Preface

Preface from the Ivey Business School

It gives me great plea= sure as Dean of Research at the Ivey = Business School in London, Canada, to have this opportun= ity to introduce you to our school by briefly explaining a little about its histor= y, traditions, faculty and recent achievements. The Richard Ivey School of Business is a professional school within The University of Western Ontario (UWO). One of Canada&= #8217;s oldest universities, UWO is an academic community of twelve Faculties and Schools and three affiliated Colleges.&nbs= p; It is home to more than 26,000 students and over 3,000 full-time fac= ulty and staff. Located in the southern-most part of Canada, London, Ontario is a city of 415,000, halfway between Toronto and Detroit. Although Ivey = is based in London, Ontario<= /st1:State>, it also has campuses in Toronto and in Hong Kong.

Historically, Ivey has been a leader in management development. To illustrate the proactive nature of change at Ivey, a partial list of achievements follows:=

² In 1922, Ivey establis= hed the first undergraduate business department in Canada.

² In 1932, the school be= gan to publish Ivey Business Journal.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Targetted at a practitioner audience, in 2002 it became an electronically distributed publication.

² In 1948, Ivey establis= hed Canada’s first executive development program and first MBA program in Canada.

² In 1961, Ivey introduc= ed Canada&= #8217;s first Ph.D. program in business.

² In 1974, Ivey received official designation by the Federal Government as Canada’s first Centre f= or International Business Studies (CIBS).&nbs= p; (The CIBS were the forerunner to the CIBERs in the United States).

² In 1975, Ivey opened i= ts own case publications office, now known as Ivey Publishing. This office holds an inventory of = over 2,000 current Ivey cases and is also the Canadian distributor for Harvard cases. In 2001, Ivey cases were used in over 850 teaching institutions and 600 corporations in over 30 countries. Ivey is the second largest produce= r of management case studies in the world, with approximately 500,000 individual copies distributed each year, plus many copies studied from Ivey-edited boo= ks.

² In 1978, commencement = of its first international student exchange program took place. Forty-three such exchange programs= are now in place.

² In 1984, the School to= ok a leading role in establishing the National Centre for Management Research= and Development (now called The Lawrence National Centre for Policy and Management) in London with support from the Canadian Federal Government.

² In 1992, Ivey was selected to be the editorial home for the 1993-97 = period for the Journal of International Bu= siness Studies, the leading International Business journal.<= /p>

² In 1993, Canadian Business magazine’s survey rated Ivey as the top MBA School in Canada, according to all groups: CEOs, human resources executives, and placement consultants.

² In 1994, Asia, Inc.= rated Ivey among the World’s Top 25 Business Schools for Asians.=

²In 1997, the Journal of International Management named Ivey the world’s leading contri= butor to the international strategic management literature in the previous decade= ; Business Week magazine ranked Ivey= as one of the top international business schools in the world; and US News and World Report selected Ivey as one of the top 15 business school= s in the world for executive development programs.

²In 1997, Ivey established the Asian Management Institute (AMI), dedicated to the development and dissemination of case studies and manageme= nt research on Asian business.

²In 1998, Ivey opened the Cheng Yu Tung Management Institute in Hong Kong, Ivey's first international campus in Asia offering the Executive MBA degree program with Asian focus, as well as nume= rous non-degree executive programs. Ivey was the first North American Business School to establish its own campus in Asia-Pacific.

²In both the January 2000 and 2001 Financial Times Ranking of the Top 100 Business Schools Worldwide, Ive= y was 19^th. In their Jan= uary 2002 Ranking, Ivey was 18^th.

² In the April 2001 W= all Street Journal Survey of MBA programs, Ivey was ranked number one outside the US.

² In the June 2001 Fi= nancial Times Ranking of the Top 30 Executive Develo= pment Programs worldwide, Ivey was 18^th, Tops in Canada for Public and Custom Programs.

² In the September 2001 = Forbes Survey of MBA programs, Ivey was ranked second o= utside the US.

²In the October 2001 Financial Times Ranking of Executive MBA programs, Ivey was 15^th worldwide and number one in Canada.=

² In the October 2001 Business Week Survey of 82 Executive MBA programs, Ivey was = ranked 15^th worldwide, tops in Canada, and second outside the US.

As of 2002, the School= had 70 full-time faculty who annually taught 1000 re= gular and executive MBA students, 420 undergraduate students, and over 60 Ph.D. students, plus executives in a wide range of non-degree programs.

Internationally, the School has been involved with major offshore projects for 30 years, and= is currently involved in Asia, especially G= reater China. These projects have ty= pically involved the enhancement of local management training capability.

Greater China Activities

19= 84 marked the beginning = of a continuing linkage between Ivey (毅偉管理學院) and Tsinghua University in Beijing. During the first phase of the proj= ect (funded by the Canada-China Management Education Program): 35 articles, cas= es, and notes were written; nine Ivey faculty participated in lecture visits to China; and 12 visiting scholars spent one year each at Ivey. The second phase was a five-year endeavor from 1989 to 1994. A= major element was the design, development and delivery of a program on teaching J= oint Ventures, Technology Transfer, and International Trade via The Case Method.= This train-the-trainers program was offered to academics from across China, through interpreters, = and all of the teaching material was translated into Chinese. Similar capacity building programs continue today with Ivey’s annual Case Teaching and Writing Workshop offerings to all 56 MBA schools throughout = China.

In 1998 and 1999, a mega casebook publication project for China was undertaken with Huazhang Graphics / China Machine Press as publisher.= 32 volumes of Ivey business case s= tudies — 16 books in English and 16 books in Chinese — were prepared f= or the Chinese MBA curriculum as "A Total Solution for Management Educati= on Material in China". In 2= 001, Ivey continued with a new phase of translated casebooks for China a= dding new topics: E-Commerce= , International Entrepreneurship, and Organizational Behavior.=

Taiwan Project

Under the encouragement of Professors Cheng Bor-shiuan and Huang Kuo-Long of the National Taiwan University, Professor Terence Tsai of the Chinese University of Hong Kong<= /st1:place> and my former faculty colleague at Ivey, and the support of Mr. Wang Jung-<= span class=3DSpellE>Wen of Yuan-Liou Publishi= ng, I am pleased to present you with this collection of Ivey cases in Chinese. I first visited Taiwan = in 1979 but did not have the pleasure of meeting Terence Tsai until 1996, and Professors Cheng and Huang until 1997.&nbs= p; Every time I have visited Taiwan, I have come away impr= essed with the deep-felt desire of the academic and corporate communities there to support management education.

This casebook for Taiwan is= part of Ivey's commitment to provide highest quality teaching and learning mater= ial to Asia. Here a business case study refers to a comprehensive, field-based, decision-requiring picture of an administrative situation. It does not include descriptive ca= se histories (which require students to make no decision); mini-cases or vignettes (which are anecdotal, and not suitable as a stand-alone basis for an 80-90 minute class); or library-based (such secondary sources produce far fewer insights than actually interviewing managers for the cases). The case method teach= ing ensures that future (and existing) managers in Asia are (A) exposed to a wi= de range of new and varied learning situations; and (B) gain practical experie= nce in decision-making, so as to balance the underlying theory.

Ivey is the second largest producer of business cases in the world, and the larg= est producer of current, Asia-Pacific cases.&n= bsp; Ivey waived all of its normal permission fees in order to see a seri= es of casebooks published in Taiwan. In some instances, Ivey was able to obtain corporate sponsorship to assist with the associated costs. All of this has occurred in the sp= irit of demonstrating Ivey’s genuine commitment to = Asia.

Paul W. Beamish

Dean, Research and Development

Director, Asian Manage= ment Institute

Richard Ivey School of Business

London, Canada

June 2002