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The department manager at Consumer Material Enterprises, Inc. wants to improve employee satisfaction in his department and starts with his own immediate subordinates. Satisfied that earlier production problems are under control, he wants to create an atmosphere of "one big, happy family." However, a visit from a summer intern reveals more tension among his staff than the department manager had realized, and he wonders how to proceed. This case emphasizes data that reflect differences in perceptions, attitudes, and assumptions between new supervisors with college degrees and old-timers who are high school graduates.

This case deals primarily with ethics and the individual's personal system and the way it affects his or her perceptions and actions. It also looks at rewards and punishments and their influence on behavior. Susan is a student employee at a campus snack bar who is caught between a wish to do what she thinks is right--take steps to stop food being taken off the premises that hasn't been paid for--and fear of negative consequences if she takes such action. She would also like to see students work harder, finish what is assigned to them on the night shift, and be punished for stealing from the cash register. Almost all students have faced peer pressure to do things that violate their value systems. The case helps students to understand why they feel so much ambivalence, sometimes going along and sometimes setting limits. Some issues are ethical; others involve criminal behavior. Issues include sexual permissiveness and experimentation, drug use and dealing, cheating, trespassing, and stealing. The case also raises questions of a company's ethics and responsibility for creating, or allowing, a climate that tolerates at best, and encourages at worst, illegal, criminal, or unethical behavior.

The protagonist of this case, Paula, is the captain of her school's basketball team. It chronicles the arrival of a new coach, Shirley, and the interpersonal conflict and impasse that emerges as the game plan and coaching style changes.

A four-part, sequential prediction case dealing with intergroup conflict.

Smokestack Village, a tourist attraction located near the Continental Divide in central Colorado, offers visitors a large railroad museum and daily excursion rides on old railroad lines. Describes a small work group, allowing students to look at the characteristics of a social system. Can trace the evolution of the emergent system and its consequences for productivity, satisfaction, personal growth, learning, and development. Also provides an opportunity to look at leadership in different ways, using concepts related to contingency, functions, style, influence, and power.

This case chronicles the events that prompt the recruits of one computer company's training program to aid one another on assignments and projects despite rules explicitly prohibiting such behavior. It emphasizes personal values and the choices made in different circumstances. It also raises questions about the responsibility of companies to design organizations that induce ethical behavior. Bill Flynn is a 23-year-old newcomer to the Brady Co. Information Systems Department. After having worked for one year in sales for a different computer manufacturer, Flynn joined the Brady Co. to develop his understanding of hardware and programming. Upon learning that the Brady training program is intensely rigorous and competitive--usually less than one-third of the recruits complete it--Flynn and other recruits begin to help one another, despite being forbidden at the outset from doing so. Flynn forms a study group with two classmates; catches two recruits photocopying former students' completed assignments and takes a copy to share with his own group; and reads the supervisors' secret files evaluating recruits' progress. After seeing comments in his own file that question his commitment to become part of the Information Systems Department, Flynn cultivates disingenuous friendships with his supervisors. When he survives the 12-month training program, Flynn is offered a formal position in the company; however, he already has secured two other job offers from competing companies. Upon hearing this news, the Brady management immediately makes a superior offer and encourages him to join the firm.

Andrew Zenoff had a variety of jobs, none of them amounting to much, before embarking on an entrepreneurial career. Despite his lack of relevant industry experience, Zenoff was remarkably good at persuading family, friends, and angels to put money into his venture. However, he was not successful at raising funds from professional venture capital firms.

Describes the deliberations of a problem-solving team at KomTek, a prosthetic hip manufacturer. The company's slight modification in one of its existing products caused some difficulty in the manufacturing process. One result is higher scrap and quality problems and, hence, lower-than-expected price-cost ratios for that product. The problem-solving team is digging through its cost accounting system and the data from the plant floor, looking for causes. The team is also closely looking into each step of the production process that might be contributing to the problems. Includes both quantitative (cost accounting and quality data) and qualitative (policies and procedures) aspects of the production process. Students should have some basic knowledge of statistics prior to considering this case.

Presents a theory about the tools a manager can use to get people to agree on a coordinated course of action and effect change in his or her organization. The extent to which people in the organization agree on the way the world works, and agree on what they want, determines which tools will be most effective.

Brierley's is an investment company that has performed poorly in the New Zealand market. Management has prepared a report of the intrinsic value of the company's investments.

Examines Charles Schwab's on-line discount brokerage firm and questions whether or not Schwab has effectively balanced the old and new world of stock trading, and has remained a leader between giants like Merrill Lynch and Internet pure plays like E-Trade. Also looks at how Schwab has remained a competitive player with 363 brick and mortar branches while continuing to boost 81% of its trades over the Internet. While major bank mergers began to emerge as dominant online players, Schwab's unique status as a discount brokerage began to wane. In the wake of powerful full-service firms gaining online presence and discount brokerages offering $4.95 trades, how could Schwab sustain its competitive advantage?

At the May 1996 annual shareholders meeting, Alcoa CEO Paul O'Neill reported that Alcoa was making great progress toward becoming a world-class leader, both in terms of workplace safety and profitability. This validated of O'Neill's decade-long emphasis on safety as the company's leading value. Despite these achievements, O'Neill was challenged on Alcoa's treatment of employees in the company's Mexican plants. A Benedictine nun accused the company of treating its workers poorly and systematically violating its much publicized value system. Now, one month after the contentious exchange with the sister, O'Neill considers the report of an investigation team he had dispatched to the Mexican plants and the observations he made during his own visit to the factories. Builds on Workplace Safety at Alcoa (A), a case, in which students learn about Alcoa's efforts to become a safety leader and to wrestle with issues related to changing the physical work setting and the behavior and attitudes of people (employees and managers in that setting). This case is set several years later, after Alcoa has made tremendous progress in safety and profitability.

In April 1998, when the Chinese central government bans all forms of direct selling in China in April 1998, executives at Avon China must decide how to respond. The first direct sales company to enter China after its opening to outsiders, Avon sparked widespread interest in direct selling among the Chinese. Just as Avon is about to complete a new $40 million plant in Guangzhou, however, the government cracks down on local abuses of direct selling by banning all forms of the practice. Avon must decide whether to abandon its traditional business model in the face of these developments.

Supplements the (A) case.

Supplements the (A) case.

Bain managing director Tom Tierney is contemplating how best to rotate the office head position between two partners at one of the firm's offices. The case provides background information on Bain's governance structure and Tierney's management style.

Focuses on Millennium's strategy to grow and revolutionize drug development through the use of new technologies such as genomics. Describes how Millennium Pharmaceuticals--a fast-growing biotechnology firm in Cambridge, MA--has used strategic alliances to finance the development of technology platforms based on the latest breakthroughs in genomics. As the firm considers developing pharmaceutical drugs itself, they face a number of challenges: 1) Can they revolutionize drug development by making it more predictable, faster, and less costly? 2) How should they select their alliances such that they move closer to becoming a pharmaceutical firm and still attract the funding needed for their strategy? 3) How can they continue to grow rapidly and attract and retain some of the best minds in the pharmaceutical industry?

Presents a framework for determining prices for products and services in concert with the value provided to customers. Discusses methodologies for estimating customer value.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 500071.

This exercise builds on the ideas and research of Doug Newberg and is intended to help students work through the key elements of his world-class performance model, Resonance. The technical note "Resonance" (UVA-OB-0626) describes the model, which takes an "experience-based" approach rather than a "goal-oriented" one.