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P28
Property Rights in New Zealand Abalone Fisheries
Terry Anderson, J. Grewell
2001
Roger Beattie became involved in the business of abalone fisheries as an owner and operator in 1976. At the time a good diver could typically catch 500 kilograms of abalone in a day. With the price averaging NZ$0.50 per kilogram, a day’s work…
SM81
U.S. Plastic Lumber
Terry Anderson, J. Bishop Grewell
2001
Mark Alsentzer never saw himself as an environmentalist. He was a business man. It turned out, however, that a lucrative business opportunity and a boon to environmental health were meant to be one and the same for Alsentzer. Alsentzer began investing…
SM80
Sheaffer International's BOOM Program
Terry Anderson, J. Bishop Grewell
2001
Jack Sheaffer had a unique wastewater treatment system that produced no organic sludge, no odor, and was cheaper than conventional systems. He was worried, however, that his business might suffer if a turndown arose in the marketplace. A previous…
SM61
Allied Equity Partners March 1999
Thomas Hellmann, Philip Alphonse, Jane Wei
2001
Allied Equity Partners provided equity related financing to minority-owned businesses or minority entrepreneurs for the acquisition of established companies, expansion into growing companies, and start-up or early-stage financing. At the time of the case…
E101
Arrival Communications
Christopher Flanagan, H. Grousbeck
2001
This case examines the challenges faced by a start-up communications company during its first year in business. Begun by two young MBAs in late 1999, Arrival Communications, a digital subscriber line (“DSL”) services company focused on meeting the needs…
A172A
Ultratech Corporation (A)
Mary Barth, Andrew Baumbusch, Ramez Toubassy
2001
In August 1998, Kerry King, President and Chief Executive Officer of Ultratech Corporation looked with great interest at the changes that were occurring in the technology industry. Ultratech Corporation had an opportunity to enter into a strategic merger…
HR14
Siebel Systems, Culture as a Pillar of Success
Victoria Chang, Charles O'Reilly III
2001
This case explores the ways in which Siebel Systems’ strong culture, with its emphasis on customer satisfaction and professionalism, has been a source of competitive advantage for this leading provider of customer-focused eBusiness applications software….
HR16
Holy Cross Hospital The Road to a New Culture
Jeffrey Pfeffer, Victoria Chang
2001
The senior management team at Holy Cross Hospital, a nonprofit hospital based in Florida, wanted to build a culture at the hospital which was different from the traditional authoritarian and hierarchical hospital cultures at other for-profit and nonprofit…
IB26
Check Point Software Technologies: The Continual Building of a Global Technology Company
Victoria Chang, Antonio Davila, George Foster
2001
Over the years, Gil Shwed, founder and CEO of Check Point Software, and his management team had developed highly effective strategies and had executed their strategies extremely well. However, by 2001, they knew that their rapid success had begun to lead…
A174
Microsoft Corporation
Mary Barth, Carlos Schonfeld
2001
In the spring of 1999, Marta Fontanez, a new analyst with Capital Appreciation, needed to make a recommendation to the investment council concerning the value of Microsoft’s stock. She was concerned with announcements made by the company between 1997 and…
A171
AOL Time Warner
Mary Barth, Hilary Stockton
2001
AOL investor Fred Grant was surprised and disappointed by the January 10, 2000 announcement of the AOL Time Warner merger. He had been fortunate enough to buy AOL at $40 in October 1999, just prior to the stock’s rapid rise to $95 in mid-December…
A168
OnLink Technologies
Antonio Davila, Buaboocha Semapakdi
2001
The case presents the various challenges that a start-up faces during its growth. Buck French, OnLink’s CEO, has to decide how to move to the next stage and this decision involves how to retrain or replace its sales and marketing people. The case…
EC25
Amazon.com: Marching Toward Profitability
Haim Mendelson, Philip Meza
2001
Following the share price meltdown of Internet companies in 2000 and 2001, increased attention was paid to the profitability of companies whose business was in any way related to the Internet. As a benchmark company in electronic commerce, Amazon.com…
GS02
Lucent Technologies: Provisioning and Postponement
David Hoyt, Hau Lee, Enrique Lopez-Tello
2001
In June 1998, Lucent Technologies had the opportunity to win a major contract to supply a Y2K compliant network to Saudi Arabia. The Lucent facility that managed business with Saudi Arabia, and manufactured products for that region, was in Spain. In…
GS24
Solectron: From Contract Manufacturer to Global Supply Chain Integrator
David Hoyt, Hau Lee
2001
Solectron Corporation grew rapidly from a small contract manufacturer in the early 1980s to the dominant company in the electronics manufacturing services (EMS) industry by the late 1990s. In doing so, it evolved from providing peak capacity for its…
EC28
CheckFree
Geoffrey Adamson, Haim Mendelson
2001
Peter Kight, created CheckFree Corporation, an electronic payment service company based in Atlanta in 1981. By 2000 it dominated the fragmented electronic bill payment market, and provided the processing services for 350 financial institutions including…
A180
MCI
Mary Barth, Fraser Preston
2001
In 1997, WorldCom’s CEO bid successfully to acquire MCI Communications. The key questions that remained to be settled were how to structure the deal for tax purposes, and what impact the acquisition would have on the combined company’s reported earnings…
E92
eCircle AG
Christopher Flanagan, Thomas Hellmann
2001
Ecircle, a German Internet-based group communications company, was founded in 1999 with a half-dozen employees and a few hundred thousand users on its new C2C platform. By early 2001, the co-founders had built eCircle’s technology platform, had acquired…
EC31
Webvan: The New and Improved Milkman
Haim Mendelson
2001
This business case study focuses on Webvan, a company that set out, in June 1999 to build a nationwide infrastructure to deliver food products to consumers. Webvan put together a sophisticated distribution and information system that was optimized from…
E103
Northwest Security Services
Christopher Flanagan, H. Grousbeck
2001
This case examines issues encountered by a third-generation family-owned business. Northwest Security Services (“NSS”) is a 55 year-old company that has developed a rich history since its founding by Ernest Wilson, a less-than-affable, junior college…
IB23
Nokia Corporation, Innovation and Efficiency in a High-Growth Global Firm
Katherine Doornik, John Roberts
2001
Nokia Corporation is a global telecommunications company that in eight years went from a near-bankrupt conglomerate to a global leader in mobile telephony, delivering almost 30 percent annual compound growth in revenues during 1992-2000 while shedding…
HR20
Building the Culture at Agilent Technologies: Back to the Future
Charles O'Reilly III, Grace Yokoi
2001
In 1999, Hewlett-Packard split into two companies. The issue facing HR had to do with creating loyalty and enthusiasm for a new company (Agilent) whose roots lay in an established institution with an extremely loyal workforce who identified with the HP…
A172B
Ultratech (B)
Mary Barth, Susan Mackenzie
2001
Case highlights the impact of JDS Uniphase’s acquisition program on its financial statements, focusing on goodwill assets and amortization. In FY01, the Company wrote off $51 billion in goodwill assets, the largest write-off in history. The case…
A170
Sub-Micron Devices Inc
Tim Baldenius, Stefan Reichelstein
2001
In March 1996, the ASIC Division of Sub-Micron Devices received an inquiry from Western Digital: would ASIC be willing to supply 3,000,000 chips annually for a period of three years at a price of $40/chip? ASIC’s Controller, Gary Ravenport convened a…
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