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In September 2003, Jeff Immelt challenged the business leaders at GE to come up with "Imagination Breakthroughs," innovative new projects that would serve as the centerpiece of GE's organic growth initiative. Follows the company as these changes are driven through the business units, focusing on GE Transportation as it launches a series of groundbreaking, green products--from the Evolution Locomotive to the Hybrid Locomotive. The growth process transforms the culture within GE Transportation, leading to a redefinition of the marketing role, the implementation of a "growth leader" profile and new decision-making processes to encourage innovation and risk. Finally, presents a critical decision point, as Transportation executives must decide whether or not to support the high-risk Hybrid Locomotive project.

GE believes its ability to develop management talent is a core competency that represents a source of sustainable competitive advantage. Traces the development of a 25-year-old MBA named Jeff Immelt, who 18 years later is named as CEO of GE, arguably the biggest and most complex corporate leadership job in the world, and how he frames and implements his priorities for GE. Describes the processes that guided Immelt's own developments and the strategic changes Immelt adopts in his first year as CEO, when he pulls hard on the sophisticated human resource levers his predecessors left him. Immelt questions whether the changes in place will foster the development of the next generation of GE growth leaders.

Traces the history of IKEA's response to a TV report that its Indian carpet suppliers were using child labor. Describes IKEA's growth, including the importance of a sourcing strategy based on its close relationships with suppliers in developing countries. Details the development of IKEA's strong culture and values that include a commitment "to create a better everyday life for many people." Describes how, in response to regulatory and public pressure, IKEA developed a set of environmental policies that grew to encompass a relationship with Greenpeace and WWF on forest management and conservation. Then, in 1994, Marianne Barner, a newly appointed IKEA product manager, is surprised by a Swedish television documentary on the use of child labor by Indian carpet suppliers, including some that supply IKEA's rugs. She immediately implements a strict policy that provides for contract cancellation if any IKEA supplier uses child labor. Then Barner is confronted by a German TV producer who advises her that he is about to broadcast an investigative program documenting the use of child labor in one of the company's major suppliers. How should she react to the crisis? How should the company deal with the ongoing issue of child labor in the supply chain?

An abstract is not available for this product.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 906-414.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 306-087.

Follows the actions of GE CEO, Jeff Immelt, as he implements a growth strategy for the $150 billion company in a tough business environment. In four years, he reinvigorates GE's technology, expands its services, develops a commercial focus, pushes developing countries, and backs "unstoppable trends" to realign GE's business portfolio around growth platforms. At the same time, he reorganizes the company, promotes "growth leaders" into top roles, and reorients the culture around innovation and risk taking. Finally, in 2006, he sees signs of growth, but wonders whether it is sustainable.

After 25 years of building a network of interdependent, national organizations delivering relief and development that are responsive to local needs, World Vision's International office is planning to implement a major global HIV/AIDS initiative that challenges the strategic direction, organizational capabilities, and even underlying values of its carefully constructed world partnership. Not only does the new AIDS initiative require much more central direction than is customary in this global partnership of World Vision organizations, each with its own independent board of directors, but it also is acknowledged to have little support among World Vision's donor base and even its internal organization. Involves a trigger decision about whether and how to proceed.

On the basis of its innovative medical device for treating sleep apnea, CEO Peter Farrell has made Australian-born ResMed a successful global company. But the company is struggling to implement a strategy to expand the device from its focused core market to a much broader market for sufferers of stroke and congestive heart failure-an approach that involves an entirely different business model to sell modified products through new channels. This challenge is exacerbated by an organization in which the key R&D and manufacturing resources are located in Australia while the major markets are in the United States and Europe. At the conclusion of the case, Farrell must decide what action to take on several fronts. Strategically, he must decide whether to continue pursuing this five-year-old market expansion initiative; organizationally, he must decide whether the locus of initiative should be moved from Australia to Germany, the most promising market for the stroke and CHF application; and managerially, he must decide how to deal with the management team that has struggled with this new initiative for so long.

Spreadsheet supplement to case 304049.

GE believes its ability to develop management talent is a core competency that represents a source of sustainable competitive advantage. This case traces the development of GE's rich system of human resource policies and practices under five CEOs in the post-war era, showing how the development of talent is embedded into the company's ongoing management responsibilities. It describes the development of a 25-year-old MBA named Jeff Immelt, who 18 years later is named as CEO of GE, arguably the biggest and most complex corporate leadership job in the world and how he frames his priorities for GE and implements them, pulling hard on the sophisticated human resource levers his predecessors left him. Immelt questions whether he should adjust or even overhaul three elements of GE's finely tuned talent machine.

Driven by ideology, religion, and mistrust, the world seems more fragmented than at any time since, arguably, World War II. But however deep the political divisions, business operations continue to span the globe, and executives still have to figure out how to run them efficiently and well. In "What Is a Global Manager?" (first published in September/October 1992), business professors Christopher Bartlett and Sumantra Ghoshal lay out a model for a management structure that balances the local, regional, and global demands placed on companies operating across the world's many borders. In the volatile world of transnational corporations, there is no such thing as a "universal" global manager, the authors say. Rather, there are three groups of specialists: business managers, country managers, and functional managers. And there are the top executives at corporate headquarters who manage the complex interactions between the three--and can identify and develop the talented executives that a successful transnational requires. This kind of organizational structure characterizes a transnational rather than an old-line multinational, international, or global company. Transnationals integrate assets, resources, and diverse people in operating units around the world. Through a flexible management process, in which business, country, and functional managers form a triad of different perspectives that balance one another, transnational companies can build three strategic capabilities: global-scale efficiency and competitiveness; national-level responsiveness and flexibility; and cross-market capacity to leverage learning on a worldwide basis. Through a close look at the successful careers of Leif Johansson of Electrolux, Howard Gottlieb of NEC, and Wahib Zaki of Procter & Gamble, the authors illustrate the skills that each managerial specialist requires.

Supplements the (A) case.

Neal Keny-Guyer, CEO of Mercy Corps International, built his organization by following the advice of Theodore Roosevelt: "Be smart enough to hire good people and have sense enough to get out of their way." For eight years, Keny-Guyer helped Mercy Corps grow in size and scope and by 2001, delivered $117 million in social programs to people in over 30 countries. Convinced that much of that success had come from empowering front-line managers to lead the agency by pursuing opportunities in the field, he wanted to continue the approach. But, recent experiences in Afghanistan had exposed some weaknesses in Mercy Corps' ability to maintain an entrepreneurial approach in an emergency situation. What had worked so well in an organization of 200 was encountering difficulties now that worldwide staff exceeded 2,000. At a global leadership conference in late October 2002, Keny-Guyer met with his senior leadership team. In addition to wrestling with the political complexities of working in Iraq, he wanted to get their input on how Mercy Corps should respond if they decided it was the right course of action.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 303003.

Traces changes in P&G's international strategy and structure, culminating in Organization 2005, a reorganization that places strategic emphasis on product innovation rather than geographic expansion and shifts power from local subsidiary to global business management. In the context of these changes introduced by Durk Jager, P&G's new CEO, Paolo de Cesare is transferred to Japan, where he takes over the recently turned-around beauty care business. Within the familiar Max Factor portfolio he inherits is SK-II, a fast-growing, highly profitable skin care product developed in Japan. Priced at over $100 a bottle, this is not a typical P&G product, but its successful introduction in Taiwan and Hong Kong has de Cesare thinking the brand has global potential. As the case closes, he is questioning whether he should take a proposal to the beauty care global business unit to expand into Mainland China and/or Europe.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 303-086.

A young Italian MBA working for a Swiss multinational is sent to India to establish a subsidiary and implement the strategy he prepared at headquarters as a strategic planner. This case focuses on three core strategic decisions he must make as his plan is challenged by his local Indian management team and Schindler's European plants supplying him. A rewritten version of an earlier case.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Forget capital; it's relatively easy to obtain nowadays. Today's scarce, sought-after strategic resource is expertise, which comes in the form of employees. Although organizations have changed mightily from the days of hierarchical, top-down management, they still have a long way to go. In addition to issues of company structure and who should be involved in strategic decision making, there are questions of how the value that companies create should be distributed, now that employees, as well as shareholders, control a scarce resource. And then there are the intangible yet crucial changes that must occur in senior managers' ways of thinking--and in the atmosphere and culture of the company. Reorienting old-school senior managers away from capital and toward knowledgeable employees will be difficult, but Christopher Bartlett of Harvard Business School and Sumantra Ghoshal of London Business School have several recommendations for human resources professionals, who, Bartlett and Ghoshal maintain, will be key players in the design, development, and delivery of strategy. Their task is threefold: build up the company by acquiring and retaining highly skilled employees; find a way to embed individual-based knowledge in the company, making it accessible and useful not just to one unit or one function, but to the entire organization--that is the linking task; and create an engaging, motivating, and bonding culture to attract and keep talented employees--the bonding task.