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Note: INSEAD used to offer free evaluation copies of their cases. They no longer do...

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Note: INSEAD used to offer free evaluation copies of their cases. They no longer do...

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Several management writers have identified common threads to successful change, including focus on the organization's mission and core competencies while re-designing structures around processes. But what happens when an organization's mission becomes obsolete, and its core competencies have sharply diminished in value?

Note: INSEAD used to offer free evaluation copies of their cases. They no longer do...

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During the 1990s, the telecommunications environment was undergoing a series of complex changes that would dramatically alter the competitive landscape: deregulation, globalisation and new technological developments. Professors Paul Verdin, Rudi Bogaert and Arnoud De Meyer present issues and challenges (mainly for product development and innovation) within a multinational telecom equipment manufacturer organised on a country-based unit structure and facing these environmental changes.

Note: INSEAD used to offer free evaluation copies of their cases. They no longer do...

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The members of Lee Coker's team have varying degrees of experience and successes. How can he best manage this mixed group so that each person achieves his or her goals, as well as the milestones of the overall organisation? Professor Jean-Francois Manzoni and Research Fellow Jean-Louis Barsoux illustrate the challenges of operational management in this case study.

We all know them. They exist in every company. Many times they are smart people, sometime very smart. They lack influence and can't pull together a team and draw the best effort out of people. Prof. Cohen looks at a case of failed influence and provides analysis and recommendations on how to avoid losing your own influence.

Note: INSEAD used to offer free evaluation copies of their cases. They no longer do...

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Disaster response organizations like the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) act as choreographers in a huge show involving countless characters (government, media, NGOs, donor National Societies, affected communities) and materials (food, clothing, medicine, trucks, tents, blankets). When done well, the right aid gets to the right people at the right time. When done poorly, confusion and chaos prevail. During 1998's Hurricane Mitch, the worst to hit the Gulf of Mexico in 200 years, the latter seems to have won out. Unsatisfied by IFRC's response, its customers (donor National Societies) demanded action. In this recent case, Professors Van Wassenhove, Kumar, and Becerra-Fernandez, along with Ramina Samii, take us through the group's post-Mitch self evaluation and its ensuing restructuring process, drawing parallels that can be applied to the business community.

Editor's Note: see related case study on The Gujarat Earthquake at
http://knowledge.insead.edu/abstract.cfm?ct=10257

Note: INSEAD used to offer free evaluation copies of their cases. They no longer do...

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The road to reform in China is paved with detours and dangerous curves. Among the hazards are the traditional values that thrived under state run rule, but which now serve to slow progress. Looking at the case of CINCO, one of China's oldest and largest insurers, Sarah Meegan and Professor Steven White show how the best intentions can be stymied by intractable cultural norms and varying players with vastly different goals.

Note: INSEAD used to offer free evaluation copies of their cases. They no longer do...

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Value Based Management is often thought of from strictly a financial perspective. In this Case Study series about a VBM initiative at Cadbury Schweppes, the authors show that managing for value is 80% about people and only 20% about numbers.

The series traces the origins of the initiative starting in 1996 and follows its progression through to 2002, showing the benefits, limitations, time frames, and basic elements of VBM at this multinational food and beverage company.

This article offers a look at the unique management philosophy and values of Yarde Metals.

George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic is the nations premier special effects shop with credits that include "Star Wars." Part of its phenomenal growth and success stems from the innovative management of its employees -- most of whom don't even know they're being managed.

How does a fledgling company become an industry powerhouse? By managing itself professionally and betting on the right products. The case of Biogen shows how it can be done.

When growth slowed in Y2K, the computer maker's leaders realized they needed to redesign their win-at-all-costs culture.

The industrial giant's legendary learning center, Crotonville, has a new assignment: Teach every manager to be a strategist.

At W.L. Gore, innovation is more than skin deep: The culture is as imaginative as the products.

How do you snatch a company from the brink of bankruptcy and restore it to profitability? As demonstrated in the mid-1980s by Caterpillar, the world's biggest maker of heavy equipment, the key lies in reshaping its "organizational DNA" -- the decision rights, motivators, information flows, and structures that determine an organization's behavior. By retooling its corporate culture to make it align better with its overall strategy and performance objectives, Cat reversed its course and, in just a few short years, returned to robust health.

Corporate culture is the core of organization behavior. This paper will focus on how W. L. Gore's two key principles of making money and having fun help to develop committed individuals and teams and how the organization translates core values into individual and enterprise behaviors. Additionally, the paper will focus on how Gore aligns underlying assumptions, core values and organization behaviors to create the environment that contributes to positive results and energized people. Finally, it will demonstrate how the Organization Effectiveness team and Human Resource team work together to help achieve these results.

Drawing on a wealth of stable values, strategic history and shared mindsets, the company's leaders have created a strong but flexible performance anatomy that allows the organization to build on past successes and adapt to future challenges.

Note: INSEAD used to offer free evaluation copies of their cases. They no longer do...

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When functional operations are impeding client interaction, it’s time for a change. ‘Codan 2000’ was one such changing project launched by a Danish rubber company. INSEAD Professor Paul Evans and Michael Wulff Pederson check Codan 2000’s performance and its self-managed teams after two years, providing insight into the human side of Operations Management.

In 2006, things were not so great for Vodafone Spain. Its technology area was falling behind the rest of the company. Jaime Bustillo (CTO, Vodafone Spain), Pedro Diaz (HR Director, Vodafone Spain) and Luis Huete of IESE detail the immediate and necessary steps that Vodafone Spain's technology area had to take to instate "The Ultimate Cultural Change," which, by the first quarter of 2008, resulted in Vodafone Spain achieving a staggering 1.8 billion euros in total revenue.

Informal networks can play a pivotal role in how organizational decisions are framed and executed. But they can also result in too much collaboration—the kind of lengthy and expensive decision making that can cost companies dearly in missed opportunities.