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Companies often undermine their intellectual capital through faulty or incomplete patent filings. A little-known device called the "continuation patent" can retroactively change a patent's language and keep competitors from exploiting patent loopholes.

Conventional wisdom says that layoffs are a necessary evil during economic downturns, but new research shows that shareholders tend to punish companies that invoke layoffs solely to cut costs.

U.S. businesses face many dangers in the global marketplace these days, from threats of political violence to shifting investment risks in emerging markets. Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, the former chair of the National Commission on Terrorism, discusses ways to mitigate these threats.

Many commodities sellers resort to price cuts to attract customers; they fail to realize that their customers will pay premium prices for the right deals. The secret lies in reducing customers' risks.

The director of development at a large law firm and two other members of a selection committee will be interviewing three candidates for an articling position at the firm. The director must decide what questions to ask of the three law students applying, keeping in mind what questions she could not ask of the candidates. Through role play, students are given the opportunity to develop interview questions and interview the candidates.

Over the last seven years, the Stanford Project on Emerging Companies has tracked a large sample of high-technology start-ups in California's Silicon Valley. The project has examined how the founders of those enterprises approached key organizational and human resources challenges in the early days of building their companies and how it affected the evolution and performance of their ventures. This article summarizes the main findings of this research program. It describes five distinctive HR "blueprints" that high-tech founders embraced in launching their new firms. Those initial blueprints have had important impacts on a wide range of organizational outcomes, including growth in administrative overhead, labor turnover, and bottom-line performance. Moreover, companies that changed their HR blueprints have paid a heavy price in terms of higher turnover and diminished organizational performance. The results suggest that organization-building and high-commitment HR management "pay" and that changes in HR models are extremely destabilizing, even in the turbulent "built to flip" environment of Silicon Valley.

Although popular brands and unique capabilities help sustain a company's competitive advantage, they cannot be built by imitation. Managers have been able to develop sustainable capabilities not by emulating others, but by using their organizational designs and processes to identify, build on, and leverage their "asymmetries"--their evolving unique experiences, contacts, or assets. Such asymmetries may occur even in the simplest organizations. Unfortunately, they frequently are concealed, of little apparent use, and unconnected to value creation. Thus, they require new strategy making and organizational approaches for their discovery, development, and application. Based on lessons from a two-year study of a diverse sample of companies, this article shows how managers can grow capabilities that sustain competitive advantage by constantly identifying and growing asymmetries, embedding and empowering them within an organizational design, and shaping market focus to exploit them.

In the wake of corporate acquisitions, mergers, and spin-offs, considerable senior management attention has been devoted to corporate identity and its communication to key stakeholder groups. This article provides a framework to help management achieve a clearer understanding and better management of their corporation's identities. Many firms operate with a belief in a single monolithic corporate identity. Our research leads to a different view: Organizations have multiple identities. We delineate five kinds of identity within a framework termed the AC2ID TestTM (ACCID), namely, the actual, communicated, conceived, ideal, and desired identities. These reflect respectively: the current, distinct attributes of the organization; what the organization communicates about itself; the perceptions of the corporation by stakeholders; the optimum positioning for the organization; and the corporate vision from the perspective of the CEO or management board. Not only should management understand its multiple identities, it also should be alert to critical misalignments among them, as these can seriously weaken a company.

Customer relationship management (CRM) is premised on the belief that developing a relationship with customers is the best way to gain their loyalty. It is argued that loyal customers are more profitable than nonloyal customers. Recently, academic researchers have questioned some of the key premises that are used to support CRM in general and relationship marketing and customer loyalty programs in particular. This article critically examines the assumptions that underpin CRM and presents the results of research that is skeptical of its value. CRM should be adopted only after a careful appraisal of its cost effectiveness.

Today's supply chain managers have been bombarded with a wide variety of the so-called leading-edge supply chain strategies. New terminologies and initiatives are being developed constantly. However, not all of these initiatives or strategies are appropriate for all firms. Companies need first to understand the uncertainties facing the demand and supply of its products and then try to match these uncertainties with the right supply chain strategies. Based on an analysis of the uncertainties of supply and demand facing the firm, this article develops a framework that can assist managers in developing the right supply chain strategy for their products.

William Drayton founded Ashoka in 1980 to use a venture capital model to support social entrepreneurs, namely, practical visionaries who are committed to social change. The primary objective of Ashoka is to identify social entrepreneurs around the globe, who then receive Ashoka Fellowships that provide both financial and professional support. To be chosen, each prospective fellow goes through a rigorous search and selection process. Fellows receive a living stipend (typically for 3 years) and they join the Global Fellowship--a worldwide network of social entrepreneurs. Since 1982, over 1,100 Ashoka Fellows have been selected in 41 countries. Ashoka Fellows work in 6 areas: learning/education, environment, health, human rights, civic participation, and economic development.

Spreadsheet Supplement for case 202114

This note can be used as informational background reading on fuel cells, an environmentally attractive alternative technology for power generation and transportation. Courses that deal with innovation, technology, entrepreneurship, environment, energy/power/transportation issues, or sustainable business may find this useful. This note accompanies a case on fuel cells (UVA-ENT-0018). The note explores fuel cell technology including its history, current and potential applications, fuel sources, environmental issues, and manufacturing challenges. The commercialization issues covered include: performance requirements, time to market, costs, and other outside driving forces such as fuel distribution infrastructure, power generation reliability, fuel prices, etc. Fuel cells are an electrochemical energy source with the potential to take a significant market share from traditional electrical power generation and automobile propulsion technologies. Over the next decade fuel cells may provide more reliable energy and cleaner air while decreasing dependence on fossil fuels for transportation and stationary applications.

When it comes to having a high-powered career and a family, the painful truth is that women in the United States don't "have it all." At midlife, in fact, at least a third of the country's high-achieving women--a category that includes high wage earners across a variety of professions--do not have children. For many, this wasn't a conscious choice: Indeed, most yearn for motherhood. So finds economist Sylvia Ann Hewlett, who recently fielded a nationwide survey to explore the professional and private lives of highly educated and high-earning women. Other findings are similarly disturbing. Many of these women who are raising children have suffered insurmountable career setbacks. In general, Hewlett's data show that, for too many women, the demands of ambitious careers, the asymmetries of male-female relationships, and the difficulties of conceiving later in life undermine the possibility of combining high-level work with family. By contrast, Hewlett's research reveals that high-achieving men continue to "have it all." Of the men she surveyed, 79% report wanting children, and 75% have them. Indeed, the more successful the man, the more likely he is to have a spouse and children. The opposite holds true for women. Hewlett urges lawmakers and corporations to establish policies that support working parents. But recognizing that changes won't happen overnight, she exhorts young women to be more deliberate about their career and family choices.

Product R&D at many companies is a major bottleneck. The difficulty is that fully understanding the needs of just a single customer can be an inexact and costly process--to say nothing of the needs of all customers or even groups of them. In the course of studying product innovation across many industries, authors Stefan Thomke and Eric von Hippel found several companies that have adopted a completely new, seemingly counterintuitive, approach to product R&D: they have abandoned their efforts to understand exactly what products their customers want; instead, they equip customers with tool kits to design and develop their own products. Doing so can create tremendous value, but capturing that value is hardly a simple or straightforward process. Not only must a company develop the right tool kit, but it must also revamp its business models and management mind-set. When companies relinquish a fundamental task--such as designing a new product--to customers, the two parties must redefine their relationship, and this change can be risky. With customers taking over more of the design, companies must now focus more on providing the best custom manufacturing. In other words, the location where value is created and is captured changes, and companies must reconfigure their business models accordingly. This article offers basic principles and lessons for industries undergoing such transformations.

All of us struggle from time to time with the question of personal meaning: "Am I living the way I want to live?" This type of questioning is healthy; business leaders need to go through it every few years to replenish their energy, creativity, and commitment--and their passion for work. In this article, the authors describe the signals that it's time to reevaluate your choices and illuminate strategies for responding to those signals. Such wake-up calls come in various forms. Some people feel trapped or bored and may realize that they have adjusted to the frustrations of their work to such an extent that they barely recognize themselves. For others, the signal comes when they are faced with an ethical challenge or suddenly discover their true calling. Once you have realized that it's time to take stock of your life, there are strategies to help you consider where you are, where you're headed, and where you want to be. Many people find that calling a time-out--either in the form of an intense, soul-searching exercise or a break from corporate life--is the best way to reconnect with their dreams. People no longer expect their leaders to have all the answers, but they do expect them to try to keep their own passion alive and to support employees through that process.

On July 30, 1981, Frank Batten, the chairman of Landmark Communications, proclaimed that in less than a year, his company would launch a new concept in cable television: the nation's first all-weather programming, the Weather Channel. He didn't anticipate the sneers and derision that would greet his announcement. Fast forward 20 years. Today, the Weather Channel ranks as one of the most powerful and trusted media brands in the world. Millions of people tune in daily for local and national weather information, and its web site logs more than 3 billion page views per year. The Weather Channel proved its skeptics wrong by challenging some popular misconceptions about corporate entrepreneurship. One such misconception is that great entrepreneurship always springs from a great idea. Yes, ideas are crucial, but so are pools of managerial and technical expertise, patient capital, and a reputation for honesty and straight shooting. Another misconception is that two guys in a garage will always beat out a corporate behemoth. Not so. In fact, the right kinds of corporate support can be a great idea's best friend. Batten faced many setbacks in the course of turning the Weather Channel into a reality. Technological and financial issues threatened to sink the channel before it transmitted its first forecast. But inspired engineering and a last-minute rescue from cable operators gave the enterprise a chance to build a following. Corporate support can't smooth out the inevitable rough spots of entrepreneurship, as the author points out. But a parent company with the right attitude and the right resources--capital, management talent, and experience in related fields--can spell the difference between a bright idea and a powerful business.

Eric Palmer arrived at the top floor of Camden Robotics, a supplier of industrial automation tools, excited to tell CEO Tom O'Reilly about his latest win: a print ad account with a well-known local software maker. "You pulled in more business?" the boss responded. "It's really working out, then, isn't it?" Six months earlier, Palmer, the head of marketing communications at Camden, had been in a less optimistic mood as he'd walked into the executive suite. His department had recently expanded and hired some pricey designers, but because of the economic slowdown, Camden was launching fewer marketing campaigns, and Palmer had feared that his department would be targeted for layoffs. Instead, O'Reilly proposed recasting the marketing function as a business unit. It would continue to provide services to other units within the company, but it would also be free to engage in "value pricing" and could propose project work internally just as outside agencies might. In addition, the new group, Creative Central, could serve customers outside Camden in its spare time to earn revenue to defray its expenses. At first, the reaction to the news was overwhelmingly positive across the company. Palmer was thriving in the role of corporate entrepreneur. But several months into the change, the complaints started. As the discontent grows, O'Reilly is left to decide whether this organizational change is working. In R0204A and R0204Z, commentators Dan Logan, Michael McKenney, Mark P. Rice, and Jeffrey W. Bennett weigh in on this fictional case study.

Eric Palmer arrived at the top floor of Camden Robotics, a supplier of industrial automation tools, excited to tell CEO Tom O'Reilly about his latest win: a print ad account with a well-known local software maker. "You pulled in more business?" the boss responded. "It's really working out, then, isn't it?" Six months earlier, Palmer, the head of marketing communications at Camden, had been in a less optimistic mood as he'd walked into the executive suite. His department had recently expanded and hired some pricey designers, but because of the economic slowdown, Camden was launching fewer marketing campaigns, and Palmer had feared that his department would be targeted for layoffs. Instead, O'Reilly proposed recasting the marketing function as a business unit. It would continue to provide services to other units within the company, but it would also be free to engage in "value pricing" and could propose project work internally just as outside agencies might. In addition, the new group, Creative Central, could serve customers outside Camden in its spare time to earn revenue to defray its expenses. At first, the reaction to the news was overwhelmingly positive across the company. Palmer was thriving in the role of corporate entrepreneur. But several months into the change, the complaints started. As the discontent grows, O'Reilly is left to decide whether this organizational change is working. In R0204A and R0204Z, commentators Dan Logan, Michael McKenney, Mark P. Rice, and Jeffrey W. Bennett weigh in on this fictional case study.