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(7,133)
- Faculty Publications (1,561)
- December 1998
- Case
MD Foods Amba
By: Ray A. Goldberg, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Cate Reavis
In 1998, MD Foods, a Denmark-based dairy cooperative, was searching for growth opportunities that would enable it to become northern Europe's preferred retail dairy supplier. The options being considered included expanding in existing markets, entering into new... View Details
- December 1998
- Background Note
Cash Management Practices in Small Companies
By: H. Kent Bowen, Andrew R. Jassy, Laurence E. Katz, Kevin E. Kelly and Baltej Kochar
Most small business managers claim that cash management is their leading concern. Often walking a tightrope between growth and illiquidity, small business managers face different cash management challenges than their counterparts in larger companies. Compared to larger... View Details
- November 1998 (Revised February 1999)
- Case
Microsoft Office: Finding the Suite Spot
By: Stefan H. Thomke and Steven Sinofsky
Describes a key decision-making process within Microsoft's Office products division. At a time when the PC software business has a great deal of uncertainty, Microsoft's management has to make a key decision regarding the future of software suites. A strengthening of... View Details
Keywords: Decisions; Applications and Software; Strategic Planning; Organizational Design; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Product Development; Managerial Roles; Growth and Development Strategy; Risk and Uncertainty; Goals and Objectives; Digital Platforms; Innovation and Management; Computer Industry; Information Technology Industry
- November 1998 (Revised August 1999)
- Case
Mickey Maurer: IBJ Corp. and MyStar Communications
By: Paul W. Marshall and Jeremy Dann
Mickey Maurer is a successful entrepreneur who retired in the late 1980s and then reentered the business world with the purchase of two media companies. In the radio industry he faces competition from large national players. In his publishing enterprise, Maurer... View Details
- October 1998 (Revised January 1999)
- Case
Echlin vs. SPX
By: Paul M. Healy, Bjorn N. Jorgensen and Penny Joseph
Echlin has received a hostile takeover offer from SPX. Both companies have been undertaking major restructurings, and Echlin's shareholders face a difficult decision of whether to support current management or sell out to SPX. Students are asked to analyze the two... View Details
- September 1998 (Revised March 2002)
- Case
Petrolera Zuata, Petrozuata C.A.
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Mathew M Millett
Petrozuata is a proposed $2.5 billion oil-field development project in Venezuela. The case is set in 1997 as the project sponsors, Conoco and PDVSA (Venezuela's national oil company), are planning to meet with various development agencies and rating agencies regarding... View Details
- September 1998
- Case
Vanguard Group, Inc. (1998), The
By: Andre F. Perold
Since the beginning of 1997, Vanguard's assets under management have increased more than 60% from $240 billion to almost $400 billion, making it second in market share only to Fidelity. Vanguard views this success as another vindication of its low-cost strategy of... View Details
- August 1998
- Case
Record Masters
By: William A. Sahlman, Michael J. Roberts and Laurence E. Katz
Kent Dauten, a former general partner at the Chicago private equity firm of Madison Dearborn Partners, has engaged in a search to personally sponsor a buyout in which he can play an active management role. He has received a selling memorandum for Record Masters, a... View Details
- May 1998 (Revised April 2000)
- Case
City of New York, The
By: Paul M. Healy
This case examines the economics of a municipality, and then explores its financial position from the perspective of a bond rating firm. View Details
- April 1998 (Revised June 1999)
- Case
Bausch & Lomb, Inc.: Pressure to Perform
By: Robert L. Simons, Alex C. Sapir '97 and Indra Reinbergs
Bausch & Lomb is the subject of press attacks and experiences a sharp fall in stock price when management practices are exposed. Aggressive goal setting, supported by financial market expectations, is discussed as a precursor to a series of events that results in... 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 July 1998)
- Case
United Way Community Services
Describes in detail the fund development and distribution system of United Way Community Services. A key question is how to measure the outcome/impact of the work done by the agencies that receive United Way funding. A follow-on question is how to reinvent the... View Details
- March 1998 (Revised March 1999)
- Case
Shepard Quraeshi Associates (A)
By: Lynn S. Paine and Harold F. Hogan Jr
Samina Quraeshi, principal of Boston-based Shepard Quraeshi Associates, must decide whether to take legal action against her key employees after they leave her firm to start their own, taking with them key clients and data. Quraeshi sees the situation as reflecting... View Details
- March 1998 (Revised November 2004)
- Case
FAG Kugelfischer-A German Restructuring
By: Stuart C. Gilson
A large German manufacturer of ball bearings and precision machinery experiences severe financial difficulty brought on by poor management practices, an ill-conceived acquisition of a former East German ball-bearings company, and an industry recession. The company... View Details
Keywords: Accounting; Acquisition; Restructuring; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Machinery and Machining; Policy; Resignation and Termination; Management Practices and Processes; Performance Evaluation; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Europe; Germany; United States
- 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 November 1998)
- Case
Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader
By: Srikant M. Datar and Carin-Isabel Knoop
For the Novartis leaders, the decision to "use stretch budgets again next year" highlights the tension between candor and empowerment and command-and-control, between the new and the old, between high performance and business as usual, between Ciba and Sandoz.... View Details
- January 1998 (Revised January 2001)
- Case
Sealed Air Corporation: Globalization and Corporate Culture (A)
By: Lynn S. Paine and Karen Wruck
Sealed Air Corp.'s CEO and COO are considering what approach they should take to building a seamless corporate culture worldwide. Anticipating continuing growth and expansion, especially outside the United States, they are concerned with preserving and promoting the... View Details
- January 1998 (Revised April 1998)
- Case
Sealed Air Corporation: Globalization and Corporate Culture (B)
By: Lynn S. Paine and Karen Wruck
Sealed Air Corp.'s CEO and COO are considering what approach they should take to building a seamless corporate culture worldwide. Anticipating continuing growth and expansion, especially outside the United States, they are concerned with preserving and promoting the... View Details