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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.

This note is a description of the competitive structure of the Mexican beer industry in 1994. It is written to provide information necessary to evaluate the Mexican market in regard to its export potential and/or investment potential. Labatt Ice, was written at the same time, and it compares the Canadian and U.S. markets. This note enables the discussion to be extended to also include the Mexican market.

The manager for Asia of James Hardie, a major Australian company in the building products industry, must decide whether to recommend a proposed $50 million investment in the Philippines. If James Hardie is to make the investment and grow the company, should it do so as a joint venture with Jardine, James Hardie's Hong Kong-based distributor in the Philippines, go it alone, or form a joint venture with a Philippine company? This is a major investment for James Hardie and marks the beginning of its new growth initiative into Asia after a period of consolidation. If the project goes ahead, James Hardie's Asia headquarters would be moved from Kuala Lumpur to Manila.

Lincoln Electric, a 100-year-old manufacturer of welding equipment and consumables based in Cleveland, Ohio, motivates its U.S. employees through a culture of cooperation between management and labor and an unusual compensation system based on piecework and a large bonus based on individual contribution to the company's performance. Despite opening a few international sales and production ventures in Canada, Australia, and France, Lincoln remained focused on manufacturing in the United States until 1988. At that time, the company's new CEO expanded manufacturing through acquisitions and greenfields in 11 new countries, attempting to transfer its unique management philosophy to each. However, Lincoln was unable to replicate its highly productive system abroad. Operational problems led to a major restructuring in the early 1990s, supervised by Anthony Massaro, a newcomer to the company. In 1996, Massaro was named CEO and set about expanding the company's manufacturing base through a new strategy. The case concludes in Asia, where Lincoln's regional president is trying to decide whether and how to establish a manufacturing presence in Indonesia, and in particular whether to try to transfer Lincoln's unique incentive-driven management system.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 398-095.

The director of human resources for Grupo Industrial Bimbo, S.A., was involved in a corporate re-engineering initiative. In response to the changing Mexican business environment, the company's senior executives had initiated a review of operations in an attempt to increase competitiveness and ensure the company's survival. The conclusions of the initial benchmarking studies, and some people dedicated to the re-engineering effort, recommended laying off 6,000 of the company's 40,000 workers to reduce and control costs. The directors were concerned about how the company could preserve its corporate culture. A follow-up case (9A98M011) is available.

The director of human resources for Grupo Industrial Bimbo, S.A., was involved in a corporate re-engineering initiative. The conclusions of the initial benchmarking studies recommended laying off 6,000 of the company's 40,000 workers to reduce and control costs. This case describes what the company did and is intended to be used in conjunction with the (A) case, 9A98M010.

Rare is the company that does not periodically review the performance of its staff, business units, and suppliers. But rare, as well, is the company that does such a review of one of its most important contributors--its board of directors. Done properly, appraisals can help boards become more effective by clarifying individual and collective responsibilities. They can help improve the working relationship between a company's board and its senior management. They can help ensure a healthy balance of power between the board and the CEO. And, once in place, an appraisal process is difficult to dismantle, making it harder for a new CEO to dominate a board or avoid being held accountable for poor performance. The authors, Jay Conger, David Finegold, and Edward E. Lawler, III, all of the Leadership Institute at the University of Southern California's School of Business Administration in Los Angeles, have drawn on the strengths of several different approaches to synthesize a best-practice process that is both rigorous and comprehensive.

It is no longer news that over the past five years, Sears, Roebuck and Co. has radically changed the way it does business and dramatically improved its financial results. But the now-famous Sears turnaround was more than a strategic and financial break with the past. It was a radical change in the logic and culture of the company, based on a new business model--not so much "the softer side of Sears" as the softer side of measurement. Led by CEO Arthur Martinez, a group of more than 100 top-level Sears executives spent three years rebuilding the company around its customers. In rethinking what Sears was and what it wanted to become, these managers developed a business model of the company--the employee-customer-profit model--and an accompanying measurement system that tracks success from management behavior through employee attitudes to customer satisfaction and financial performance.

The classic business ratios for measuring performance--return on equity, return on assets, and return on sales, to name a few--may be useful. But none is designed specifically to reflect how well a company implements its strategy. Enter return on management (ROM), a new ratio that gauges the payback from a company's scarcest resource: managers' time and energy. Unlike other business ratios, ROM is a rough estimate, not an exact percentage. Still, it is expressed like other business ratios by an equation in which the output is maximized by a high numerator and a low denominator: Knowing which organizational factors conspire against or work to maximize an organization's productive energy will help managers calculate a rough measure for this equation. Harvard Business School Professor Robert Simons and HBS doctoral student Antonio Davila offer five "acid tests" to help managers measure their company's ROM.

LG Group Chairman Bon Moo Koo has announced a corporate goal of increasing revenues from $38 billion to $380 billion between 1995 and 2005. Most of this increase is expected to come from new international sales. As a consequence, LG must add an estimated 1,400 new global leaders to its management ranks. Mr. Y.K. Kim and his team must determine what these new global leaders should look like and how to develop them.

Describes the efforts of the new managing director of Merck's subsidiary for Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay to transform the organization and its culture. Focuses on a critical decision: whether to offer the son of a high-ranking official in the government's national health-care program a place in the company's highly selective intern program for young professionals.

Supplements the (A) case.

An independent consultant from the United States must decide what to do when faced with his client's apparent violation of an agreement with a third party. The consultant is American, the client is a Chinese real estate developer, and the third party is a French construction company. The case traces the development and tensions in a set of relationships fraught with cross-cultural confusion. The consultant must interpret the parties' agreement and decide whether loyalty to the client or a principle of transparency takes priority.

Supplements the (A) case.

A production-driven company that produces televisions under contract has constant problems meeting production schedules. Because of personal ties to the owner, the finance manager from a holding company has been promoted to general manager of Kami to straighten out the mess. He faces major challenges because of his lack of production and general management experience and of credibility due to his age and lower seniority. A major challenge will be how to handle the hostility of the production manager who expected to be promoted.

The special projects manager of Mega Corporation, must make a recommendation to Mega's owner, about Mega's investment in a television production facility at Clark Special Economic Zone, the Philippines. Initially the investment was to have been Mega's first venture into being an original equipment television manufacturer; sourcing parts and selling the output on its own. Recently, however, Aiwa and Mega have had negotiations about the plant becoming a sole supplier for Aiwa's new initiative into television production. Under this arrangement, Mega would assemble televisions for Aiwa from parts either sourced through Aiwa or sourced on its own - if these parts were less expensive yet met Aiwa's standards. Mega's profits would be about $2 per unit plus 50 per cent of any cost saving on the components it sourced.

Citibank was the first U.S. bank to establish operations in China when it opened a branch in Shanghai in 1902. From the early 1940s until 1984, Citibank was absent from China, but since 1984 it had gradually re-established an active presence. In 1997, Citibank had reached a crossroads. It had to decide how best to participate in the rapid growth of the Chinese economy and the huge inflow of foreign direct investment. Citibank had many competitive advantages on the basis of which it had established a unique strategy that excluded joint ventures. In 1997, a wide variety of new potential services included credit cards, RMB (Chinese currency) banking, and various fee-based services. Government regulations still severely restricted the types of loans foreign banks could make, but it was expected that these regulations might soon be liberalized. How should Citibank N.A. in China best position itself for the future?

Richmond Engineering is a successful Vancouver-based entrepreneurial manufacturer of roadway light poles that has decided to expand into Asia rather than attempting to compete in Eastern Canada or the United States. The process of finding and qualifying leads for joint ventures, the stages for developing an agreement according to Chinese business practice, and the pressures of negotiating with the Chinese are all described in detail.

Supplements the (A) case.