Articles

When two or more branded products are integrated, like IBM and Intel or Bacardi Rum and Coca-Cola, they are perceived as linked, or jointly branded. The authors present a rationale for why such alliances may sometimes be an appropriate strategy. They develop a managerial decision template to analyze the costs and benefits of joint branding, and discuss the implications of such decisions for different types of allies. They conclude by calling for multidisciplinary empirical examinations of brand alliances.

A hybrid of Japanese and American parents, NUMMI provides a case study of the successful introduction of a new production system. By working on the assembly line in the NUMMI plant and interviewing hundreds of people, the authors observed the transformation of an out-of-date General Motors auto plant into the world-class assembly operation it is today. Their study has implications for other organizations that are trying to learn from each other, particularly across national borders. Their findings also show how organizational culture plays a central role in companies that are adapting to a constantly changing environment.

How much does your organization know? The vital impact of organizational knowledge on performance is now widely recognized, but the study of how to manage such knowledge is still in its infancy. The author defines technical knowledge and gives a framework for mapping and evaluating levels of knowledge. He shows how to apply the framework to measure how much your organization knows and doesn't know about its production processes, to learn where knowledge resides in your company, and to make better use of what you know. He shows why automation without adequate knowledge leads to disaster and how to manage knowledge in a world of continual organization learning.

The integrated job of managing has been lost in the conventional ways of describing it -- as individual behaviors, such as leading, controlling, communicating, and so on. Each has generally been treated either in isolation or as part of a mere list of roles. The model the author presents here seeks to integrate what we already know managers do around a framework of concentric circles. At the core are the person in the job, the frame of the job, and its agenda. These are surrounded by roles managers perform at three levels: managing by information, managing through people, and managing action, each carried out inside and outside the unit. To demonstrate use of the model, and especially to understand different managerial styles, the author draws examples from his observations and interviews of a variety of managers. He concludes that managing has to be "well-rounded."

Management models are useful because they help managers organize, establish, and maintain a system of authority. Which model managers adopt depends on a variety of institutional circumstances. The author examines the three basic models -- scientific management, human relations, and structural analysis -- in light of their historical patterns of adoption. He suggests that we use history to better understand current managerial trends like lean production and total quality management and view them as eclectic models that incorporate some aspects from the three basic models.

Some companies are implementing interorganizational information systems (IOSs) with trading partners that allow them to share data and software across organizational boundaries. The authors explore the effect of IOSs on cash management from a managerial perspective and present a case study of Motorola and Citibank. Motorola's strategy has evolved from an internal cost saving initiative to a supply chain focus yielding significant strategic benefits. Cooperation between Motorola, its suppliers, and Citibank has brought cash flows in line with product flows. Motorola and Citibank have effectively meshed parts of their organizations and information systems together to provide a mechanism for the seamless collection and disbursement of cash payments between Motorola companies and their suppliers. The key results are just-in-time money and the integration of financial processes throughout the cash supply chain. Finally, the authors compare the results with existing management/information systems theories on globalization and competition.

How can a board of directors be strengthened so that it can more effectively evaluate a company's performance, assess its management, and act to change the course of a corporation? The authors suggest eleven steps to reform a board's character and fortify its monitoring function. Among them are composing a completely independent board, with no company employees except for the CEO; establishing a lead director; aligning management's and directors' compensation with shareholders' interests; and strengthening the audit committee.

In traditional theories of how information technology (IT) is applied, a firm develops a business strategy, then chooses the structure and management process, aligns IT, and ensures that employees are trained and their roles are well designed. The authors describe and analyze a case in which business transformation occurred along a different, almost reverse, path to fit, through the incremental adoption of IT. At Flower and Samios, a small architectural firm, business strategy emerged gradually and was an outcome, rather than a driver, of change. The case shows how individual mastery, organizational learning, and the management of risk are critical components of a strategic change in which IT becomes an integral part of a firm's core business processes.

Conventional approaches to decision making focus on generating and evaluating alternatives. According to the author, however, alternatives are relevant only as means to achieve values. Values, not alternatives, should be the primary focus of decision making. In this article, he describes "value-focused thinking," which involves clearly defining and structuring your fundamental values in terms of objectives and using these objectives to guide and integrate decision making. He explains techniques for creating better alternatives for your decision problems and for identifying more appealing decision opportunities than those that confront you. These ideas are relevant both to organizational and personal decisions, and they are illustrated by their application at Conflict Management, Inc.

Can a company constantly strive to exceed customers' expectations by providing service that "delights" or "amazes" them? Or is this just another marketing trend that really doesn't ensure that the customer will purchase the service again? Are customers always right, or are there some who may not be profitably worth satisfying? Do customers judge service on the core offering (e.g., the plane flight) or on the supplemental "frills" (e.g., the movie and meal during the flight)? The authors point out that the concept of customer satisfaction is nothing more than good marketing, something companies should have been striving for all along. They poke holes in a number of marketing trends and suggest that, rather than embracing every new fad that comes along, managers should think creatively and choose their own paths to successful marketing.