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This book, written by Loyola University of New Orleans professor Jeffrey A. Krug and published by Business Expert Press, provides an in-depth look at the consequences of M&As for acquired top management teams. It examines M&As as a corporate growth strategy, the importance of top management teams to a firm's long-term performance, the reasons why executives depart after an acquisition, the effects of these departures on target company performance, and other key issues. Chapter 8, After the Merger, discusses why executives stay or leave after an acquisition.

This book, written by Loyola University of New Orleans professor Jeffrey A. Krug and published by Business Expert Press, provides an in-depth look at the consequences of M&As for acquired top management teams. It examines M&As as a corporate growth strategy, the importance of top management teams to a firm's long-term performance, the reasons why executives depart after an acquisition, the effects of these departures on target company performance, and other key issues. Chapter 7, Before the Merger, discusses merger motivations, executive perceptions of different merger motives, and the strategic drivers of M&As.

This book, written by Loyola University of New Orleans professor Jeffrey A. Krug and published by Business Expert Press, provides an in-depth look at the consequences of M&As for acquired top management teams. It examines M&As as a corporate growth strategy, the importance of top management teams to a firm's long-term performance, the reasons why executives depart after an acquisition, the effects of these departures on target company performance, and other key issues. Chapter 9, Conclusion, discusses strategies for managing executive turnover and building more effective top management teams following a merger or acquisition.

In the competitive South Korean credit card market, a review of the past decade of HyundaiCard's marketing strategies and evaluation of anticipated possible difficulties of being a market follower revealed several challenges for senior management. Despite a tremendously successful creative business model based on customer needs, innovative products and integration of online and offline customers, the company's performance had not progressed in the past seven years. HyundaiCard had difficulty relating its creative business model to the strong personas of the leading players in the credit card industry. How could HyundaiCard, a market follower, successfully position itself as a market leader? Could HyundaiCard's marketing strategy keep enhancing its competitive edge in the market? What future strategy would be best for HyundaiCard?

Woolf Farming Company, a privately owned family farming business in California's Central Valley, found its business threatened by a lack of water, brought on by a combination of drought, poor quality well water and unavailability of surface water due to federally imposed pumping restrictions. Woolf had been farming crops for more than 30 years, but this was the first time they suffered a water shortage so severe that crops had to be abandoned in the field. Even if there was short-term relief in the form of an increased allocation of water from the government, Woolf was concerned about water reliability and the need for additional infrastructure to provide long term water security to the region. If convinced that the water problem would be resolved, then Woolf should move quickly to purchase more land which was currently available at distressed prices. Yet some board members questioned the logic of additional investment in the region whose resources were so uncertain and wondered whether it was more prudent to pursue growth elsewhere. At the same time, some of Woolf's owners began to believe that more of the company's resources should be prioritized for dividends and other distributions as opposed to purely growth. What, if anything, could Woolf and other farmers do to influence the outcome?

In December 2006, Alcan was the second largest producer of aluminum in the world, but the industry was consolidating. The case traces the development of the aluminum industry since World War II to the recent emergence of China as an economic power and the accompanying rise in commodity prices. Alcan had to decide between two offers: to be acquired or to go it alone. The first offer was from Alcoa and the other from Rio Tinto. Alcoa was the world leader in the production of aluminum and, like Alcan, was engaged in significant technological research and development. Meanwhile, Rio Tinto was one of the largest mining companies in the world, but had minor aluminum operations and, in general, few downstream processing plants or technologies. Students are asked to identify Alcan's key resources and consider which strategy would make best use of them.

Hungary's top producer of poultry products is deciding the company's future strategy in the face of new opportunities in Central and Eastern Europe, a changing retail market in Hungary, and the possibility of increased global competition.

Facing the worldwide financial crisis, Goldman Sachs' CEO Lloyd Blankfein considered his options including whether his company could avoid a forced marriage and what steps Goldman Sachs should take to try to restore confidence in financial services companies.

Having taken steps to shore up investor confidence, during the turbulent fourth quarter of 2008, Goldman Sachs confronts the challenge of whether its business model will continue to be viable under radically altered market conditions and a new regulatory regime.

After posting its first-ever quarterly loss in 2008, Goldman Sachs surpassed market expectations for Q1 of 2009 but came under intensive fire for, among other things, announcing its intention to repay TARP thereby avoiding its compensation limitations.

In 1931, during one of the worst economic crises in US history, Du Pont announced the discovery of an innovative rubber synthetic product - neoprene. Yet at the time of the announcement, Du Pont did not have any neoprene to sell. Manufacturing facilities were still being erected and production remained at laboratory scale. Rubber synthetics had been developed in Russia, Germany and even in the United States before, but large scale production had never taken off. Would Du Pont's announcement and public disclosure of the basic science lift the barriers to commercialization? What made Du Pont so confident that it could succeed at this uncertain time?

"How do I find innovative people for my organization? And how can I become more innovative myself?" These are questions that stump most senior executives, who know that the ability to innovate is the "secret sauce" of business success. Perhaps for this reason most of us stand in awe of the work of visionary entrepreneurs such as Apple's Steve Jobs, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, eBay's Pierre Omidyar, and P&G's A.G. Lafley. How do these individuals come up with groundbreaking new ideas? In this article, Dyer, of Brigham Young University; Gregersen, of Insead; and Christensen, of Harvard Business School, reveal how innovative entrepreneurs differ from typical executives. Their study demonstrates that five "discovery skills" distinguish the most creative executives: Associating helps them discover new directions by making connections among seemingly unrelated questions, problems, or ideas. Questioning allows innovators to break out of the status quo and consider new ideas. Through observing, innovators carefully and consistently look out for small behavioral details - in the activities of customers, suppliers, and other companies - to gain insights about new ways of doing things. In experimenting, they relentlessly try on new experiences and explore the world. And through networking with diverse individuals from an array of backgrounds, they gain radically different perspectives.

A recession often forces you to cut R&D as you refocus on your core. But innovation need not go by the wayside. By placing certain assets and projects outside your walls, you can actually preserve opportunities for future growth while you shore up the fortress. Chesbrough, of Haas School of Business, and Garman, of New Venture Partners, identify five strategic moves that open the door to innovation by, ironically, letting it out of the house. Some inside-out moves permit outside firms to invest in and develop your projects; others call for spinning off projects as separate ventures that still allow you to retain some equity. Whatever the specific approach, you can meet the inherent cultural and organizational challenges of inside-out open innovation by approaching it holistically and placing it under the leadership of senior executives in strategic roles.

Large companies say they want to be innovative, but they fundamentally mismanage their talent. Expecting innovators to grow along with their projects - from discovery to incubation to acceleration - sets them up to fail. Most people excel at one of the phases, not all three. By allowing innovation employees to develop career paths suited to their strengths, companies will create a sustainable innovation function.

In this conversation with HBR senior editor Anand P. Raman, McAfee, a principal research scientist at the MIT Sloan School of Management's Center for Digital Business, explains why Enterprise 2.0 tools - wikis, tags, Twitter, Google searches, and the like - are transforming companies' innovation processes. Procter & Gamble, for instance, uses its Connect + Develop website not only to publicize what it knows and what it can do but to highlight what it needs. That's radical, says McAfee. And the communities that form around innovation challenges can help sift the ideas, so the best ones quickly rise to the top.

This technical note contains examples from other fields on the benefits of bonds of families, extended families, and communities for members of multi-generation family businesses.

This technical note is a descriptive list of factors that are present in large, successful, long-term and/or multi-generation family businesses.

As the economies of Greater China continued the process of rapid transformation and industrialization, newly industrialized countries (NICs), such as Taiwan and mainland China, experienced dramatic changes in their business settings. Accompanying the industrialization of east Asian economies, business ethics were in a state of flux, as traditional values were often swept aside to justify profit maximization. In this ever-changing business environment, what were the characteristics and benefits of Chinese business ethics? What role did they play? Could an integrity-based business practice serve as a source of competitive advantage? What business settings were supporting business ethics? Few studies have paid attention to these kinds of questions. Sinyi was one of the most successful real estate agent companies in Taiwan and mainland China. From a Confucian perspective, Sinyi's founder cultivated a people-centered culture for both its customers and employees. By applying business ethics as a central differentiating strategy, Sinyi established an excellent corporate image and was regarded by many as the role model of responsible business. Sinyi service was regarded as premier in Taiwan. Its customer satisfaction rating was also far above the industry average. Trustworthiness and fair dealing were the company's guiding principles. This was in contrast to the-then chaotic environment of the real estate industry in Taiwan, where basic trust between buyers and sellers was rare and deceit existed everywhere. Focusing on using business ethics as a central differentiating strategy, Sinyi had grown into Sinyi Group, which successfully integrated upstream, midstream and downstream industries and established a highly-acclaimed business model. Over the past two decades, Sinyi Group had expanded its operations to mainland China and forged an alliance with global real estate brokerage Coldwell Banker. The case can be used for MBA and EMBA courses in business ethics (in a module on culture and business ethics) and strategic management (in a module on strategic business ethics). This case should provoke holistic thinking and discussion on sustainable business, Confucian entrepreneurship and the relationship between business ethics and competitive advantages.

The chief executive officer (CEO) of Fortune Motors, the largest Mitsubishi dealership in Taiwan, has to consider his vision for the survival of the company. Fortune Motors' sales in 2003 had fallen below 50,000 units for the first time in 10 years, and market share had been falling for several years. The CEO had a plan to enter the business of financing used-car purchases. He thought that the balanced scorecard would be a useful tool to help him implement this change. The first step was to construct a corporate scorecard.

With many countries facing scarcity of freshwater and farmable land, Brazil decided to leverage its wealth of both resources to attract global agribusiness players to the historically poor Sao Francisco Valley (SFV) in the country's northeast. To do so, Brazil was instituting its first public-private partnership (PPP) in irrigation at Pontal, a partially built irrigation project in the SFV. In exchange for partial reimbursement from the Brazilian government and free use of 30,000 hectares land for 25 years, the private-sector partner would finish constructing the irrigation infrastructure and establish agricultural operations on the project; the partner was also required to integrate some local smallholders into the production chain. In December 2009, Codevasf was almost ready to start accepting bids for Pontal. For Clementino de Souza Coelho, director of infrastructure for Codevasf, the stakes were high: if successful at Pontal, PPPs could be replicated throughout the SFV, transforming the historically poor region into an agribusiness hub, as well as be a model for the rest of the world.