The growing pace of change demands that companies structure themselves to ensure that external and internal problems are both given sustained attention, instead of having managers oscillate from one group of problems to the other. Companies need management structures conducive to innovation. A new staff function, decision analysis, will help. Managers need to be broader-minded than their predecessors.

A hypothetical case illustrates managerial problems in a firm that has lost strategic control of technology and its competitive edge by becoming insulated from technological realities and by allowing important technological decisions to be made by lower-level management or technical people. The company redefines its focus and prescribes remedies in terms of R&D project selection, competitive product position, strategic performance, and a more dis...

General managers can assess the strategic merit of potentially radical technical innovation by evaluating the two key determinants of innovation success: technology potency and business advantage. This framework uses four considerations as its criteria: inventive merit, embodiment merit, operational merit, and market merit. Development of transistorized semiconductors, and turbine engines used in supersonic jets are examples that illustrate appli...

Contains a description of the history and venture capital financing of Lotus Development. Focuses on issues related to the possible terms of investment in Lotus by a major venture capital firm. The pedagogic objectives in the case are: to explore the elements of the people/opportunity/deal analytical framework; to expose students to issues in venture capital financing of high potential ventures; to explore the causes of success; and to explore th...

Involves the design and creation of a company with no formally-defined hierarchy. Describes the steps the founder takes to avoid the organizational politics he perceives as crushing the human contributions they were designed to harness.

Fifteen years later, the company has achieved widespread recognition in the industry for its innovative designs, its quality products, and its highly ethical standards for business dealings. This case describes the organization, the plant, and current concerns.

Discusses the fostering of entrepreneurship and innovation in the large corporation. It traces the development and history of Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) from 1946 to the present with particular emphasis on the leadership of Jan Carlzon, CEO from 1981 to the present. He transformed the company's culture from a technical to a marketing force through personal leadership, internal corporate communications training, human resource policies and...

This "Innovations in State and Local Government" case begins in January 1983, when Ellen Schall is appointed commissioner of New York City's Department of Juvenile Justice, an agency in upheaval. DJJ was established to detain seven- to fifteen-year-old children between arrest and adjudication. Most of DJJ's charges are held in a 25-year-old secure detention facility called "Spofford," a notoriously violent and dilapidated facility in the South Br...

At the outbreak of the Civil War, the Union army faced the task of supplying the growing numbers of Union conscripts with shoulder arms. Existing government stockpiles were inadequate, and the chief of ordnance was forced to consider the alternatives: government inventories of outmoded muskets; private manufacturers; and European arms manufacturers. Further confusing matters was the fact that, given recent strides in rifle development, new weapon...

At the outbreak of the Civil War, the Union army faced the task of supplying the growing numbers of Union conscripts with shoulder arms. Existing government stockpiles were inadequate, and the chief of ordnance was forced to consider the alternatives: government inventories of outmoded muskets; private manufacturers; and European arms manufacturers. Further confusing matters was the fact that, given recent strides in rifle development, new weapon...