Describes the situation facing RJR Nabisco one year after the leveraged buyout by Kohlberg Kravis and Roberts. A vehicle for analyzing the financial restructuring of a highly leveraged, but operationally healthy, company.
Consists mainly of excerpts from Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill. Mill explains what utilitarianism is and gives his rationale for accepting it as a moral philosophy.
Presents a classic dilemma in legal ethics--the conflict between an attorney's obligations as an attorney, in this case to protect a client's confidentiality, and his or her own moral obligations as a person. An attorney must decide how to respond to the father of a missing young woman who has asked for information about her whereabouts. The attorney knows from conversations with his client that the young woman is dead and where her body is. Shows students what role-related obligations are, why they have strong moral claims, and the difficult dilemmas role obligations can create.
Describes how the attorney resolved the dilemma he faced, the reasons for his decision, and the consequences he suffered. Displays vividly the personal toll that moral conflicts can create for professionals with role obligations.
Provides an opportunity to evaluate an investment in a new product line in strategic, competitive, organizational, and economic terms. The economic analysis involves an estimation of the relevant cash flows and discounting them at an appropriate hurdle rate.
An integrated sequence of three cases on the financing of a technical workstation manufacturer. This case focuses on Sun's competitive strategy which requires an inordinately high rate of growth (over 20% per quarter) and commensurate amounts of working capital. Students are asked to evaluate the importance of access to capital for the company and decide whether Sun should rely on the public equity markets or seek funding from a corporate partner.
Describes a specific opportunity to seek financing from AT&T as part of a proposed technological joint venture. Students must consider the price paid and control rights attached to a large block of shares and outline a negotiating position for each side.
Management is attempting to penetrate the California retail grocery market with the company's line of all-fruit preserves. Substantial up-front fees (slotting allowances) have been requested by the chains. Management must decide how to respond.
This technical note discusses the three types of foreign exchange risk: transaction exposure, translation exposure, and economic exposure. It addresses the nature of those risks and presents some methods that companies might use to manage them. Included in this note are discussions of the financial accounting and reporting requirements of FAS No. 52 (Foreign Currency Translation), of foreign exchange markets, of hedging strategies, and of such activities as loan swaps and licensing agreements.
In 1989, PepsiCo withdrew an advertising campaign featuring Madonna following complaints from religious groups regarding the content of a Madonna video.
An abridged version of Workbench, most notably the results of two customer surveys, given in their complete form in Workbench. Focuses on the pricing decision for a small contemporary furniture retailer. Should Workbench continue its highly promotional pricing policy or adopt Everyday Fair Pricing?
Describes the engineering effort at Campbell Soup Co. to develop a microwavable package and product for the growing convenience segment. Focuses on the role of engineering services in developing the production process, acquiring and installing equipment, and getting the process up and running. Students must address not only the status of the current project, but also the future steps that must be taken to complete that project successfully. Even more broadly, engineering's role as a reactive service organization vs. increasing demands that will require a proactive strategic advantage-based organization must also be addressed. Written from the perspective of the head of the engineering group at Campbell Soup Co.
Provides a framework that helps explain these real-world observations about accounting and financial statement analysis. When managers have superior information on firms' strategies, and when investors suspect that managers have incentives not to fully disclose this information, financial reporting becomes an important managerial issue. Managers' superior information is a source of both value and distortions in accounting data. Accounting conventions and standards evolve over time to restrict managers' ability to distort financial data, but they leave considerable room for managers to reflect their superior knowledge of their businesses. The net result of these forces is that accrual accounting data are biased and noisy, and investors can assess firms' performance only imprecisely. Managers can improve investors' evaluation of their firms' performance through sound disclosure strategies. Financial analysts attempt to create inside information from public data and therefore play a valuable role in the communication between managers and investors.
Presents a non-technical description of the conjoint analysis methodology. Discusses the process by which such a study is done and cites areas of application.