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In January 2008, in the midst of the subprime-mortgage crisis, Warren Buffett is looking for good investment opportunities for his almost $50 billion in cash. As usual, he has been patient and careful in identifying the right opportunities; however, the amount of cash in his company has grown considerably, and with so much cash sitting idle, returns could suffer. This case can be used to pursue several objectives: (1) to showcase Warren Buffett's leadership in the financial markets; (2) to understand his principles and the principles of value investing more broadly; (3) to understand Warren Buffett as both a thinker and a leader in the world of investing and as an agent of stability in a world of capital markets characterized by continuous change; (4) to discuss Buffett's investment decisions (Swiss Re, Burlington Northern, the funding of his own new bond-insurance business, BHAC) and the timing of those decisions in the midst of the subprime crisis and in an environment of increasing energy demand; (5) to discuss his decision not to invest in banks in the current environment as well as his largest investment, the philanthropic Gates Foundation; and (6) to understand some of the new market forces, such as sovereign funds, as providers of capital.

Demand‐side changes, stimulated by higher levels of consumer awareness and sophistication, have combined with supply‐side changes, mainly induced by legislation, to create a difficult climate for banks. Lacking clear strategic direction and being undifferentiated, they find themselves competitively disadvantaged, particularly in cost terms, against the building societies. There is a difference in the way in which consumers perceive banks and what they expect from banks – i.e. a convenient money transmission service ‐ and the aspirations of many banks to be one‐stop providers of financial services. Suggests that relationship banking may offer a way forward but this requires a better understanding of marketing, organizational flexibility and a clearer customer focus. This poses major organizational, customer and employee challenges.

Increased competitive pressure in the market for loanable funds has encouraged the banks to place greater emphasis on the marketing of their services to both corporate and personal customers. The small business sector of the corporate market covers the majority of corporate accounts and for a substantial volume of bank lending. However, the proliferation of product differentiation in relation to small business customers in order to improve banks′ competitive position appears to have been less than successful. The small business sector is heterogeneous; customer needs vary but there is little evidence to suggest that banks differentiate their products sufficiently to appeal to distinct market segments. On the contrary, despite competitive pressures and new marketing strategies, small business customers generally perceive the services provided by the different banks as indistinguishable.

In January 2008, Citi and Merrill Lynch are trying to steer their ships back to calm waters. The new CEOs, Vikram Pandit (Citi) and John Thain (Merrill), have been at the helm of their companies for less than three months. This case focuses on their steps to counteract the massive losses resulting from their firms' investments in subprime-mortgage structures. What actions have these leaders taken thus far and what actions should they consider going forward? See also “Warren E. Buffett, 2008” (UVA-F-1550).

The aim of the study is to explore the relationship between organizational leadership capability and organizational performance in the context of market orientation in Estonian financial services organizations.

A total of eight organizations from the Estonian financial services sector participated in this study: the five largest banks (∼95 per cent of the market), the largest leasing organization (∼50 per cent of the market) and the two largest insurance companies (∼50 per cent of the market). The data used includes: aggregated and non‐aggregated evaluations by customers, and aggregated financial data. The methodology combines two approaches for testing the hypotheses: a quantitative OLS regression analysis of the evaluations from 555 customers, and ranking mean values of the aggregated assessments from customers and financial data in quartiles for all eight organizations.

The results of the study reveal a relationship between specific organizational leadership capabilities and organizational performance.

The study suggests that the positive relationship between leadership and organizational performance at the organizational level explains how an organization manages in the context of its external environment. However, the results of the authors’ investigation are only valid in the Estonian financial services context, and the influence of organizational leadership capability on organizational performance in organizations in other service sectors could differ from these results.

This paper demonstrates that organizational leadership capability, expressed as the interaction between the main behavioural principles of an organization marked as organizational orientation and adaptation, has a clear relationship with organizational performance.

By drawing on the institutional theory and contingency theory, this study aims to examine the effects of leadership and accounting capacity on the quality of financial reporting and accountability of public organisations in Vietnam. Furthermore, this paper is to determine the impact of financial reporting quality on accountability.

The research model and hypotheses have been tested by partial least squares structural equation modeling, with 177 survey samples obtained from accountants and managers working in the public sector in Vietnam.

The research results indicate that leadership and accounting capacity have a positive effect on financial reporting quality; leadership and accounting capacity positively influence accountability; and the quality of financial reporting has a positive impact on accountability.

The research results provide empirical evidence of the direct impact of leadership and accounting capacity on financial reporting quality and accountability of public organisations in a developing country. Moreover, the current work also provides important evidence for the impact of financial reporting quality on accountability.

Public sector organisations must realise that leadership and accounting capacity play a vital role in the accounting reform process. Public institutions likewise need to pay attention to develop accounting capacity and promote leadership. Moreover, the results respond to the continuing call for increased citizen trust in public organisations.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine the chain from leadership, accounting capacity, financial reporting quality and accountability in the context of public sector organisations in an Asian transition market.

The paper aims to investigate automobile manufacturers in Thailand and the effects that their business strategies had on their organizational performance.

For empirical analysis, the method of confirmatory factor analysis and the structural modeling method were applied in order to refine business strategies, functional strategies, financial, and marketing organizational scales.

This research reveals that there are three significant business strategies of automobile manufacturers in Thailand which have a positive effect on the organization's financial and marketing performance: cost focus (the first priority), cost leadership (the second priority), and integrated cost an differentiation (the third priority). All the priorities of functional strategies that have a positive effect on the financial and marketing organization performance were subsequently analyzed as follows: manufacturing strategy (most significant), human resource management (the second most significant), marketing strategy (the third most significant), and the financial strategy (the least significant).

Future research should select different random samples to assess the perceptions of front line managers of automobile manufacturers, dealers and automobile part firms.

The management of automobile manufacturers and automobile part firms should implement and improve their business strategies in terms of cost focus, cost leadership, and integrated cost leadership strategies achieve higher financial and marketing performance.

This paper contributes to the existing literature by reexamining the impact of business strategies of automobile manufacturers on organizational performance.

This book is a policy proposal aimed at the democratic left. It is concerned with gradual but radical reform of the socio‐economic system. An integrated policy of industrial and economic democracy, which centres around the establishment of a new sector of employee‐controlled enterprises, is presented. The proposal would retain the mix‐ed economy, but transform it into a much better “mixture”, with increased employee‐power in all sectors. While there is much of enduring value in our liberal western way of life, gross inequalities of wealth and power persist in our society.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between supplier orientation, which is Porter's general competitive strategy, and the market and financial performance in the Turkish Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) sector, taking into account the problems in the supply chain during the pandemic process.

This study used a quantitative research design where 550 questionnaires were collected from respondents operating in various ICT companies in Turkey to obtain necessary data to test the hypotheses developed for the study. Mediation effect and path analysis were used to analyze the research data. Smart PLS 3.3 version was used for all the mentioned analyzes.

The results of the analysis revealed that supplier orientation was positively and significantly related to financial and market performance. The findings of this study also showed that Porter’s generic competitive strategies have a mediator role in the relations of supplier orientation, financial and market performance.

These findings contribute to the understanding of the importance of supplier orientation along with competitive strategies to increase market and financial performance in ICT companies, especially during the pandemic process. These findings provide recommendations for researchers, professionals and senior and supply chain managers to apply at their firms.

This is a study that adequately covers the relationship between supplier orientation, general competitive strategies and market and financial performance in the Turkish ICT sector, taking into account the pandemic process.