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Pioneer is an integrated oil company. Its operations include exploration and development, production, transportation, and marketing. The case focuses on Pioneer's cost of capital calculations and its choice between a single company-wide cost of capital or divisional costs of capital. Provides students the opportunity to learn how to calculate a company-wide weighted average cost of capital. An appropriate measure of the cost of equity capital is presented so that students are able to challenge their understanding of key concepts by critiquing the company's measure and suggesting their own.

Alliant has been a leader in the health care industry in implementing total quality management. After five years, however, they do not have much to show for their efforts except a "foundation" of quality attitudes and processes. The case discusses their plans to "jump start" the quality program by implementing a new information systems strategy. Teaching purposes: Implementation issues in total quality management and the role of I/T in executing strategic change.

Explores the general history of slavery in the United States. Through detailed exhibits and a text consisting of excerpts from six first-hand observations of slavery, this note is designed to present the ethics, economics (especially the perverse incentive systems), and sociology of slavery, the worst single stain on the nation's history.

KPMG Peat Marwick executives needed to decide whether to fund full development of "The Shadow Partner," the name coined to describe a worldwide information network that would link all KPMG professionals to each other and to a wealth of data bases and information services. Partners, by sharing and gathering information through the network, would be able to use the entire company's knowledge and experience to serve clients. Many partners felt that implementation of the shadow partner was vital, as clients had greater demands and competition in the accounting industry had escalated. Other partners questioned the necessity of the shadow partner. The firm had committed to establishing a technology committee to investigate shadow partner design and cost. Since the firm was a partnership, the partners eventually had to decide whether, and to what extent, to support shadow partner implementation.

Presents a framework for resolving issues in which managers' responsibilities--to shareholders, employees, other stakeholder groups, and to their own values and commitments in life--conflict with each other. The framework analyzes these issues in terms of duties, consequences, personal values, and practicality. Provides an analytic framework for a course or module on business ethics, that brings together basic considerations in moral philosophy with practical pressures, perspectives, and concerns of business executives.

Explains what a company's ethical climate is, describes the forces that shape it, and ways managers can work to alter a firm's ethical climate.

Describes the role that issues of personal integrity play in managers' decisions. Defines personal integrity, the factors that influence it, the situations in which it becomes particularly relevant to company decisions, and ways of overcoming the blind spots that can create too personal a focus on decisions. Helps students understand the issues in the context of decision making and action planning.

Don Cornwell and his partner Stuart Beck formed Granite Broadcasting Corp. (GBC) to acquire under-performing TV stations. Cornwell is now in his fourth acquisition. This case focuses on the management challenges and strategies he uses to turn around his stations, specifically the third acquisition.

Examines California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS), the world's fourth largest pension fund. Dale Hanson, CEO of CalPERS, has a problem; how does he use CalPERS' influence as the holder of a small percentage of 1,300 American companies to put pressure on corporate America to achieve better returns for shareholders? The case discusses the constraints which confront CalPERS as a quasi-state agency and describes their efforts to improve corporate governance to date.

Spreadsheet Supplement for case 291045.

A vehicle for a discussion of the growth of organized labor between the World Wars.

The manager of a Fairfield Inn located near a family entertainment center is requesting special consideration for a falling quality rating caused, in his opinion, by unusually high occupancy rates at his unit. The case raises questions about quality measurement, control, and the consistency of an operating strategy.

Why has Britain declined? The case provides three interpretations: from a neoclassical economist, two institutional economic historians, and a sociologist. Their explanations partly overlap and partly conflict over such areas as technology, national culture, and social class.

Provides a vehicle for discussing the problems caused by the Great Depression.

Provides the court's decision in the May D&F case, and updates the controversy surrounding high-low retail pricing.

The rapid depreciation of the peso in 1982 precipitated a crisis at Grupo Alfa, Mexico's largest private company. The company's peso cash flow was insufficient to service its large dollar-denominated debt. Students are asked to formulate a plan for restructuring Alfa's debt in the context of Mexican laws governing property and creditors' rights. To do this, students must decide on a business strategy, make financial projections and understand participants' negotiating strengths and weaknesses. Teaching objective: In addition to the basic elements of a large corporate restructuring, the case highlights the roles played by governments and legal systems. Provides a useful contrast to U.S.-style restructurings.

Addresses the controversy that surrounds highly promotional retail pricing referred to as "high-low pricing" by the trade. High-low pricing involves setting prices at an initially high level for a brief period of time, then discounting off the so-called "regular" or "original" prices for the bulk of the selling season. Discusses recent accusations by state and local authorities that such pricing policies are deceptive and covers, in detail, a recent court case involving May D&F, a subsidiary of the May Companies in Colorado. Introduces the complexity of the retail promotional environment, and the problems associated with highly promotional pricing. Understanding consumer response to promotions is critical to the case analysis.

In France, management is not a task. It is a "state of mind." Alumni of the grandes ecoles, the elite colleges, dominate the upper echelons of business and have the same social prestige as doctors or lawyers. Movement from public to private sector managerial positions is common, reflecting and reinforcing a rich relationship between French industry and government, not unlike Japan's.

Although they account for 20% of the world's population and a major share of its natural resources, Latin America and Africa have been left out of the move to globalize trade and markets. Now, because of declining protectionism, these countries are ready to take an active role in world trade. By using the emerging Pacific Rim economies as a model, many of the less-developed countries ar e liberalizing their trade policies and privatizing their industries to create wealth.

Many large manufacturing companies are finding themselves at a cost disadvantage in markets they have dominated for years. This is because of excessive overhead structures and the emergence of the "robust" competitor, comparable in size and product scope but able to produce at a lower unit overhead cost. High-overhead companies should not cut overhead by outsourcing or downsizing. If they expect to retain their size and also become more cost competitive, they must rethink their manufacturing systems.