and for companies? Those were some of the questions explored in May 1996 at the Harvard Business School Conference on the Future of Interactive Marketing. HBR's Perspectives, introduced by conference chairman John Deighton, capture some of the highlights of the discussions. Commentator Martin Levin of Microsoft Corp., for example, stresses the importance of making sure a company's use of the Web is appropriate; Patrick Barwise of London Business School discusses security issues; Stephen Haeckel of IBM's Advanced Business Institute notes that surprises are fundamental to progress in exploiting interactive technology; Richard Tedlow of the Harvard Business School takes a skeptical stance with regard to the often dazzling claims made for high-tech interactivity. Eight other commentators from the busness world, academia, and government also offer insights.

The U.S. economy has been on the upswing for more than four years. Inflation is low, corporate profits are up, and the stock market has risen beyond anyone's dreams. Such changes are the by-product of the wrenching restructuring undergone by corporate America over the past decade--changes that indicate an apparent leap in productivity. But the picture may not be so rosy, warns Stephen B. Roach, chief economist of Morgan Stanley. The boost in productivity in recent years has been achieved by cost cutting, in particular, downsizing. And cost cutting does not produce real long-term gains in productivity. Rather, it leads to onetime increases in efficiency, as the surviving members of a workforce generate more output. Roach calls for a new productivity agenda in the United States. Public and private investment in education and technological innovation are essential. But corporate America must also swallow its medicine by rebuilding capacity and hiring new workers. A continued fixation on downsizing will wipe out opportunities for growth.

Something about management looks so easy that we all think we could succeed where others fail. But management is really not easy. Managers are expected to show skill in finance, product development, marketing, manufacturing, technology, and more. It's no wonder that most managers seem to underperform. Nevertheless, there are a few around who exemplify what it takes to achieve greatness. They aren't the usual suspects we read about. They include the managers many of us know personally. They include the generations of Rosenbluths at Rosenbluth Travel, who demonstrated the indispensable quality of imagination in reinventing their business again and again. They include Bill Sells of Johns-Manville, who personified integrity in the way he applied to its fiberglass business the harsh lessons of his company's experience with asbestos. They include Ralph Stayer of Johnsonville Sausage, whose determination to overcome his own need for complete control helped make him great. And they include the courageous George Cattabiani of Westinghouse Steam Turbine Divison, who threw himself into the lions' den of a hostile labor union and came out with, if not pussycats, at least partners.

Chronicles Trident Health, a British medical information company founded in April 1993 by Stan Shepherd and his partner Ray Jordan. The relationship between Stan and Ray began as an informal consulting partnership, as they attempted to capitalize on opportunities to help shift the U.K. health care system from a paper-based system to electronic storage, retrieval, and exchange. Realizing that this was a much larger opportunity than the two of them could handle as partners, they decided to build a company to pursue these goals. Stan and Ray confronted a host of challenges during the early months of Trident Health. To counteract financial pressures, they decided to generate cash flow by accepting consulting-type contracts. On the personnel front, they hired software engineers who could assist in the development of the planned flagship product. They also began to forge relationships with companies they felt were certain to play crucial roles in the transformation of the U.K. health care system. Notwithstanding these steps, Stan and Ray had much to accomplish to build a solid foundation. The company needed an executive team that could add a broad business perspective to Stan, who was the visionary, and Ray, who headed up development. The company also needed to be capitalized adequately. And it needed to develop a coherent strategy with respect to potential partners with which it could tackle these challenges.

Today's dynamic markets and technologies have called into question the sustainability of competitive advantage. Under pressure to improve productivity, quality, and speed, managers have embraced tools such as TQM, benchmarking, and reengineering. Dramatic operational improvements have resulted, but rarely have these gains translated into sustainable profitability. And gradually, the tools have taken the place of strategy. As managers push to improve on all fronts, they move further away from viable competitive positions. Michael Porter argues that operational effectiveness, although necessary to superior performance, is not sufficient, because its techniques are easy to imitate. In contrast, the essence of strategy is choosing a unique and valuable position rooted in systems of activities that are much more difficult to match.