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Jan Eriksson is the country manager of the Novartis AG joint venture in Indonesia. At the time of the case, Novartis is the world's largest pharmaceutical company. The case describes the steps Eriksson took to merge the Indonesian operations of Novartis' parents, Ciba-Geigy and Sandoz, and to build a new organization during the 1997--1998 Asian financial crisis. Focuses on the impact of the financial crisis on Eriksson's business and details the two operating plans that he has presented to Novartis management in response to the crisis. The case is set in January and February 1998.

The new president of Black & Decker-Eastern Hemisphere, is convinced that he needs to significantly increase the number and quality of managers in the region. One tool available to him is the US-designed Appraisal Development Plan (ADP). After weighing the options, he decided to move forward full speed on the introduction of the ADP, despite concerns over huge cultural hurdles. Shortly thereafter the Manager of Human Resources resigned to take a promotion with a Japanese consumer electronics company in Singapore. Utilizing a senior Human Resource professional transferred from the head office, ADP is implemented. One year later, it was clear that the Management Advisory Committee still faced the challenge of developing the next generation of leaders in the Eastern hemisphere.

A set of firms exists whose output consists solely of innovative solutions to novel problems, and whose long-term success depends on their ability to continuously innovate. These firms act as knowledge brokers, spanning multiple industries to innovate by transferring knowledge from where it is known to where it is not. They are often consultants to clients in a range of markets, but are also groups within a large organization that serve a range of otherwise independent divisions. Rather than producing breakthroughs in any one technology or dominating any one industry, knowledge brokers rely on an alternative but equally powerful strategy that lends itself to continuous innovation. These firms create new products and processes by combining existing technologies in ways that result in dramatic synergy. This article presents a theory of innovation through knowledge brokering that explains the actions and advantages of such firms, and it considers the lessons these firms can offer to others seeking to innovate.

One of the most effective avenues toward improvement is the process of internal benchmarking--identifying, sharing, and using the knowledge and "best practices" inside one's organization. But the process can be tricky and time consuming because of obstacles such as ignorance about resources or others' needs, a culture that values personal expertise more than knowledge sharing, and a lack of resources for implementation of best practices. This article explores how organizations conduct successful internal benchmarking, relating details ranging from requirements for successful transfer to lessons learned.

Since its creation in 1964, executive search firm Egon Zehnder International (EZI) marketed its consultants as "generalists." As searches became more global and industry-specific in the 1990s, CEO Daniel Meiland decided the firm needed to offer specialized services. By 1995, industry-specific practice groups were incorporated into EZI's organizational structure. The case examines how practice groups might affect EZI's ability to maintain its "one firm" egalitarian philosophy. A rewritten version of an earlier case.

The president of Bristol Compressors, Asia-Pacific, chaired a meeting of his top management team to discuss the company's ongoing management challenges in the region. The Hong Kong-based team, known as the management committee, was made up of the president and seven other senior functional managers. Despite attractive markets in the region, Bristol Compressors' growth in Asia-Pacific had not met expectations. Some individuals attributed this to a slow entry strategy, weaker markets than anticipated in the region, unexpectedly fierce competition and ineffective strategy and execution. However, over the last two years a consensus was emerging among committee members that there was a lack of management depth that was contributing to poor performance. Although everyone was convinced that something had to be done, a specific plan of action had not yet been developed. The president charged the committee members to come up with a set of recommendations to increase significantly management bench strength in the region. This case focuses on the challenges of building a high performance organization in a short period of time in Asia.

Samina Quraeshi, principal of Boston-based Shepard Quraeshi Associates, must decide whether to take legal action against her key employees after they leave her firm to start their own, taking with them key clients and data. Quraeshi sees the situation as reflecting cultural tension between Eastern and Western ways of doing business. This case details Quraeshi's cultural journey from her Muslim past in Pakistan to her life in the United States, including service as the director of the Design-Arts Program for the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts.

Supplements the (A) case.

Zhang Ruimin, founder and CEO of China's Haier Group, must decide whether to acquire Red Star Electric Appliance Co., an insolvent local manufacturer of washing machines. Although Haier, slated to become one of China's first global brand names, has successfully turned around other failing enterprises by infusing its distinctive culture and management style, it is not clear whether that approach will work at Red Star. Both Haier and Red Star are "collective enterprises."

Describes the decision made in response to the (A) case as well as subsequent developments.

This case describes the first four years of John Swift's tenure as Britain's Rail Regulator and the issues he faced in the fall of 1997. The post of Rail Regulator had been created by the Railway Act of 1993, as part of a plan to break up and privatize the national railway, British Rail, into approximately 70 companies; these included one infrastructure company, 25 passenger train operating companies (TOCs), seven freight TOCs, and over a dozen rolling stock and maintenance companies. The Regulator's primary job was to review the access charges and agreements between the monopoly infrastructure company, Railtrack, and the TOCs. In the fall of 1997, the Regulator was trying to get Railtrack to live up to some investment promises that it had made during its first access charge review and was preparing for the next access charge review. In addition, the Labor Party had won control of Parliament in the May 1997 elections, ending 18 consecutive years of Conservative Party rule, and the Regulator was trying to establish a working relationship with the new Labor government. The case is intended to support a discussion of the analytical challenges and political pressures facing a regulator of a newly privatized industry. The instructor may focus the class discussion on the difficulties that the regulator faces in determining the appropriate access charges, including strategies for gathering the information he needs. Alternatively, the instructor can focus on the extent to which the regulator is insulated from politics in practice, and what his political strategy should be. HKS Case Number 1533.3

Ellen Moore, a systems consultant, was sent to Korea to manage a project involving a team of North American and Korean consultants representing a joint venture between a major Korean conglomerate and a significant North American information technology company. The Americans were to be involved for the first seven months in order to transfer expertise and knowledge to the South Koreans, who had little experience in this area. Ellen's superior had played an integral part in securing the contract in Korea due to his depth of knowledge on the subject. He chose Ellen to be the key North American project manager because she had significant project management skills and impressive international experience. Upon Ellen's arrival, she discovered that the Korean consultants were far less skilled than she had expected. In addition, Ellen had understood that she and the Korean manager were to be co-managers, but immediately tensions arose regarding who was giving direction to the team, and the scope of the project. Tensions escalated until it was clear that the project was behind schedule and the Koreans were not taking direction from Ellen. The Koreans insisted that Ellen was the problem. Ellen’s superior disagreed; he and Ellen needed to decide how to proceed. The challenge was to balance strategic goals with individual action.

The new president of Black & Decker-Eastern Hemisphere, attempts to introduce a new performance appraisal and management development system. Black & Decker is a relatively weak player in the Eastern Hemisphere and the president is convinced that he needs to significantly increase the number and quality of managers in the region. To assist in the development process, the president is considering introducing a US-designed Appraisal Development Plan (ADP) in the region. ADP uses 360 degree feedback from peers, subordinates, and supervisors to assist employees in building managerial skills and in increasing personal accountability. Despite a successful track record for ADP in Black & Decker North America, members of the top management team are concerned that ADP will be a failure in the Eastern Hemisphere. They argue that the system faces huge barriers due to organizational cultural issues related to staffing, systems leadership and structure. The president is flirting with disaster if he proceeds.

Most companies change in reaction to events such as moves by the competition, shifts in technology, or new customer demands. In fairly stable markets, "event pacing" is an effective way to deal with change. But successful companies in rapidly changing, intensely competitive industries take a different approach. They change proactively, through regular deadlines. Kathy Eisenhardt of Stanford and Shona Brown of McKinsey have studied this alternative approach, which they call time pacing. Like a metronome, time pacing creates a rhythm to which managers can synchronize the speed and intensity of their efforts. For example, 3M dictates that 25% of its revenues every year will come from new products, Netscape introduces a new product about every six months, and Intel adds a new fabrication facility to its operations approximately every nine months. Time pacing creates a relentless sense of urgency around meeting deadlines and concentrates people on a common set of goals. Its predictability also provides people with a sense of control in otherwise chaotic markets. The authors show how companies such as Banc One, Cisco Systems, Dell Computer, Emerson Electric, Gillette, Intel, Netscape, Shiseido, and Sony implement the two essentials of time pacing. The first is managing transitions--the shift, for example, from one new-product-development project to the next. The second is setting the right rhythm for change. Companies that march to the rhythm of time pacing build momentum, and companies that effectively manage transitions sustain that momentum without missing important beats. This piece presents important new thinking on one of the most demanding challenges managers face today.

How many projects in your organization have come in on time and on budget? If you're like most senior managers, the answer is likely to be none, no matter how many data-management systems, team-training programs, project-management software packages, or best practices you've been using. Are the project delays and cost overruns inescapable? One business thinker who says no is Eliyahu M. Goldratt. In his widely read novel The Goal, Goldratt pioneered the theory of constraints as a solution for factories struggling with production delays. Now, in Critical Chain, he extends the theory to the realm of project management. Whether a production process or a new-product-development project is at issue, the theory tells managers not to improve each step in the process but instead to focus on the bottlenecks, or constraints, that keep the process from increasing its output. Reviewers Jeffrey Elton and Justin Roe, consultants at Integral Inc., believe the theory works well for project managers dealing with individual projects. But they argue that senior managers need to take a broader perspective into account in order to manage a portfolio of all but the most innovative projects. And they question whether even properly focused managers can easily overcome the many balkanizing pressures that projects, in all their uncertainty, often fall prey to. To handle such pressures, companies also need talented leaders--a "constraint" that many will have difficulty overcoming.

Managers today are struggling to cope with highly unpredictable markets. For any manager facing uncertainty, this article provides a new model for thinking and acting. The past two decades have seen a dramatic acceleration in the pace of marketplace change. Companies have abandoned the old hierarchical model, with its clean functional divisions and clear lines of authority, and adopted flatter, less bureaucratic structures. But if most organizations have begun to adapt to the uncertainty of rapid change, most managers have not. They remain locked into the mechanical mind-set of the industrial age--that is, they assume that any management challenge can be translated into a clearly defined problem for which an optimal solution can be found. That approach works in stable markets and even in markets that change in predictable ways. Today's markets, however, are increasingly unstable and unpredictable. Managers can never know precisely what they're trying to achieve or how best to achieve it. They can't even define the problem, much less engineer a solution. For guidance, they can look to the managers of product design, a function that has always been fraught with uncertainty. Richard K. Lester, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Industrial Performance Center, Michael J. Piore, the David W. Skinner Professor of Political Economy at MIT, and Kamal M. Malek, a research staff member of MIT's Industrial Performance Center describe an approach to management developed by design leaders that is very different from the traditional analytical approach. This new approach encourages open-ended conversations among designers, technicians, and customers as a way to interpret and respond creatively to ambiguous situations.

Mr. Chung Yong, president of Samsung China Headquarters was considering a recent meeting with the marketing director who was responsible for developing a marketing strategy for the entire China market. The topic at the meeting was the marketing strategy for color TVs, which had been chosen as the flagship product for the China market. Samsung had to decide whether it should focus on the low or high-end market segment (or both), and whether to import or produce locally.

Multimedia Development Corporation was established to build and regulate the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) in Malaysia. As Malaysia's traditional manufacturing advantage due to low cost labor dissipated and as the country targeted the year 2020 for achieving developed status, the MSC was being viewed as the catalyst to launch the Malaysian economy into the future. Malaysia's government hoped the MSC could become a hub for high technology in Southeast Asia. It was now necessary to involve private sector corporations in refining the MSC concept, setting priorities for development, and establishing the standards that would be imposed on activities in the MSC.

Ellen Moore, a systems consultant, was sent to Korea to manage a project involving a team of three North American and five Korean consultants representing a joint venture between a major Korean conglomerate and a significant North American information technology company. The Americans were to be involved for the first seven months in order to transfer expertise and knowledge to the South Koreans, who had little experience in this area. Andrew Kilpatrick, Ellen's superior, had played an integral part in securing the contract in Korea due to his depth of knowledge on the subject. Andrew chose Ellen Moore to be the key north American project manager because she had significant project management skills and impressive international experience. Upon Ellen's arrival, she discovered that the Korean consultants were far less skilled than she had expected. In addition, Ellen had understood that she and the Korean manager, Jack, were to be co-managers, but tensions immediately arose between them regarding who was given direction to the team and the scope of the project. Tensions escalated until it was clear that the project was behind schedule and the Koreans were not taking direction from Ellen. The Koreans insisted that Ellen was the problem. Andrew strongly disagreed. Andrew and Ellen must decide how to proceed.

Sealed Air Corp.'s CEO and COO are considering what approach they should take to building a seamless corporate culture worldwide. Anticipating continuing growth and expansion, especially outside the United States, they are concerned with preserving and promoting the culture that has been one of the company's key assets. However, their experiences in integrating acquired companies, especially outside the United States, have heightened their awareness of differences among the regional cultures of the world and the challenges they face in maintaining a unified corporate culture.