Business administration and support services

  • Effective Public Management

    Strategic planning Magazine Article
    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 […]
  • How to Implement a New Strategy Without Disrupting Your Organization

    Change management Magazine Article
    Strategic dreams often turn into nightmares if companies start engaging in expensive and distracting restructurings. It’s far more effective to choose a design that works reasonably well, then develop a strategic system to tune the structure to the strategy.
  • Jimmy Carter: The Statesman as CEO

    Leadership Magazine Article
    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 […]
  • Profits with a Purpose: An Interview with Tom Chapman

    Public relations Magazine Article
    Greatest Southeast Community Hospital is a 494-bed acute care facility located in southeast Washington, D.C. With revenues of $145 million and 2,650 employees, it is both the largest private employer and the only medical facility in a troubled and isolated community called Anacostia. Nearly a quarter of the area’s residents live below the poverty line, […]
  • Eclipse of the Public Corporation

    IPOs Magazine Article
    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 […]
  • When Should a Leader Apologize—and When Not?

    Business communication Magazine Article
    For a leader, a public apology is always a high-risk move. Understanding what apologies can and cannot do will help you avoid both foolhardy stonewalling and unnecessary contrition.
  • The Revitalization of Everything: The Law of the Microcosm

    Entrepreneurship Magazine Article
    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 […]
  • Who Supplied the Supply Side?

    Economics Magazine Article
    The Power of the Financial Press: Journalism and Economic Opinion in Britain and America, Wayne Parsons (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1990), 300 pages, $24.95. The Growth Experiment: How the New Tax Policy Is Transforming the U.S. Economy, Lawrence B. Lindsey (New York: Basic Books, 1990), 288 pages, $21.95. In 1944, an Australian taxi […]
  • Using VoIP to Compete

    Innovation Magazine Article
    Since Alexander Graham Bell’s day, businesses have bought telephone services the same way they’ve purchased electricity, janitorial functions, and water for the cooler—as packaged offerings defined by an outside provider. Sure, companies could choose from a menu of configuration options and service plans, but, in the end, the phone company or vendor called the shots. […]
  • The Shakedown

    Government policy and regulation Magazine Article
    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?
  • Electric Utilities: The Argument for Radical Deregulation

    Government policy and regulation Magazine Article
    One man’s plan for blasting open the electricity market.
  • U.S. Industrial Policy: Inevitable and Ineffective

    Government policy and regulation Magazine Article
    With the 1992 presidential election, the United States will close an important chapter in a ten-year political debate. No matter how sharp the disagreements among the candidates or who ultimately wins the election, one outcome at least is certain: in the next administration, the United States will have some kind of national industrial policy. Throughout […]
  • Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers

    Customer experience Magazine Article
    To really win their loyalty, forget the bells and whistles and just solve their problems.
  • British Privatization—Taking Capitalism to the People

    Economics Magazine Article
    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, […]
  • Crime and Management: An Interview with New York City Police Commissioner Lee P. Brown

    Government Magazine Article
    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 […]
  • How the Arts Can Prosper Through Strategic Collaborations

    Marketing Magazine Article
    Rising costs and shrinking revenues have hurt arts organizations, but creative action can help.
  • Can Patients Drive the Future of Health Care?

    IT management Magazine Article
    Patients are becoming more demanding consumers. But the medical industry isn’t just another business.
  • Why Sane People Shouldn’t Serve on Public Boards

    Leadership Magazine Article
    The other day I was asked to be on the board of directors of a company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. I was flattered to be considered for such an important position, but I knew right away I would turn it down. I have a simple rule: Never join the board of directors […]
  • The Staying Power of the Public Corporation

    Finance and investing Magazine Article
    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 […]
  • Shrinking Fast and Smart in the Defense Industry

    Government Magazine Article
    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 […]
  • Effective Public Management

    Strategic planning Magazine Article
    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 […]
  • How to Implement a New Strategy Without Disrupting Your Organization

    Change management Magazine Article
    Strategic dreams often turn into nightmares if companies start engaging in expensive and distracting restructurings. It’s far more effective to choose a design that works reasonably well, then develop a strategic system to tune the structure to the strategy.
  • Jimmy Carter: The Statesman as CEO

    Leadership Magazine Article
    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 […]
  • Profits with a Purpose: An Interview with Tom Chapman

    Public relations Magazine Article
    Greatest Southeast Community Hospital is a 494-bed acute care facility located in southeast Washington, D.C. With revenues of $145 million and 2,650 employees, it is both the largest private employer and the only medical facility in a troubled and isolated community called Anacostia. Nearly a quarter of the area’s residents live below the poverty line, […]
  • Eclipse of the Public Corporation

    IPOs Magazine Article
    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 […]
  • When Should a Leader Apologize—and When Not?

    Business communication Magazine Article
    For a leader, a public apology is always a high-risk move. Understanding what apologies can and cannot do will help you avoid both foolhardy stonewalling and unnecessary contrition.
  • VITAL: A Singapore Public Agency Transforming from Within for Revitalisation, Efficiency, and Future-Readiness

    Management Case Study
    11.95
    View Details
    Singapore public agency VITAL offered corporate shared services including human resources (HR), payroll, and finance to agencies across the Singapore...
  • Little Tokyo Service Center: "Welcome to Little Tokyo, Please Take Off Your Shoes"

    Leadership & Managing People Case Study
    11.95
    View Details
    Little Tokyo Service Center (LTSC), a nonprofit founded in Los Angeles in 1979, has sought to honor tradition yet defend against gentrification and displacement...
  • The Revitalization of Everything: The Law of the Microcosm

    Entrepreneurship Magazine Article
    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 […]
  • Who Supplied the Supply Side?

    Economics Magazine Article
    The Power of the Financial Press: Journalism and Economic Opinion in Britain and America, Wayne Parsons (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1990), 300 pages, $24.95. The Growth Experiment: How the New Tax Policy Is Transforming the U.S. Economy, Lawrence B. Lindsey (New York: Basic Books, 1990), 288 pages, $21.95. In 1944, an Australian taxi […]