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- Faculty Publications (929)
- April 1998
- Case
Jim Sharpe: Extrusion Technology, Inc. (C)
By: H. Kent Bowen and Barbara Feinberg
Jim Sharpe, president of Extrusion Technology, describes the first five years at the aluminum extrusion company he purchased. He begins with day one as he introduced himself to the employees in 1987 and assured them of the company's continuity. Over the next two years,... View Details
- April 1998 (Revised September 1998)
- Case
Classic Pen Company, The: Developing an ABC Model
By: Robert S. Kaplan
Classic Pen has diversified from its core blue and black pen business by introducing new specialized colors. But costs have risen and margins on blue and black pens are decreasing. The controller turns to activity-based costing (ABC) for an explanation. View Details
- March 1998 (Revised April 1998)
- Case
Lehigh Steel
By: V.G. Narayanan and Laura Donohue
Lehigh Steel is a specialty steel manufacturer that plummeted from record profits to record losses in less than three years, driven by an inability to distinguish between profitable and unprofitable business. The scale and growth of service activities and overhead... View Details
- March 1998 (Revised March 2001)
- Case
Concordia Electronic Systems Test
By: Thomas R. Piper
The management of an electronics company must decide whether to use a single hurdle rate for all projects or to move to a system of different hurdle rates for each of its two divisions. The divisions differ substantially in terms of risk and seem to have substantially... View Details
- February 1998 (Revised February 1999)
- Case
FreeMarkets OnLine
Describes the marketing strategy of an entrepreneurial start-up engaged in electronic purchasing for large manufacturers. By creating an electronic bidding platform, the company has been able to cut down procurement costs by about 15%. The case question concerns how... View Details
- February 1998 (Revised March 2000)
- Case
Burma Pipeline, The
By: Debora L. Spar and Lane LaMure
In 1996, Unocal Corp. joined forces with the French Total company to construct an ambitious natural gas pipeline from the Andaman Sea across the southern tip of Burma and into Thailand. At an estimated cost of $1.2 billion, the pipeline was designed to bring sorely... View Details
- February 1998 (Revised May 1998)
- Case
SITEL Corporation
By: Howard H. Stevenson and Martha Gershun
SITEL has grown extremely rapidly and is now operating worldwide with operations in more than 30 countries. Since many of its locations serve the same customers, the officers are debating the costs and benefits of additional centralization. Some feel that the autonomy... View Details
- February 1998 (Revised September 1998)
- Case
Insteel Wire Products: ABM at Andrews
By: V.G. Narayanan and Ratna G. Sarkar
Insteel implements an activity-based costing (ABC) system in 1996. It finds pallet nails to be its most profitable product and decides to expand the number of cells making pallet nails from two to four. A repeat of the ABC study in 1997 shows pallet nails have become... View Details
- February 1998 (Revised August 2006)
- Case
House of Tata, 1995: The Next Generation (A)
By: Tarun Khanna, Krishna G. Palepu and Danielle Melito Wu
The Tata Group began the 1990s as a confederation of loosely coupled firms. This case considers the rise to prominence of the new CEO of Tata Group, Ratan Tata, and his attempts to strengthen the inter-relationships among the group companies at a time when critics... View Details
- February 1998 (Revised May 2007)
- Case
Airborne Express
By: Jan W. Rivkin
In the wake of a highly successful quarter, senior managers of Airborne Express, the third largest player in the express mail industry, review the firm's competitive position. Airborne has survived, and recently prospered, in an industry with significant economies of... View Details
- January 1998
- Case
Connecticut Spring and Stamping Corporation (B)
By: H. Kent Bowen, Massimo Russo and Steven J. Spear
Connecticut Spring and Stamping Corp. (CSSC), a 50-year-old spring manufacturing and metal stamping firm, is experiencing slow sales growth and feeling the impact of global competition. The company has over 800 customers but little understanding of those customers'... View Details
- January 1998 (Revised March 1998)
- Case
Viacom, Inc.: Carpe Diem (Condensed)
By: Joseph L. Bower and Thomas R. Eisenmann
Viacom has built a powerful position in the global entertainment industry through skillful and bold acquisitions. Now its expansion is challenged by the moves of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Different businesses within Viacom have contradictory positions on how to deal... View Details
- January 1998
- Article
Risk Management, Capital Budgeting and Capital Structure Policy for Financial Institutions: An Integrated Approach
By: K. A. Froot and J. Stein
- January 1998
- Article
Tradeoffs within Costing Systems between Incentives and Measurement Objectives
By: M. Alles, S. Datar and M. Gupta
- December 1997
- Case
Wriston Manufacturing Corporation
Wriston Manufacturing is a broad-line maker of components for the automotive industry. It has developed a network of nine plants as its product line has grown. Newer, higher-volume products tend to be made in newer, focused, high-volume plants, while older product... View Details
- November 1997
- Case
Microsoft Goes Online: MSN 1996
By: David B. Yoffie
Explores Microsoft's decision to enter the online services industry in the light of its competition and the growing importance of the Internet. Significant issues include the cost and availability of content, telecomm/Internet access costs, competition with the World... View Details
- November 1997 (Revised May 1998)
- Teaching Note
Indianapolis: Activity-Based Costing of City Services (A) and (B) TN
By: Robert S. Kaplan
Teaching Note for (9-196-115) and (9-196-117). View Details
- October 1997 (Revised April 1998)
- Case
C-Car
By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Marie Bell
C-Car was the first automobile retailer in the United States to go public. Subsequently the owner, Mr. Gilliland, must decide how to invest the capital raised from the public ownership. This case describes in detail C-Car's highly profitable strategy of managing its... View Details