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Supplements the (A) case.

Spreadsheet supplement to case 304-075.

Choosing the right summer internship can often mean landing a plum position in the company after graduation. Ria Kumar arrived fully prepped for the summer slot interview having studied industry reports, research articles, and analyst reports. She talked to alumni and even spent time at the local Wal-Mart studying the merchandising assortment and product placement. Not surprisingly, she was offered the 12-week internship. The disguised (A) case describes Kumar's 12 weeks and allows students to think about the issues her experience brings forth. Were there red flags? Was her supervision appropriate? Would she be offered a position post graduation? Would she want it? In the (B) case, Kumar decides to work part-time in the local Wal-Mart to gain an "in-store" perspective. Again, she behaved proactively as part of her strategy to get the job offer. The in-store-experience, however, left an unfavorable view of the organization in Kumar's mind. What had her expectations been when she started the part-time job? What did this suggest about corporate management practices?

Choosing the right summer internship can often mean landing a plum position in the company after graduation. Ria Kumar arrived fully prepped for the summer slot interview having studied industry reports, research articles, and analyst reports. She talked to alumni and even spent time at the local Wal-Mart studying the merchandising assortment and product placement. Not surprisingly, she was offered the 12-week internship. The disguised (A) case describes Kumar's 12 weeks and allows students to think about the issues her experience brings forth. Were there red flags? Was her supervision appropriate? Would she be offered a position post graduation? Would she want it? In the (B) case, Kumar decides to work part-time in the local Wal-Mart to gain an "in-store" perspective. Again, she behaved proactively as part of her strategy to get the job offer. The in-store-experience, however, left an unfavorable view of the organization in Kumar's mind. What had her expectations been when she started the part-time job? What did this suggest about corporate management practices?

With so many team-driven activities for students in the fast-paced, high-pressure environment of a business school, students need to have an opportunity to discuss the issues and dilemmas that may arise. Harry's difficulties in mastering finance cause some members of the team to feel frustrated, because they have to spend so much time helping him. When the members pressure the others to spend less time with Harry, other problems arise in the team dynamics, involving such issues as trust, participation, team performance, and quality of learning. Students need to explore alternative ways to improve the situation.

By June 2003, IBM had made significant progress in changing the way it managed new, emerging businesses. Describes the development of a separate management program at IBM designed to identify, fund, and shepherd new businesses through growth. Traces the history of the program, its evolution, and the current challenges senior management faces in scaling up the program.

It is very difficult to be an effective leader if you don't know who you are and what you want. People in leadership positions are expected to clarify things for others--purpose, vision, values, strategy, and goals. This technical note describes several fundamentals of an effective organizational and work group charter including the important elements of a personal charter. Once leaders have a clear vision for themselves, they are prepared to make better career, lifestyle, and professional decisions.

The spate of corporate misdeeds revealed to the American public in 2001 to 2002 prompted corrective action in many quarters of the U.S. economy. The note summarizes some of the steps taken by lawmakers, regulators, law-enforcement officials, companies, investors, professional associations, and educators to restore public trust in U.S. capital markets and the U.S. system of corporate governance.

Presents data on Harvard Business School MBA job searches from 1997 to 2002. Includes color exhibits.

Describes the evolution and passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 from the perspective of the senior counsel on capital markets for the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services.

The president of Wheels Group and the founder and major shareholder of the company are evaluating alternatives for doubling the company's revenues over the next five years. They must decide between two competing growth strategies: an asset-based growth strategy and a nonasset-based growth one. Complicating the decision is the fact that approximately 75% of the company's revenues are currently derived from nonasset-based activity. Students can explore issues associated with developing, evaluating, and implementing business strategy within the third-party logistics industry.

In March 2002, Singapore Airlines (SIA), recognized internationally for quality, profitability, and management, was facing difficult operating conditions. Dr. Cheong Choong Kong, deputy chairman and CEO, considered how he and his management committee would respond to the forces of globalization, regulatory adjustment, and the impact of terrorist attacks in America on the airline and the industry. Their challenge: to position the airline for continued growth in a globalizing industry while maintaining the airline's loss-free record. The airline's continuing challenges would stretch SIA's people far beyond the demands of its previous history. Was the company's strategy right for the more turbulent times ahead, and was the organization durable and flexible enough to ensure its success?

On August 14, 2003, an electricity blackout cascaded throughout the northeastern United States and Canada. Describes the structure, technology, and economics of the electric utility industry and how gradual deregulation beginning in the 1970s placed unprecedented, and unintended, stress on the transmission grid. Discusses the government's role in trying to mitigate congestion along transmission lines and facilitate improved planning and operational coordination through the establishment of independent system operators and regional transmission organizations. Also describes the recent financial performance of the electricity industry, the potential costs of modernizing the U.S. transmission infrastructure, and the role of political contributions in shaping regulation.

As the leading content delivery network, Akamai helps Internet companies deliver Web site content to end users with fewer delays and lower costs. Describes the strategic management challenges facing Akamai in early 2004. The company is poised to offer its next generation of services for enterprise customers, which will allow them to run Internet-enabled applications ("Web services")--on demand, with minimal capital investment--from Akamai's network of 15,000 servers located in ISP facilities at the Internet's "edge"--close to end users. Many large enterprise software companies have developed proprietary platforms for creating and managing Web services. Akamai must decide which of these software companies would be attractive partners and whether it can and should remain uncommitted to a platform as it helps customers deploy Web services. A rewritten version of an earlier case.

An overview of issues relating to and factors affecting the concept of balance between work and personal life including the history of work-life balance and employer/employee perspectives.

How do you deal with overly aggressive or excessively passive people? When should you push and when should you hang back? Should you ever show your anger, or is it wise to keep it inside or express it differently? The answers to these questions can mean the difference between derailing your career in management and going all the way to the top. If you learn what appropriately assertive behavior is and then practice ways of expressing yourself (when the occasion calls for it), your level of assertiveness will match the situation. This technical note examines interactions that fall on a continuum of assertiveness, from abusive to overly passive.

This technical note examines types of organizational crisis and five phases through which nearly all crises pass. Students are encouraged to move from a mindset that manages crisis to one that generates crisis leadership. Between corporate fraud, scandals, ethical dilemmas, mismanagement, national disasters, and workplace violence, organizational crises have become all too common in recent years. The corporation's reputation with stakeholders, financial well-being, and survival are all at stake. While the actual crisis situation itself is troublesome for the firm (e.g., faulty product leading to a product recall), often the real potential damage to an organization's reputation results from the (mis)/management of the crisis issue.

This case series (see also the B [UV3535], C [UV3536], D [UV3537], E [UV3538], F [UV3546], and G [UV4339] cases) focuses students on the boom-and-bust behaviors in the Northern Forest sawmill industry. Stakeholders, from landowners to sawmill owners to government officials to environmentalists, all want to make sure that the overall demand for saw logs, as driven by sawmill capacity, does not exceed the rate at which the trees are growing. They do not want sawmill demand to "overshoot" the productive capacity of the forest resource, a classic problem in renewable-resource economies that the region had experienced approximately a century earlier. Students are called upon to use system-thinking skills (analysis of reference modes of behaviors, causal-loop mapping, and stock-flow mapping) in creating their causal hypotheses of the underlying system structure. Students are asked to design system-structure policies to help sustain both the industry and the natural resources of the region.

This case examines NBC's decision to bid on Major League Baseball's contract. The issues relate to the cost of the contract and whether it helps NBC meet both its profit targets and strategic goals. The case includes a pricing model to help the student determine whether to bid or not.

This note provides detailed guidance for analyzing a complex business problem using the systems thinking tools: reference behavior patterns, systems archetypes, causal-loop diagrams, and stock-flow maps. The step by step guidance helps a systems thinker create a clear, organized presentation for a client or professional modeler. Successfully communicating one's views and hypotheses and making relevant, supported recommendations are an outgrowth of using the writing process to support a systems analysis.