Publications

July 1996
Case

Williams-Sonoma, Inc.--1990

By: Nancy F. Koehn and Michael Dearing

Howard Lester, chairman and CEO, has just completed a second offering of common stock in Williams-Sonoma, Inc. ($218.2 million 1989 sales). Having targeted $500 million in retail sales, Lester's challenge is to: 1) prioritize growth investments in five existing catalog... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Strategy; Alignment; Customer Value and Value Chain; Competitive Strategy; Retail Industry

June 1996 (Revised January 1999)
Case

XcelleNet, Inc. (A)

By: Stephen P. Bradley, Richard L. Nolan and James Leonard

XcelleNet, a $35 million system software company based in Atlanta, was founded in 1986 to address the computing needs of a class of remote and mobile users and data that were rarely connected to a network. Though the clear first mover and leader in the remote... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Opportunities; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Technology Networks; Computer Industry; Atlanta

April 1996 (Revised June 1996)
Background Note

Cleveland Turnaround (C), The: Facts and Figures

By: James E. Austin and Jaan Elias

Traces the Cleveland community's efforts to move the city from economic, social, and political crisis in the late 1970s into revitalization and progress in the 1980s and 1990s. Special attention is given to the role of business leaders and the public-private... View Details

Keywords: Leading Change; Analytics and Data Science; Economic Growth; Business and Community Relations; Cleveland

April 1996
Case

Confronting the Third Industrial Revolution

By: David A. Moss

Comprises three pieces. The first piece, which forms the body of the case, is adapted from a speech delivered by the author before the Harvard Business School Political Forum in early 1995. Originally entitled "The Economic Foundations of American Social Policy:... View Details

Keywords: Transition; Policy; Economy; Government and Politics; Society; United States

February 1996
Article

Explaining the Term Structure of Interest Rates: A Panel Data Approach

By: E. S. Mayfield and R. Murphy

Keywords: Interest Rates; Data and Data Sets

October 1995 (Revised December 1995)
Case

Marketing the National Hockey League

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Marie Bell

One third of the 24 National Hockey League (NHL) teams are unprofitable. Another third are barely profitable. This case provides the background and market research data to help the senior managers of the NHL make decisions pertaining to how they would like to grow the... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Decision Choices and Conditions; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Marketing Channels; Marketing Strategy; Research; Sports Industry

August 1995
Case

Air Products and Chemicals, Inc.: IT Organization and Architecture Challenges

By: Richard L. Nolan

Presents the outcome of Air Products ICON decentralization projects. New issues are explored, including the challenges of having a decentralized MIS staff, global network, client/server architecture, new data center issues, outsourcing, a new highly strategic customer... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Information Infrastructure; Applications and Software; Organizational Design; Problems and Challenges

August 1995 (Revised August 1995)
Case

CIGNA Property and Casualty Reengineering (A)

By: Richard L. Nolan, Donna B. Stoddard, Chiara Francalanci and Elise C Martin

Reengineering was introduced at CIGNA Corp. in 1988. CIGNA entered a second wave reengineering effort through a major project at CIGNA P&C, one of CIGNA's larger businesses. P&C was in financial crisis and as a result brought in a new executive team in 1991 to head the... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Cost vs Benefits; Design; Growth and Development; Analytics and Data Science; Growth and Development Strategy; Balanced Scorecard; Financial Crisis; Crisis Management; Projects; Information Technology; Insurance Industry

June 1995 (Revised August 1995)
Background Note

Managing IT in the 1990s: Communications Technology

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Geoffrey Bock

Provides an overview of the basic technologies that comprise the communications infrastructure of a firm. Network architecture, wide area networks, local area networks, communication media, network protocols, and basic principles of data transmission over networks are... View Details

Keywords: Management; Information Technology; Communication Technology

May 1995 (Revised April 1998)
Case

AT&T Paradyne

By: Robert S. Kaplan

A company making data communication devices has adopted a Total Quality philosophy for working with suppliers, employees, and customers. The finance group finds its existing cost system has become obsolete because of a shift from manual to automatic production... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Product; Corporate Accountability; Activity Based Costing and Management; System; Performance Efficiency; Financial Reporting; Operations; Technology Industry; Telecommunications Industry

April 1995 (Revised June 2002)
Case

Xerox: Outsourcing Global Information Technology Resources

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Kevin Davis

In order to increase revenues, develop new technologies, and manage information technology more efficiently, Xerox decided to sign a 10-year, $3.2 billion contract with Electronic Data Systems (EDS). This case describes the events that preceded Xerox's decision to... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Information Technology Industry

1995
Book

Data Analysis, Regression, and Forecasting

By: A. Schleifer Jr. and D. E. Bell

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction

January 1995 (Revised November 1996)
Case

Avalon Information Services, Inc.

By: Lynn S. Paine and Wilda White

The Privacy Review Committee of Avalon Information Services must decide how to deal with concerns voiced by its retail supermarket customers about the privacy of consumer data collected through Avalon's point-of-sale data collection program. One customer is proposing... View Details

Keywords: Mission and Purpose; Safety; Demand and Consumers; Rights; Analytics and Data Science; Information Technology; Ethics; Information Industry

January 1995
Background Note

Note on Foreign Direct Investment

By: Debora L. Spar

Between 1985 and 1990, the global economy witnessed an unprecedented surge in flows of foreign direct investment (FDI). This sudden increase called back into prominence the range of questions that have long surrounded FDI. What causes firms to expand or contract their... View Details

Keywords: Foreign Direct Investment

January 1995
Article

Learning in Extensive-Form Games: Experimental Data and Simple Dynamic Models in the Intermediate Term

By: A. E. Roth and I. Erev

Keywords: Learning; Data and Data Sets

Article

The Power in Demography: Women's Social Constructions of Gender Identity at Work

By: R. J. Ely

This study examined how women's proportional representation in the upper echelons of organizations affects professional women's social constructions of gender difference and gender identity at work. Qualitative and quantitative data were used. Results suggest that sex... View Details

Keywords: Demographics; Gender; Labor