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Case I:
International Case: Women CEO Manages by the
Textbooks
The demand for managers with an international
background is great. Consider Marisa Bellisario who was one of the most sought
after executive in Europe.She was the first women to head a major industrial
firm in Italy, the state controlled ITALTEL SocietaItaliana. This company is
the largest telecommunication equipment manufacturer in Italy. Bellisario’s
background however was international. After receiving her degree in economic
and business administration from Turin University she worked at Olivetti in the
electronic division. When Olivetti sold its data processing unit to General
Electric, she spent time in Miami working on GE’s worldwide marketing strategy
for computers. She left GE to head corporate planning at Olivetti. As the Chief
Executive Officer at ITATEL she turned the company around to show a small
profit. Her managerial approach had been characterized as “straight out the
textbook,” and companies such as GTE Corporation, IBM, AT&T, and other
European and Japanese firm were interested in recruiting her.
Question:
1. Why was Ms. Ballisario a much sought after
CEO? What was her career path?
2. What special problems may she have encountered
as a women heading a major company in
Italy?
3. If she was successful managing by the
textbook, why do some managers still think that
Management cannot be taught?
Case 2:
International Case: Could the Challenger
Accident Have Been Avoided?
The Challenger space shuttle accident on
January 28, 1986, gripped America more than any other event in the dozen year
so. It was a tragic accident in which seven people died. There is no evidence
that the astronauts may have survived the initial explosion and may have died
on impact when the space shuttle hit the water. The purpose of recounting the
challenger accident is to briefly explain what happened, possible reason for
why it happened, how it may have been prevented and what one can learn from it.
The challenger mission consisted of two
complex systems: the technical system and the managerial system. The technical
problem was the troublesome O-rings, which under pressure and low temperature
became infective and did not provide the required seal. Engineers and manager
were aware of the problem. So why was the go-ahead given for launching the
spacecraft? Can it be explained by the way the managerial system worked.
Engineer at Morton Thiokol, the contractor
for the rocket booster, argued against the launch citing the previous problem
at low temperatures. Management, on the other hand, may have felt pressure from
NASA to go ahead with launch. Roger Boisjoly, one of the engineers who argued
strongly against the launch, started that he received looks from management
that seemed to say “Go away and don’t bother us with the facts.” He said that
he felt helpless. Another engineer was told to take off his engineering hat and
put on his management hat.
Eventually, the Go-ahead was given by
manager; Engineers were excluded from the final decision. What, then, was some
possible reason for disaster? Some argued that there was a lack of
communication between engineers and managers. They had different goals; safety
versus on time launching. Others suggested that the people with
responsibilities did not want to hear the bad news. Thus, no listening. Still
other suggestions were that there was insufficient provision for upward
communication outside the chain of command. There was also a suggestion that
status difference between engineers and managers and between upper and lower
managers may have played a role in inhabiting upward communication. Perhaps
there was also false confidence in the mission because of past lack. Manager
and engineers knew about the problems, but nobody was killed before.
Moreover,no one in the organization wanted to be the “bad guy” to halt the
launch. Morton Thiokol may also have been concerned about a pending contact.
The result of the series of event was the
death of seven Americans: Jarvis, McAuliffle, McNair, Onizuka, Resnik, Scobee,
and Smith. The Question on our mind is: could this accident have been
prevented?
Question:
Question1: what can you learn from this disaster that may be relevant to your
organization you know?
Question 2: What do you think was the cause, or were the causes, of the Challenger
disaster?
Case 3:
COMMITTEE MANAGEMENT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF
CAULIFORNIA
Many
universities, notably the larger ones, operate extensively through committee
management, especially in the appointment and promotion of persons to tenured
associate and full professorships. One
example of a university where committees are extensively used in this area is
the University of Caulifornia.
For appointment or promotion to the position of
associate professor or full professor, the University of Caulifornia uses the
following steps.
·
A
candidate is reviewed thoroughly by the staffing committee of his or her
department or school.
·
If
the candidate passes there, the action is sent to the Chair person or Dean for review and then to the office of the
executive vice chancellor of the campus, where it is referred to the campus
budget and promotion committee.
·
The
budget and promotion committee immediately refers to the case to a specially
appointed ad hoc committee of five faculty members, of whom only one or two may
be from the candidate’s department or school.
·
The
ad hoc committee reviews the case and makes recommendation to the budget and
promotion committee.
·
The
budget and promotion committee reviews the case and makes recommendations to
the executive vice chancellor and chancellor of the campus.
·
The
executive vice chancellor and chancellor review the case, and after review the
case is sent to the academic vice president of the university with
recommendations.
·
The
university’s academic vice president and president review the case and, if
their decision is favorable, send it with recommendations to the regents of the
University for Final Action.
Questions
1. How would you like to be reviewed
for appointment or promotion by this hierarchy of committees?
2. What strengths and weaknesses do
you see in this procedure?
3. Assuming that you see certain
weaknesses and perhaps dangers in this kind of committee management, what do
you suggest be done?
CASE
4:
International
Case: Coke’s European Scare
What seemed like an isolated incident
of a few bad cans of Coca-Cola at a school in Belgium turned into near disaster
for the soft drink giant’s European operations. In June 1999, Coke experienced
its worst nightmare—a contamination scare resulting in the recall of 14 million
cases of Coke products in five European countries and a huge blow to consumer
confidence in the quality and safety of the world’s most recognizable brand.
After the initial scare in
Bornem, Belgium, Coke and Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE), a bottler 40 per cent
owned by Coca-Cola, thought they isolated the problem. Scientists at the CCE
bottling plant in Antwerp found that lapses in quality control had led to
contaminated carbon dioxide that were used in the bottling of a recent batch of
Coke. Company officials saw the contamination as minor problem and they issued
an apology to the school.
At the same time that the
problems were being dealt with an Antwerp, things were breaking down at Coke’s
Dunkirk, France, bottling plant. In Belsele, 10 miles from Bornem, children and
teachers were complaining of illnesses related to drinking Coke products. The
vending machines at the school were stocked with Coke from the company’s
Dunkirk plant and were thought to be safe. Now a second bottling plant’s
practices were being questioned. What initially seemed like an isolated
incident was now a crisis.
Immediately following the
second scare, Belgium’s health minister banned the sale of all products
produced in the Antwerp and Dunkirk plants. Things got worse when Coke gave an
incomplete set of recall codes to a school in Lochristi, Belgium, resulting in
38 children being rushed to the hospital. Immediately following this incident,
French officials banned the sale of soft drinks produced in the Dunkirk plant.
It was believed that fungicide on wooden shipping pallets were the cause of the
illnesses at the Dunkirk plant.
On June 15, 1999, 11 days
after the initial scare in Bornem, Coke finally issued an explanation to the
public. Most Europeans were not satisfied. Coca-Cola officials used vague
language and often contradicted one another when making statements. France’s
health minister, Bernard Kouchner, stated, “That a company so very expert in
advertising and marketing should be so poor in communicating on this matter is
astonishing
After three weeks of testing
by both Coke officials and French government scientists, it was concluded that
the plants were safe and that there was no immediate threat to the health of
consumers. Coke has destroyed all of the pallets in Dunkirk and tightened quality
control on co2.
How could this happen to the
company that is revered worldwide for its quality control and the superiority
of its products? Coke has spent decades building its reputation overseas and
the European market now represent 73 per cent of total profits. While the scare
has had some effect on Coke’s profits in Europe, the company is more concerned
with damages to its reputation and consumer confidence in its products.
Many critics say that Coke’s
slow response time, insisting that no real problem existed and belated apology
have severely damaged the company’s reputation in Europe. Some would disagree
and feel that Coke handled the situation as best it could. “I think that Coke
acted in a responsible, diligent way,” says John Sitcher, editor of Beverage
Digest. “Their first responsibility was to ascertain the facts in a clear
and unequivocal way. And as soon as Coke knew what the facts were, they put out
a statement to the Belgium people.”
The character and quality of
a company can often be measured by how it responds to adversity. Coca-Cola
believes that this crisis has forced the company to re-examine both its
marketing and management strategies in Europe. Coke executives in Brussels are
predicting that the company will double its European sales in the next decade
and that this setback will only make the company stronger. Wall Street analysts
seem to agree. Only time will tell
Question:
1. What are the management issues in this
case
2.What did Coke do and what could have been done differently?
3. What are the key factors that were or should have been considered
by management?
CASE:
5 Profiles of Two Visionaries—Bill Gates & Steve Jobs
Two men have their hearts and souls for developing their
visions have driven the personal computer revolution. However, the way in which
each of these men went about this quest has been different. Steve Jobs and Bill
Gates have changed the way the world does business, but the story of their
leadership styles is even more compelling than the success spawned Apple and
Microsoft.
Gates and Jobs: The Early Years Bill Gates started developing his
computer skills with his childhood friend Paul Allen at Lakeside School in
Seattle. At the age of 14, the two had formed their first computer company.
After high school, Allen and Gates left Seattle for Boston. Gates was off to
Harvard and Allen began working for Honeywell. After only two years at Harvard,
Gates and Allen left Boston for Albuquerque to develop a computer language for
the new Altair 8080 personal computer. This computer language would become
BASIC and was the foundation for Microsoft, which was created as a partnership
in 1975.
After five years in New Mexico, Microsoft relocated to Bellevue, Washington in
1980 with BASIC and two other computer languages (COBOL and FORTRAN) in its
arsenal. Later that year IBM began developing its first PC and was in need of
an operating system. Microsoft developed the Microsoft Disk Operating System
(MS-DOS) for IBM while two other companies created competing systems. Gates’
determination and persuasion of other software firms to develop programs for
MS-DOS made it the default IBM platform.
As Microsoft became more successful, Gates realized that he needed help
managing Microsoft. His enthusiasm, vision, and hard work were the driving
force behind the company’s growth, but he recognized the need for professional
management. Gates brought in another one of his friends from Harvard, Steve
Ballmer. Ballmer had worked for Proctor & Gamble after graduating from
Harvard and was pursuing his MBA at Stanford University. Gates persuaded
Ballmer to leave school and join Microsoft. Over the years, Ballmer has become
an indispensable asset to both Gates and Microsoft. In 1983, Gates continued to
show his brilliance by hiring Jon Shirley who brought order to Microsoft and
streamlined the organizational structure, while Ballmer served as an advisor
and sounding board for Gates. Microsoft continued to grow and prosper in the
1990s and Gates became the richest man in the world with Microsoft dominating
the operating systems market and the office suite software market with
Microsoft Office.
Gates recognized that his role was to be the visionary of the company, but that
he needed professional managers to run the operations of Microsoft. He combined
his unyielding determination and passion with a well-structured management team
to make Microsoft the giant it is today.
The other visionary, Steve Jobs, and his friend Steve Wosniak started Apple
Computer in Job’s garage in Los Altos, California in 1976. In contrast to Bill
Gates, Jobs and Wosniak were hardware experts and started with the vision for a
personal computer that was affordable and easy to use. When Microsoft offered
BASIC to Apple, Jobs immediately dismissed the idea on the basis that he and
Wosniak could create their own version of BASIC in a weekend. This was typical
Jobs: decisive and almost maniacal at times. However, Jobs eventually agreed to
license Microsoft’s BASIC while pursuing his vision of developing a more usable
and friendly interface for the PC.
Jobs, seen by some as the anti-Gates, is a trailblazer and a creator as opposed
to Gates who is more of a consolidator of industry standards. Jobs, whose goal
was to change the world with his computers, was very demanding of his
employees. Jobs was not a hard-core computer programmer, but he sold the idea
of the personal computer to the public. He changed the direction of Apple by
developing the Macintosh (Mac) that used a new Graphical User Interface (GUI)
that introduced the world to the mouse and on-screen icons. With all this
success, there was a major problem developing at Apple: Steve Jobs was
overconfident and did not see Gates and Microsoft as a serious threat to Apple.
Soon after the release of the Macintosh computer, Jobs asked Microsoft to
develop software for the Mac operating system. Gates obliged and proceeded to
launch a project copying and improving Apple’s user interface. The result of
this venture was what became Microsoft Windows.
Jobs’ cocky attitude and the lack of management skills contributed to Apple’s
problems. He never bothered to develop budgets and neglected his relationship
with his employees. Wosniak left Apple due to differences with Jobs. In 1985,
John Scully, formerly CEO of PepsiCo, was hired to replace Steve Jobs as
president and CEO of Apple Computers. Differences between Scully and Jobs
developed which eventually resulted in the dismissal of Jobs.
Microsoft
and Apple at the turn of the Century: An Industry Giant and a Revitalized
Leader With the success of Windows, the
Office application suite, the Internet Explorer, Microsoft has become a
household name and Bill Gates has been hailed as a business genius. The fact
that Microsoft’s competitors, the press, and the US Justice Department have
called Microsoft a monopoly reinforces Gates’s determination to succeed. Some
people even questioned whether Microsoft can survive the Justice Department’s
decision. But Bill Gates has shown that he is the master of adapting to
changing market conditions and technologies.
In the 1990s, Apple went in the opposite direction. The outdated operating
system and falling market share eventually led to a decrease in software development
for the Mac. Something needed to be done. In 1998 Steve Jobs returned to Apple
as the “interim” CEO. His vision, once again, resulted in an innovative
product: the iMac. In the 80s he created the simple-to-operate Macintosh to
attract people who were using IBM PCs and their clones. Now he developed a
simple, stylish, and Internet-friendly computer that added some much-needed
excitement to the computer market. Jobs had also changed as a manager and a
leader. He had matured and looked to his professional staff for advice and
ideas. The Mac is an expression of his creativity and Apple as a whole is an
expression of Steve, leading to continuing the success for Apple and a renewed
battle between Gates and Jobs.
Questions:
Q 1. How did Bill Gates and Steve Jobs differ in their Leadership
style?
Q.2 Compare and contrast the managerial practice of Gates & Jobs.
Q.3 What do u think about the future of Microsoft and Apple computer.
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