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How Apple Is Organized for Innovation
Organizational Development Magazine ArticleWhen Steve Jobs returned to Apple, in 1997, it had a conventional structure for a company of its size and scope. It was divided into business units, each... -
6 Key Levers of a Successful Organizational Transformation
Organizational Development Digital ArticleLeaders, don't overlook your employees' emotional journey. -
What Companies Still Get Wrong About Layoffs
Organizational Development Digital ArticleMany cling to the idea that reducing staff is the fastest, easiest way to cut costs. But there are smarter, more humane approaches. -
Communities of Practice: The Organizational Frontier
Leading teams Magazine ArticleNot so long ago, companies were reinvented by teams. Communities of practice may reinvent them yet again—if managers learn to cultivate these fertile organizational forms without destroying them. -
First, Let’s Fire All the Managers
Corporate governance Magazine ArticleMorning Star, a leading food processor, demonstrates how to create an organization that combines managerial discipline and market-centric flexibility—without bosses, titles, or promotions. -
Layoffs That Don't Break Your Company
Organizational Development Magazine ArticleToday layoffs have become companies' default response to the challenges created by advances in technology and global competition. Yet research shows that... -
Evolution and Revolution as Organizations Grow
Managing people Magazine ArticleManagement practices that work well in one phase may bring on a crisis in another. -
What Every Leader Needs to Know About Followers
Organizational restructuring Magazine ArticleThe distinctions among followers are every bit as consequential as those among leaders—and have critical implications for how managers should manage. -
Clusters and the New Economics of Competition
Government policy and regulation Magazine ArticleParadoxically, the enduring competitive advantages in a global economy lie increasingly in local things—knowledge, relationships, and motivation that distant rivals cannot match. -
Where Does the Customer Fit in a Service Operation?
Organizational restructuring Magazine ArticleWhile management skills can improve service systems, a manager is better off if he or she first has a clear understanding of the operating characteristics that set one service system apart from another. This author offers one view of services, which, if followed, results in a “rational approach to the rationalization” of services. His view, […] -
Thinking Ahead: Power Tactics
Managing people Magazine ArticleBeneath the general principles, attitudes, and ideals of “human relations” lie the actual tactics and day-to-day techniques by which executives achieve, maintain, and exercise power. In the current enthusiasm for “democratizing” business procedures, these hard, practical devices tend to be overlooked. Yet they exist just the same—and, in many ways, do not depart substantially from […] -
PayPal's CEO on Creating Products for Underserved Markets
Strategy & Execution Magazine ArticleBack when the author was the CEO of Virgin Mobile, he accepted a challenge to live like a homeless person for 24 hours in New York City--with no money... -
How Process Enterprises Really Work
Managing people Magazine ArticleWhat do IBM, Texas Instruments, Owens Corning, and Duke Power have in common? They’re all redesigning their organizations around their core processes—and reaping enormous benefits as a result. -
Downsizing Lost Its Bad Rap
Downsizing Magazine ArticleBig companies formerly took a reputational hit when they laid off massive numbers of workers. But according to E. Geoffrey Love and Matthew Kraatz, of the University of Illinois, U.S. business culture norms gradually changed from 1985 to 1994 as new ideas about boosting shareholder value took hold in executive suites and boardrooms. At the […] -
Prepare Your Workforce for the Automation Age
Analytics and data science Digital ArticleThe transition is coming sooner than you think. -
Making Mass Customization Work
Innovation Magazine ArticleContinuous improvement at Toyota Motor Company is now a business legend. For three decades, Toyota enlisted its employees in a relentless drive to find faster, more efficient methods to develop and make low-cost, defect-free cars. The results were stupendous. Toyota became the benchmark in the automobile industry for quality and low cost. The same, however, […] -
Who Needs Budgets?
Accounting Magazine ArticleModern companies reject centralization, inflexible planning, and command and control. So why do they cling to a process that reinforces those things? -
The Coming of the New Organization
Finance and investing Magazine ArticleThe typical large business 20 years hence will have fewer than half the levels of management of its counterpart today, and no more than a third the managers. In its structure, and in its management problems and concerns, it will bear little resemblance to the typical manufacturing company, circa 1950, which our textbooks still consider […] -
The Real Problem with Computers
Business communication Magazine ArticleEven the best-designed systems can’t overcome faulty relationships. -
Taking Time Seriously in Evaluating Jobs
Organizational restructuring Magazine ArticleIn appraising performance, designing pay systems, and in organizing and planning work, managers make assessments about the size and importance of jobs. Whether the assessments are accurate deeply affects how well the organization runs. But what do we mean when we say that one job is bigger than another? Bigger in what sense? One way […]
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Strategic Capital Management, LLC (A)
Finance & Accounting Case Study8.95View Details Strategic Capital Management, LLC, is a hedge fund that is planning to make financial investments in Creative Computers and Ubid. Creative Computers recently... -
Ingvar Kamprad and IKEA
Leadership & Managing People Case Study8.95View Details Traces the development of a Swedish furniture retailer under the leadership of an innovative and unconventional entrepreneur whose approaches redefine... -
Airbus vs. Boeing (J): New Plane Developments (2016)
Strategy & Execution Case Study5.00View Details This case describes Airbus and Boeing developments in 2016, including Airbus's delivery of the first A320neo and Boeing's work on the 737 MAX and 777X... -
WeaveTech: High Performance Change
Leadership & Managing People Case Study1.00View Details WeaveTech, formerly Johnson-Ware, is a clothing company that produces jackets, coats, overalls, coveralls, and fire-resistant clothing for the military.... -
Tata Motors: Compensation Restructuring
Leadership & Managing People Case Study8.95View Details The head of Performance and Rewards at Tata Motors Limited (TML) was reviewing the reports before him and deliberating their implications. The company... -
Peter Browning and Continental White Cap, Video
Leadership & Managing People Case Study150.00View Details Contains a presentation by Browning to a class of MBA students in March 1986, in which he describes how he handled the first year of his efforts to revitalize... -
Jeepers! Inc. in 2000
Finance & Accounting Case Study8.95View Details After the company's IPO is withdrawn, the company enters a period of severe financial distress. The consultants recommend that the company be liquidated.... -
emmtrix Technologies: Patent Negotiations in High-Tech Academic Spinoffs
Strategy & Execution Case Study8.95View Details In May 2016, three scientists from Germany's Karlsruhe Institute of Technology were preparing for a meeting with several managers from the institute's... -
Argo Interactive (A): Surviving in the Roller-Coasting Mobile Industry
Innovation & Entrepreneurship Case Study8.95View Details This FocusCase is about a young VC-backed technology company in the UK, trying to turn around from a near-death crisis after their market did not pick... -
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.--1988
Finance & Accounting Case Study8.95View Details Set two years after a takeover attempt forced the company to restructure by leveraging up, selling assets, and repurchasing stock. The case affords an... -
UAL, 2004: Pulling Out of Bankruptcy
Finance & Accounting Case Study8.95View Details UAL is a large air transportation company with roots that go back to the 1920s. As a legacy carrier, going back to before the 1978 deregulation of air... -
Reimagining Enel: Enabling Sustainable Progress
Organizational Development Case Study8.95View Details CEO Francesco Starace is considering what is next for Enel SpA, one of world's largest energy companies. From 2014 to 2022, he has wrought a dramatic... -
Strategic Capital Management, LLC (B)
Finance & Accounting Case Study5.00View Details Supplements the (A) case. -
Publicis Groupe 2016: Maurice and the Millennials
Strategy & Execution Case Study8.95View Details Having built Publicis Groupe through acquisitions maintained as separate brands, CEO Maurice Lévy wanted to transform the advertising and marketing firm... -
Anti-Money Laundering: The Banking Industry in Hong Kong
Leadership & Managing People Case Study8.95View Details The Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing (Financial Institutions) Ordinance (AMLO) became effective in Hong Kong in April 2012. Since... -
Burlington Northern Railroad: Striving for Exceptional Service, Video
Technology & Operations Case Study150.00View Details Highlights Burlington Northern's progress on achieving its goal of being an "on-time" railroad. -
Société Nationale Maritime Corse Méditerranée (SNCM): Sink or Sail?
Innovation & Entrepreneurship Case Study8.95View Details The case describes how a loss-making ferry company was brought back to financial health, modernised and recapitalised in less than two years, amidst a... -
Williams--2002
Finance & Accounting Case Study8.95View Details Williams, a Tulsa, Oklahoma-based firm in various energy businesses, must decide whether to accept a financing package offered by Berkshire Hathaway and... -
Transformation of Thomson
Strategy & Execution Case Study8.95View Details Thomson, a French multinational, went through a decade of dramatic change in the early years of the 21st century. From a state-owned enterprise earning... -
SpudSpy
Technology & Operations Case Study8.95View Details Students in a technology transfer class identify a promising application for a dormant university technology. In the process, they alienate the inventor,...
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How Apple Is Organized for Innovation
Organizational Development Magazine ArticleWhen Steve Jobs returned to Apple, in 1997, it had a conventional structure for a company of its size and scope. It was divided into business units, each... -
6 Key Levers of a Successful Organizational Transformation
Organizational Development Digital ArticleLeaders, don't overlook your employees' emotional journey. -
What Companies Still Get Wrong About Layoffs
Organizational Development Digital ArticleMany cling to the idea that reducing staff is the fastest, easiest way to cut costs. But there are smarter, more humane approaches. -
Communities of Practice: The Organizational Frontier
Leading teams Magazine ArticleNot so long ago, companies were reinvented by teams. Communities of practice may reinvent them yet again—if managers learn to cultivate these fertile organizational forms without destroying them. -
First, Let’s Fire All the Managers
Corporate governance Magazine ArticleMorning Star, a leading food processor, demonstrates how to create an organization that combines managerial discipline and market-centric flexibility—without bosses, titles, or promotions. -
Layoffs That Don't Break Your Company
Organizational Development Magazine ArticleToday layoffs have become companies' default response to the challenges created by advances in technology and global competition. Yet research shows that... -
Evolution and Revolution as Organizations Grow
Managing people Magazine ArticleManagement practices that work well in one phase may bring on a crisis in another. -
What Every Leader Needs to Know About Followers
Organizational restructuring Magazine ArticleThe distinctions among followers are every bit as consequential as those among leaders—and have critical implications for how managers should manage. -
Clusters and the New Economics of Competition
Government policy and regulation Magazine ArticleParadoxically, the enduring competitive advantages in a global economy lie increasingly in local things—knowledge, relationships, and motivation that distant rivals cannot match. -
Where Does the Customer Fit in a Service Operation?
Organizational restructuring Magazine ArticleWhile management skills can improve service systems, a manager is better off if he or she first has a clear understanding of the operating characteristics that set one service system apart from another. This author offers one view of services, which, if followed, results in a “rational approach to the rationalization” of services. His view, […]