Washington Mutual (B): From Forty-Six to Sixteen

Author(s):  
Robert D. Dewar

In 2004 Washington Mutual (WaMu) was touted by the business press as one of the most customer-focused, innovative, community-friendly, employee-loyal, and shareholder-enriching retail banks in the United States. Its stock reached $46.18 in May 2006, an almost 60% increase since 2001. CEO Kerry Killinger was lionized. By late 2008, however, WaMu's stock had plummeted to 16 cents as it became infamous as the largest bank failure in U.S. history. Relying on publicly available published sources, the case documents eroding focus on customers, excessive risks in subprime mortgages, alleged unethical pressure on mortgage officers to approve bad loans, attempts by the CEO to retain his job, and the eventual termination of the CEO, sale of the company to Chase, and destruction of all shareholder value. Whereas the (A) case documents WaMu's formula for success, the (B) case challenges readers to discover the seeds of destruction in the company's leadership, culture, incentives, and human resource policies and practices. WaMu's death contains some hard lessons of the danger of success and pride.To help students learn the importance of ethics no matter how well managed a company is, the dangers of growth for growth's sake, the perils of failing to listen to lower-level professionals, and the liability of too much success.

Author(s):  
Chandan Saini ◽  
Ashish Miglani ◽  
Pankaj Musyuni ◽  
Geeta Aggarwal

Regular inspections are carried out to ensure system conformity by the Food and Drugs Regulatory Authority (FDA) of the United States one of the most stringent regulatory authorities in the world. The inspectors send Form 483 to the management after the inspection, detailing the inappropriate conditions. Because the FDA guidelines are difficult to comply with, a company can contravene the regulations. If any significant infringements can affect the protection, quality, effectiveness, or public health of the drug is identified, the FDA issues advice to the company. Warning Letters (WL) shall be an official notification of non-compliance with federal law within a period to be issued by manufacturer, clinician, distributor, or responsible person in the company. The delivery of a letter has a considerable impact on the company's reputation and position in the market. Inadequate WL reactions could lead to a refusal, import denial, memorandum or even conviction and order. A brief study was conducted in this document of Form 483 and WL for four years (2017–2020) on an understanding the regulatory provisions.


2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-19
Author(s):  
Damian Kaźmierczak

Using a sample of 1,705 convertible bonds issued by manufacturing and service companies from the United States (1,138 issues); Europe (270); and Asia (297) between 2004 and 2014 this paper investigates the role of callable convertibles in the corporate investment process. This research shows first that callable convertibles are used to finance investment projects particularly by American firms which may exercise new investment options to improve poor financial performance. Secondly, the same strategy may be followed by European companies, but they seem not to carry out investments on as large a scale as American firms. Thirdly, the research results do not provide evidence that Asian enterprises use callable convertibles for investment purposes: they likely use these instruments for different reasons.


Author(s):  
Meric S. Gertler

The health and state of the German economy has been the dominant topic in the European business press since at least 1994, when the post-unification boom came to an end, and with good reason. Home to 82 million people, it is Europe’s largest economy. But it has also been the slowest-growing economy within the European Union since 1994, averaging just 1.6 per cent annually, a period in which it has also lagged behind the United States in every year except 2001. The DAX index of Germany’s top companies has experienced a sharper and more sustained downturn than the stock markets in the United States, United Kingdom, and France, indicative of a growing malaise amongst the country’s largest industrial and financial firms (Smiley 2002: 4). Inward foreign direct investment has slowed to a trickle, and a large proportion of its biggest companies are diverting their own investments to production sites abroad. The country’s share of global exports has declined from 11.8 per cent to 9.7 per cent over the decade between 1992 and 2002 (The Economist 2002a: S8). Meanwhile, the national unemployment rate has climbed to nearly 10 per cent over the same period, according to German statistics (or 8.3 per cent using European Union statistics) (The Economist 2002b: S13). There is no shortage of diagnoses for what allegedly ails the German economy these days. For many in the same business press, the answer is seductively simple: Germany is ‘stifled by a hugely restrictive and intrusive web of regulations, and weighed down by one of the most expensive, inflexible and protected labour forces in the world’ (Smiley 2002: S4). While there is undoubtedly some truth to this assessment, it is also simple-minded in the extreme. This chapter provides an alternative interpretation of the roots of Germany’s economic problems by focusing on one of its bedrock industries: mechanical engineering (in particular, its machinery and machine tool industry). Tracing the evolution of this key industry from a point early in the 1990s when it first encountered a serious competitive setback.


2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (8/9) ◽  
pp. 703-715
Author(s):  
Monica Colon-Aguirre ◽  
Katy Kavanagh Webb

PurposeThe main purpose of this work is to uncover and identify the issues that academic librarians consider important in the attainment of work–life balance. This work will focus on exploring their experiences with different dimensions of burnout.Design/methodology/approachThe topic of burnout is explored by analyzing the results of a survey based on the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), which was distributed among librarians at a group academic institutions that are members of the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL).FindingsThe findings of this study do not demonstrate evidence of burnout among the sample population. However, the results do present plenty of opportunities for further exploration such as the relationship between burnout and personal factors, including LGBTQA + status and race or ethnic minority status.Research limitations/implicationsFurther exploration of the topic of burnout should be followed up with more qualitative studies, especially those employing interviews.Practical implicationsImprovement of human resource practices, which reduces the incidence of burnout among academic librarians, is something that can only be accomplished at the organizational level. Human resource practices can create a work environment that enhances productivity by improving the quality of life of employees.Originality/valueThis work explores and assesses academic librarian burnout, among those working in academic institutions in the southeastern United States. To date, no study has been undertaken that looks at burnout across broad types of work performed by academic librarians and librarians at different institutions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 3017-3033
Author(s):  
Alexandre Momparler ◽  
Pedro Carmona ◽  
Francisco Climent

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