Business administration and support services

As commissioner of the New York City Police Department, Lee P. Brown faces two enormous challenges. The first is crime. In 1989 in New York City, 712,419 crimes were reported, including 1,905 murders, 93,377 robberies, and 3,254 rapes. As Brown is quick to point out, the situation has grown so severe that people in cities […]

Author’s note: Alistair Hanna, Michael Reopel, and Stuart Flack, all of McKinsey & Company, contributed to this article. The U.S. defense industry is struggling to reorganize itself for growth, if not for survival. The disappearance of the communist threat and the desperate need to revive the U.S. economy have taken the defense industry for a […]

America’s banking crisis presents choices both perilous and promising. Perilous, because the failure to act intelligently will lead to the most serious economic collapse since the Great Depression. As much as 25% of the U.S. banking system—representing assets of more than $750 billion—has begun to post such massive loan losses that it must focus on […]

Most businesspeople will serve on the board of a nonprofit organization at some point. But the governance of nonprofits can differ dramatically from the governance of businesses. Even the best intentions can prove disastrous when new board members fail to understand that their traditional business experience can carry them only so far.

On December 7, 1990, U.S. Trade Representative Carla Hills appeared before the press in Brussels to announce the collapse of the four-year-long Uruguay Round of world trade talks. Casting blame on others, particularly on an intransigent European Community that refused to retreat on agricultural subsidies, she warned of dire consequences: world trade conflicts, global depression, […]

Reports of the “eclipse of the public corporation” underestimate its institutional staying power and unique capacity for renewal. In his recent HBR article, Michael C. Jensen, a distinguished scholar of corporate finance and governance, argues for a revolution in the structure of ownership and control in the U.S. economy.1 I share many of his criticisms […]

At age 74, Yoshiko Shinohara is a towering figure in Japanese business. She has created a wealth of job opportunities, including many for women, by founding the temporary-staffing agency Tempstaff and lobbying to strike down laws that stifled the temp industry. Tempstaff now has approximately 3,300 employees and is a public company. For the past […]

“We” are seated at a negotiating table. “They” are seated across from us. The outcome of these talks will shape America’s future competitiveness and economic well-being. But “us” is not necessarily companies based in the United States. “Them” is not foreign nations. Rather, us is the people—most prominently, the work force—of the United States. And […]

No one, not Joseph in Egypt or Alfred Sloan, has ever faced a managerial challenge as far-reaching as the one Mikhail Gorbachev has set for himself. In his own writings and speeches the Soviet economy comes across as a huge, failing industrial corporation whose workers are demoralized and whose managers are complacent about everything but […]

Political scientists, legislators, educators, business executives, lawyers, consumerists—practically everyone, it sometimes seems—is calling for better public management. For businessmen, the need is especially important because they feel surrounded by government institutions with which they are legally required to interact. But enthusiasm for good government is one thing; understanding the nature of it, to say nothing […]

To really win their loyalty, forget the bells and whistles and just solve their problems.

We all know we can learn from our mistakes. So why not go out and make some? Here’s a systematic way to make carefully planned mistakes that pay off.

HBR’s fictionalized case studies present dilemmas faced by leaders in real companies and offer solutions from experts. This one is based on research by Jeffrey Pfeffer. Adam Baker had been bothered all day by the blunt message his boss and mentor, Merwyn Straus, had delivered to him on the phone that morning: Adam was not […]

Traditionally, business viewed the social sector as a dumping ground for spare cash, obsolete equipment, and tired executives. But today smart companies are approaching it as a learning laboratory.

This is the fourth in HBR’s series of interviews with some of the world’s recognized leaders—individuals who have led not a company but a country. Each leader illuminates something different about the subject of leadership: the quality of thinking, the sense of responsibility, the style of management. The qualities of the individuals vary, in part […]

A high-tech reception system will make life easier for Quality Care’s staff, but what about its customers?

Patients are becoming more demanding consumers. But the medical industry isn’t just another business.

The biggest dangers to a company are the ones you don’t see coming. Understanding these threats—and anticipating opportunities—requires strong peripheral vision.

Because of the prevailing gloom in current economic headlines, it is easy to forget that these same headlines portrayed 1979 as a year of record corporate profitability. And once a recovery gets under way, it should not be long before we are deluged by another flood of optimism. But the optimism will be misplaced. Inflation […]

Despite mounting pressure on businesses to prove their faithfulness to the earth, managers share no common understanding of what this might mean in their own companies. Many continue to see environmentalism against the backdrop of an adversarial public arena, as a struggle over ever-stricter emissions codes and wildly varying punishments for misconduct. Who can blame […]