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Innumerable business experts urge executives of growing companies to help themselves and their organizations by delegating responsibility. However well meaning, the dispensers of such advice usually underestimate the difficulty entrepreneurs have in giving up their cherished roles. Entrepreneurs pride themselves on their skills and talents and thrive on being in all places at once. But as their organizations expand, they can better spend their time coaching and planning rather than doing. Otherwise, their staffs can never mature, and they themselves won't have time to chart the company's future.

The success of a business depends on its ability to sustain its competitive advantage over time. Product innovation, production processes, and marketing are areas in which intense competitive pressure has multiplied with the increase in domestic and international competition. Analyses of companies identified as outstanding performers in their industries sought to understand the sources of their competitive advantage, to determine why the advantages proved sustainable, and to assess their future security.

Before managers can take meaningful steps to boost factory performance, they need an accurate way to judge what good performance is and to compare performance among facilities. The measurement systems in place at many factories fail to tell managers what they really need to know. To clarify the variables that affect productivity, 12 factories in 3 companies were studied over time. A new measuring system called total factor productivity (TFP) was devised to gauge each plant's overall efficiency. Then, the managerial practices that, when done right, make a difference were identified: investing in new equipment, reducing waste, and cutting work-in-process inventories by solving the problems that produced them in the first place.

Facilitates a discussion of the sources of Wal-Mart Stores' competitive advantage in discount retailing, and the future sustainability of that advantage. Also profiles the company's major diversification move in the early 1980s.

Spreadsheet Supplement for case 387-019.

Following his successful turnaround of WTXX, Waterbury, Mike Finkelstein joined Odyssey Partners with a mandate to build a communications company. From 1982-1985, he acquired three more stations, financing each as an independent partnership. However, increasing competition has caused some of his stations to experience cash shortfalls. Finkelstein must decide whether to sell the stations, hold and finance them out of Odyssey Partners capital, or incorporate them into a single company with a new financial structure based on zero coupon bonds.

Lotus 1-2-3 exploded on the American market in the spring of 1983. Nine months later Jim Manzi, vice president of marketing, hired Chuck Digate to develop an international strategy for Lotus. Case explores Lotus' rapid rise to the top of the software market in the United States and looks at the considerations surrounding its initial efforts to sell abroad. Can be taught with Note on Comparative Advantage.

At the end of the budget cycle, the manager must test whether plans are feasible given financing arrangements and constraints. Cash needs are great due to seasonality. Needed loans must be calculated at five separate dates, and financial position projected. This is a rewritten version of Hanson Industries (B) and (C).

Describes the efforts of the Timken Co., a major international producer of bearings and steel, to develop an effective employee communication program. The case examines the intense international competitive atmosphere, the recent record of job losses in related industries, Timken's extensive reorganization efforts, and the company's labor relations history insofar as these bear on the effort to formulate internal communications policy. Encourages students to analyze the essential elements of a communications decision: scope, structure, audience, goals, message, and media.

Joan Macey, Rohm and Haas' market manager for Metalworking Fluid Biocides, found that sales of a new biocide, Kathon MWX, was utterly disappointing. This was all the more puzzling since sales of her other product--Kathon 886 MW, a liquid biocide used only in large-capacity tanks--was well on target and held a steady 30% market share. In May 1984, about five months after the new product was launched, Joan Macey was reviewing her entire marketing strategy with a view to bringing Kathon MWX sales closer to target. Of particular concern to her were the distribution and communication strategies used for the new product.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 587-055.

Discusses David Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage and the refinement of his model developed by Eli Heckscher and Bertil Ohlin. Presents several criticisms of the Heckscher-Ohlin theory, including Wassily Leontief's empirical demonstration that the nature of U.S. imports and exports were exactly contrary to the predictions of the theory.

A recent MBA graduate has reached tentative agreement for an LBO of a forms-printing business with $43 million sales. At the eleventh hour, however, the seller has demanded that the buyer personally guarantee $4 million of accounts payable.

Spreadsheet Supplement for case 286109

Helps casewriters and their supervisors to understand the basics of developing cases for classroom use.

Mason Instruments has become a second source for the electronics guidance system for a Navy missile. The case decision involves bidding in the third-round competition.

Provides additional data concerning the bid.

Part of a series on a bidding situation involving missile guidance systems.

When abroad, managers often don't know what to do about "requests" for funds or gifts. Walking out on the deal could ruin business relations. Paying up may mean violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act as well as personal moral standards. Understanding the importance of gifts in some societies may help U.S. executives find ways to satisfy both the foreign request and U.S. standards. They can, for example, make an equivalent, public donation to a social project in the requester's country; offer services to local causes in lieu of private payments; offer to create local jobs.

How can usually honest, intelligent, compassionate human beings act in ways that are callous, duplicitous, dishonest, and wrongheaded? Unethical behavior is found everywhere, and ambitious managers facing murky borderlands between right and wrong sometimes cross over the line. Their decisions ruin people's lives, destroy institutions, and give business as a whole a bad name. But executives can establish effective guidelines to ensure their corporations' survival. There are practical solutions to the rationalizations that give way to unethical behavior.