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Jack Smith had a stellar career at Chrysler managing major design teams and manufacturing plants before deciding to join industry leader and benchmark Toyota. It is his first day on the job; what will his orientation entail? Cursory walkthroughs and introductions before assignment to a job commensurate with his experience and accomplishments or something else to help him acclimate to Toyota's unique management approach?

Jack Smith had a stellar career at Chrysler managing major design teams and manufacturing plants before deciding to join industry leader and benchmark Toyota. It is his first day on the job; what will his orientation entail? Cursory walkthroughs and introductions before assignment to a job commensurate with his experience and accomplishments or something else to acclimate him to Toyota's unique management approach?

Jack Smith had a stellar career at Chrysler managing major design teams and manufacturing plants before deciding to join industry leader and benchmark Toyota. It is his first day on the job; what will his orientation entail? Cursory walkthroughs and introductions before assignment to a job commensurate with his experience and accomplishments or something else to acclimate him to Toyota's unique management approach?

Abstract to follow.

This case looks at the turnaround at the Massachusetts Port Authority after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It begins with the situation during the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and then describes how the new CEO restructures the public agency to operate much more like a business organization.

Supplements the (A) case.

Supplements the (A) case.

Supplements the (A) case.

A year and a half after calling off its campaign against fast-food giant McDonald's, the vegan campaign coordinator of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) contacted Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) to warn the company that it would be the next target. He pointed out in his letter that whereas many of KFC's competitors had convened advisory panels to help investigate the welfare of animals raised and slaughtered for their businesses, KFC appeared completely uninterested in the issue. PETA would rather not engage KFC in a campaign, but if the company refused to put together an animal welfare panel to begin to look into the issue of how to raise and slaughter its chickens more humanely, all the leaflets, action alerts, posters, billboards, T-shirts, and press releases PETA was now preparing would be dedicated to KFC and its cruel treatment of chickens. In January 2003, PETA, fed up with what it saw as KFC's lack of open communication, public misinformation, and outright stonewalling on change, announced a campaign against the company to the media in a news event replete with bloody descriptions of the cruelties of KFC's animal factories. Now it was time for KFC to respond.

A leading Japanese general trading company with an extensive global presence is in the process of transformation. For some time, in response to the rapidly changing business environment, the company has made serious efforts to transform itself from an organization specializing in trading to one with diverse activities, including trading. Examines the challenges facing the organization throughout that process. Includes color exhibits.

The case describes the history of the executive search firm Egon Zehnder International (EZI) from its inception through 2000. Internal and environmental changes lead EZI leaders to question whether the firm might be at an inflection point in its history. The EZI executive committee contemplates whether and how to engage in a strategy review process.

Supplements the (A) case.

Supplements the (A) case.

Reviews the start-up and growth of Gordon Biersch, a brewpub chain. As the case ends, the founders want to roll out the concept nationally and are considering the issues of organizational design and financing. They are also considering selling a majority stake to one investor.

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Explores the texture of mass unemployment during the Great Depression in the United States. Business leaders offer assessments of the Great Depression and the New Deal.

In 2000, Oxfam America, an international relief and development organization, launched itself on a bold new course. A small but respected agency, it had devoted itself for three decades to supporting "partner" organizations in developing countries throughout the world, funding a variety of grassroots activities. Now, under the leadership of its president, Raymond Offenheiser, Oxfam America had joined with eleven other Oxfams worldwide to become a "global campaigning force" that would focus on challenging the policies and practices of governments and corporations that harmed the poor. The new initiative was in keeping with Offenheiser's belief that it was time for the international development community to move beyond the "welfare" model of service delivery and embrace an approach that took aim at structural impediments that kept impoverished people from improving their lot. But the commitment to becoming a global campaigning organization would pose new challenges for Offenheiser and his senior managers. Within Oxfam America, the campaign work put new pressures on the organization's staff and resources. Some staff members, particularly those who worked with partner organizations in the field, found the campaign work onerous and, in some cases, irrelevant, and worried that Oxfam America's grassroots work in its regional offices was losing its primacy in the agency. HKS Case Number 1738.0

The decade of the 1990s was one of increasingly bitter public criticism of the major US tobacco companies on the part of a number of anti-tobacco advocacy groups, who were collectively known as the tobacco control movement. In their zeal to limit cigarette smoking, it was hardly uncommon for such groups to vilify tobacco companies on moral and ethical grounds. So it was no small surprise when, in the spring of 1997, Matthew Myers, executive vice-president of one of the nation's leading tobacco control groups, the National Center for Tobacco-Free Kids, was invited to sit down with representatives of the tobacco industry to discuss a grand compromise: billions in damages to be paid by the industry in exchange for protection from further legal liability due to the health effects of its products. This case, based on the book "Smoke in Their Eyes; Lessons in Movement Leadership from the Tobacco Wars" (Michael Pertschuk, Vanderbilt University Press, 2001), effectively tells the story of the historic behind-the-scenes tobacco settlement negotiations, which involved the attorneys general of several states, private attorneys, tobacco industry representatives, and Myers, as the lone representative of the tobacco control movement. The case, however, is not designed as a vehicle for discussion of tobacco issues per se (although it can serve that purpose) but, rather, for discussion of the dynamics of negotiations--in particular, the difficult but not uncommon position of Matthew Myers as one who, while attempting to forge a compromise, must also find ways not to lose the support of those in his movement who have more radical views. HKS Case Number 1737.0

This case provides an opportunity to explore very simple job-order costing. It also provides a chance to discuss contribution analysis in the context of a pricing decision and the absorption of manufacturing overhead costs by the various jobs the company has under contract.

A medium-size European manufacturer of pharmaceuticals and chemicals faces a number of information strategy issues. The case focuses on the issues of coordinating international IT activities and day-to-day operations as well as balancing the company's IT applications portfolio. To encourage discussion of the appropriate role and background of a CIO.