個案總覽

It's natural to promote your best and brightest, especially when you think they may leave for greener pastures if you don't continually offer them new challenges and rewards. But promoting smart, ambitious young managers too quickly often robs them of the chance to develop the emotional competencies that come with time and experience--the ability to negotiate with peers, regulate emotions in times of crisis, and win support for change. Indeed, at some point in a manager's career--usually at the vice-president level--raw talent and ambition become less important than the ability to influence and persuade, and that's the point at which the emotionally immature manager will lose his effectiveness. This article argues that delaying a promotion can sometimes be the best thing a senior executive can do for a junior manager. The authors recommend that senior executives employ these strategies to help boost their proteges' people skills: sharpen the 360-degree feedback process, give managers cross-functional assignments to improve their negotiation skills, make the development of emotional competencies mandatory, make emotional competencies a performance measure, and encourage managers to develop informal learning partnerships with peers and mentors.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Forget capital; it's relatively easy to obtain nowadays. Today's scarce, sought-after strategic resource is expertise, which comes in the form of employees. Although organizations have changed mightily from the days of hierarchical, top-down management, they still have a long way to go. In addition to issues of company structure and who should be involved in strategic decision making, there are questions of how the value that companies create should be distributed, now that employees, as well as shareholders, control a scarce resource. And then there are the intangible yet crucial changes that must occur in senior managers' ways of thinking--and in the atmosphere and culture of the company. Reorienting old-school senior managers away from capital and toward knowledgeable employees will be difficult, but Christopher Bartlett of Harvard Business School and Sumantra Ghoshal of London Business School have several recommendations for human resources professionals, who, Bartlett and Ghoshal maintain, will be key players in the design, development, and delivery of strategy. Their task is threefold: build up the company by acquiring and retaining highly skilled employees; find a way to embed individual-based knowledge in the company, making it accessible and useful not just to one unit or one function, but to the entire organization--that is the linking task; and create an engaging, motivating, and bonding culture to attract and keep talented employees--the bonding task.

Jack Perkowski established Asian Strategic Investment Corp. (ASIMCO) in February 1994. ASIMCO became one of the largest components organizations serving the Chinese motor vehicle industry. This case shows the process of human capital development at ASIMCO. Describes ASIMCO's management restructuring efforts, its management development strategy, and its system of fast-tracking leaders through the leadership development program. Instead of transplanting Western management models into China, ASIMCO strongly believed in creating a centralized, top-down management model that could be adapted to China's unique environment.

The new CEO of DEI airlines is faced with the challenge of creating a customer service oriented culture in a company that is losing money, needs to shed staff, has a terrible reputation among passengers, and is still driven by the subcultural differences resulting from its merger ten years ago.

Jeremy Hicks, Zagante Systems' lead programmer, walks into the office at eight o'clock on a Sunday night and does a double take when he spots his boss, Melanie. She's equally surprised to find she isn't alone. Before leaving for the evening, Melanie pays Jeremy a visit, only to discover that he isn't hard at work on Zagante's new product--he's programming a game for another company. The next day over lunch, Melanie confronts Jeremy and lets him know that he needs to stay focused on Zagante's new software. Jeremy insists that he's fully engaged in it. So Melanie agrees to keep the moonlighting under wraps so long as it doesn't interfere with Jeremy's job. Frustrated with Jeremy, yet anxious to keep such a talented employee, Melanie turns to Jill Darby, Zagante's HR director, for guidance. Jill has both good and bad news. The bad news is that the company has no moonlighting policy. The good news is that Jill can arrange for Jeremy to receive a low-interest loan. But when Melanie tells Jeremy about the loan, he doesn't go for it. He's not just freelancing for the money, it turns out; he's downright enjoying the work and doesn't appreciate his boss butting in to his private business. How should Melanie handle this moonlighting issue? In R0211A and R0211Z, commentators Bill Jensen, author of Work 2.0: Rewriting the Contract; attorney Barry LePatner; economics professors Jean Kimmel and Karen Conway; and HR director Sandra Davis offer advice in this fictional case study.

Jeremy Hicks, Zagante Systems' lead programmer, walks into the office at eight o'clock on a Sunday night and does a double take when he spots his boss, Melanie. She's equally surprised to find she isn't alone. Before leaving for the evening, Melanie pays Jeremy a visit, only to discover that he isn't hard at work on Zagante's new product--he's programming a game for another company. The next day over lunch, Melanie confronts Jeremy and lets him know that he needs to stay focused on Zagante's new software. Jeremy insists that he's fully engaged in it. So Melanie agrees to keep the moonlighting under wraps so long as it doesn't interfere with Jeremy's job. Frustrated with Jeremy, yet anxious to keep such a talented employee, Melanie turns to Jill Darby, Zagante's HR director, for guidance. Jill has both good and bad news. The bad news is that the company has no moonlighting policy. The good news is that Jill can arrange for Jeremy to receive a low-interest loan. But when Melanie tells Jeremy about the loan, he doesn't go for it. He's not just freelancing for the money, it turns out; he's downright enjoying the work and doesn't appreciate his boss butting in to his private business. How should Melanie handle this moonlighting issue? In R0211A and R0211Z, commentators Bill Jensen, author of Work 2.0: Rewriting the Contract; attorney Barry LePatner; economics professors Jean Kimmel and Karen Conway; and HR director Sandra Davis offer advice on this fictional case study.

Jeremy Hicks, Zagante Systems' lead programmer, walks into the office at eight o'clock on a Sunday night and does a double take when he spots his boss, Melanie. She's equally surprised to find she isn't alone. Before leaving for the evening, Melanie pays Jeremy a visit, only to discover that he isn't hard at work on Zagante's new product--he's programming a game for another company. The next day over lunch, Melanie confronts Jeremy and lets him know that he needs to stay focused on Zagante's new software. Jeremy insists that he's fully engaged in it. So Melanie agrees to keep the moonlighting under wraps so long as it doesn't interfere with Jeremy's job. Frustrated with Jeremy, yet anxious to keep such a talented employee, Melanie turns to Jill Darby, Zagante's HR director, for guidance. Jill has both good and bad news. The bad news is that the company has no moonlighting policy. The good news is that Jill can arrange for Jeremy to receive a low-interest loan. But when Melanie tells Jeremy about the loan, he doesn't go for it. He's not just freelancing for the money, it turns out; he's downright enjoying the work and doesn't appreciate his boss butting in to his private business. How should Melanie handle this moonlighting issue? In R0211A and R0211Z, commentators Bill Jensen, author of Work 2.0: Rewriting the Contract; attorney Barry LePatner; economics professors Jean Kimmel and Karen Conway; and HR director Sandra Davis offer advice on this fictional case study.

It's easy for white managers to assume that their colleagues of color face the same basic challenges they do. On one level, that's true--the work itself is the same. But on another level, African-American managers often contend with an atmosphere of tension, instability, and distrust that can be so frustrating they lose the desire to contribute fully. Their white bosses and coworkers are simply unaware of the "miasma" and are often puzzled when African-Americans quit apparently for no reason or seemingly overreact to a minor incident. This portrayal of what it's like to be different in the workplace takes the form of a fictional letter from a black manager to a white boss. The letter, based on interviews and surveys the authors conducted with hundreds of mid- to senior-level African-American managers, is not about the lack of role models or mentors of color or any of the other barriers that limit opportunities for blacks in corporate America. Instead, the letter sheds light on the realities that lurk below the surface for black managers--the feeling that they leave some part of their identities at home and the sometimes subtle and often systemic racial biases that inhibit and alienate African-Americans. It should be required reading for all white executives who don't want talent to slip through their fingers.

Vivek Paul was hired to run the IT division of a global company that originally sold cooking oil. Paul was brought on board to develop Wipro Technologies into a leading provider of software services to the world's largest corporations. He was a native of India, yet was educated and had worked in the United States for many years. Paul faced a number of challenges in achieving this goal. His most immediate challenge was attracting, developing, and retaining key talent. Paul needed someone at the helm who had established relationships and held credibility with the employees at Wipro Technologies' Indian operation centers. He wanted someone who knew the Indian corporate culture and who had the cross-cultural sophistication that comes from extended expatriate experience to be the director of Wipro Technologies Europe. Sudip Nandy was the perfect fit for such an assignment. This story illustrates the cultural challenges of transforming an Indian company to enhance its global effectiveness. The A case discusses some of the methods Wipro used to leverage diversity in the workforce to create competitive advantage for the firm. The B case further describes some of Nandy's ideas for business growth. In the C case, Nandy reviews more strategies and updates the business situation to late 2002. The Wipro series illustrates the importance of national culture and ethnicity issues to everything a large corporation does--including its own culture of origin, the cultures of its potential customers, and the cultures of its employees. The cases lend themselves well to the unfolding of the Hofstede cultural model during class.

Vivek Paul was hired to run the IT division of a global company that originally sold cooking oil. Paul was brought on board to develop Wipro Technologies into a leading provider of software services to the world's largest corporations. He was a native of India, yet was educated and had worked in the United States for many years. Paul faced a number of challenges in achieving this goal. His most immediate challenge was attracting, developing, and retaining key talent. Paul needed someone at the helm who had established relationships and held credibility with the employees at Wipro Technologies' Indian operation centers. He wanted someone who knew the Indian corporate culture and who had the cross-cultural sophistication that comes from extended expatriate experience to be the director of Wipro Technologies Europe. Sudip Nandy was the perfect fit for such an assignment. This story illustrates the cultural challenges of transforming an Indian company to enhance its global effectiveness. The A case discusses some of the methods Wipro used to leverage diversity in the workforce to create competitive advantage for the firm. The B case further describes some of Nandy's ideas for business growth. In the C case Nandy reviews more strategies and updates the business situation to late 2002. The Wipro series illustrates the importance of national culture and ethnicity issues to everything a large corporation does--including its own culture of origin, the cultures of its potential customers, and the cultures of its employees. The cases lend themselves well to the unfolding of the Hofstede cultural model during class.

Groom your executives to leave--enhance the skills that make them attractive in the marketplace--and they'll remain committed to their jobs. This counterintuitive finding, based on a study of 400 midlevel executives, has an important corollary: Fall short on your promises to develop executives' employability, and loyalty will diminish.

In 2002, Hong Kong civil servants were the envy of many people. Their salaries, fringe benefits, and employment terms compared favorably with international standards. However, as civil servants staggered from one disaster and mistake to another, the public had an impression that their performance did not match their liberal remuneration. While private sectors were announcing massive layoffs, pay cuts, and reduced benefits in the sluggish economy, the Hong Kong government was under pressure to reduce civil service pay, and, at the same time, to increase public accountability and improve performance.

This exercise is designed to help students identify patterns of trust within their network of work and/or personal relationships. The exercise examines three types of trust (coomunication-based, contractual-based, and competence-based), and is intended to help students gain insight into their own propensity to trust others, as wellas their perception of the trustworthiness of the important people with whom they interact most often. The exercise is a self-assessment tool and may be used with MBA and executive audiences.

Retaining talent is an issue for any company whose success relies on the creativity and excellence of its employees. This is especially true for Cirque du Soleil, the spectacularly successful "circus without animals," whose 2,100 employees include 500 artists--mimes, clowns, acrobats, gymnasts, musicians, and production professionals. Managing a company full of creative people is a juggling act in itself, between keeping its artists happy and pursuing a successful strategy for attracting more business and talent.

Cynthia Mitchell has finally gotten a plum management opportunity at AgFunds, a Houston-based company that provides financial services to farmers and farmer-owned cooperatives. Peter Jones, regional vice president, has recruited Cynthia to revive the Arkansas district, which has been losing customers for 15 years. The sales force there isn't bad; it's just been poorly managed by an indifferent boss for too long. Still, Cynthia knows she'll need at least one powerhouse sales rep to get things back on track. She thinks she's found that person in Steve Ripley, this year's top trainee at AgFunds, who is inexplicably available three months after the training period is over. In the interview, he proves to be ambitious, intelligent, and personable. But several of Cynthia's colleagues suggest that Steve might not be the best fit for the job: He's a black man in a company whose customer base is mostly conservative and white. Uncomfortably recalling her own experiences at AgFunds--she'd been rejected for a position in a territory that was deemed too unfriendly to female sales representatives--Cynthia addresses the issue with Peter. The mostly white farmers in Cynthia's district just won't trust their books to a black professional, Peter explains. And other minority professionals at AgFunds have derailed their careers trying to make inroads in unfriendly districts. "Steve deserves to start out in a more hospitable district. Once the right opportunity opens up, he'll be hired, and he'll do brilliantly," Peter reassures Cynthia, but she's still uncertain. Should she ignore her customers' biases and hire Steve, possibly setting him up to fail? Or would it be better to let Steve wait for a friendlier opportunity? In R0207A and R0207Z, experts David A. Thomas, Herman Morris, Jr., Daryl Koehn, Alicia Leung, and Glenn C. Loury comment on this fictional case study.

Cynthia Mitchell has finally gotten a plum management opportunity at AgFunds, a Houston-based company that provides financial services to farmers and farmer-owned cooperatives. Peter Jones, regional vice president, has recruited Cynthia to revive the Arkansas district, which has been losing customers for 15 years. The sales force there isn't bad; it's just been poorly managed by an indifferent boss for too long. Still, Cynthia knows she'll need at least one powerhouse sales rep to get things back on track. She thinks she's found that person in Steve Ripley, this year's top trainee at AgFunds, who is inexplicably available three months after the training period is over. In the interview, he proves to be ambitious, intelligent, and personable. But several of Cynthia's colleagues suggest that Steve might not be the best fit for the job: He's a black man in a company whose customer base is mostly conservative and white. Uncomfortably recalling her own experiences at AgFunds--she'd been rejected for a position in a territory that was deemed too unfriendly to female sales representatives--Cynthia addresses the issue with Peter. The mostly white farmers in Cynthia's district just won't trust their books to a black professional, Peter explains. And other minority professionals at AgFunds have derailed their careers trying to make inroads in unfriendly districts. "Steve deserves to start out in a more hospitable district. Once the right opportunity opens up, he'll be hired, and he'll do brilliantly," Peter reassures Cynthia, but she's still uncertain. Should she ignore her customers' biases and hire Steve, possibly setting him up to fail? Or would it be better to let Steve wait for a friendlier opportunity? In R0207A and R0207Z, experts David A. Thomas, Herman Morris, Jr., Daryl Koehn, Alicia Leung, and Glenn C. Loury comment on this fictional case study.

Cynthia Mitchell has finally gotten a plum management opportunity at AgFunds, a Houston-based company that provides financial services to farmers and farmer-owned cooperatives. Peter Jones, regional vice president, has recruited Cynthia to revive the Arkansas district, which has been losing customers for 15 years. The sales force there isn't bad; it's just been poorly managed by an indifferent boss for too long. Still, Cynthia knows she'll need at least one powerhouse sales rep to get things back on track. She thinks she's found that person in Steve Ripley, this year's top trainee at AgFunds, who is inexplicably available three months after the training period is over. In the interview, he proves to be ambitious, intelligent, and personable. But several of Cynthia's colleagues suggest that Steve might not be the best fit for the job: He's a black man in a company whose customer base is mostly conservative and white. Uncomfortably recalling her own experiences at AgFunds--she'd been rejected for a position in a territory that was deemed too unfriendly to female sales representatives--Cynthia addresses the issue with Peter. The mostly white farmers in Cynthia's district just won't trust their books to a black professional, Peter explains. And other minority professionals at AgFunds have derailed their careers trying to make inroads in unfriendly districts. "Steve deserves to start out in a more hospitable district. Once the right opportunity opens up, he'll be hired, and he'll do brilliantly," Peter reassures Cynthia, but she's still uncertain. Should she ignore her customers' biases and hire Steve, possibly setting him up to fail? Or would it be better to let Steve wait for a friendlier opportunity? In R0207A and R0207Z, experts David A. Thomas, Herman Morris, Jr., Daryl Koehn, Alicia Leung, and Glenn C. Loury comment on this fictional case study.

Helen Priano, manufacturing manager at General Grain's Michigan Cereal Facility, had 2 critical decisions to make in early February 2002: whether to fire a 30-year veteran employee and whether to drop charges against an employee caught stealing company property. Priano wanted to be known as a fair leader, and she realized that how she handled these issues and upcoming union contract negotiations would establish her reputation as a leader within the plant. Priano, at age 27, had been promoted to her new position after spending 2 years as a production manager in the neighboring powdered drink mix factory.

Most businesses shower attention and rewards on potential recruits and current employees, but they ignore another key human asset: their ex-employees. That's a costly oversight, because a company's alumni can play many roles on its behalf.

Chip Rae, director of recruiting at SG Cowen, must decide which recruits to keep after the final interview process for new outside associate hires. Along with team captains assigned to each school, he reviews the criteria used to make hiring decisions. Their new strategy is to look beyond the top 10 core business schools for the best of class in the top 25, avoiding people in the middle of their class. After some initial resistance, senior managers eventually see the wisdom of the new strategy.