Construction and engineering

Lessons from an engineering and construction company.

The CFO of a global construction company disagrees with his CEO (and good friend) about the advantages of self-managed teams--particularly because lack...

Architecture and the Corporation: The Creative Intersection, Thomas Walton (New York: Macmillan, 1988) 218 pages, $29.95. City: Rediscovering the Center, William H. Whyte (New York: Doubleday, 1988) 386 pages $24.95. Winston Churchill understood why architecture is our most social art. “We shape our buildings,” he observed, “and afterwards our buildings shape us.” But not all […]

Smart businesses are using datagraphs to reveal unique solutions to customer problems.

Most of modern global strategy focuses on minimizing differences between countries. Perhaps it’s time to dust off approaches that exploit those differences as well.

As the Internet changes the way people work and shop, companies will need to create spaces that seamlessly combine the physical and the virtual. That’s going to require a whole new kind of architecture.

Daily frustrations add up.

It's the ultimate bottom-of-the-pyramid challenge: How do you create a well-designed, safe, and affordable house for the world's poorest people? When...

The leaders of such global powerhouses as GE, Wal-Mart, and Toyota seem to have grasped two crucial truths: First, far from becoming submerged by the...

Any training program for improving the productivity of professionals must first target taking initiative.

Why shouldn't engineers study success? Because failures tell you so much more, civil engineering professor Henry Petroski contends.

Women struggle to be seen for their work, as opposed to their gender.

Our annual snapshot of the emerging shape of business.

Lessons from Owens Corning.

Colossal County Hospital was coming apart at the seams. With dozens of newly hired doctors, nurses, and technicians, millions of dollars of equipment on the road, and patient appointments backed up for months, the new facility was impossible to use. For one thing, construction wasn’t finished, and much of what was complete was faulty. Worse […]

The transformation sheds light on how sexist and homophobic cultures in male-dominated industries can change.

A manager hears enough about another team’s project to know that it is seriously flawed—and probably destined to fail. Should he butt in or butt out?

Off-site manufacturing consistently fails to live up to its promise. Can firms figure out how to scale it?

Airstream's ability to innovate and grow depends on balancing longtime owners' expectations with new buyers' desires. In this conversation, president...

During the past 15 years, companies have flocked to a handful of cities in India and Eastern Europe for offshore service functions. As a result, the most...