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Many people believe that there is some single, overarching approach to business ethics: e.g., serve the shareholders, serve the stakeholders, or follow your conscience. In reality, however, the search for a grand, unifying principle of management morality often leads to frustration and cynicism. The moral dilemmas managers face are, in essence, clashes among very different spheres of responsibility. This article describes each of these spheres and presents a framework for resolving conflicts among them.

Through strategy, a company seeks to sustain its competitive advantage. Yet only recently has the study of strategy begun to examine how long a specific advantage can be sustained. Based on a study of sustainability patterns in a number of industries, this article shows how the competitive pressures associated with product imitation can be predicted by identifying the core capabilities, or isolating mechanisms, that lie at the heart of a company's advantage. A number of these dynamic core capabilities are classified according to how fast they are duplicated. The imitation of capabilities shape many strategic decisions in companies, indeed the distinctive character of companies, and that by thinking in these terms managers enhance their company's cohesiveness and responsiveness as they pursue their strategic mission in global markets.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Do you consider distribution and inventory costs when you design products? Can you keep your customers informed of when their orders will arrive? Do you know what kind of inventory control systems your dealers use? If not, you've succumbed to the pitfalls of inventory management. You're not alone. Manufacturers have been concentrating on quality of incoming materials and outgoing products, but they haven't been paying as much attention to the costs associated with transporting and storing them. Describes 14 pitfalls of supply chain management and some corresponding opportunities. The more complex your network of suppliers, manufacturers, and distributors, the more likely you can gain operational efficiencies by attending to inventory.

In an effort to capitalize on the entrepreneurial opportunity presented by the Brazilian government's trade liberalization, a Panamanian automobile trading company launched a business of importing the Russian made Lada cars into Brazil. The company confronts a complex political and economic environment and strong competition from the existing automobile producers. Presents the business challenges and opportunities accompanying trade liberalization. Reveals the competitive dynamics in environments undergoing economic transformation.

Describes the evolution of radio technology and business from the initial days of wireless telegraphy to the advent, growth, and establishment of amplitude-modulated (AM) radio manufacturing and broadcasting. Begins and ends with a description of a decision the Radio Corp. of America (RCA) has to make with respect to the introduction of a new, incompatible frequency-modulation (FM) technology. Illustrates the full spectrum of interests and obstacles a new and incompatible technology and/or product concept has to overcome before it can be accepted. Also useful for discussing how product concepts get established, how patent law works, how industries develop, and the role played by individuals with differing visions, tenacity, and ambitions.

Illustrates organizational and industry-wide inertia to a change that threatens the status quo. Also reinforces the message that those most willing to encourage change are either the proponents of change or those who are locked out from the existing system.

Describes the concluding and bitter fight between Armstrong and the established radio manufacturing and broadcasting industry over the new, incompatible, and yet irrepressible FM technology. Illustrates the struggle between a corporation and an established system and individual champions of change. In addition, underscores the tensions that can arise in the context of personal ambitions, uncompromising attitudes, personal relationships, and corporate interests.

A wholly-owned subsidiary of Lockheed Corp. has an $11 million expansion underway in South Carolina. The company must decide how best to take advantage of the opportunity to issue tax exempt debt. Specifically, the decision involves choices about the maturity and redemption structure of the proposed issue. Designed to let students isolate interest tax shields and subsidies, and to value these elements of a financing package separately, as part of an "adjusted present value" analysis.

A manager of a small investment company has been successfully using index funds for limited market timing. Growth has allowed her to move into picking stocks. She is considering two small and highly variable listed stocks, but is concerned about the risk that these investments might add to her "portfolio." Provides a lead-in to the CAPM. Students learn about total risk, non-diversifiable or portfolio risk, and (CAPM) beta, and calculate variability of the stocks separately, and portfolio variance with and without the stocks, to see how an extremely risky (but low-beta) stock actually reduces risk; and calculate stock betas.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 292122.

Saatchi & Saatchi, founded in 1970, became the world's largest advertising agency in 1986. It then diversified into consulting and other managerial areas before crashing in 1989. Under a new CEO, the company restructured and refocused on its advertising agencies.

Describes three subsequent generations of product development effort at an equipment firm supplying the semiconductor industry. The firm is partway into the third generation development and must decide whether and how to accelerate product development to respond to competitive pressures.

Describes how Joline Godfrey, an intrapreneur at the Polaroid Corp., introduced and developed a project that could help Polaroid move to a more service- as opposed to product-oriented focus. Also depicts the mentor-protege relationship between Godfrey and Gerald Sudbey, a senior executive in the company. Addresses two issues: intrapreneurship and mentor-protege relationships. Allows the students to explore the process of intrapreneurship, what it takes to effectively be a change agent in an organization. In addition, provides them with a textured understanding of mentor-protege relationships--the various stages they go through, and the challenges and benefits they represent.

Supplements Joline Godfrey and the Polaroid Corp. (A).

Describes computer model and output from conjoint analysis and perceptual mapping for product line planning.

Focuses on the strategic issue of how to approach the East German market after the Berlin wall came down in late 1989. Within an unusually rich economic-political and organizational-personal context, the chairman of GM's German subsidiary has to respond to Volkswagen's preemptive move in East Germany. The rapid and unexpected political changes complicate the decision process. How do rapid and unexpected political changes impact this response?

Should General Motors make a strategic manufacturing investment in East Germany after becoming number one in this market through an aggressive marketing strategy? The proposal, dependent on government assistance and based on a number of uncertain economic assumptions, seeks to introduce Japanese manufacturing methods into East Germany. How and why did Opel achieve market leadership in Volkswagen's back yard? Are the assumptions and objectives of the East German manufacturing investment reasonable?

Describes the factors AT&T Consumer Products managers considered in deciding whether to locate a new plant for telephone answering machines in the United States, Asia, or Mexico. Describes in depth the restructuring of AT&T during the 1980s, the competition facing its consumer products division, the division's overseas manufacturing strategy, the Mexican economy, and the country's macquilodora program. Encourages students to analyze where a company's and an executive's responsibilities lie in making a complex plant-siting decision involving overseas operations, and in making decisions about pay, benefits, bribery, gender-based hiring, waste disposal, and so forth in operating in developing countries.

Describes the major research techniques for consumer goods new product development, i.e. pre-test markets and electronic purchase monitoring. Provides students with information on availability and utility of these services.

By the early 1990s, Amgen--a pharmaceutical company started little over a decade ago as Applied Molecular Genetics--was within range of becoming a billion-dollar company. With two extremely successful biotechnology drugs on the market, Amgen stood as the largest and most powerful independent company of its type in the world. Top executives in the company viewed long-range planning as an important ingredient in the firm's success; many others--including some of the firm's scientists--were less sure. With Amgen's sales expected to continue to grow rapidly, the firm's long-range planning process would be put to the test. Shows the different, sometimes paradoxical perspectives held within a single, dynamically changing company toward the issue of long-range planning. Students are challenged to synthesize these views into a coherent picture of a firm's growth amid great uncertainty.