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This case study tells the story of San Jose, California, one of the first 27 cities in the country to participate in a federal domestic preparedness program. Between 1997 and 1999, a specially created city task force mounted several full-scale terrorist attack exercises, but-despite the best of intentions-found all of them frustrating, demoralizing, and divisive, creating ill will between the exercise planners and the first responders. In response, the San Jose task force took a step back and analyzed their situation. In place of traditional full-scale exercises, San Jose drew on several existing prototypes to create a new "facilitated exercise" model that emphasized teaching over testing, and was much better received by first responders. For teaching flexibility, the case has been divided into three parts. Sequel 1 is a continuation of the main case study (1815.0) and is designed to be read in the middle of class. It describes the new facilitated exercise model in brief. Students could then be asked to assess the approach taken by San Jose. HKS Case Number 1815.1

This case study tells the story of San Jose, California, one of the first 27 cities in the country to participate in a federal domestic preparedness program. Between 1997 and 1999, a specially created city task force mounted several full-scale terrorist attack exercises, but-despite the best of intentions-found all of them frustrating, demoralizing, and divisive, creating ill will between the exercise planners and the first responders. In response, the San Jose task force took a step back and analyzed their situation. In place of traditional full-scale exercises, San Jose drew on several existing prototypes to create a new "facilitated exercise" model that emphasized teaching over testing, and was much better received by first responders. For teaching flexibility, the case has been divided into three parts. Sequel 2 is a continuation of both the main case study and Sequel 1(1815.0; 1815.1) and is designed as a "take away," to be given out at the end of class. It includes the reflections of the emergency service providers in San Jose about the facilitated exercise model. It would also be possible assign students to read all three parts before class, and to hold a retrospective discussion about how San Jose analyzed and responded to its problem. Funding provided by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention through the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative. HKS Case Number 1816.1

Chinese companies have recently acquired or attempted to acquire famous firms such as IBM, Unocal, and Maytag in western markets, raising strong interest and sometimes resistance. What are the motivations behind these overseas investments? Will Chinese companies become dominant global players? What types of foreign investments will make sense and what modes of foreign entry should they use? What obstacles will they face?

Brazil's secretary of trade and production for the Ministry of Agriculture, Pedro de Camargo Neto, has won a WTO sugar decision for Brazil against the EU sugar policies. Analyzes what this decision will mean to world food policies, especially those of the EU and the United States. The ruling strengthens the WTO as a decision maker with respect to fair trade policy. The issue is what actions will the various private and public decision makers now take to make this ruling work and not put too big a burden on any one segment of the economy.

Nestle as the largest milk company in the world, has a history of economic development, nutrition, health, and food safety in all the major countries of the world. Each milk model is tailor-made to the needs of each country's political, social, and economic priorities.

Provides an overview of the Corporacion de Desarrollo Social del Sector Rural (Codesser), a nonprofit organization that was created in the 1970s to run vocational, agrarian schools in rural areas in Chile. In the years following, Codesser broadened its administrative scope by forming alliances with other nonprofits to run schools with other specializations in high school technical education, specifically industrial and cooking schools. In 2003, Codesser board members were evaluating an offer that would lead to a new business niche for their organization: buying a school (instead of just administering it) and offering elementary and college-track secondary education (instead of technical secondary education). Focuses on this decision and its implications. Requires evaluating mission coherency, organizational competencies, financial viability, and growth opportunities.

Inventec Corp., with $4.5 billion in annual revenues, was one of Taiwan's leading original design manufacturers (ODMs). Inventec designed and manufactured electronic products such as computers, servers, MP3 players, PDAs, and cellular telephones for client companies that marketed the products globally. Inventec moved production to mainland China to lower costs in this highly competitive, low-margin business. But with its competitors also setting up shop in China, Inventec had to find another way to remain profitable. Could Inventec break its dependence on powerful clients by branding and marketing its products in China and other Asian markets? Was there a way for Inventec to separate and market the software that it designed for use with its hardware products.

If managers always acted on their values, heroic whistle-blowing might never be required. But, research shows, people don't think that doing the right thing is part of their jobs.

Because of high turnover, CFOs have less and less time to learn the ropes--yet they're shouldering more and more responsibility. A reallocation of time is in order.

The most dubious business plans can appear solid, even smart, when illustrated with snappy circle-and-arrow graphics. Look closely, though, and you'll see that many of these diagrams are full of it.

Fixing a dysfunctional plant isn't easy, but it can be done if you involve everyone in the overhaul.

How Dole beat Chiquita by working around a restrictive EU trade policy instead of struggling against it.

When a crisis forces outside directors to navigate major changes, investors and directors must adopt new roles. The case of Royal Dutch/Shell provides useful lessons.

Espionage expert H. Keith Melton shows how executives can best guard their company secrets.

By centralizing oversight of business travel and transportation, companies can improve efficiency, raise employee satisfaction, and reduce costs.

Sun Microsystems President and COO Jonathan Schwartz explains how blogging has enhanced public perception of his company and fostered loyalty within.

The best solution to the looming shortage of nurses and doctors may be to move chronic disease monitoring and care out of hospitals and into people's homes.

The idea of the garage entrepreneur--who starts businesses in garages (or basements or dorm rooms or kitchens)--is a highly popular contemporary legend, but not quite accurate. Academic research now claims that entrepreneurs are often organizational products: They typically acquire confidence, business knowledge, and social connections via prior experience at existing organizations. These psychological and social resources aid entrepreneurs in forming companies. Although the belief of the garage entrepreneur contributes to the preservation of the American ideals of opportunity and upward social mobility, it offers misleading insights to would-be entrepreneurs because it suggests an undersocialized view of the entrepreneurial process. Individuals, companies, policy makers, and business schools will benefit from recasting the garage as a contemporary legend and focusing instead on the lessons that can be derived from an understanding of entrepreneurs as organizational products.

As surveys highlight, most senior business executives are dissatisfied with the value their organizations are deriving from investments in information technology. What is often forgotten is that IT in itself has no inherent value. This value must be unlocked, and only business executives and users can do this. Although most IT investments are often accompanied by a technology implementation plan, few organizations ever construct a plan focused on realizing the business benefits. Explores how organizations can unlock business value from their IT investments by adopting a two-stage view of implementation. This model distinguishes between "problem-based" interventions and "innovation-based" interventions. Unlocking business value from IT investments is a journey not a destination and this journey requires careful planning.

To manage the business cycle to gain competitive advantage over rivals, firms must develop a "business cycle orientation." Such an orientation must include five important capabilities: the "business cycle literacy" of the top management team; the skillful deployment of various forecasting tools; an organizational structure that facilitates the timely acquisition, processing, and dissemination of macroeconomic information; application of a set of business cycle-sensitive management principles; and an organizational culture that supports business cycle-sensitive management activities. Successfully managing the business cycle does not necessarily depend on the ability to forecast its movements accurately. Rather, all that is required in many cases is for a firm to strategically or tactically respond more swiftly than its rivals.