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Although today Intel is a titan, the company's history has been a roller-coaster ride. And no one is more qualified to reflect on Intel's close calls and spectacular successes than its CEO, Andrew Grove. Adam Brandenburger and Barry Nalebuff say that Grove's book, Only the Paranoid Survive, offers advice to managers in every business on how to bridge the narrow line between catastrophe and opportunity, and seize the opportunities. Grove's leadership of Intel has led him to conclude that some fear is healthy, especially in organizations with a track record of success. His prescription for ending complacency is a dose of paranoia--a suspicion that the world is changing against you. How can managers catch this mental condition? By stepping outside their organization and adopting the perspective of someone without a vested interest in the status quo.

The organizational world is awash with talk of corporate culture--and for good reason. Culture has become a powerful way to hold a company together against the recent tidal wave of pressures for disintegration, such as decentralization and downsizing. But what is culture? Perhaps more important, is there one right culture for every organization? And if the answer is no, how can a manager change an organization's culture? Addressing those three questions, Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones begin the article with the assertion that culture is community. Moreover, they contend, because business communities are no different from communities outside the commercial arena--such as families, schools, clubs, and villages--they can (and should) be viewed through the lens of sociology.

The management of the Samsung Group has to decide whether to enter the Korean theme park industry. The case focuses on three main issues in the context of the entry decision: (1) the underlying forces that shape industry structure, competitive interaction and profits; (2) the impact of globalization on industry structure; (3) the relationship between a firm's resources and its strategy. Porter's Five Forces model is used to analyze the impact of the competitive forces on profitability. A 15-minute video, product 7A96M006, can be purchased for this case.

"Create shareholder value" has become management's mantra. Managers have developed an extensive set of tools for determining which parts of their businesses add to or subtract from shareholder value. Unfortunately, merely applying the tools of value-based analysis does not suffice to add shareholder value; these tools focus on financial management and what top managers do, whereas value creation results from actions by individuals and groups throughout the firm. A comprehensive value-based management (VBM) system must engage, motivate, and reward people throughout the organization who create shareholder value. The system offered here targets five stages of development: value-based analysis; management of commitment and stretch targets; VBM training and open-book management; employee empowerment and task-focused training; and sharing the value. The VBM system continues with dialogue among top managers about where stretch goals should be focused in the future and the involvement of all employees in determining the best means to achieve those goals. Equally important is an ongoing commitment to training in VBM and the tasks that derive from it. VBM cannot create a strategic vision for a company. But when it is focused on creating both economic value and enhanced customer value, and is an integral part of the culture, the firm maximizes its future prospects.

Product recalls can destroy brands and even companies. But according to the authors, if a company handles recalls strategically, it can decrease the negative impact and maybe even reap some benefits. The authors maintain that a strategic approach to recalls should address the implications of a recall for all relevant business functions and should deal with all stages of a recall, from readiness before the fact to product reintroduction after a recall has ended. The authors offer step-by-step guidelines on handling recalls effectively. With forethought and planning, the authors assert, unavoidable recalls can have long-term favorable outcomes.

Too often, the board of a nonprofit organization is little more than a collection of high-powered people engaged in low-level activities. But that can change, the authors say, if trustees are willing to discover and take on the new work of the board. When they perform the new work, a board's members can significantly advance the institution's mission and long-term welfare. The authors give many examples of boards that have successfully embraced the new work. The stakes are high: if boards demonstrate that they can change effectively, the professional staff at the institutions they serve just may follow suit.

In 1995, Hewlett-Packard Home Products Division (HPD) has the assignment to make Hewlett-Packard the third major home PC player worldwide. With the U.S. launch imminent, the HPD team has to decide how to enter the European market.

This note, the first in a series on regression analysis, introduces the simple linear model (one X-variable), together with least squares, as a procedure for estimating the coefficients in the model. The standard error of estimate, adjusted R-square, and standard error of the coefficients are all introduced and explained. The presentation of formulas is kept to a minimum, and an illustrative example is used throughout the note. . This note, the first in a series on regression analysis, introduces the simple linear model (one X-variable), together with least squares, as a procedure for estimating the coefficients in the model. The standard error of estimate, adjusted R-square, and standard error of the coefficients are all introduced and explained. The presentation of formulas is kept to a minimum, and an illustrative example is used throughout the note.

Watermill Ventures acquires and turns around an underperforming business. The case describes the criteria the company uses to identify acquisition candidates, its screening and selection process, and the way it introduces strategic thinking at the business it acquires. Steve Karol, Watermill's founder, is concerned because the company has only acquired two companies in its three years of operation. He is considering a number of actions, including establishing a Web site to broaden the base of contact.

Provides questionnaires so students can compare their experiences with different decison-making processes. Students read "Growing Pains," a Harvard Business Review (HBR) case study, and then work in teams to come up with recommendations using a consensus approach to decison making. The next day using Decision-Making Exercise (B) and (C) and "Case of the Unhealthy Hospital," another HBR case study, and working in the same teams, use either a dialectical inquiry or devil's advocacy approach to decision making.

Eve Stacey, a recent Harvard MBA, has the challenging task of evaluating the market opportunity for NutraSweet in China. She must decide how best to develop the market for the product in China. May be used with NutraSweet in China (B).

Discusses the joint venture between two companies with different capabilities: 1) technology provider and 2) transportation agent. Discusses how to capture value from joint venture and biotechnology: 1) who are winners and who are losers; 2) how much value can/should be captured; 3) sustainability issues; 4) implications for agriculture/agchem industry/relationships between supply chain members. Delta & Pine and Monsanto are licensing a new technology cotton seed. They must decide how to do it and how to evaluate its success.

Highlights the general manager's role in building a self-renewing organization.

Project management techniques have met with widespread acceptance as a means of expediting product development, making efficient use of resources, and stimulating cross-functional communication. Not only manufacturing firms, but also legal offices, hospitals, and local governments have accepted project management as an indispensable part of their operations. Yet failures and outright disasters abound in the history of project management. A study of these failures indicates a dozen sure-fire methods for dooming a project: ignore its environment; push a new technology to market too quickly; don't bother to build in fallback options; when problems occur, shoot the person most visible; let new ideas starve to death from inertia; don't bother conducting feasibility studies; never, ever admit a project is a failure; micromanage the project managers and their teams; never, ever conduct post-failure audits; never try to understand project trade-offs; let politics dictate crucial project decisions; and make sure the project is run by a weak leader. However, past failure need not discourage us from future efforts. Indeed, it is through these past failures that we gain the savvy to push on to successful ventures.

This case explores a proposal by Labatt management to purchase a 22% interest in a Mexican brewing business and strike associated agreements for cooperative activities throughout North America. An evaluation of the deal requires an assessment of the prospects of the venture in the Mexican and U.S. beer markets, the potential for synergies in the cooperative activities, and ultimately the pricing and financing of an investment in a developing economy. This case is similar to Una Cerveceria Por Favor: Labatt Buys Into Mexico, case 9A95G013, in that it varies primarily in the time perspective from which the issues are addressed. Only one of these cases is necessary in a course.

The case traces the story of Canadian Airlines from its early days of profitable regional operations, growth through acquisitions to the status of a national and international carrier, and ultimately to the crisis of the early and mid 90s. Fundamental questions of strategy need to be resolved. How is revenue generated? What are the sources of cost? How do airlines make profits? In pursuing these questions, students need to sort out the realities of the airline industry and the specific opportunities and challenges facing Canadian.

Describes how general managers can build organizational capability in their firms.

Henry Mintzberg, a professor of management at McGill University in Canada and at INSEAD in France, takes aim at the hype surrounding management fads and gurus and dares to suggest that the emperor has no clothes. In order to rile all who care about management and get them thinking creatively, he presents ten contrarian observations on such topics as the meanness of leanness, the folly of CEOs who fancy themselves strategists, the disempowering that so-called empowerment creates, the myopia of purely financial measures, and the inadequacy of M.B.A. programs.

Describes the development of McKinsey & Co. as a worldwide management consulting firm from 1926 to 1996. In particular, it focuses on the way in which McKinsey has developed structures, systems, processes, and practices to help it develop, transfer, and disseminate knowledge among its 3,800 consultants in 69 offices worldwide. Concludes by focusing on three young consultants operating in each dimension of the firm's organization--the local office, the industry practice, and the firm's competence center. Managing director, Rajat Gupta, wonders if the changes he has made are sufficient to maintain the firm's vital knowledge development process.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 396-357.