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How does one know what makes a good case? Are there certain attributes that effective business school cases have? This technical note was intended to help writers who may or may not be business school professors write a case. The note includes material on objectives, finding leads, interview questions and interviewing techniques, and case structure. Although the idea of what constitutes a good case may be debatable, there are several characteristics that good case studies have in common..

Introduces the role for time-driven activity-based costing. Identifies the value from an accurate costing model, describes the difficulties of traditional ABC, and illustrates how time-driven ABC provides a simpler and more powerful method.

Using a comprehensive and simple example of a firm exposed to foreign exchange risk, interest rate risk, and commodity price risk, shows how to use corporate-value-at-risk to measure and manage a firm's global exposure to risk.

Lays out the steps, the timeline, and the process by which a company is sold. Focuses on the sale of companies with enterprise values greater than $100 million. These transactions are large enough to require the help of a financial adviser and attract both strategic and financial bidders. The sale process described is that of a private auction, including a confidential information memorandum and a "roadshow" to sell the high-yield debt needed to fund the transaction. Covers issues such as identifying and attracting bidders; dealing with the concerns of the managers of the selling company; negotiating issues in a definitive merger agreement; and post-sale issues.

Explores the importance of private equity firms in merger and acquisitions activity around the globe. In many countries, these firms now account for one quarter of the total merger and acquisition activity of all firms. The larger private equity firms generate fees for investment banking firms that exceed $350 million per year. Shows how the general partners of the fund financing the acquisition; the limited partners of the fund financing the acquisition; and the management team running the acquired firm for the private equity sponsor share the shareholder value creation in a successful leveraged buyout sponsored by a private equity firm.

Marketing plans are critically important tools for marketing executives. If you can't create a strong marketing plan, it is unlikely that you will be successful. Explains why marketing plans are so important and provides a framework for creating a strong marketing plan and keys to success.

Outlines the four primary public policy objectives underlying the U.S. laws regulating business in the early 21st century: to promote economic growth; to protect workers; to promote consumer welfare, and to promote public welfare. Other major economic powers tend to have laws that promote these same objectives, albeit with varying degrees of emphasis on the different objectives and varying ways of promoting them.

Explains the construct of strategic compliance management (SCM) and asserts that managers and their firms can perform more effectively, that is, create or capture more value or better manage risk, when they comply with applicable laws, search for innovation opportunities created by regulation and deregulation, and proactively anticipate future regulation.

Describes the emergence of several kinds of efforts to assure the safety of foreign investment in emerging markets: international arbitration, expanded official political risk insurance, credit from government agencies, and intervention by investors' home governments. Points out the roles of bilateral investment treaties and regional economic agreements in making arbitration accessible to an increasing number of foreign investors. Views the various arrangements as substitutes for a global agreement on foreign direct investment that would parallel the WTO for trade given that attempts to negotiate a comprehensive arrangement have so far failed. Also, presents several criticisms of the current system.

This technical note describes parity conditions (PPP, UIP, and CIP) and develops a model of exchange rate determination.

This brief note describes the kanban system of inventory control. It discusses the rules for its use, techniques for calculating the number of cards, and the difference between push and pull systems.

Presents the systems approach to law and management, a construct for understanding how public law affects the competitive environment and a firm's resources. Describes how the legally astute manager can use legal tools to assess opportunities, develop the firm's value proposition, and select and perform the activities in the value chain. Also, explains the social context in which business operates.

This technical note describes the process of hypothesis-driven thinking, using examples from strategy consulting, medicine, and architecture. Associated with the scientific method, hypothesis-driven thinking focuses on the creative generation of alternative hypotheses and on their subsequent validation or refutation through the use of data. Hypothesis generation asks the creative question, "What if ...?" Hypothesis testing follows with "If ..., then ..." and brings relevant data to bear on the analysis. Taken together, and repeated over time, this sequence allows us to pose ever-improving hypotheses without forfeiting the ability to explore new ideas.

Technically, the Three-Paned Model helps us understand the determinants of interest rates in general but tells us nothing about any particular interest rate. The vagueness of the Three-Paned Model is useful when first learning international macroeconomics, but is untenable as we move toward a more complete understanding of interest rates. This technical note is much more precise about real and nominal interest rates, providing a more complete IS/LM model as a driver of general movements in interest rates, presenting a supply and demand model for bonds that further enhances our understanding of interest rate movements, and discussing the yield curve, which informs us about the relationship between similar bonds of different maturities.

The first in a three-part series on Competitive Cost Analysis, this note provides an introduction to cost drivers and a conceptual framework for thinking about the different types. It also provides some general guidance on developing cost models.

This technical note discusses risk and term premiums, prominent theories of the yield curve, and how to construct a yield curve.

Describes the four components of legal astuteness: the attitudes, proactive approach, judgment, and knowledge necessary to manage the legal aspects of business effectively. Identifies a number of legal tools legally astute managers can use during different phases of business development to create and capture value and manage risk.

Presents a typology of customer-introduced variability and offers guidance on how to manage each type. Central to the ideas developed is how to mitigate the effects of the apparent trade-off between reducing variability and diminishing the service experience or accommodating variability and compromising operational efficiency.

Explores ways in which service firms can influence the behavior of their customers. Drawing from research on employee motivation and applying it to customer motivation, the note describes two levels of managerial control: instrumental control, which shapes behavior through the use of rational incentives, and normative control, which engages human emotions, motivating through the near-universal desire to be perceived in a positive light.

Discusses platform structure in new networked markets, that is, whether a market that exhibits network effects will be served by a single platform or by rival platforms. Defines "platforms" and "platform structure"; describes factors that influence the odds that a winner-take-all outcome will prevail; and presents a framework for analyzing these factors in combination to predict platform structure.