Traces the birth and development of 3M Corp., focusing in particular on the origins of its entrepreneurially-based ability to innovate. In particular, it highlights the role of CEO William L. McKnight in creating a unique set of values, policies, and structures to nurture and develop continuous renewal. With the changing environment of the 1980s, however, a new generation of CEOs begin to adopt new policies and change the cultural norms that helped 3M grow. The trigger issue focuses on what other changes are required.

Examines some of the habitual ways of thinking that are applied to so-called "diversity" questions to reveal the commonalities and limitations of these models--the way they can reinforce unexamined assumptions and destructuve emotional reactions--and to suggest an alternative way of framing such questions that opens the possibility for creativity and new learning.

The Virgin Atlantic Airways (VAA) case was written on the occasion of the company's 10th anniversary. In 10 years, VAA has brought many innovations to the airline industry and won many awards for its service. It has fought against giants on an international scale and has survived the airline industry's most difficult years. The case describes the history of the firm, its achievements, and its practices especially in terms of operations, human resources and marketing.

Gives an overview of the collapse of a prestigious financial institution and the organizational failings that contributed to it. Outlines the history of Barings Bank, the creation of its securities business, particularly in the Far East, and how Nick Leeson, a Barings trader in Singapore, was able to run up massive losses in derivative trading, which caused the collapse of the bank. Identifies the cultural clashes, remuneration system, control failings, and other issues that severely weakened the effectiveness of the matrix management system, an important contributor to the collapse.

Describes how Nick Leeson, a Barings trader in Singapore, concealed his unauthorized trading activities, how Barings blindly financed them, and how the internal and external controls failed to identify the mounting losses. Identifies areas of poor internal control, inadequate computer systems, and a breakdown in information flow. Also discusses the failure of internal and external audit and regulatory systems.

Describes the revised marketing strategy for a commodity chemical and the resulting salesforce opposition that confronts a new marketing manager. The changes in the strategy aim for: margin improvement, new segmentation, centralized decision making, and pan-European optimization. A 1993 ECCH award winner. This is a revised version of an earlier case.

At first glance, Greater Boston Rehabilitation Services appeared to be in excellent financial shape in the spring of 1991, when Terry Ann Lunt was named its new executive director. A mix of government grants and work contracts with local businesses seemed to protect this 20-year-old organization, based in the hope that work could be a form of therapy for the mildly mentally ill, from the vagaries of public budget changes. Soon after her arrival, however, Lunt found that, unknown to the board that had hired her, three of the group's four sources of income were in jeopardy, that accounting records were, at best, haphazard, and employees were deeply confused as to the mission of the organization.

YRIX Communications Corp. is considering how to expand internationally in view of the maturation of the U.S. market. At issue is which countries to enter and how to enter each market.

Two-party, multi-issue negotiation between a human resources director and a prospective employee over terms of hire that highlight cultural differences. This is a negotiation between a recently hired computer programmer and a Human Resources Director regarding the new employee's salary, benefits, and start date.

Two-party, multi-issue negotiation between a human resources director and a prospective employee over terms of hire that highlight cultural differences. This is a negotiation between a recently hired computer programmer and a Human Resources Director regarding the new employee's salary, benefits, and start date.

Two-party intra-organizational discussion between a newly-promoted manager and her division vice-president over work performance, responsibility for a new computer game project, and office environment issues. Confidential Instructions for Allison.

Two-party intra-organizational discussion between a newly-promoted manager and her division vice-president over work performance, responsibility for a new computer game project, and office environment issues. Confidential Instructions for Jamie.

This case focuses on the hedging of a currency exposure, a long Deutschemark position, by a U.S.-based multinational chemical company. The case takes place during the August-September period in 1992 when the European Monetary System experienced a crisis as a result of a variety of world political and economic events, including the monetary policies pursued by the Bundesbank of Germany.

Virtually all managers are aware that the key to winning in the market today is tailoring one's offerings to the needs of each customer while maintaining low costs and prices. But most manufacturers have focused only on the products themselves, largely ignoring another element that differentiates a company's offerings and has a huge impact on costs and profits: services. Instead of tailoring their packages of services to customers' individual needs, many suppliers simply add layers of services to their offerings. The authors have found that suppliers usually give customers more services than they want at prices that reflect neither their value to customers nor the cost of providing them. But some companies are realizing that they can lower the cost of providing services and use them more effectively to meet customers' needs, gain more business, and enhance profits. From the authors' study of the best practices of those companies, they have developed a model for providing flexible service offerings.

Increasingly, senior executives who wish to expand their company's product, geographic, or customer reach consider alliances to be the strategic vehicle of choice. In the past five years, the number of domestic and cross-border alliances has grown by more than 25% annually. But the term alliance can be deceptive: in many cases, it really means an eventual transfer of ownership. The median life span for alliances is only about seven years, and nearly 80% of joint ventures end in a sale by one of the partners. Based on the author's experience with more than 200 alliances in various stages, they have developed a way for managers to diagnose whether an alliance is likely to lead to a sale and to devise an appropriate strategy--to assess bargaining positions and the risks of unplanned outcomes, and to plan for the partnership's evolution. They distinguish six types of alliances based on their probable outcomes: collisions between competitors, alliances of the weak, disguised sales, bootstrap alliances, evolutions to a sale, and alliances of complementary equals.

One of the most consistent patterns in business is the failure of leading companies to stay at the top of their industries when technologies or markets change. Why is it that established companies invest aggressively--and successfully--in the technologies necessary to retain their current customers but then fail to make the technological investments that customers of the future will demand? The fundamental reason is that leading companies succumb to one of the most popular, and valuable, management dogmas: they stay close to their customers. To remain at the top of their industries, managers must first be able to spot disruptive technologies. To pursue these technologies, managers must protect them from the processes and incentives that are geared to serving mainstream customers. And the only way to do that is to create organizations that are completely independent of the mainstream business.

The ability to gather, arrange, and manipulate information with computers has given business people new tools for managing. But data processing tools have done more than simply enable executives to do the same tasks better. They have changed the very concepts of what a business is and what managing means. To manage in the future, executives will need an information system integrated with strategy, rather than individual tools that so far have been used largely to record the past. The executive's tool kit has four kinds of diagnostic information: foundation information, productivity information, competence information, and resource-allocation information. The sources of the information are so diverse, and sifting through and interpreting it for a specific business are so difficult, that even small companies will need help from data specialists.

The hierarchical organization based on the strategy-structure-systems doctrine of management no longer delivers competitive results. While a top-down structure of corporate divisions gives managers tight control and allows companies to grow, it also fragments resources and creates a vertical organization that prevents small units from sharing their strengths with one another. Structural fixes, such as skunk works, alliances, and acquisitions, have not solved the problem. Based on a study of 20 companies with vanguard management styles, the authors predict a managerial revolution that will focus on horizontal processes rather than vertical structures. The job of management will be to promote three core organizational processes: frontline entrepreneurship, competence building, and renewal.

An internal guarantee is a commitment by one part of an organization to another to deliver its product or service to the complete satisfaction of the internal customer. If it fails to do so, it will incur a meaningful penalty, monetary or otherwise. Moreover, it is the employees involved--not management--who devise the commitment. The result? A spirit of partnership develops between different parts of the organization, and an environment of blameless error takes hold in which employees are rewarded, not punished, for identifying problems instead of sweeping them under the rug. In developing a guarantee, a department must first identify its mission in the organization. This leads to the second step: the ability to state exactly who its internal customers are. Third, the department should identify what its internal customers need. Fourth, drawing on their input, the department should design a guarantee that reflects those needs. Finally, those involved must decide on a penalty that is meaningful to the internal customer as well as to the supplier.

If the 1980s were the decade when the movement to empower U.S. factory and office workers took root, the 1990s are the decade when empowerment is sweeping corporate boardrooms. Empowerment means that outside directors have the capability and independence to monitor the performance of top management and the company; to influence management to change the strategic direction of the company if its performance does not meet the board's expectations; and, in the most extreme cases, to change corporate leadership. Because the chief executive is also the board chair in more than 80% of the country's publicly held corporations, most CEOs view board empowerment with trepidation. But, Jay Lorsch argues, if CEOs resist the trend, they and their companies will be the losers because the empowered board is here to stay. What is required is a new form of teamwork in which directors and senior managers understand one another's roles and collaborate effectively to achieve corporate success.