個案總覽

Excerpts from annual reports of Blount, Inc., Penn Central Corp., and Quaker Oats. Shows changes in inventory valuation from FIFO to LIFO and LIFO to FIFO. Intended to promote a discussion of assumed cost flows through inventory accounts, accounting method changes, the role of auditors, and financial reporting strategy.

Examines the economics, technology, customer segments, and competitors of the PC networking software industry.

Summarizes and synthesizes materials in the following notes: Marketing Situation Assessment, Marketing Research: An Overview of Research Methods, and Research Methods in Marketing: Survey Research.

Describes the role of BETA tests in the new product development process and presents guidelines for effective test program development.

Describes how the new product development program is most efficiently managed.

Discusses the key distinguishing aspects of industrial as compared to consumer marketing. These differences are highlighted for organizational as well as marketing mix aspects.

Describes how the process by which new products are brought to market differs by situations. In particular, the impact of "newness" of the product and opportunity costs are described. Helps students see the need to custom tailor process to individual situations.

Presents a framework for resolving issues in which managers' responsibilities--to shareholders, employees, other stakeholder groups, and to their own values and commitments in life--conflict with each other. The framework analyzes these issues in terms of duties, consequences, personal values, and practicality. Provides an analytic framework for a course or module on business ethics, that brings together basic considerations in moral philosophy with practical pressures, perspectives, and concerns of business executives.

Explains what a company's ethical climate is, describes the forces that shape it, and ways managers can work to alter a firm's ethical climate.

Describes the role that issues of personal integrity play in managers' decisions. Defines personal integrity, the factors that influence it, the situations in which it becomes particularly relevant to company decisions, and ways of overcoming the blind spots that can create too personal a focus on decisions. Helps students understand the issues in the context of decision making and action planning.

Makes possible a discussion of the growth of the railroads in the nineteenth century and the impact of that growth on the American economy.

Examines the coming of mass production (continuous and large-batch processes and those involving fabricating and assembling of interchangeable parts), and relates the beginnings of modern factory management to the needs and opportunities created by the new technology. Besides focusing on the interrelatedness of technology and management, it examines issues created by the responses of management and labor to the new machines and methods.

Provides a conceptual framework for the study of corporate strategy. First describes previous perspectives on corporate strategy and then develops a framework of four elements: resources, tasks, structure, and industries. This framework can be used to explain the value corporations add to their businesses, how they should be organized, and the limit to the scope of the firm. Finally, describes four steps involved in the formulation of a corporate strategy.

Describes the economic theory that was behind the view that resources are central to the creation of value in multibusiness corporations and identifies tests that resources must pass to become part of a firm's "distinctive competence". Describes how those resources can be leveraged, built, or altered.

Lays out some ideas on how to restructure a multibusiness corporation. Identifies sixteen elements of organization design, and then applies contingency theory to argue that these elements need to be aligned with the tasks the corporation uses to create value across its multiple business. The emphasis throughout is on applying recent developments in organizational economics to the design of a corporation's structure, systems, and procedures.

Examines those social marketing situations that pose challenges for adoption of conventional marketing principles. In addition to discussing how they differ the note explores underlying reasons and suggests alternate ways of conceptualizing such problems.

Highlights the challenges of implementing major change in an organization. It first describes the common pitfalls so that implementors will be "forewarned." Next, it characterizes the guidelines for successful implementation as the "ten commandments", while offering a step-by-step approach for managers. Also concludes that implementation is a combination of science and art, of planning and flexibility. The role of the middle manager as implementor is stressed throughout.

Managers often ignore uncertainty and plan as if the world were certain. Frequently, strategy is formulated based on an extrapolation of current trends into the future, or the best guess scenario of the manager involved. This note discusses four approaches to shaping the firm's response to uncertainty. The first half discusses using scenario analysis to better understand how the future may evolve. The second half discusses how to use this understanding in formulating a strategic response to uncertainty. Discusses bets, "robust" choices, choices of timing, and "changing the rules."

This note traces the evolution and broadening of Goldratt's thinking from his OPT finite-scheduling software to his theory of constraints. The note discusses the bottleneck thinking that Goldratt presented in his novel, The Goal, and his book, The Race.

This note serves as an introduction to the topic of inventory management. It covers ways to categorize inventories in measuring inventory performance, the financial implications of inventory, inventory-management systems, economic order quantities, decision rules for determining safety stocks, and the effect of multiple stocking points on average inventory.