Rational Choice and Managerial Decision-Making
This note looks at Herbert Simon’s concept of finite rationality: how managers sometimes make suboptimal decisions due to their limited ability to access or process information.
Strategy & Execution
Ocean Tomo: Building a Market for Intellectual Property
Ocean Tomo’s management team wanted the company to be the main intellectual property broker. Despite its increasingly important role in the global marketplace, intellectual property remained a notoriously illiquid asset that was difficult to value, difficult to trade, and often underused by owners. CEO Jim Malackowski and his colleagues hoped to capitalize on this inefficiency …
Oasis Hong Kong Airlines: The First Long-Haul, Low-Cost Carrier in Asia
Founded by Priscilla and Raymond Lee and led by CEO Stephen Miller, Oasis Hong Kong Airlines was perhaps the world’s first low-cost, long-haul airline. The airline received approval for flights to London, Cologne, Berlin, Milan, Oakland and Chicago in November 2005. In March 2006, it announced the acquisition of two Boeing 747 400s and planned …
Sparta Glass Products
Sparta Glass Products has lost significant market share in the glare-free glass market in recent quarters, priced 10% higher than the competition. A price reduction is being considered. Unfortunately, the total allocated cost is such that the lower price translates to a loss. The topics to be discussed and the analyzes to be carried out …
Beanz Versus Starbucks: Personality in a Cup!
The Beanz Espresso Bar is located in downtown Charlottetown on Prince Edward Island, Canada. It operates in a highly competitive market (11 other coffee companies in two blocks). The economy on Prince Edward Island in recent years has seen various diners, restaurants and cafes close their doors while attracting large corporations like Starbucks and Running …
Time Inc. and New Magazine Development
Look at the magazine development at Time Inc. given the growing dominance of the video company and modern management in the 1980s. Highlight the company’s magazine development in 1989.
Virgin’s Pursuit: Sir Richard Branson’s Dilemmas in Creating a Presence in Retail Financial Services
In the forty years to 2010, Sir Richard Branson (born 1950) of the Virgin Group went from a high school dropout to a billionaire and a world legend. The establishment of more than 300 business interests as far away as Great Britain, South Africa, Australia and the US was the result of a unique management …
IndiaMART
The IndiaMART case lists the important decisions that are made in the platform’s business models in relation to pricing on the various sides of the platform. Discussions on this case would include the role of pricing in creating and exploiting network effects, looking at the “penguin problem” and how companies might manage and solve it. …
Sierra Log Homes, Inc. (B5)
Complement case (A).
Competitive Dynamics in Home Video Games (H): The Demise of the Sega Saturn
Provides a continuation of the situation before Sega introduced Saturn. A rewritten version of a previous case.