Business administration and support services

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 […]

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.

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

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.

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 […]

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 […]

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. […]

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?

One man’s plan for blasting open the electricity market.

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 […]

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

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, […]

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 […]

Rising costs and shrinking revenues have hurt arts organizations, but creative action can help.

Patients are becoming more demanding consumers. But the medical industry isn’t just another business.

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]