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The ability to store and manage data has not kept pace with the rapid evolution and growth of information resources. According to TechWeb.com, companies are doubling their storage capacities every year. This action is driven primarily by data warehousing and the necessity to provide instant access to data and supply-chain management. The trend does not look to be slowing. Isolated and undermanaged data resources have become a common practice in the industry despite the fact that the capacities of these systems keep improving while their prices continue to fall. This chapter draws four related cases to assess methods for organizing data and data resources in organizations. Further, the chapter provides examples for organizations to become learning organizations based on their ability to actively collect and distribute knowledge and their ability to become highly coupled socially and technically.

The title compound, [Ru(C21H21N2O2S)Cl(C8H10O)].CH4O or [Ru(TsDPEN)Cl(eta6-C6H5OCH2CH3)].CH4O [where TsDPEN is (1R,2R)-1,2-diphenyl-N-(p-toluenesulfonyl)ethylenediamine], contains an S-chiral Ru centre in a distorted octahedral environment, with similar bond lengths and angles to analogous complexes. The very short (N-)H...Cl distance of 2.61 A is ascribed to an intramolecular hydrogen bond.

After reading this chapter you will be able to: assess the limitations of the information available for strategy making recognize what kind of information is relevant to strategy making learn how to read the general environment understand what is involved in forecasting the future identify the different kinds of risks to which the enterprise is exposed build different scenarios of the future

Until recently, throughout the world, telecommunication companies, or telcos for short, have been government-owned. Because of the high cost of the fixed-line networks required for telephony, there was a tendency to monopoly, which was one of the main reasons for government ownership. However, the possibility of renting or leasing use of the fixed networks was never really considered until quite recently. In practice the organization responsible for the service was given a monopoly, usually by government regulation. Since it was regarded as wasteful to duplicate these networks, and probably potentially unprofitable, the alternative to a government monopoly was a private monopoly. The present overcapacity is perhaps a hint at the wisdom of the previous approach.

This industry is one of the most important in the modern economy. Its origins go back to the period before World War I. It has also always been a focus for rapid and significant organizational and technical change. It is one in which many novel management techniques have received their first application. Indeed strategy was first systematically tried out in this industry. The importance of and fierce competitiveness in the industry have ensured that this was the case.

The economic structure of South Korea was, and still is, similar in many ways to that of Japan. There was some deliberate imitation of the Japanese model. After all between 1910 and 1945 Korea was a colony of Japan. Japanese influence was, and still is, strong, despite the legacy of hostility from World War II. The zaibatsu or keiretsu organization of the Japanese economy was closely paralleled by the chaebol system of South Korea. In alliance with the chaebol, government institutions engaged in a significant degree of guidance planning. The conglomerates were largely responsible for South Korea’s impressive rate of growth between the 1960s and 1997.

Sony set the pattern, the putting together of both hardware and software in the area of communications/information/entertainment. It also set the precedent of entry into areas in which the acquiring company had no, or very little, expertise, and the takeover of a Hollywood studio, the invasion of the home turf of America. After the acquisition it had to learn how to run a film studio and a television channel. A number of competing giants later emerged at the international level, including News Corporation, Disney, AOL Time Warner, Bertelsmann and Viacom, who all imitated this model of fusion, some more dramatically than others. Some of these fusions were achieved very quickly, but none more quickly than that of the French company Vivendi.

This case study should be read in conjunction with the previous one on the Mt Buller winter resort which starts with a background piece on resorts in general.

The coffee shop or coffee house is not a new phenomenon. Lloyd’s of London had its origins in one such coffee house. The founder of Starbucks, Howard Schultz, found his inspiration in the expresso bar so popular in Italy. Coffee shops had always been community gathering places, which is what Starbucks has intended its own stores to become.

This case study is concerned with the issue of size and the identity of merging partners (see for comparison the case study on BHP Billiton and the Strategy in Action module on AOL Time Warner, both in Chapter 11). It considers the computer industry and the current stage in its development.

After reading this chapter you will be able to: recognize what gives an organization a particular identity and see how, over time, it accumulates different resources distinguish between tangible and intangible resources understand how capabilities are created by the combination of different resources identify the core or distinctive competencies of an organization which make a strategy achievable

This case study is rather different from the others in form and aim. It is intended to illustrate how scenario building occurs. It supplements the text in the last section of Chapter 4.

The book started by indicating the difficulty of defining in a precise way what strategy is. It also referred to a number of different and possibly contradictory approaches and the existence of analytical treatments and definitions from as many as fourteen different schools which have analysed the nature of strategy, all differing and some apparently mutually exclusive. It also asserted that the whole book could be seen as an extended definition of strategy. All these statements are true. They bear testimony in different ways to the significance of strategy but also to the need to take great care in handling the concept. They justify the length of the book.

After reading this chapter you will be able to: know how to monitor strategy performance know how to measure strategy performance read financial indicators evaluate corporate social performance see formulation, implementation and monitoring as continuous processes

After reading this chapter you will be able to: understand and explain the difference between strategic thinking,strategic management and strategic planning define strategic thinking, strategic management and strategic planning choose which strategic activity is appropriate under different circumstances understand the difference between entrepreneurship and management and recognize different mixes of the two in strategy making

After reading this chapter you will be able to: understand who are principals and who are agents in the making of strategy and how the interests of the two diverge explore the general nature of the mutual interaction between principals and agents understand how strategy influences the design of an organization’s structure see how monitoring, the choice of appropriate incentive structures and the role of corporate or organizational culture are useful mechanisms for making compatible the interests of principals and agents evaluate the role of external discipline in solving the problem of integration, notably the threat of takeovers by other players

After reading this chapter you will be able to: understand the difference between the general environment and the competitive or industrial environment identify those features of the external environment relevant to strategy making, notably opportunities and threats know how to manage change explore the different segments of the general environment — STEP — social or cultural, technical, economic or financial and political or legal recognize the main trends or tendencies which are part of global change over a strategic time period

After reading this chapter you will be able to: understand how an enterprise might participate, with best effect, in international business explore the link between the nature of competitive advantage and the participation strategy distinguish between country-specific assets and enterprise-specific assets understand how internalizing business transactions within the enterprise at domestic and global levels reduces transaction costs identify a genuinely global or world enterprise

In recent years the banking industry has seen more change than almost any sector of the economy. The information/communications revolution has had a dramatic impact on the finance sector, an impact whose consequences are still unfolding (see the Strategies in Action in Chapter 7 on Charles Schwab and John Doerr). By improving access to information, the revolution has in theory made all the various markets for financial services more integrated and efficient. The efficient operation of a market depends on: the speed at which price or product information is communicated how much information can be processed and how quickly having many buyers and many sellers having homogeneous products.

After reading this chapter you will be able to: take account of the actions and responses of other strategic players in making a good strategy understand what is meant by the commons, or public goods, and free riding use game theory to understand the structure of a number of recurrent strategic situations describe the different ways in which cooperation can be initiated note the proliferation of strategic alliances as an expression of the increasing importance of cooperation

After reading this chapter you will be able to: recognize the difference between needs and wants understand that marketing is a broader notion than just selling or advertising understand the nature of product differentiation identify the various attributes of a product and the utilities required by the purchaser of such a product see branding as an extreme form of product differentiation establish a generic strategy based on product differentiation

After reading this chapter you will be able to: identify the main strategic players in the competitive or industrial environment identify the defining features of the competitive environment, especially the forces of competition understand how different market structures influence strategy making realize the difficulty of anticipating performance outcomes given the oligopolistic structure of markets be familiar with the concept of country risk describe the strategic risk which arises from the interaction between different players in strategy making

After reading this chapter you will be able to: understand the term ‘globalization’ recognize the degree to which the world is not global and has continued to have a home country bias recognize the degree of uniformity attained in the world distinguish the main players in the global economy understand the ways in which globalization influences strategy making

Two topics are favourites for analysis — the e-commerce revolution and the development of Amazon.com. The latter has had more case studies written about it than almost any other company. However, despite all the analysis, both topics have many puzzling aspects and unanswered questions.

It is appropriate to begin by saying something about the resort phenomenon in general and the nature of competitive advantage in such resorts, its creation and even more its maintenance.

After reading this chapter you will be able to: familiarize yourself with strategy as both a theoretical concept and a working tool trace the history of the development and use of the strategy concept explore the various meanings of the term ‘strategy’ make the link between different meanings and the different academic disciplines behind those meanings identify different stakeholder groups and their likely influence on strategy making discover the political, social and cognitive constraints on the process of strategy making

Successful leadership, particularly when it is based on charisma of some kind, can lead to the favourable branding of the person. Often the name of the person lives on with the company. The name, whether it is Gucci or Lloyd’s, then sells the products or services. There are particular moments in the history of an enterprise which lend themselves to the emergence of a leader. The foundation of a new enterprise or the turnaround of an existing enterprise already in trouble are such moments. Even Lloyd’s and Gucci have had their times of trouble in which questions have been raised about the enterprise and its name. What has been striking has been the tenacity of many brand names, which have managed to survive these times.

China is the focus for many cost leadership strategies. The potential for exporting from China is enormous, as the rapid growth in exports since 1978 has shown. This potential is largely based on the vast supply of cheap but often skilled labour in China. It is frequently argued that China can become the manufacturing base for the rest of the world. However, it is difficult for an enterprise to make a strategy solely on this basis; any competitive advantage based solely on cost can only be temporary.

After reading this chapter you will be able to: understand the reasons why an organization should be a particular size identify the benefits which come from either vertical or horizontal integration trace the influence of acquisitions and mergers on the creation and maintenance of competitive advantage evaluate membership of a network and focusing as devices to counter the negative impact of excessive size understand when outsourcing or downscoping are appropriate

Enhanced and synthetic vision applications for flight guidance are on the verge of commercialisation and wide-scale employment. The paper will first give an overview at the characteristics and benefits of these types of displays, and focus afterwards on their implementation in an integrated modular avionics environment. The Enhanced/Synthetic Flight Guidance Display is a promising approach to the solution for the problems of poor visibility low-level flight. It yields a computer-generated three-dimensional cockpit view and can optionally be combined with an imaging sensor (e.g. FLIR, mmWR, LL-TV). The paper will provide details on the technical concept and the evaluation of a functional prototype in flight trials. After functional validation, a enhanced/synthetic vision display was chosen to be ESGs first avionics application to be transferred into an integrated modular avionics architecture. This software prototype implementation takes into account the results so far achieved in the Allied Standard Avionics Architecture Council (ASAAC) programme. The effort of this programme to define an open system architecture will be addressed in the paper. The architecture's characteristics of a clearly defined layer structure and its strict hardware-software separation will be explained. Finally the paper addresses the allocation of the functions necessary for the synthetic vision display. It explains how database access, I/O to other systems, numerical calculation and graphics generation are mapped to IMA-based mass memory, data processing and graphics processing components. The paper finishes with the presentation of first successful implementation results.

The crystal structure of the title compound was determined by the X-ray diffraction method. The crystal system is triclinic, space group P1 with Z = 2. The unit-cell parameters are: a = 7.4417(8)A, b = 10.7676(12)A, c = 11.3576(13)A, with α = 108.599(2)°, β = 91.892(2)° and γ = 92.532(2)°. The final R value is 0.0561 for 3165 reflections measured. The geometry for the complex ion corresponds to the characteristic “three-legged piano stool” configuration.

Sathasivam and Lecky’s clinical review of statin induced myopathy did not include the important genomewide study that resulted from SEARCH (study …

A good teacher uses a variety of teaching styles and aids to stimulate and educate students, including, if appropriate, “trickery” or showmanship.

A striking demonstration emphasizing that substances which promote reactions are not catalysts if they are consumed in the process. The demonstration is based on the iron(II) induced oxidation of iodide by chromium(VI).Find this demonstration and others in the DigiDemos area of the JCE Digital Library.

The complex [Ru{η5-C5H4(C10H19)}(dppe)I]1[dppe = PPh2CH2CH2PPh2, C10H19=(+)-neomenthyl] reacts with CF3SO3R (R = Me or Et) to give the corresponding alkyl iodide complexes [Ru{η5-C5H4(C10H19)}(dppe)(IR)]CF3SO3(R = Me 2a or Et 2b) which alkylate a range of prochiral nucleophiles (e.e. ⩽20%) to regenerate 1; the crystal structure of 2b is reported.

Under reducing conditions [Rh(η5-C5Ph5)Br2]2 reacts with either cycloocta-1,3- or -1,5-diene to give predominantly Rh(η5-C5Ph5)(1,3-C8H12)1 together with a small amount (⩽15%) of Rh(η5-C5Ph5)(1,5-C8H12)2.

Evidence is presented to show that rhodium(I)-catalysed Kharasch reactions may proceed via oxidative-addition of the perhalocarbon to the Rh followed by stepwise transfer to a coordinated alkene.