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University of Chicago's Roman Weil charges that many audit committee members are financially illiterate--and he has the test results to prove it.

A study of more than 600 retail outlets finds that stock-outs are far more costly than most companies imagine.

A corporate brand, which is based on the characteristics of the firm as well as its products, can play a critical role in a company's brand portfolio. It can help differentiate the firm, support internal brand building, facilitate brand management, build credibility, and provide a vehicle for communicating with and maintaining support among broad external constituencies. However, defining and successfully managing the corporate brand requires the firm to address a number of challenges, including maintaining its relevance to the company's strategy, demonstrating its benefits to consumers, and avoiding negative associations or controversies.

Although all companies would like a better corporate reputation, many are not sure what it takes to create a good reputation and others are not sure that they should use their good reputation to compete in their various markets. Mimicking the behavior of respected companies does not provide a reliable resolution to these dilemmas. Presents a framework to help managers create a better corporate reputation for their organizations and assist them in deciding whether to use this as a primary basis for competition. Also exposes some of the main costs for an organization that decides to compete on its corporate reputation.

Advance selling can be profitable when consumers are uncertain about their future consumption state. At the time of consumption, that uncertainty is resolved, but buyer states still remain unobservable to sellers. Consequently, buyer and seller information is symmetric in advance but asymmetric at consumption (i.e., sellers have an informational disadvantage in the consumption period relative to the advance period). Therefore, sellers can profit from transacting in the advance period when they are at less of a disadvantage. New technologies (e.g., biometrics, electronic tickets, smart cards, online prepayments, and new e-commerce technologies) also enhance the profitability of advance selling by lowering advance-selling costs and restraining arbitrage.

The need to play catch-up in biotechnology has led Germany and Japan to adopt novel technology policies. Whereas policies to assist domestic industries have traditionally been geared toward incumbent firms, current trends revolve around "science entrepreneurship"--reforms in the national R&D system and targeted incentives for biotechnology scientists to file patents and start up their own firms. Japan, in particular, has recognized that catching up with the United States in basic science and in the commercialization of scientific research represents a kind of final frontier.

Although there has been an explosion in the number of technology sourcing relationships between firms--including alliances, acquisitions, and all intermediate levels of equity ownership--managers lack a comprehensive framework to guide them in equity ownership decisions meant to access technology. Higher levels of equity ownership can provide benefits such as exclusive access to and control over critical resources, alignment of interests between partners, and better coordination and control of partner interaction. On the other hand, equity ownership also entails costs associated with implementing changes to organizational structures, in addition to lower employee motivation as well as commitment costs due to market or technological uncertainty.

China is one of the most important foreign investment markets in both volume and growth. However, property rights protection in China is extremely weak and expropriations by both public and private actions are rampant. How can the booming of foreign investment and the looting of property co-exist? Why is protecting property rights so difficult in China? Shows that the different paces of institutional change between formal and informal constraints are the major cause behind the lack of property right protection in China. Discusses policy considerations for China to improve property right protection and raises two fundamental issues for multinational firms doing business in China.

Presents 10 standard guidelines for calculating social return on investment (SROI)--quantitative summaries of companies' social and environmental impacts, actual or projected. SROI is a technique for summarizing the value of companies' environmental and social benefits in terms of a dollar value equivalent. Using data and examples from 88 actual business plans, this article discusses common errors in such assessments and makes recommendations for standardizing them. The aim is to make SROI metrics more comprehensive, credible, and useful for entrepreneurs, managers, and analysts. Such a common framework would also enable investors to compare the social impact of different firms within the same industry.

Provides background information on the high-tech industry in Israel.

Yossi Sela, general partner at Gemini Venture capital, considers a new investment in Precise Software. The firm is at a crisis point, and Sela needs to decide whether he will fire the firm's chief executive officer. Conflicts between the American CEO and the Israeli founders of the firm are hampering the company.

The principal players in WorldCom's accounting fraud included CFO Scott Sullivan, the General Accounting and Internal Audit departments, external auditor Arthur Andersen, and the board of directors. The case provides sufficient detail to allow for a full discussion of the pressures that lead executives and managers to "cook the books," the boundary between earnings smoothing or management and fraudulent reporting, the role for internal control systems and internal audit to prevent or rapidly detect accounting fraud, the expectations about governance processes performed by external auditors and the board of directors, and the pressure and consequences when middle managers follow orders that they know are wrong. Written from the public record, the case contains numerous quotes from an individual involved in the WorldCom fraud that were reported by the Investigative Committee and Wall Street Journal articles about several of the individuals caught up in the situation.

Supplements the case Japan: Beyond the Bubble.

This spreadsheet supplements case 104-071.

Conor Medsystems had developed a drug-eluting stent that could capture significant share of the $5 billion global market. Chief executive officer, Frank Litvack, is considering alternative sources of financing to test the device.

New technology underlies a protracted dispute between West Coast longshoremen and their employers. Severe economic consequences lead to government intervention in the dispute.

Supplements the (A) case.

The director of marketing for Levi Strauss Canada needs to decide the fate of the GWG brand, a fallen giant in the Canadian jeans market. For the last three years, GWG has been licensed to a small manufacturer, who has failed to meet the requirements in the license agreement. Although the director wants to use some of the latent brand equity in GWG, Levi's and Dockers brands come first and she cannot divert marketing dollars toward the brand's revival. Also, she must be careful to manage her small but powerful portfolio of brands in the five main channels without cannibalizing the already declining volumes of the Levi's brand.

An entrepreneur comes up with a great idea for a new business that would service what he calls "the time-starved" segment. Using Wal-Mart as the warehouse, eBay as his storefront, and the U.S. Postal Service as the distributor, he would pick up and deliver products to businesses, conserving staff resources. He must think of as many opportunities as possible and determine any barriers that might occur.

Describes the 16-day final mission of the space shuttle Columbia in January 2003 in which seven astronauts died. Includes background on NASA and the creation of the human space flight program, including the 1970 Apollo 13 crisis and 1986 Challenger disaster. Examines NASA's organizational culture, leadership, and the influences on the investigation of and response to foam shedding from the external fuel tank during shuttle launch.