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- August 2008
- Supplement
Microsoft's Unlimited Potential (B)
By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Marie Madelene Bell
This short (B) case provides an update of how Microsoft organized its unlimited potential initiative. View Details
- July 2008
- Exercise
Information Use by Managers in Decision Making: A Team Exercise
By: Amy C. Edmondson and Ann Cullen
The purpose of this exercise is to explore the challenges of information collection and analysis. Students will, experientially, gain insights into how information is used and be exposed to a framework for identifying and evaluating information. In addition, the... View Details
- 2008
- Other Unpublished Work
From Public Purpose to Financial Economics: The Linked Ecologies of Economics and Business in Twentieth Century America
By: Marion Fourcade and Rakesh Khurana
As the main producers of managerial elites, business schools represent strategic research sites for understanding the formation of economic practices and representations. This article draws on historical material to analyze the changing place of economics in American... View Details
- May 2008
- Background Note
The Producing Manager: A Double-Barreled Role
By: John J. Gabarro and Thomas J. DeLong
The purpose of this note is to ground and amplify on the characteristics and challenges of the producing manager role. It is in response to requests from participants for a piece of "take away" material that can be shared with colleagues in professional service firms... View Details
- 2008
- Book
Predictable Surprises
By: Max Bazerman and Michael D. Watkins
Most events that catch us by surprise are both predictable and preventable, but we consistently miss (or ignore) the warning signs. This book shows why such "predictable surprises" put us all at risk, and shows how we can understand, anticipate, and prevent them before... View Details
- March 2008 (Revised March 2009)
- Case
Transforming AMFAM
By: Rakesh Khurana, Rajiv Lal and Cathy Ross
On a winter day in December 2007 at the American Family Mutual Insurance Company (AMFAM) headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin, Dave Anderson and Jack Salzwedel remained in the conference room after the senior management meeting had concluded. Anderson, CEO of AMFAM since... View Details
- March 2008
- Case
Ujjivan: A Microfinance Institution at a Crossroads (A)
By: V.G. Narayanan and Pamela Freed
Samit Ghosh, the CEO and founder of Ujjivan, a major microfinance provider in Bangalore, wants to grow his business rapidly and become financially sustainable, but he's struggling with staff fraud, high costs, and how to stay true to Ujjivan's mission of poverty... View Details
- March 2008
- Article
Is Yours a Learning Organization?
By: David A. Garvin, Amy C. Edmondson and Francesca Gino
This article includes a one-page preview that quickly summarizes the key ideas and provides an overview of how the concepts work in practice along with suggestions for further reading. An organization with a strong learning culture faces the unpredictable deftly.... View Details
- February 2008 (Revised August 2011)
- Case
Olympia Machine Company, Inc.
By: Frank V. Cespedes and Benson P. Shapiro
The management team of an industrial equipment supplier is debating the company's method of compensating salespeople. Different executives have offered different alternatives to the current method of straight salary plus expenses. Each option has different implications... View Details
- January 2008 (Revised March 2011)
- Case
Henry J. Kaiser and the Art of the Possible
By: Anthony J. Mayo, Mark Benson and David Chen
From his humble beginnings as a local salesman in New York, Henry J. Kaiser rose to become one of the leading industrialists of 20th century America. Though he had no technical engineering training, Kaiser mastered the management and execution of plans for several... View Details
Keywords: History; Mission and Purpose; Transition; Management Practices and Processes; Construction; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Leadership Style; Business History; Business Growth and Maturation; Civil Society or Community; Business Strategy; Planning; Construction Industry; Shipping Industry; United States
- 2008
- Article
Diversification of Chinese Companies: An International Comparison
By: Joseph P.H. Fan, Jun Huang, Felix Oberholzer-Gee, Troy D. Smith and Mengxin Zhao
The purpose of this paper is to provide a systematic comparison of the level of business diversification in China and eight other large economies for the 2001-2005 period. The reasons why publicly listed Chinese firms are more diversified than companies elsewhere are... View Details
- January 2008
- Article
Putting Leadership Back into Strategy
In recent decades an infusion of economics has lent the study of strategy much needed theory and empirical evidence. Strategy consultants, armed with frameworks and techniques, have stepped forward to help managers analyze their industries and position their companies... View Details
- Guest Column
What Is the Purpose of Business?
By: Rakesh Khurana and Herbert Gintis
Keywords: Business Ventures
- October 2007
- Case
The AtekPC Project Management Office
By: F. Warren McFarlan, Mark Keil and John Hupp
Presents one company's efforts to implement a project management organization, or PMO, and the challenges they faced in doing so. Issues brought out in the case include defining the PMO's purpose and mission, the structure and governance of the PMO, and how to... View Details
- September 2007
- Teaching Note
Opportunity International: Measurement and Mission (TN)
By: Herman B. Leonard, Srikant M. Datar, Marc J. Epstein and Melissa Tritter
- 2007
- Working Paper
Digital Interactivity: Unanticipated Consequences for Markets, Marketing, and Consumers
By: John A. Deighton and Leora Kornfeld
The digital interactive transformation in marketing is not unfolding, as many thought it would, on the model of direct marketing. That model anticipated that digital media using rich profiling data would intrude marketing messaging more deeply and more precisely into... View Details
- 2007
- Chapter
The Rationales and Performance of Public Venturing: Survey Evidence from Belgium and Finland
By: Ant Bozkaya and William R. Kerr
- April 2007 (Revised June 2008)
- Background Note
USG
By: Elie Ofek and Kerry Herman
Serves as a background note for purposes of class discussion around next-generation innovation at USG. Describes the company, its products, and competitors. Of relevance is the fact that it recently filed for Chapter 11 due to litigation over asbestos-related claims.... View Details
- March 2007 (Revised April 2007)
- Case
The University of Utah and the Computer Graphics Revolution
By: H. Kent Bowen and Courtney Purrington
Computer science departments were new to universities in the 1960s, and the one created at the University of Utah by David Evans and Ivan Sutherland had a research mission to invent the field of computer graphics. Details the research process that led to many of the... View Details
- March 2007 (Revised August 2009)
- Case
Aurolab: Bringing First-World Technology to the Third-World Blind
Aurolab is the in-house producer of IOLs (required in cataract surgery) for the Aravind Eye Care System, a group of charity hospitals with the largest volume of eye surgery in the world. Aurolab's manufacturing capability and capacity had long exceeded the requirements... View Details