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This case is about the Sponsorship Scandal that plagued Canada's federal government in the mid-1990s. The case is told in the words of the federal government bureaucrat who blew the whistle about the corruption. The way federal civil servants dealt with the whistleblower's revelations is examined.

In most industries, quality has never mattered more--but with cycle times compressing and output gains outpacing employment growth, the likelihood of error is higher than ever before. Traditional "total quality management" tools are not enough; companies must make quality their employees' passion. Here are four actions that can achieve this.

A decade's worth of data from the S&P 500 companies shows how the rate of director turnover correlates with shareholder returns, suggesting an optimal amount of turnover--three or four board seats every three years.

It's no secret that provocative ads are risky. Benetton, for example, has faced numerous boycotts and lawsuits over its "shock advertising." But there's another reason marketers should exercise caution: Topics that are too hot often generate no buzz at all--and the threshold for "too hot" is surprisingly low.

Researchers have long known that men's economic decisions change after they're exposed to pictures of models or lingerie. A new study reveals that women's decisions are also affected by sexual cues--although not in exactly the same way.

The author was for seven years CEO of Fifth & Pacific Companies (formerly Liz Claiborne, now Kate Spade). During the transformation he led there, he and his team came to recognize what he calls the truths of transformation, one of which is that transformation is not "a shocking but short-lived moment in a company's history." To manage it instead as an era, you must sustain a vision, resist being an ideologue, prepare people to see things get worse before they get better, and take a fresh look at the people you're relying on.

In 1989 Michael C. Jensen wrote an article for HBR titled "Eclipse of the Public Corporation," in which he analyzed early leveraged buyouts and identified a new form of corporate organization, the LBO association, which he believed would eventually outperform the traditional public company. Here Martin agrees with Jensen's assessment but acknowledges that it won't come to pass for some time, primarily because LBO associations rely on the existence of a robust public market to make their model work.

Language is a reflection of culture, so the terms we use most tell us a lot about our shifting management priorities. Ngram graphs highlight how things have evolved.

On August 21, 2007, David Viniar, Chief Financial Officer of Goldman Sachs, received an e-mail from a trader in Goldman's Mortgage Department. In the e-mail, addressed also to Goldman Co-Presidents Gary Cohn and Jon Winkelreid, Joshua Birnbaum outlined a proposal for the firm to move from a net short position in subprime mortgage securities and derivatives to a net long position. Birnbaum claimed that the net long position would not only be profitable but also reduce Mortgage Department and firm-wide risk. This proposal came at a critical time for the subprime mortgage markets in the U.S. and around the world. Subprime mortgage originators such as New Century had filed for bankruptcy. Two Bear Sterns hedge funds that traded subprime mortgages had collapsed. The turmoil had also spread to global markets. Goldman Sachs, unique among New York investment banks, had anticipated the downturn in the subprime mortgage markets and had positioned itself to profit from the meltdown. Now, at a critical juncture, traders on the front lines of the subprime mortgage markets wanted to reverse Goldman's net short position and go net long. David Viniar knew that the decision to go long could not be taken lightly and would have major implications for the firm, the firm's overall levels of risk and possibly the firm's survival. Goldman's board of directors and key board members had been monitoring the firm's subprime exposure and would likely want to be consulted regarding such a consequential decision.

A school teacher has decided to open a taqueria in a small, historic New England city. He works with a faculty/student team from the local business school to prepare his business plan, but cannot provide all the necessary information and is reluctant to listen to advice. The case ends with a go/no-go decision and determination of next steps to take.

This case focuses on whether Litehouse Foods should switch its signature creamy salad dressings from glass to plastic packaging. The central figure in the case is Doug Hawkins Jr., the company's Senior Business Development Manager (Marketing lead). The company, which is one of three major players nationally in the refrigerated salad dressing market, has been selling its dressings in glass jars for 50 years, and these glass jars are considered an important element in how consumers think about the Litehouse brand. Two of Litehouse Foods' competitors have recently switched to plastic, however, and this has helped them achieve a significant price advantage over Litehouse at retail. Switching to plastic jars would save Litehouse $1.5 million/year and allow it to narrow the price advantage opened up by competitors. Doug must develop a recommendation to the company's executive committee that considers the cost savings potential of plastic against the value of the glass packaging to the brand. Complicating this decision are the environmental implications of a switch from glass to plastic, both real and perceived, as well as how a change at this time would mesh with the company's recently launched growth strategy.

Prior to the turn of the century, North Carolina was the hub of prosperous furniture manufacturing. However, competition from global manufacturers, the rise of Internet retailers, and the turbulent U.S. economy created significant challenges and changes for the industry. Many U.S.-based firms exited the industry due to global competition and poor financial performance. Robert Drake, owner of North Carolina-based Southern Chair Company, recognized the need for a new Strategic Plan; a plan to guide his company both through and beyond the challenging times. He remained committed to the long-term health of his manufacturing firm and hoped that his company would not join the ranks of his former, now defunct, competitors. In this case, the reader steps into the shoes of Robert Drake to create a strategic plan for Southern Chair Company while considering trends in external environments, key components of the business, and Robert's personal goals for the company.

Technology Plus was a Virginia IT firm, servicing information technology systems for businesses and government. The firm had grown through acquisition, expanding its technology solution capabilities, areas of expertise, vendor relationships and client bases. In early 2010, the firm was at a crossroads - how far and how fast to expand, how to incorporate prior acquisitions into current operations, and how to obtain financing for continued high growth, whether organic (financed through current earnings), or through additional acquisitions. Decisions about the future of the firm were complicated because the three owners were unable to agree. CEO Ethan Brennan wanted to continue to grow the firm, but was hampered by the inability of his partners to agree on future financing. Founder Gary Hesse was unwilling to put his personal assets at greater risk and vetoed any risky expansions that might require additional collateral. Ethan found his position frustrating enough to consider bankruptcy, selling his portion of the firm, or selling the entire firm.

Since the 1970s, the authors have conducted six customer satisfaction surveys patterned after a baseline survey by the U.S. Office of Consumer Affairs. Their latest survey found that: •The explosion of online social networking and other communication tools has raised the stakes in the area of customer satisfaction. •The intensity of negative reactions seems to be increasing. •In addressing complaints, companies are failing in their efforts to create one-stop services with technology and people dedicated to resolving customer problems. So, what can companies do to improve the level of customer satisfaction? The authors identify five areas of focus. 1. Encourage unhappy customers to complain, but be prepared to resolve the complaints. Today'unhappy customers expect businesses to handle customer service flawlessly (even if it is outsourced to a third party). 2. Understand what results your investments in customer service will produce. Since the 1970s, companies have invested billions of dollars in upgraded corporate complaint-handling practices. Only 20% of recent complainants were "completely satisfied"with the results of their complaint (compared to 23% in 1976). 3. Recognize that technology has limits -and that some customers want to interact directly with a person. Only 6% of today's complainants consider the Internet their primary channel for complaining. The authors say that online communication channels might be utilized more effectively to steer customers to live complaint handlers rather than pursuing totally automated solutions. 4. Be aware that customers may be even more influenced by positive online word of mouth than by negative word of mouth. By a margin of 46% to 19%, prospective buyers cited positive posts more often than negative comments as being most influential on their future purchases.

Is customer satisfaction worth the cost? To find out, the authors investigated the relationship between customer satisfaction and business outcomes, gathering data from more than 100,000 consumers covering more than 300 brands. Although high customer satisfaction ratings are typically treated by managers as being universally good for business, the authors'findings indicate that the benefits are not nearly so clear-cut. There is a downside to continuously devoting resources to raise customer satisfaction levels. Managers are rarely able to accurately quantify the cost associated with increasing customer satisfaction scores (for example, from 8.7 to 9.1 on a 10-point scale), nor are they able to determine precisely what such an increase is actually worth. It turns out the return on these investments is often trivial or even negative. Knowing a customer's satisfaction level tells you little about how he or she will divide his or her spending among the different brands used. As a result, changes in customer satisfaction levels are unlikely to have a meaningful impact on the share of category spending customers allocate with your brand. Why? Single-brand loyalty, which was common in our parents'and grandparents'generations, has been replaced with loyalty to multiple brands in a category in many sectors. Because of this divided loyalty, more customers partially defect (in other words, they give more of their business to a competitor) than completely defect from a business or brand. As a result, improving customers'share of spending with your brand tends to represent a far greater opportunity than efforts to improve customer retention. kThe measure that really matters, according to the authors, isn't your percentage of delighted customers or promoters. What matters is the relative "rank"that your brand's satisfaction level represents vis-àvis your competitors.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Executives typically think about productivity as something to be maximized. In service businesses, that means that companies often devote a lot of attention to designing automated processes that reduce their need for people -typically their most expensive resource. But in service businesses, increased productivity does not always lead to increased profitability. The authors analyzed data from more than 700 U.S. companies in service industries in 2002 and 2007. Their analysis suggested that, for a given level of technology, there is an inverted U relationship between productivity and profitability in service companies. In other words, service companies become less profitable if they are either too productive or not productive enough. However, because technology advances over time, the optimal productivity level increases over time. The authors found that several factors cause the optimal productivity level to be higher or lower. The optimal productivity level is not set in stone. As technology advances, the optimal productivity level increases. Online travel reservation systems offer an example. Advances in online technology enabled online travel service Expedia Inc. to increase its productivity by 15% from 2005 to 2010, with no damage to customer satisfaction. The authors argue that productivity in a service business should be treated as a strategic decision variable that depends on the business and the technology in question. One key question is the relative importance of customer satisfaction to the business model. When circumstances encourage the provision of better service quality (comparatively high profit margin, high price, low market concentration and low wages), companies should emphasize customer satisfaction more; when the opposite factors are present (high market concentration, high wages, low margin and low price), they can stress service productivity.

The authors' research suggests that understanding the underlying dynamics of project status reporting can help limit the chances of nasty surprises. In particular, they identify five "inconvenient truths" about project status reporting: 1. Executives can't rely on project staff and other employees to accurately report project status information and to speak up when they see problems. Many employees have a tendency to put a positive spin on anything they report to senior management. When the organizational climate is not receptive to bad news, truthful reporting can be inhibited 2. A variety of reasons can cause people to misreport about project status. Executives tend to attribute misreporting to poor ethical behavior on the employee's part. In fact, employees misreport for a variety of reasons; individual traits, work climate and cultural norms all can play a role. 3. An aggressive audit team can't counter the effects of project status misreporting and withholding of information by project staff. Executives may conclude that the best way to address the problem of misreporting is to rely on auditors to make sure that project status reports are accurate. However, once auditors are added to the mix, negative organizational dynamics can lead to a dysfunctional cycle that results in even less openness. 4. Putting a senior executive in charge of a project may increase misreporting. Although having a senior executive as a project sponsor often proves wise politically and can help in securing resources for a project, the involvement of senior leaders does not make it any easier to track project status.

The authors note that companies want to protect their supply chains from serious and costly disruptions, but the most obvious solutions -increasing inventory, adding capacity at different locations and having multiple suppliers -undermine supply chain cost efficiency. Surveys have shown that while managers appreciate the impact of supply chain disruptions, they have done very little to prevent such incidents or mitigate their impacts. The authors argue that supply chain efficiency, which is directed at improving financial performance, is different from supply chain resilience, in which the goal is risk reduction. Although both require dealing with risks, recurrent risks (such as demand fluctuations) require companies to focus on efficiency in improving the way they match supply and demand, while disruptive risks require companies to build resilience despite additional cost. Recently, managers have become much better at managing global supply chains through improved planning and execution and building operational reserves such as production capacity and inventory. However, the authors argue that reliance on sole-source suppliers, common parts and centralized inventories has left companies vulnerable to disruptive risks. Although sourcing from or outsourcing to distant low-cost locations and eliminating excess capacity and redundant suppliers can make supply chains more cost-efficient, they also make supply chains more vulnerable. How should managers reduce their supply chain's exposure to disruptive risks without giving up hard-earned gains in performance from improved supply chain efficiency?

MIT Sloan Management Review and Deloitte have been exploring the impact of social media on business over the past three years through surveys, data analysis and interviews with executives and academics. The latest survey explored whether companies are deriving value from their social business initiatives. Sixty-two percent of managers surveyed report that their organization's social business initiatives are at least somewhat successful at meeting their stated business objectives, while 63% of respondents report that social business has positively affected business outcomes at their company. Fifty-nine percent of respondents in multinational companies report that social business helps them operate across geographies. Perhaps equally compelling is the extent to which individual employees indicate the value of social business to their daily work. Fifty-seven percent of respondents say that it is at least somewhat important for them to work for companies with mature social business practices, while 46% of respondents say that social business is at least somewhat important for decision making in their day-to-day role. A key factor in whether companies are able to derive positive benefits from social business is social business maturity. The researchers asked survey respondents to envision a company with ideal social business practices and then to assess how close their company was to that ideal. The higher a respondent rates his or her company, the more likely they are to report that the company is deriving business value from its social business initiatives. For example, 92% of respondents from the companies with the most mature social business practices say that social business helps them operate across geographies.