Business management

Most companies mistakenly take a one-size-fits-all approach to prices.

A customer-research technique that requires respondents to make a sequence of explicit trade-offs when choosing their preferred product attributes can...

When Ben Franklin wrote Poor Richard’s Almanac and the words, “A little neglect may breed great mischief,” he did not have price fixing in mind. To the 47 executives in companies in the folding-box industry convicted of price fixing, however, the words seem tailored to fit. In those companies convicted under antitrust laws in 1976, […]

As the world's overall population skews older, the workforce is aging as well, with more older adults working well beyond what used to be considered the...

In fast-growing markets, women are getting ahead faster, too.

Eliminating algorithmic bias can unlock value for your company.

In many countries, diversified business groups substitute for the institutions that support effective markets in capital, labor, and goods and services. Their capacity for doing this must be strengthened through restructuring, not destroyed through dismantling.

Using the results of a survey of 380 companies in 34 industries, this author examines three basic types of compensation plans: salary, commission, and combination (salary plus commission). Most companies in the study favored a combination plan, but such plans have some disadvantages to offset their obvious attractiveness. The author sets out the possible reasons […]

You'll need four key elements.

And why your company can’t ignore it.

Managers should make environmental investments for the same reason they make other investments: because they expect them to deliver positive returns or to reduce risks.

I was moving as fast as I could and not getting anywhere, a feeling I’m well acquainted with. This time, though, it was deliberate: I was on a stationary Spin bicycle. When the towel draped over my handlebars fell to the ground, I tried to stop pedaling and get off. Tried being the operative word. […]

The best stay attuned to their customers’ signals in the social graph.

To maintain competitive advantage in a multi-crisis world, operations and strategy must become even more intertwined.

BP doesn't need an engineer at the helm. It needs a leader. Of course engineers matter, when the task is stemming damage from the largest oil spill in...

One clarifying comment in a coaching conversation can help shift a person's perspective.

Privacy as we knew it is virtually gone. Why should you care? What should your business do about it?

The Internet promises to give marketing the same boost in productivity that new operational strategies have given to manufacturing.

There are plenty of reasons to be disappointed with the Copenhagen climate talks that start today: the meeting will not result in a binding agreement, the timeframe for such an agreement is potentially years away, and of course, neither the US nor China has committed to binding reductions. While all this is certainly disappointing, the […]

The eminent restaurateur, who has won 19 Michelin stars, talks about how he supervises his chefs and develops his staff.