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On May 1, 1992, Doug Friesen, manager of assembly for Toyota's Georgetown, Kentucky, plant, faces a problem with the seats installed in the plant's sole product--Camrys. A growing number of cars are sitting off-line with defective seats or are missing them entirely. This situation is one of several causes of recent overtime, yet neither the reason for the problem nor a solution is readily apparent. As the plant is an exemplar of Toyota's famed production system (TPS), Friesen is determined that, if possible, the situation will be resolved using TPS principles and tools. Students are asked to suggest what action(s) Friesen should take and to analyze whether Georgetown's current handling of the seat problem fits within the TPS philosophy.

Identifies concepts and tools of finance that are useful to general managers and critical to entrepreneurs: cash, risk, and value.

Paul Allaire leads a company that is a microcosm of the changes transforming American business. With the introduction of the first plain-paper copier in 1959, Xerox invented a new industry and launched itself into a decade of spectacular growth. But easy growth led Xerox to neglect the fundamentals of its core business, leaving the company vulnerable to low-cost Japanese competition. Starting in the mid-1980s, Xerox embarked on a long-term effort to regain its dominant position in world copier markets and to create a new platform for future growth. Thanks to the company's Leadership through Quality program, Xerox became the first major U.S. company to win back market share from the Japanese. Since becoming CEO in 1990, Allaire has redirected the company's strategy to position Xerox as "the document company," at the intersection of the worlds of paper-based and electronic information. And he has guided the company through a fundamental redesign of what Allaire calls the "organizational architecture" of Xerox's document processing business.

Managers must build change into their organization's structure. This means being prepared to abandon everything that the organization does as well as constantly creating the new. Without this creation and abandonment, the organization will lose performance and with it the ability to attract and hold the people on whom its performance depends. The nature of the organization drives the imperative of change. Every organization exists to put knowledge to work, but knowledge changes quickly. The organization as well as the knowledgeable individual must acquire knowledge every several years or become obsolete. We have only begun to reckon with the implications of living in a world in which the fundamental unit of society, the organization, is and must be destabilizing. That is why questions of the organization's social responsibility now arise so often and why we need new ways to understand the relationship between organizations and their employees and between organizations and society overall.

Both executives and academics have recently voiced concerns about how business schools can best add value to the business community. The case of Jim Martin frames the dilemma. Martin is president and CEO of Bay International Industries (BII), a $4 billion consumer electronics company. Although he attended Plymouth Business School, one of the world's most prestigious management institutions, Martin has become an outspoken critic of the research and education provided by such schools. Martin himself has grappled with the issues surrounding management education. First, reports within BII show that MBA hiring has yielded disappointing results. Second, a business school has asked BII to participate in a research study. Third, Martin's daughter, who is planning to pursue an MBA, has turned to her father for advice.

Unilever, the Dutch-British company with operations in some 75 countries, is often described as one of the foremost transnationals. The company's fast-moving product portfolio of consumer goods requires proximity to local markets, although economies of scale in certain functions justify some centralized control. At the same time, a flexible matrix of individual managers around the world share a common understanding of corporate strategy. Co-chairman Floris Maljers provides an inside look at Unilever's evolution since its founding in 1930. For example, the company's core product group, the foods business, has weathered two major reorganizations in just the last 30 years. Through all of the changes, many based on trial and error, the company has maintained two consistent practices: developing high-quality managers and linking decentralized units through the "Unileverization" of those same managers.

Managers miss out on significant profits because they shy away from pricing decisions for fear that they will alienate their customers. But if management isn't controlling its pricing policies, the customers probably are. Two basic principles, the pocket price waterfall and the pocket price band, show managers how to control the pricing puzzle. The pocket price waterfall reveals how price erodes between a company's invoice figure and the actual amount paid by the customer--the transaction price. It tracks volume purchase discounts, early payment bonuses, and frequent customer incentives that squeeze a company's profits. The pocket price band plots the range of pocket prices over which any given unit volume of a single product sells. Wide price bands are common, with many manufacturer's transaction prices ranging over 60%. Using the pocket price bank enables a manager to control the price range to greater profits.

The U.S. system of allocating investment capital is failing, putting American companies at a serious disadvantage and threatening the long-term growth of the nation's economy. The problem involves the external capital allocation system by which capital is provided to companies, as well as the system by which companies allocate capital internally. In global competition, where investment increasingly determines a company's capacity to upgrade and innovate, the U.S. system does not measure up. Reforms that can make the U.S. capital allocation system work include: 1) Improve the macroeconomic environment; 2) Expand true ownership throughout the system so that directors, managers, employees, and even customers and suppliers hold positions as owners; 3) Align the goals of capital providers, corporations, directors, managers, employees, customers, suppliers, and society; 4) Improve the information used in decision making; and 5) Foster more productive modes of interaction and influence among capital providers, corporations, and business units.

Most American managers have a hard time making sense of Germany. It has a fraction of the resources and less than one-third the population of the United States. Labor costs are higher, paid vacations are at least three times as long, and strong unions are involved at all levels of business, from the local plant to the corporate boardroom. Yet German companies manage to produce internationally competitive products in key manufacturing sectors, making Germany the greatest competitive threat to the United States after Japan. In their review of recent research on the German business system, Wever and Allen argue that managers can learn an important lesson from Germany. In a global economy, competition exists not only between companies, but also between entire socioeconomic systems. Germany's ability to design a cohesive economic and social system that adapts continuously to changing requirements goes a long way toward explaining its competitive success.

Nucor is a minimill deciding whether to spend a significant fraction of its net worth on a commercially unproven technology in order to penetrate a large but hitherto inaccessible segment of the steel market. This case is an integrative one designed to facilitate full-blown analysis of a strategic investment decision.

Depicts the conflict and organizational problems that emerged in a franchise operation owned by Paul Logan, an African American, and John Heyman, a white American. Provides the opportunity to examine the ways in which race influences managerial behavior and organizational dynamics. Also raises issues of organizational performance, headquarters-franchise relations and conflict resolution.

Presents the dilemma of Don Waters, vice president of Franchise Operations at Belmont Beverages. Waters must must decide what to do about the conflict between two partners in one of Belmont's franchises.

Describes the elevator market and Otis's competitive position in four markets: Hong Kong, Malaysia, India, and Japan. The student is asked to evaluate the strategic and competitive challenges in each market, especially in light of strong Japanese competition across the region. Designed to give students appreciation of operating in the heterogeneous Asian environment in highly competitive markets.

Describes Otis's effort to build a regional organization linking its previously autonomous opportunities across the Pacific Asia region. Describes changes being made in several key functions, including manufacturing, marketing, engineering, and finance. Presents major challenges being faced as the company tries to move toward a coordinated regional organization. Designed to examine issues associated with building an integrated organization in a highly competitive environment.

Presents two brief vignettes about female employees who object to gender discrimination in their work environment. In one case, the manager of a convenience store removes "adult" magazines from the store's shelves because she sees them as damaging to women. In the other, a group of female employees of the Stroh Brewery Co. charge that the company's advertising creates an overall atmosphere of hostility to women. Designed to help students understand the scope of management's responsibility for dealing with sexual harassment in the workplace and the challenge of exercising that responsibility in the face of moral and legal rights of free expression. May be used with Note on the Law of Sexual Harassment.

This two-part exercise is used to introduce the strategy process. In Part I, a slightly injured gold prospector must decide which route to take to file a claim. The route through the valley is safer but may take too long. The other (over mountains) is riskier, and a storm is brewing. Part II has the prospector sprain an ankle, so he or she must rely on an uneducated, drinking trapper friend either to help get out (which may take too long) or to file the claim on the prospector's behalf (alone). This exercise requires students to assess the external environment and their own capabilities to select a strategy. Then they must lead and motivate another, less committed person to help implement it.

ChemBright is a small start-up company that manufactures private-label household chemicals. The company sells its products to grocery chains in the New England area. Its strategy is based on a significant logistics-based cost advantage. The primary case decisions are 1) how the company should respond to a price war initiated by a strong competitor, and 2) how the company can continue to exploit its logistics advantages as it pursues different growth alternatives. Acts as an effective introduction to logistics, and, in particular, to the fact that logistics is not a purely tactical function, but can be used as a powerful competitive weapon.

Describes the major challenges facing Ralph Larsen, CEO of Johnson & Johnson since 1989, as he strives to maintain the company's decentralized management structure and at the same time keep the company competitive in the 1990s.

Describes advantages and disadvantages of alliances (including joint ventures and licensing agreements).

The Walt Disney Co. theme parks historically have thrived on the basis of a formula stressing excellent customer service and a magnificent physical environment. The formula has proven successful in Japan, as well as the United States. With the controversial opening of Euro Disney in France, however, there has become reason to doubt the international appeal of the formula. The case documents issues involved with Euro Disney. Examines the transferability of a successful service concept across international boundaries.