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- Faculty Publications (581)
- August 2004
- Case
Microsoft.NET (Abridged)
By: Alan D. MacCormack and Kerry Herman
Set in the summer of 2000, following the unveiling of Microsoft's .NET initiative to the public. Three of the key figures in .NET's development are considering the next steps they would have to take to keep the initiative moving forward. Specifically, the challenges... View Details
- June 2004 (Revised June 2006)
- Supplement
Vertex Pharmaceuticals: R&D Portfolio Management (A)
By: Gary P. Pisano, Lee Fleming and Eli Strick
Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a drug discovery company that recently decided to pursue a vertically integrated business model, chose to build up its clinical development and commercial capabilities and infrastructure. For the first time in its history, Vertex will... View Details
- June 2004 (Revised November 2004)
- Case
Birth of the Swatch, The
By: Youngme E. Moon
In 1993, the Swatch is the best-selling watch in history. Traces the history of the watch industry up to the early 1980s, when the Swatch was introduced. Describes the various elements that made the Swatch different from any watch the industry had ever seen. Also... View Details
- May 2004 (Revised April 2006)
- Case
Ultra: The Quest for Leadership (A)
By: Dwight B. Crane and Ricardo Reisen de Pinho
Ultra is one of a small group of competing Brazilian petrochemical companies, each of which buys raw material and is a minority owner of Copene, a "cracking" company that provides ethylene and other materials. Because of an industry restructuring, an auction of shares... View Details
- April 2004 (Revised September 2007)
- Case
Accounting Fraud at WorldCom
By: Robert S. Kaplan and David Kiron
The principal players in WorldCom's accounting fraud included CFO Scott Sullivan, the General Accounting and Internal Audit departments, external auditor Arthur Andersen, and the board of directors. The case provides sufficient detail to allow for a full discussion of... View Details
- February 2004
- Case
The Making of Verizon
By: Rosabeth M. Kanter, Douglas A Raymond and Ryan Raffaelli
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... View Details
- December 2003 (Revised May 2004)
- Case
Sears Auto Centers (A) (Abridged)
By: Lynn S. Paine
In the early 1990s Sears faced and allegations by the California Department of Consumer Affairs that the company's auto repair centers had been overbilling customers and making unnecessary repairs. Top management must evaluate the problem and come up with a plan to... View Details
- November 2003 (Revised May 2008)
- Case
Atlas Electrica: International Strategy
By: Michael E. Porter and Arturo Condo
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... View Details
- September 2003 (Revised March 2004)
- Case
Bharti Tele-Ventures
By: Tarun Khanna, Krishna G. Palepu and Ingrid Vargas
Following the liberalization of India's telecommunications service industry in the early 1990s, Bharti Tele-Ventures grew from a small entrepreneurial telephone equipment importer and manufacturer to become India's largest private-sector telecommunications service... View Details
- July 2003 (Revised June 2004)
- Case
Managing Business Risk of Information Technology
By: Richard L. Nolan and Robert D. Austin
Sets up a situation in which participants must create presentations that assess the IT risk of a large company. View Details
- February 2003 (Revised March 2007)
- Case
Safe to Say at Prudential Financial
By: Amy C. Edmondson and Corey B. Hajim
The CEO initiated a cultural change process at Prudential Financial to support a major business reorientation. Prudential, historically a privately held ("mutual") insurance company, went public in 2001. The cultural change was intended to prepare the organization to... View Details
- January 2003 (Revised May 2003)
- Case
VendQuest (A): The Business Idea
By: Dwight B. Crane and David Foster
A potential founder of a company is considering whether to start up a new enterprise that would link parts distributors with customers in the construction industries via the Internet. This case describes the industry and the potential advantages to distributors and... View Details
- January 2003 (Revised May 2005)
- Case
Zipcar: Refining the Business Model
By: Myra M. Hart, Michael J. Roberts and Julia Stevens
Zipcar is a start-up organized around the idea of "sharing" car usage via a membership organization. This case describes several iterations of the Zipcar business model and financial plan. These iterations include a very early version and a version developed just prior... View Details
- November 2002 (Revised June 2003)
- Case
Monsanto: Leadership in a New Environment
By: Ray A. Goldberg, James Weber and James M Beagle
Monsanto is the biotechnology leader in agriculture. How does it use its leadership in Round Up to fund long-term research and development in biotechnology that is acceptable to the priority system of consumers in different parts of the world? Includes color exhibits. View Details
- November 2002 (Revised November 2006)
- Case
Tax-Motivated Film Financing at Rexford Studios
By: Mihir A. Desai, Gabriel J. Loeb and Mark Veblen
The head of production for Rexford Studios must analyze the terms and value consequences of an international financing involving a German film fund. The financing involves a sale-leaseback structure where international tax rules give rise to a sizable economic pie that... View Details
- August 2002
- Article
Creativity Under the Gun
By: Teresa Amabile, Constance N. Hadley and Steven J. Kramer
If you're like most managers, you've worked with people who swear they do their most creative work under tight deadlines. You may use pressure as a management technique, believing it will spur people on to great leaps of insight. You may even manage yourself this way.... View Details
- April 2002
- Case
Ocular
By: Paul A. Gompers, Gregor M. Andrade and Jonathan Man
Concerns the decision of Ed Kennedy, co-founder of Ocular Networks, as he decides what financing strategy his firm should take. The venture capital and public markets for telecommunications start-ups had dried up and Kennedy must decide whether to cut costs and raise... View Details
- April 2002 (Revised May 2005)
- Case
GE's Digital Revolution: Redefining the E in GE
By: Christopher A. Bartlett and Meg Glinska
This case details the implementation of the e-business initiative--the last of Jack Welch's four company-wide strategic thrusts. First, it summarizes the 20-year change process that Welch led, detailing the initiatives he put in place. It then traces how Gerry Podesta,... View Details
- March 2002 (Revised August 2002)
- Case
Microsoft.NET
By: Alan D. MacCormack and Kerry Herman
Set in the summer of 2000, following the unveiling of Microsoft's .NET initiative to the public. Three of the key figures in .NET's development are considering the next steps they would have to take to keep the initiative moving forward. Specifically, the challenges... View Details
- January 2002
- Case
Intrinsix: Managing Growth at an Electronic Design Service Company
By: H. Kent Bowen and Courtney Purrington
Intrinsix is a 15-year-old semiconductor design services company that wants to continue its growth and market reach and appears to be ready for an initial public offering (IPO). This case leads up to this strategic decision point by tracing the growth of Intrinsix from... View Details