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SalesDriver is a start-up company that develops online software packages for sales incentive contests. The vice president of marketing and distribution, who was also a company founder, considers how to address the challenge of retaining key employees in the growing high-technology industry, where employee turnover is very high.

The president of Blinds To Go, a small retail fabricator of custom-made blinds, announces his plans of expanding the business across North America one region at a time. With substantial backing from an investment firm, the business has quintupled its revenues in less than two years and is looking to expand aggressively across the United States. However, the company has experienced significant turnover in its senior management positions. The company struggles with the issue of how to get and keep the senior management talent needed to achieve the growth the company wants.

Blinds To Go, a small retail fabricator of custom-made blinds, is looking to for the best talent it could to help them achieve their aggressive expansion goals. Emphasis was put on establishing internal programs that would groom candidates for senior management positions. Despite the temptation to bring in a vice-president from outside the company, the company believed it was in their best interest to develop and promote talent from within. This is a supplement to the Blinds To Go - Wanted: People To Lead Explosive Growth (A) case, (product number 9B01C002).

Budget pressures were forcing Talbot University's supply department to reduce its costs. While the workload remained high, the department head wondered how to reorganize the department and the work processes so that the work could be done within a reduced budget. Working towards a solution, he needed to apply principles of organization design to improve the efficiency of the department and then develop an action plan for the required organizational changes.

OrangeWerks, an entrepreneurial company that creates software applications, is preparing to present to venture capital firms for its first major round of funding. However, during routine network maintenance, the network administrator becomes aware that the company may not have purchased the original software used to create the company's product, and that government workplace safety insurance was not in place. He must decide how to proceed with the knowledge by assessing available options and judging the stakeholder impact, as well as his career implications.

Cushy Armchair, based in Hong Kong, is a leader in the global armchair business, controlling fully autonomous business groups in 17 countries. Cabletronica has recently acquired the company and has sent one of their own senior personnel to restructure operations and integrate the company with another of their furniture divisions outside of the country. Acting as a consultant, the founder of Cushy is approached regarding a communication on a change in policy, but the new head of the company decides to use the parent company's standard method and now must manage with the results change can have on a cross cultural, multinational business.

Informal coaching opportunities occur in the course of daily life. In this workshop, students are provided with ways to improve their responsiveness to these opportunities. The format is a series of sessions in which students form teams and take turns playing the role of the director of operations for a software products business. Two staff members come to see the director, on their initiative, to ask for ideas, help, guidance, or a decision on an issue. The director knows key details about each staff member’s background and development needs, but does not know in advance what the specific issues or concerns are. It is necessary to explore these issues or concerns before any decision can be made. The students’ performances are videotaped and critiqued in terms of identifying each staff member’s problem(s); the effectiveness of responses to the immediate problems; and contribution to that staff member’s longer-term growth or awareness through coaching. The accompanying seven role-plays (products #9B00C007, #9B00C008, #9B00C009, #9B00C010, #9B00C011, #9B00C012, #9B00C013) provide background information on each of the staff members.

The founder and only employee of Montreal-based Drawn and Quarterly, a company that published comic books and graphic novels, wondered whether there were changes he should make in how he ran his company. He loved his job; he was working with excellent cartoonists, and he enjoyed being his own boss. He wanted to invest in new projects, but his ability to do so depended on getting enough revenue from sales. He recently made a substantial investment in the publication of an anthology of international comics and knew this investment could put the company at risk. There were many factors for him to consider in planning the growth of this small company: management preferences in strategic growth, marketing in entrepreneurial firms, the comic book industry and the management of small companies in cultural industries.

OP4.com, an Internet portal for teenagers, had just celebrated six months of existence. The co-founders of OP4.com knew that the internal culture had to reflect the identity of its Web site, so they wanted to cultivate a savvy, hip staff. They used unique methods to evaluate a prospect's fit into the company and some unorthodox training and feedback systems. With profitability being the next key step, they had to determine how to maintain this culture through the next stage of growth; one which would result in the creation of business units and formal reporting structures for staff.

An AmeriChem Inc. plant was maligned at a corporate board meeting with accusations of general abuse of alcohol and drunkenness on the job. The health and safety manager knew that the groundless claims could completely destroy the plant's already doubtful reputation and he had to decide whether to respond and how. The problems are analytically challenging and not clearly defined; they concern the difference between the inter-relation of individual and collective interests. The various aspects of the problem need to be separated and addressed, and the issues must be considered in all of their relevant contexts, making students aware that decisions are most often made in a complex environment requiring diverse thinking and balancing skills.

Oak Valley Inc. is a $2.1 billion Toronto-based company operating in various consumer markets. In early 1993, the company launched a management development program with the objective of promoting a culture that thrived on best practices. Five years later, the chief executive officer is attempting to evaluate the impact of the program on participants. Hoping to generate new insights that could be applied to similar events in the future, he has asked a team of five past participants to meet to discuss what they learned. This short case deals with the attitudes and behaviors most conducive to individual and group-based learning. The case provides an excellent vehicle for discussing how people learn, how teams can accelerate the learning process, and how companies can create positive learning environments.

In a 30-year career, a recently retired international manager of Xerox Corporation played a major role in the company's international expansion to emerging economies, assumed key responsibilities for the negotiation and founding of several international joint ventures, and served as an expatriate manager of these ventures in several countries (e.g., Mexico, Brazil, and China). The case provides a learning opportunity at both the individual and the organizational levels. As a manager or future manager, the student can learn about critical career decisions, development through international assignments, and the joys and frustrations of the portable life of an expatriate family. At the organizational level, the case provides useful examples of international growth/expansion strategies, challenges for managing joint venture operations, and international human resource policies and practices. Importantly, the case presents these examples/issues in the context of doing business in emerging economies. Frans Ryckebosch: An International Manager (B) case, (9A99C031) may be used as a supplement to this case.

The leader of a newly formed small business banking division of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) decided on the necessity of creating a unifying vision for its 2,000 employees. She knew that a critical success factor in corporate reorganizations was to focus the team, through a corporate vision, on new shared goals they all believed were achievable. If the leadership team believed, then this winning attitude would cascade throughout the division and mobilize the workforce. In turn, this energy would be felt by the customers and become the most competitive weapon she could provide. The process of creating a vision and determining what actions make visions successful is presented within the context of the financial services industry and the challenges facing a new business unit.

It had been almost a decade since the first article surfaced in the media alleging that factories sub-contracted by Nike in China and Indonesia were forcing workers to work long hours for low pay, and for physically and verbally abusive managers. The article was the seed of a media campaign that created a public relations nightmare for the company. A financial crisis in Asia and intense competition in the domestic market contributed to a decline in Nike's revenue and market share after three years of record performance. Though no direct correlation could be proven between the consumer's negative perceptions of Nike and the company's decline in market share and stock, it certainly did not help in their efforts to establish themselves as the global leader in a hotly competitive industry. A linear overview of the adverse publicity that Nike received, and the perspectives of Nike senior management, demonstrates to students the importance and elements of the timely development of an effective media and consumer relations campaign.

Norwest Labs provides agricultural and environmental testing services. While the agricultural market is seasonal and highly sensitive to the weather, the environmental market is relatively stable, as it is primarily developed because of regulatory compliance testing required of its clients. The company's CEO and founder is confronted with serious challenges: a substantial financial loss, cash flow problems, growing competition and a potential regulatory change that would eliminate mandatory testing by its clients. The purpose of the case is to consider whether the conditions and timing are appropriate for introducing employee gain sharing as a means to implement organizational change. Norwest Labs (B) and (C) are also available, cases 9A99C012 and 9A99C013.

A gain sharing plan was introduced at Norwest Labs. However, because of a number of serious problems with its implementation, the plan is being redesigned. While working towards redesigning the plan, the company suffered a financial crisis after losing 20 per cent of its business from the elimination of mandatory environmental testing by its clients. The purpose of the case is to consider whether open book management, which involves the sharing of financial information and forecasts with everyone in the company, would be appropriate to affect behavioral change across the organization. This is a follow-up to Norwest Labs (A), case 9A99C011. A Norwest Labs (C) supplement is also available, case 9A99C013.

Employee and management perceptions of the impact of gain sharing and open book management on behavioral change are provided in this supplement to Norwest Labs (A) and (B), cases 9A99C011 and 9A99C012.

A senior human resources manager at the YUAN Group, a medium-sized, multi-industry company, is reflecting on her first year on the job. She had implemented many new human resource systems, involving salary surveys, performance evaluations, bonus sharing and benefits, but these changes were not always received enthusiastically by the top management team and other employees. This case illustrates the effects of trying to rapidly implement large numbers of human resource system changes in a traditional organization.

An American professor is delighted and proud to be asked to join a prestigious international group of academic researchers. A series of negative experiences - cultural, professional and personal - strain relationships within the group, and the professor's feelings turn to anger and self-doubt. She must decide whether to continue with the group.

This note is designed as detailed supplemental material for management communication courses. It contains information on creating effective business documents in the workplace. Categories covered are: report writing, e-mails and memos, and Internet writing.