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Business ecosystems require careful orchestration and strategic choices regarding make/buy/partner decisions and membership access. This case examines the strategic and technological issues related to managing SAP's thriving ecosystem of user communities, software vendors, integration partners and technology providers. It details how the ecosystem gets developed and the challenges in meeting the needs of the internal organization, large partners, and small up and coming firms. SAP executives, in this case, have to make a decision if a relatively small startup firm should be elevated to the highest strategic partnership level, normally reserved for very large firms.

Studies that examine high-performing companies to unearth the secrets of their success have a critical flaw: Very few of those companies are truly remarkable. Data analysis reveals that most owe their success to luck, not smart practices. That puts the prescriptions of success studies in a whole new light.

A new study busts the myth that happy workers create happy customers.

Many are counting on the adoption of electronic health records to help the health care system save billions of dollars. But to realize IT's promise, hospitals and medical practices need to empower employees.

Often, the greater a firm's experience in forming alliances, the worse the performance of those alliances. That's most likely because those firms have become overconfident of their skills and drawn faulty conclusions about which practices lead to success. A focus on experimentation and adaptation can help break that pattern.

Prairie grasses, forestry and mill residues, nongrain parts of food crops, and urban wood wastes all could become a huge source of renewable energy.

The CEO of CARE reveals what it was like to incite change at a sprawling nonprofit and how she built support for her plan to increase its global clout.

A customer-research technique that requires respondents to make a sequence of explicit trade-offs when choosing their preferred product attributes can help companies get a far more accurate read on what customers desire.

Tapping the input of many people early in the innovation process helps companies find the blockbusters and weed out the bad ideas before they reach a decision maker's desk.

Uncivil behavior at work damages productivity far more than most managers would imagine.

In January 2008, Samsung Electronics won 32 innovation and design engineering awards at the Consumer Electronics Show, the largest show of its kind in the world. Samsung Electronics' management believed that the awards were an endorsement (or "vindication") of the company's investment in product design and innovation. However, the company found its competitive advantage diminishing quickly due to commoditization of research and development ("R&D"), product design and innovation processes. This is a management strategy case that explores product design, innovation strategies and strategic planning in a changing competitive landscape. While investment in R&D and product design has rewarded Samsung Electronics with its dominant market position and premium brand perception, such dominance may not be sustainable in the long run, especially now that competitors are achieving higher profitability with lower investments in R&D per product. The case also discusses such issues as product design philosophies, innovation strategies, localization of products, product design outsourcing for consumer electronics products.

This case describes the complexity of PepsiCo's competitive position in the Mexican soft drink market in late 1996. Following PepsiCo's anchor bottler in Mexico, Gemex, the case details the strategies employed by PepsiCo's senior management, beginning in 1993, to expand its market share versus its traditional "red nemesis," Coca-Cola. The various dimensions of PepsiCo's strategy-marketing, management, financial, strategic-are all seen to have deteriorated in the aftermath of the unexpected fall in the Mexican peso in December 1994. Focusing on the financial implications of the peso devaluation, the case then describes PepsiCo's response, which only seemed to increase the financial burdens imposed on the faltering Pepsi market share.

What does it take to have staying power in today's economy - to not only survive, but to prosper and thrive? It's a question that has grown all the more pressing of late, as we've watched once-mighty companies like Merrill Lynch and AIG falter and crumble. While examining lending provisions, banking regulations and derivatives structures can provide insight into the specifics of the crash, focusing our attention on the intricacies of the sub-prime mortgage market and asset-backed securities obscures the real lesson, says the author. He argues that our own management theories are the prime culprit - a triumvirate of well-intentioned theories that are taught in every business school and entrenched in every significant publicly-traded company. Intended to ensure longevity and profitability, they have instead led to the opposite - transience - and contributed mightily to both the technology crash of 2001-02 and the financial-services crash of 2008. Neither crash would have happened, he argues, if our theories were as robust as those used to govern America's National Football League (NFL).

The 39th President of the United States, Nobel Peace Prize recipient and co-founder of the Carter Center discusses his remarkable staying power as a thought leader. President Carter describes his early years, what led him into politics, his 62-year marriage to Rosalynn and the hopes he has for the Obama administration. He also touches on his unwavering dedication to achieving peace in the Middle East, his goals for the U.S. and the globe-spanning initiatives of the Carter Center.

We now live and work in a 'butterfly effect' environment, the notion from Chaos Theory that the flapping of a butterfly's wings in China might cause a hurricane on the other side of the world. As a result, the authors argue that today's leaders must develop 'vigilance' - the ability to scan the periphery of their environment and spot opportunities and threats before their rivals. While investors don't expect prescience, they do rely on a leadership team to sense and act on early warning signs. They describe the three primary qualities that distinguish vigilant leaders from those in the majority, who strive primarily for operational excellence.

Like most managers, you probably have some ideas about how to grow your organization. You may even suspect that one or two of them could turn into something big. Unfortunately, you don't have the data to prove that your ideas will be needle-movers, and the 'numbers guys' insist on proof before any financial support can come your way. If this sounds familiar, you are caught in what the author calls 'growth gridlock' - a frustrating place where the corporate entrepreneur's optimism and need for speed collide with the organization's skepticism and need for control. However, she has found that there are people within organizations - whom she calls 'catalysts' - who manage to achieve sustainable growth despite the odds. The author describes their attributes and explains how their leadership initiates a near-chemical reaction that generates significant top-line results.

The global financial crisis of 2008 represents one of the best possible examples of the dangers posed by narrow mental models, say the authors. Before the crisis, people either failed to make sense of what was happening or chose to ignore it because of the profit opportunities. Some of the most basic assumptions implicit in the prevailing worldview before the collapse - such as ever-rising home prices and stock markets - were patently false, but this mindset was so powerful that by and large, objections were not raised. While such narrow mental models can obscure potential threats, the right mental models can open up new opportunities, they say. The authors provide eight strategies for developing a portfolio of mental models and overcoming inhibitors to change. In the end they prove that mental models are not just an abstract concept: millions of dollars will be won or lost based on the mindset of the person making the decision.

Recent economic turmoil has forced companies around the globe to re-evaluate their core business strategies. In order to thrive - indeed, to survive - organizations have to carefully consider how to remain relevant going forward. To do this, the author explains that firms must pay close attention to their customers and what they are demanding. We are now in the Age of Meaning, he says, where businesses and their brands create value and competitive advantage only when they deliver a compelling, holistic experience that is authentic, unique and relevant. Recent behavior on Wall Street has only deepened this trend, amplifying the desire for authenticity and meaning on Main Street. The author provides four key strategies for thriving in the Age of Meaning.

Organizations cannot make significant gains unless some individuals within the organization take significant personal risks that catalyze effective collective action. The authors show that these individuals - whom they call 'Consistent Contributors' -- can change other group members' perceptions by modeling cooperative behavior, thereby increasing the chances for additional cooperation. These individuals, they explain, always contribute, regardless of others' choices. They describe their research findings, which indicate that characterizing consistent contributors as 'suckers' is both misleading and fallacious: indeed, their data leads them to believe that consistent contributors are actually 'saviors' rather than suckers. A serious challenge for managers, then, is the creation of contexts that encourage and support the emergence and recognition of Consistent Contributors.

Today's companies prosper when they tap into a power that each of us already possesses, say the authors: empathy. People in organizations with a widespread sense of empathy share an intuitive vibe for what's going on in the world that helps them see new opportunities faster than their competitors. Creating an 'Open-Empathy Organization' entails a long-term process of organizational change, but the first steps are simple. The authors describe ten strategies that can enable an organization to hear what people outside of its walls are talking about, feel what they are feeling, and see the world through their eyes.