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Charles Hugel, the chairman of RJR Nabisco, receives a call from RJR Nabisco's CEO, Ross Johnson; Johnson plans to present an LBO plan to the board of directors at the board meeting the following week. The case details Hugel's actions as chairman, and describes the events leading up to the bidding deadline for the company. The special committee of RJR Nabisco's board must decide which of the three groups vying for the company submitted the best bid.

Peter Gordon, manager of a $1.6 billion investment in municipal securities at Price, has just received phone calls from the sales representatives of two investment banks, each offering attractive opportunities for the reinvestment of $50 million that will shortly become available. He may choose either but not both of the offers. The case can be used to review the contents of a "tombstone," to reinforce NPV and IRR concepts, to witness the inappropriateness of using IRR as a selection criterion among mutually exclusive projects, and to emphasize the reinvestment assumption of IRR.

Cummins, Epley, and Mayo, a U.S.-based construction firm, has been selected as the prime contractor for a road-reconstruction project in Saudi Arabia. Based on company cost estimates, the project provides a 15% return on costs, well below the required 18%. Because of a substantial advance payment and the specific timing of the payments, the project's IRR is 40%. This case can be used as an introduction to or a reinforcement of discounted-cash-flow techniques. It provides a dramatic portrayal of the time value of money, an opportunity for sensitivity analysis, and a possibility for using decision diagrams for structuring realistic contingencies.

Supplement for UV6120

Amore must set the fill-target for its eight-ounce macaroni and cheese pie. Unless five sample pies taken every 20 minutes average more than eight ounces, the entire 20-minute batch must be rejected. The case provides enough information to make an economic decision on the fill target. The case may be used to introduce the distribution of a sample average.

The manager of the Revenue Enhancement Department of an airline has to decide the optimal number of seats to reserve for discount customers on a particular flight. Historical data are given, as well as probability distributions of demand for both full and discount fares, in order to help make the decision. (The B case is QA-0340.)

In this B case, the initial results from a Monte Carlo simulation seem to conflict with the critical fractile result discussed earlier in the case. The manager must figure out why and then make a decision.

This case is a good introductory linear-programming case; it introduces the notion of constraint exploitation and provides practice in deciding between alternative forecasting techniques (including exponential smoothing). The case contains a decision-uncertainty structure. A production planner must determine whether or not to take a contract for future delivery of a specified product at a stated price. The decision will affect the production mix in future periods. Uncertainty surrounding the future market price of the product is crucial. In the B case (UVA-QA-0391) a second constraining resource is introduced to the decision environment.

The president of a natural-resource exploration company has to decide whether to invest in a new drilling opportunity. He already has a spreadsheet that projects the most likely scenario for the well and calculates the NPV and internal rate of return. However, six uncertainties are discussed by the president and another potential investor. He also has prepared a spreadsheet for a couple of downside scenarios--one where gas is not able to be produced after the well is drilled and a second where gas is produced but all other uncertainties are at their 1% worst possible values. A student worksheet file is available for use with this case.

This case describes the situation faced by the general manager of the A's at the end of the 1980 baseball season. The A's star pitcher, in negotiating his contract, claims that attendance was noticeably higher at games in which he was the starting pitcher. Game-by-game data for the 1980 season on home attendance and ten variables affecting attendance are given. The case is suited for use near the end of a module on regression. It can be used to (1) review the t-test for a difference in means and relate the difference to regression with a dummy variable, (2) illustrate the importance of a model-building framework, even if used to evaluate someone else's models, (3) illustrate the use of dummy variables, and (4) point out the difference between conditional and marginal inference. The supplement, QA-0313, contains the results of several regression analyses of the A's 1980 home-attendance data and may be used with the A case to facilitate analysis of the situation. (The B case is UV3698.)

The general manager of the Oakland A's professional baseball team must evaluate two salary-and-bonus plans proposed by the A's star pitcher (see UV3696). The plans call for the pitcher to receive a bonus if the next season's home attendance exceeds a specified amount. Historical data are provided on team performance (number of games won), attendance, and the general manager's preseason forecasted number of wins.

This case describes two shipping firms in the midst of a price war over the market for containerized shipping to and from a small Caribbean island. The situation is a classic duopoly. The case presents a table of contributions to both firms as a function of their prices. This table serves as a basis by which the class can explore the concepts of Nash equilibrium, price leadership, and prisoners' dilemma. See also ''Lesser Antilles Lines (B)'' and ''Lesser Antilles Lines (C).''

Involves the design and creation of a company with no formally-defined hierarchy. Describes the steps the founder takes to avoid the organizational politics he perceives as crushing the human contributions they were designed to harness. Fifteen years later, the company has achieved widespread recognition in the industry for its innovative designs, its quality products, and its highly ethical standards for business dealings. Describes the organization, the plant, and current concerns.

The special committee of the RJR Nabisco board has extended the bidding deadline for the company by 10 days. The case explains the process by which Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and the management group bid against one another for ownership of RJR Nabisco. The board of directors is left with a decision: who has submitted the best bid?

This note summarizes several major theories of leadership. It is intended to provide a quick overview of the major concepts and points rather than an in-depth understanding of the theories. It includes the Great Man theory, charismatic leadership, and the approaches of McClelland, Winter, Bennis, Burns, Fiedler, Hersey and Blanchard, Path-Goal, Mintzberg, Kotter, Maccoby, and Schein.

Describes the history and management of a startup plant that manufactures guided missile canisters for the U.S. Navy. The plant is rare in that management is minimized; most of the work is done by self-directed work teams. The decision maker is the Green River, Wyoming, FMC plant manager, who is trying to assess whether the unusual management approach at Aberdeen would suit his facility, which is larger, older, in a different industry, and unionized. Includes data on the Aberdeen plant's history, philosophy, recruiting methods, evaluation procedure, reward mechanism, career development, and information systems.

This self-assessment instrument helps students assess their current level of development and then examine their allocation of time to see whether the daily and weekly structure of time allocation is consistent with their personal definition of success. It can be used alone or with such cases as "The Life and Career of a Senior Executive Officer" (UVA-PACS-0023).

This technical note contains a scale measuring Type-A behavior patterns (Bortner, 1969), describes its impact on individuals and organizations, contains two short cases describing Type-A and Type-B individuals, and presents recommendations for modifying Type-A behavior patterns.

This note contains a modified version of Christie and Geis's (1970) Machiavellianism Scale, which measures leadership and interpersonal style based on opportunism, self-interest, and manipulation. The instrument is designed to be used in conjunction with the technical note "Machiavellianism: Understanding the Person and the Situation."

This note describes reflective, or active, listening. A list of types of responses, from directive to nondirective, is given in an appendix. The note itself summarizes major principles of reflective listening and how they can be applied. It may be used as a summary of, or introduction to, the topic.