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The largest hospital system in Wisconsin is trying to respond to new threats from nontraditional care providers. This case presents the hospital's dilemma as it tries to create change from within.

Polycom is a rapidly growing maker of video conferencing and teleconferencing equipment. Management is attempting to use "natural work groups" as an organizing mechanism, and to build into the culture implicit rules that will cause desired behaviors to be self-policing.

Many general managers face this predicament at one time or another: if I don't deliver the numbers, senior management won't invest in our growth. But what it takes to deliver the desired numbers may include layoffs and other undesirable solutions. Is it better to back off the short-term solutions and weather the revenue losses, or will cutting back in the short term actually help to deliver the long-term results? Looks at one general manager's struggle with these issues.

Supplements the (A) case.

Presents a synopsis of High Flyers, by Morgan McCall. Offers a method for identifying and training managers with potential--to build management bench strength.

Links two very useful pieces of management research--resource allocation processes as studied by Bowen and Burgelman and the aggregate project plan expounded by Wheelwright and Clark.

It's no secret that health care delivery is convoluted, expensive, and often deeply dissatisfying to consumers. But what is less obvious is that a way out of this crisis exists. Just as the PC replaced the mainframe and the telephone replaced the telegraph operator, disruptive innovations are changing the landscape of health care. Nurse practitioners, general practitioners, and even patients can do things in less-expensive, decentralized settings that could once be performed only by expensive specialists in centralized, inconvenient locations. But established institutions are fighting these innovations tooth and nail. Not only is this at the root of consumer dissatisfaction with the present system, it sows the seeds of its own destruction. The history of disruptive innovations tells us that incumbent institutions will be replaced with ones whose business models are appropriate to the new technologies and markets. Instead of working to preserve the existing systems, regulators, physicians, and pharmaceutical companies need to ask how they can enable more disruptive innovations to emerge. If the natural process of disruption is allowed to proceed, the result will be higher quality, lower cost, more convenient health care for everyone.

Margaret McLaughlin has just begun her new appointment as the Dean of Health Professions at the College of St. Catherine in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota. As an education leader, her charge is to develop Minnesota's health care workforce for the future. She is approached by members of her nursing faculty, who want her to consider launching their very own nurse-practitioner-run clinic. Typically, clinics have been run and directed by physicians. The faculty have suggested four options for the kind of clinic they might run, and McLaughlin must advise them on a course of action. Teaching Purpose: Students will select the kind of nurse practitioner clinic that would be most appropriate for the College of St. Catherine. The analysis will begin by examining the context in which the college is operating and discuss the major criteria that need to be used in making this decision. They will consider the move "up-market" for nurse practitioners' over time, as they have taken on more responsibilities similar in nature to those of a physician. Specifically, students will discuss how nurse practitioners' work has changed over time and the regulations, technological innovations, patient needs, and infrastructure developments that have encouraged this change. Finally, students will debate whether it would make sense to launch their own clinic. They will choose among four options for how the clinic might look, whom it would serve, and how it would be organized.

Supplements the case.

Supplements the case.

A Lockheed Martin manager is faced with the decision of where to focus the organization's resources in order to develop a world-class employee development system. The manager's recommendation will serve as the basis for the company's goal of becoming an Employer of Choice in the minds of its current and prospective employees. Compounding the difficulty of his decision is the pressure from the current financial, operational, and cultural challenges facing the business. With the defense industry becoming more cost competitive and contracts being awarded to non-traditional defense industry suppliers, Lockheed Martin is faced with a need to reduce its cost structure while developing employee talent and future leaders who can adapt quickly to change and effectively lead in this new environment.

Why didn't a single minicomputer company succeed in the personal computer business? Why did only one department store--Dayton Hudson--become a leader in discount retailing? Why can't large companies capitalize on the opportunities brought about by major, disruptive changes in their markets? It's because organizations, independent of the people in them, have capabilities. And those capabilities also define disabilities. As a company grows, what it can and cannot do becomes more sharply defined in certain predictable ways. The authors have analyzed those patterns to create a framework managers can use to assess the abilities and disabilities of their organization as a whole. When a company is young, its resources--its people, equipment, technologies, cash, brands, suppliers, and the like--define what it can and cannot do. As it becomes more mature, its abilities stem more from its processes--product development, manufacturing, budgeting, for example. In the largest companies, values--particularly those that determine what are its acceptable gross margins and how big an opportunity has to be before it becomes interesting--define what the company can and cannot do. Because resources are more adaptable to change than processes or values, smaller companies tend to respond to major market shifts better than larger ones. The authors suggest ways large companies can capitalize on opportunities that normally would not fit in with their processes or values; it all starts with understanding what the organizations are capable of.

As we enter the twenty-first century, the business world is consumed by questions about e-commerce. In this article, four close observers of e-commerce speculate about the future of commerce. Adrian Slywotzky believes the Internet will overturn the inefficient push model of supplier-customer interaction. He predicts that in all sorts of markets, customers will use choiceboards--interactive, on-line systems that let people design their own products by choosing from a menu of attributes, prices, and delivery options. And he explores how the shifting role of the customer--from passive recipient to active designer--will change the way companies compete. Clayton Christensen and Richard Tedlow agree that e-commerce, on a broad level, will change the basis of competitive advantage in retailing. The essential mission of retailers--getting the right product in the right place at the right price at the right time--is a constant. But over the years retailers have fulfilled that mission differently thanks to a series of disruptive technologies. The authors identify patterns in the way that previous retailing transformations have unfolded to shed light on how retailing may evolve in the Internet era. Nicholas Carr takes issue with the widespread notion that the Internet will usher in an era of "disintermediation," in which producers of goods and services bypass wholesalers and retailers to connect directly with their customers. Business is undergoing precisely the opposite phenomenon--what he calls hypermediation. Transactions over the Web routinely involve all sorts of intermediaries. It is these middlemen that are positioned to capture most of the profits.

Presents a theory about the tools a manager can use to get people to agree on a coordinated course of action and effect change in his or her organization. The extent to which people in the organization agree on the way the world works, and agree on what they want, determines which tools will be most effective.

Examines John Sculley's management approach toward transforming Apple Computer during the personal computer industry crisis in 1992. Focuses on Sculley's management style, his creation of a new management team, and his efforts to create a professional management system inside Apple.

Strategy definition is not a short, discrete process. Rather, outside influences (market, political, technological, etc.) and the company's own resource allocation process continually reshape an organization's strategy.

Describes a methodology for identifying markets for new technologies and for defining the highest value attributes of new products or services. It helps innovators escape the trap of incremental improvements to established product concepts by asking a straightforward question: What job did my customer expect this product to do for him or her?

Presents a model or theory about the competence or capability of organizations. Written to help managers be more precise about what the capabilities and disabilities of an organization are, and to be able to put their finger precisely on the place in the organization where capabilities and disabilities reside.

Describes managing the threat of disruptive technology at the high end of the computer industry. Many aspects of the innovator's dilemma can be explored.

A synopsis of the writings of Edgar Schein, Modesto Maidique, and B.J. Zirger on what organizational culture is, where it comes from, how it can be changed, and how it inhibits change.