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Taught in the elective MBA course entitled The Evolution of Global Business. Examines the development of an international cartel in the oil industry in the 1920s and 1930s. Focuses on the decisions and actions of the leading multinational oil companies--particularly Standard Oil of New Jersey, Royal Dutch/Shell, and Anglo-Persian (BP)--in acting together to try to stabilize prices and market shares beginning in the late 1920s through the Achnacarry or "As-is" Agreement. Set against the backdrop of the development of the global oil industry, it examines the causes of the change in firm strategy from competition to cooperation and offers an opportunity for readers to assess the success of efforts at inter-firm coordination and stabilization. Also explores the personal and professional relationships between the leading oil-industry executives who forged the cartel, including Henry Deterding, Walter Teagle, and John Cadman. Important subissues include the changing nature of the oil industry in the 1910s and 1920s, the rise of oil diplomacy, and the impact of U.S. antitrust laws on the global oil business.

Launched in 1998, Fat Angelo's is the brainchild of three entrepreneurs who saw a void in the family-style Italian restaurants in Hong Kong. By the end of 2002, it had grown into a four-restaurant chain. Illustrates the issues facing the restaurants during their start-up and the rapid growth stages. There was an extra store adjacent to the Tsim Sha Tsui Fat Angelo's, and the entrepreneurs wanted to venture into another line of cuisine. What type of restaurant would fit? What was their final decision? What lessons did they learn?

With increasing pollution and congestion, European car manufacturers were concerned that governments might eventually ban conventional cars from city centers. A smaller car had the possibility of escaping such a ban. The producer of Swatch watches, SMH AG (Swiss Corp. for Microelectronics and Watchmaking Industries, Ltd.), came up with the novel idea of an environmentally friendly but stylish supercompact car. The smarta would embody a whole new notion of mobility, where owning a smart car would mean purchasing an uninterrupted mobility solution, referred to as smartmove. The program would offer the smart customer attractive, favorably priced parking spaces, access to other vehicles from AVIS and car-sharers, access to other means of transport, and reduced prices for transporting the smart on ferries and trains.

Juan Luis Rojas, commercial planning manager of a Caja de Ahorros (savings bank), faces the challenge of motivating the branches to sell more long-term mortgages and ponders whether to use transfer prices to achieve his objective.

Larry Baer, executive vice-president and COO, was eager to improve profitability for the San Francisco Giants baseball team. Over the last few years, the Giants have had a number of successes. They successfully built the first privately financed ball park in over 30 years. They set all-time records in season ticket holders, attendance, and sponsorship advertising. At the same time, the team was highly competitive in the field, ranking first or second in the league and making it to the World Series in 2002. However, they were expected to incur significant operating losses. Baer wondered what he should do.

Atlas must decide whether to acquire La Indeca, increasing its Central American presence, or to focus on larger Latin American markets where higher growth is possible. In the year 2000, Jorge Rodriguez was in charge of Atlas Electrica, the largest home appliance firm in Central America. Although it had almost doubled its sales in the 1990s, by the end of the decade Atlas was experiencing a declining market share in its home region and facing increasing competition from outside the region, especially from Mexican and Korean multinationals. At the time, Atlas' main competitor in Central America, El Salvador-based Indeca, was up for sale. Atlas Electrica, based in Costa Rica, served more than a dozen Latin American countries. Since its establishment in 1961, it had served Central American markets with different types of home appliances, later focusing on white-goods for middle-income segments of Central American consumers. In the mid-1990s, through a strategic alliance with Sweden's AG Electrolux, Atlas had expanded to Latin American markets beyond Central America.

This case traces the development of the balanced scorecard for a fast-growing biotech company in transition. It reports how the new CEO embraces the scorecard concept early to explain and measure the progress of his strategic objectives to the various stakeholders. The case subsequently traces the rollout and development of the scorecards as they cascade throughout the organization. Finally, the North American CFO confronts the problem of relating scorecard targets to individual performance goals of his finance team.

This case deals with a division of Rosemount, Inc., with concerns about meeting customer delivery requirements. Although the delivery problems result from long lead times throughout the ordering, production, and delivery process, the focus is on the manufacturing plant. The goal set for the protagonist, Mike Severson, is to reduce the production cycle time from five days to three.

World Bank IT provides services (communications, applications, video conferencing, knowledge sharing, distance learning, information sharing, client commerce, crisis management, etc.) on a global basis to the poorest countries in the globe via satellites. This case covers the bank's global business strategy transformation and the role that IT plays in enabling that vision. Covers strategy and implementation topics and conveys a sense of using IT to narrow the digital divide on a global scale while recapping the evolution of the bank's IT strategy and implementation from 1995 to 2003.

A new, minimally invasive medical device has achieved only one-third of its budget. Was the problem one of marketing strategy, sales, reimbursement, and/or clinical trials?

The case describes the problem facing the president and credit manager of Warner-Lambert with respect to financial position of a major distributor. The distributor's financial statements have just been received by the company and the situation is much worse than anticipated. The survival of the distributor is clearly threatened and Warner-Lambert must consider a new distribution network for the territory.

This is the first case study of 12 in the Jack Wright series of cases on Corporate Governance. This first case describes the process by which Jack came to be asked to join the board of Mega Corporation. The case requires students to consider the pros and cons of board membership and decide whether they would recommend Jack join the board.

This case provides for a discussion of the legal obligations of directors and their role in our corporate/capitalist system of corporate Governance.

This case deals with the means by which a company's board assess its strengths and weaknesses, identifies the skills and experience it needs, derives a list of suitable candidates, conducts "due diligence" in the process of narrowing in the list, and invites desirable candidates to join the board.

Case #5 in the Jack Wright series provides for the discussion of issues relating to succession planning for the CEO, their selection and appointment, and the subsequent appraisal of their performance. These activities are among the most crucial that boards have to face, and directly impact the long-term performance of the company.

The process by which the board determines the mix of vehicles for compensation of the CEO and the level of compensation is among the most important aspects of board responsibility. Additionally, the board must appraise the performance of the CEO, many aspects of which necessarily relate to the various methods of compensation. This case provides a vehicle for the discussion of many aspects of these topics.

There are many aspects of relationships between the board and management that are determined on a best effort basis. That is, the rules and by-laws of the company cannot pre-specify the detailed workings of the intersecting interests. Our system of capitalism depends on the good faith efforts of all concerned to derive effective working relationships. This case provides for a discussion of these issues in the context of Jack Wright and Mega Corporation.

This case deals with the issues of the corporation's organizational structure and capital structure. Jack Wright and the Mega Corporation board must consider a proposal to eliminate a large number of subsidiary companies to simplify the organization and another proposal to issue corporate bonds, the proceeds of which would be used to repurchase a large block of the company's outstanding shares.