Business law and ethics

Strategies to help companies mitigate the legal risk and ensure they're in compliance with the law.

Generative AI tools are poised to change the way every business operates. As your own organization begins strategizing which to use, and how, operational...

As the world reckons with the impact of powerful new AI systems, governments are jostling to lead the regulatory charge — and shape how this technology will grow.

Lately companies have come to recognize the limitations of the view that they must create value only for shareholders. Recognizing that every stakeholder...

Retreat isn't just inadvisable; it's dangerous.

For years public concern about technological risk has focused on the misuse of personal data. But as firms embed more and more artificial intelligence...

The field of neuromarketing, sometimes known as consumer neuroscience, studies the brain to predict and potentially even manipulate consumer behavior...

Rather than try to follow a set of simple rules ("Don't lie." "Don't cheat."), leaders and managers seeking to be more ethical should focus on creating...

With the help of technology, companies today sweep up huge amounts of customer data. But they tend to be opaque about the information they collect and...

Just as people can develop skills and abilities over time, they can learn to be more or less ethical. Yet many organizations limit ethics training to...

Conscience explains why most business men and women keep their word and deal fairly with one another. There is no evidence that honesty pays, despite...

Research shows that enterprises fail at execution because they go straight to structural reorganization and neglect the most powerful drivers of effectiveness—decision rights and information flow.

A model assessing their potential impact suggests manufacturers might flood the market with cheap goods, raise prices, or both.

And what to do about it

Too often we see character, certainly in management circles, in reference to lack of it. That is, some CEO or CFO or senior executive has been caught with his hand in the kitty or in the knickers of some subordinate. Character, as our parents tell us, is what you do when you think no one […]

A division vice president blows the whistle on corruption at the highest levels of his company. A young manager refuses to work on her boss's pet project...

Expert oversight will help you safeguard your data and your brand.

In deciding to make a public statement about his use of human growth hormone, New York Yankees pitcher Andy Pettitte did the right thing — and the hard thing. Given his apparently more forthright approach to dealing with his situation than that of friend and teammate Roger Clemens, Pettitte went into his apology with a […]

These tools often benefit companies at the expense of workers - but there's a better way.

Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka, authors of the HBR article "The Wise Leader," explain how the best executives strive for the common good.