Business administration and support services

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

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.

What a Chinese travel entrepreneur learned from the SARS crisis and its aftermath

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 […]

“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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

A young American businessman in a developing country discovers that nothing gets done unless palms are greased. Should he play the game by his personal ethics—or the local rules?

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 worldwide collapse of state socialism has created a new inevitability—the rise of free economic institutions. The question facing nations around the world is no longer whether to introduce or expand the practice of capitalism but only how to do it. While there is no blueprint for transforming a command economy into a free one, […]

The physicians enjoy working at Regional Medical Center. So why are they about to walk off the job?

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 […]

New organizations are emerging in its place—organizations that are corporate in form but have no public shareholders and are not listed or traded on organized exchanges. These organizations use public and private debt, rather than public equity, as their major source of capital. Their primary owners are not households but large institutions and entrepreneurs that […]

Whether, when, and how to take a family or individually owned company public are decisions that have faced a great many entrepreneurs. They have taken actions that have brought happiness and fulfillment to some and unhappiness to others. Perhaps people who are presently reflecting on such dilemmas can draw some useful thoughts from a study […]

A few smart companies have stopped complaining about Sarbanes-Oxley, the investor-protection law, and turned it to their advantage—bringing operations under better control while driving down compliance costs.

Bruce Reid, Blake Memorial Hospital’s new CEO, rubbed his eyes and looked again at the 1992 budget worksheet. The more he played with the figures, the more pessimistic he became. Blake Memorial’s financial health was not good; it suffered from rising costs, static revenue, and declining quality of care. When the board hired Reid six […]

From Ronald Reagan’s White House to the centers of French socialism, from the speeches of Democratic liberals to the pages of Britain’s Economist, one assumption about U.S. technology has long held firm: a key American asset is the startup culture of Silicon Valley and similar centers of entrepreneurship. In the late 1980s, however, the heralds […]