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Strategic Management

Compaq and HP: Ultimately, the Urge to Merge Was Right
The controversial merger of Hewlett-Packard and Compaq ultimately was a good idea, but failure to focus on long-term corporate strategy actions meant it wasn’t smooth sailing to the finish line. (June 2007)

Loyalty Programs Can Be a Waste of Money
Programs that reward frequent customers may have only limited effectiveness. Researchers say such programs often don’t change the behavior of frequent users although they can attract less dedicated customers. (October 2006)

Startups Need a Special Learning Curve for Sales
Before a young company can sell its product successfully, the entire organization needs to learn how customers will acquire and use the product. This requires a special learning curve for sales and marketing before the product is ready for a major push, say researchers Charles Holloway and Mark Leslie. (September 2006)

Consumer Boycotts Work—Just Ask French Winemakers
Calls to boycott French products in 2003 may have cost French winemakers $112 million from sales in the United States, say researchers Larry Chavis and Phillip Leslie. Based on their study of scanner data from supermarkets and large stores, the pair conclude boycotts really do work. (April 2006)

Consumers Feast on Restaurant Ratings
When Los Angeles started rating restaurant hygiene a few years ago, the information was snapped up by consumers and by the restaurants themselves, who worked to improve quality. Prof. Phillip Leslie says a rating system wouldn't work in all industries, but when consumers and merchants agree on quality standards, it can produce impressive results. (October 2005)

Strategies for Getting Users to Adopt Computer Software Security Patches
Malicious hackers have cost businesses millions of dollars, yet many users continue to take chances by not downloading programs to stave off intruders. The best way to get consumers on board in the war against computer viruses is for software producers to create reliable, easy-to-use programs and make them easily accessible to users. (September 2005)

Co-Financing Doesn’t Make Movies More Profitable
Co-financing major motion picture production is supposed to benefit movie studios by lowering the risk on films that aren’t guaranteed blockbusters, but research by Phillip Leslie of the Stanford Business School shows no difference in return on investment. (September 2005)

Valuing Bestselling Books
Making the New York Times Bestsellers list is an honor, but it really doesn't boost sales substantially for most of the big name authors who make the list, according to research by Prof. Alan Sorensen. (July 2004)

When is it Smart to Sell the Factory and Outsource?
Should your company keep control of its supply chain and manufacturing facilities when it needs to expand — and risk getting stuck with expensive capacity it can't use? Or should it outsource — and if so, to whom and for how much? Researchers take on the build vs. buy dilemma. (June 2003)

A Strategic Look at Business Change
Andy Grove, who led Intel through one of the biggest strategic decisions in the technology industry, outlines what can happen to a business when it faces a major transformation point altering its environment and possibly the business itself. Grove outlines the concepts he and Robert Burgelman have developed during a decade of teaching Strategy and Action in the Information Processing Industry. (April 2003)
Video File, 50:11 minutes
Q & A Video File, 11:30 minutes

Strategy is Destiny: How Strategy-Making Shapes a Company's Future
Robert Burgelman and Andrew Grove, Free Press, 2002
Intel CEO Craig Barrett's frustration with some of the spoils of success is told by Robert Burgelman, the Edmund W. Littlefield Professor of Management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, in a new book about how Intel has built business strategies, sometimes from the bottom up, sometimes from the top down, or from all parts of the hierarchy simultaneously. (July 2002)

Intel Inside
Strategic dissonance is common in the fast paced technology industry. Business School faculty Robert Burgelman and Andrew Grove use the term to describe what happens when a firm's stated strategy differs dramatically from what it actually does, such as the 1994 situation when a flaw was discovered in Intel's Pentium processor. (June 1996)