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Reggae music has swept the world. From its origins in Jamaica, it can now be heard in clubs and bars from Senegal to Samoa. It has also influenced music from other countries, such as American rap. In the late 1990s, annual sales of reggae recordings were estimated to be $1.2 billion, of which Jamaican musicians, producers, and songwriters earned about $300 million, plus another $50 million from live performances and ancillary product sales. Describes the evolution of Jamaican musical forms, the development of the country's music industry, and the industry's structure in the early 21st century; introduces the concept of industrial clusters--localized groups of firms that grow around a single industry and include all the necessary supporting companies required by the industry; and asks how industrial clusters provide benefits to participants, how they can be grown, and how a developing country can build an industry.

Prepares students to view "Path to War"--a movie that depicts the decision-making processes employed by President Lyndon Johnson and his advisers during the Vietnam War. Provides a brief history of the conflict in Vietnam prior to Johnson's decision to commit American combat troops and biographical information about Johnson and the other key participants in the decision-making process.

Human beings are driven by reasons and emotions. On the one hand, as rational choice theorists assert, human beings are resourceful and evaluative as they strive to maximize their own interests. An individual's interests can converge or diverge from the interests of the organization. Thus, to bring the resourcefulness of individuals to benefit the organization, control systems must be designed to align the interests of the organization and the individual. On the other hand, it has long been recognized (and reinforced by contemporary research on the human brain) that human beings are also driven by emotions. Emotions can be in accord with rational behavior (e.g., when fear evokes caution in the face of danger, or pride motivates greater effort). But emotions can also be at odds with rational behavior (e.g., when pain avoidance leads to an unwillingness to confront difficult decisions, or shame leads to cover-ups, or hubris leads to excessive optimism). Understanding the importance of both reason and emotion is, thus, critical to designing organizations, control systems, and governance structures that promote desired behaviors. Teaching Purpose: Some model of human nature, implicitly if not explicitly, guides any manager's actions. It is useful for students to be aware of these underlying assumptions and attentive to ways reason and emotion shape their own behavior and those of others around them.

Pixar, Inc. is the subject of an article that suggests its share price is currently overvalued. The article is picked up in summary by several wire services. Pixar's management must determine the appropriate public response. Its choices range from ignoring the article, to a brief response, to a point-by-point refutation.

Through a series of mergers, Ivan Seidenberg, Verizon chairman and CEO, successfully shared the co-CEO title twice while building the largest telecom company in the United States. The strong and complementary cultures of the companies that Seidenberg and a key group of executives had merged was a major factor in their success. However, in the steps leading up to this, decreased revenues in their traditional wireline business intensified their dependence on the growth of wireless and broadband services. As Verizon moved into this less familiar territory, the culture that had sustained them through change would have to be evaluated as they embarked on a new wave of growth. As the future of Verizon become more dependent on business in areas that bore little resemblance to the Baby Bells, were the lessons from past successful mergers less applicable?

HP had been a highly successful and respected company for decades. It was well known for its company culture and management practices--the HP way--which emphasized both profits and people. Changing markets, strong competitors, and the growth of its computer business, however, battered the company in the mid-1990s. To turn things around, HP hired Carly Fiorina, the first outsider to lead the company. Describes Fiorina's strategy and the impact of decisions she made with respect to the acquisition of Compaq and HR policies on HP's venerable culture and performance.

The senior managers of the India Design Center used 360-degree feedback to develop their team competencies. Now, three new managers are about to join their management team, and Ashok Kumar, director of the center, must decide how to integrate the new managers in a way that maintains the team's newfound trust and camaraderie. Describes the managers' work activities, including engineering, human resources, and finance responsibilities, to allow a diagnosis of how the managers can benefit from working together as a team. Also notes the challenges these managers face as they work with their bosses and counterparts at the company's headquarters in California, which is 13.5 time zones away. The team is one that could presumably benefit from better cross-functional coordination and communication regarding their collective relationship with the company's headquarters in California.

The CEO is often the most isolated and protected employee in the organization. Few leaders, even veteran CEOs, can do the job without talking to someone about their experiences, which is why most develop a close relationship with a trusted colleague, a confidant to whom they can tell their thoughts and fears. In his work with leaders, the author has found that many CEO-confidant relationships function very well. The confidants keep their leaders' best interests at heart. They derive their gratification vicariously, through the help they provide rather than through any personal gain, and they are usually quite aware that a person in their position can potentially abuse access to the CEO's innermost secrets. Unfortunately, almost as many confidants will end up hurting, undermining, or otherwise exploiting CEOs when the executives are at their most vulnerable. The leader is often the last one to know when or how the confidant relationship became toxic. The author has identified three types of destructive confidants. The reflector mirrors the CEO, constantly reassuring him that he is the "fairest CEO of them all." The insulator buffers the CEO from the organization, preventing critical information from getting in or out. And the usurper cunningly ingratiates himself with the CEO in a desperate bid for power.

Too many organizations descend into underperformance because they can't confront the painful gap between their strategy and the reality of their capabilities, their behaviors, and their markets. That's because senior managers don't know how to engage in truthful conversations about the problems that threaten the business--and because lower level managers are afraid to speak up. These factors lie behind many failures to implement strategy. Indeed, the dynamics in almost any organization are such that it's extremely difficult for senior people to hear the unfiltered truth from managers lower down. Beer and Eisenstat's methodology for getting the truth about an organization's problems onto the table in a way that allows senior management to do something useful with it is to assemble a task force of the most effective managers to collect data about strategic and organizational problems. In this way, the senior team sends a clear message that it is serious about uncovering the truth. Task force members present their findings to the senior team in the form of a discussion. This conversation needs to move back and forth between advocacy and inquiry; it has to be about the issues that matter most; it has to be collective and public; it has to allow employees to be honest without risking their jobs; and it has to be structured. This direct feedback from a handful of their best people moves senior teams to make changes they otherwise might not have.

Supplements the (A) case.

Large discrepancies have developed between two elite technology development teams at Crutchfield Chemical Engineering in terms of motivation and creativity. To investigate, Paul Burke, director of corporate technology development, commissioned a study of the day-by-day dynamics within these teams (the Lumen and Absorb teams). Using 10 days' worth of electronic daily diaries collected from all members of the two teams, the study reveals rich information about team leader behaviors, team member thoughts and behaviors, team dynamics, and project progress. By summarizing both the diary data and personality data on both teams' members, the study presents Burke with a clear dilemma about enhancing and maintaining motivation and creativity in teams of high-level professionals working on challenging projects under difficult organizational conditions.

On April 14, 1994, two U.S. Air Force F-15 fighters accidentally shot down two U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopters over Northern Iraq, killing all 26 peacekeepers onboard. Describes the initial investigation and response to this accident and raises questions about the role of human behavior in the accident. Told through the eyes of three of the main participants--Captain Eric Wickson, Lieutenant Ricky Wilson, and Brigadier General Jeffrey Scott Pilkington.

Sixty-year-old Martha Stewart, founder and former CEO of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc., was charged with four legal actions alleging she breached her fiduciary duties to MSO when she made "materially false and misleading statements" about her involvement in trading ImClone stock. Although Stewart's firm was not accused of any crime, she and her company were being likened to corporate villains such as Enron and WorldCom. The A case outlines events and Stewart's initial reactions, providing students an opportunity to examine issues of crisis containment and communication. Through the disaster, what might she anticipate for herself, for her role at MSO, and for the survival of the company she created? How should Stewart deal with unwanted media attention and negative attacks? And what audience was Stewart speaking to when she finally did appear publicly?

This case is about African-American, Latin American and Asian undergraduate, international business majors from a Boston-area university who traveled to Spain, France and Germany for a year-long period of study and work. Presented are their experiences being minority students in Europe. The experiences range from annoying stares to aggressive propositions from men. This case can be used with the note The Changing Face of Europe: A Note on Immigration and Societal Attitudes, product 9B03M050 to prepare business students for overseas study and internships.

Major Steckleson is facing his toughest challenge yet. As an experienced observer-controller at the U.S. Army's National Training Center, Steckleson is responsible for helping leaders of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Squadron learn from a deadly mistake in simulated combat by facilitating the unit's After Action Review (AAR). AARs are structured conversations about recent experience designed to help units learn from both mistakes and successes.

Montgomery Watson Harza (MWH) was striving to become a global leader in water/environment, energy, and infrastructure sectors through an expanding set of services, products, and construction capabilities by leveraging its global position and knowledge management concepts. MWH executives wanted to continue to expand knowledge management usage across geographic and business divisions. The protagonist, Vic Gulas, had recently expanded his responsibilities to include leading the human resources and information technology groups. By leading the IT, HR, and knowledge management groups, it was possible to devise strategies that addressed both the technology and social aspects of knowledge management. However, limited resources and time pressure to continue to show results presented Gulas with several potentially competing strategies to pursue. His decision on which course of action to take would determine the future role of knowledge management at MWH.

Ed Davidson is on top of the world, literally and figuratively, at the beginning of this fictional case study. He's in the Swiss Alps, headed for Davos and his first experience as a delegate to the World Economic Forum's annual conference. And he has reason to believe he is about to be made president of his company, Carston Waite--and, therefore, heir apparent to the CEO position. Then his phone rings. It's his mentor, Frank Maugham, the CFO and a board member at Carston Waite, calling to inform him of a major setback. "David asked me to let you know you are not going to be named president," he says. "At least not yet. He wants to stay close to the business." But Frank has a plan to change the CEO's mind. Meanwhile, Ed feels betrayed and humiliated--and his desire for revenge against the CEO mounts. When the news comes that Frank's plan has failed and has cost Frank his job, Ed is already deep in a plot of his own. He's in Davos because David had to back out; Ed is supposed to deliver the CEO's remarks in his stead. But why not use this opportunity on the world stage instead to deal a parting blow? In R0401A and R0401Z, a psychoanalyst, a psychiatrist, an executive coach, and a governance expert comment on Ed's state of mind and his best course of action. They are Kenneth Eisold, the president of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations; Dee Soder, the founder and managing partner of the CEO Perspective Group; Jeffrey P. Kahn, the CEO of WorkPsych Associates; and Charles M. Elson, the Edgar S. Woolard, Jr., Chair of Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware.

Like it or not, leaders need to manage the mood of their organizations. The most gifted leaders accomplish that by using a mysterious blend of psychological abilities known as emotional intelligence. They are self-aware and empathetic. They can read and regulate their own emotions while intuitively grasping how others feel and gauging their organization's emotional state. But where does emotional intelligence come from, and how do leaders learn to use it? In this article, 18 leaders and scholars (including business executives, leadership researchers, psychologists, an autism expert, and a symphony conductor) explore the nature and management of emotional intelligence. Their responses varied, but some common themes emerged: the importance of consciously--and conscientiously--honing one's skills, the double-edged nature of self-awareness, and the danger of letting any one emotional intelligence skill dominate. Among their observations: Psychology Professor John Mayer, who codeveloped the concept of emotional intelligence, warns managers not to be confused by popular definitions of the term, which suggest that if you have a certain set of personality traits then you automatically possess emotional intelligence. Neuropsychologist Elkhonon Goldberg agrees with professors Daniel Goleman and Robert Goffee that emotional intelligence can be learned--but only by people who already show an aptitude for it.

Does using Tyco's funds to purchase a $6,000 shower curtain and a $15,000 dog-shaped umbrella stand make Dennis Kozlowski a bad leader? Is Martha Stewart's career any less instructive because she may have sold some shares on the basis of a tip-off? Is leadership synonymous with moral leadership? Before 1970, the answer from most leadership theorists would certainly have been no. Look at Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao Tse-tung--great leaders all, but hardly good men. In fact, capricious, murderous, high-handed, corrupt, and evil leaders are effective and commonplace. Everywhere, power goes hand in hand with corruption--everywhere, that is, except in the literature of business leadership. To read Tom Peters, Jay Conger, John Kotter, and most of their colleagues, leaders are, as Warren Bennis puts it, individuals who create shared meaning, have a distinctive voice, have the capacity to adapt, and have integrity. According to today's business literature, to be a leader is, by definition, to be benevolent. But leadership is not a moral concept, and it is high time we acknowledge that fact. Leaders are like the rest of us: trustworthy and deceitful, cowardly and brave, greedy and generous. To assume that all good leaders are good people is to be willfully blind to the reality of the human condition.

Leaders go through many transitions in their careers. Each brings new crises and challenges that are predictable. Knowing what to expect can help you get through and perhaps emerge stronger. In this engaging article, Warren G. Bennis, professor and founding chairman of the University of Southern California's Leadership Institute, reflects on leadership, recounting his own experiences as a young lieutenant in the infantry in World War II, as the new president of a university, and as the mentor to a unique nursing student. Bennis also describes the experiences of other leaders he has known throughout his career. Drawing on more than 50 years of academic research and business expertise--and borrowing from Shakespeare's seven ages of man--Bennis says the leader's life unfolds in seven stages. "The infant executive" seeks to recruit a mentor for guidance. "The schoolboy" must learn how to do the job in public. "The lover with a woeful ballad" struggles with the tsunami of problems every organization presents. "The bearded soldier" must be willing to hire people better than he is, because he knows that talented underlings can help him shine. "The general" must become adept at allowing people to speak the truth and being able to hear what they are saying. "The statesman" is hard at work preparing to pass on wisdom in the interests of the organization. And, finally, "the sage" embraces the role of mentor to young executives.