SpeedTest is a Finland-based entrepreneurial high-tech start-up company that competes in the clinical research segment of the world-wide pharmaceutical industry. More specifically, the company has developed a mobile device to record drug testing information from patients, which has the potential to radically speed up the drug testing process. The newly hired chief executive officer has a mandate to identify the customers for its product, come up with .....more

Pibrex is one of the world's largest developers of petrochemical-based polymers for the plastics market. The company has purchased a plant in Russia and after three years of serious operating losses has appointed a new general manager of the plant. The plant lacks a strong organizational culture; communications within and between departments are poor; inequity in wages, working conditions, and training exist but motivation and retention problems .....more

Pibrex is one of the world's largest developers of petrochemical-based polymers for the plastics market. In the Managing Pibrex Russia (A) case, (9B01M020) a new general manager inherits serious problems and develops an action plan to address the issues. This supplement illustrates what the management team has done to begin a turnaround of the firm and also highlights the many problems that remain. In particular, the company must reassess its .....more

Teaching note for product 9B01M020.

Teaching note for product 9B01M021.

Top management of Otis Elevator's joint venture in St. Petersburg, Russia, are facing a number of supply and management problems. The manager of Otis' European headquarters in France, who was in charge of Northwest Russia and the Ukraine, was coming to visit Otis St. Petersburg in one week. Senior management at Otis St. Petersburg was trying to decide what to recommend to the manager about the major strategic issues facing Otis: (1) Whether .....more

The Otis Elevator Company's CFO for European Operations must decide whether Otis should invest $14,850,000 to start a state-of-the-art manufacturing joint venture in Russia. He has just received a detailed report about the potential investment from Otis' USSR project team. A strength of this case is that students get to see the actual investment proposal given to Fougeron.

Managers at Chicago Research and Trading, are at a final point in the negotiation and faced with a decision to sign the statement of intent to form a Russian-US Joint Venture. The pending decision highlights the importance of being willing to give up obtaining some additional information about the joint venture that would make MPI surer of their investment in favor of gaining the trust of their Russian partners. It also demonstrates the importance .....more

Teaching note for product 9A95G006.