At a corporate retreat on organizational learning, the vice president of finance for a major manufacturer leads a discussion to raise the “real” issues that inhibit learning and growth. He promises to listen and asks his people to talk honestly, to “tell it like it is” instead of telling management what it wants to hear. [...]

The $250 billion U.S. electric power industry is in the midst of historic transformation. The industry structure of the past — vertically integrated utilities operating in protected geographic markets — will soon go the way of the gas lamp. Participants in the future electric power marketplace will have more diverse corporate structures and product offerings. [...]

A few years ago, we were discussing the role of information technology (IT) specialists in business process reengineering projects with a group of chief information officers. One bitterly exclaimed, “What role? I found out that my company was starting a major reengineering project when I read about it in the Wall Street Journal.” That surprised [...]

In this article, we examine acquiring companies’ cash flow performance after a merger in the fifty largest U.S. industrial takeovers from 1979 to mid-1984. In an earlier study, we showed that the mergers in this same sample created new value for the stockholders of the target company and the acquiring company combined.1 But our results [...]

Three forces are changing the customary rules of distribution channel management: proliferating customer needs, shifts in the balance of power in channels and changing strategic priorities. The authors propose a strategic approach to planning for future channel configurations, control of the channel and resource commitment.

The contention that loyal customers are always more profitable is a gross simplification, according to the authors. They posit that such schemes do not fundamentally alter market structure and, instead, increase market expenditures without really creating any extra brand loyalty. Dowling and Uncles suggest ways to design an effective program.

“Today, the employer’s attitude is that making money is number one; the employees are not number one any-more. Constant changes in company structures create less loyalty. In the past ten to twenty-five years, employees have acted more like free agents. . . . There is less trust, more anxiety, and less loyalty on the [...]

In 1992, Phar-Mor, Inc., the largest discount drugstore chain in the United States, filed for bankruptcy court protection following discovery of one of the largest business fraud and embezzlement schemes in U.S. history. Coopers & Lybrand, Phar-Mor’s former auditors, failed to detect inventory inflation and other financial manipulations that resulted in $985 million of earnings [...]