Business history

Twelve lessons on analyzing data, communicating information, and protecting your employees.

Three mindsets that lead to "nondisruptive creation."

According to David Baldwin, a former Major League pitcher, blame can be a powerful and constructive force. It can be an effective teaching tool that helps...

Research shows that people consider a job to be a good one when it not only pays fairly and allows a worker to do what they're good at but also makes...

It was arguably the first financial scandal to play out in the public eye--and even Jonathan Swift and Daniel Defoe got behind it.

Japan today sits on the largest cache of wealth ever assembled. It has the power to move markets anywhere in the world. Consider that. The Tokyo Stock Exchange has now surpassed New York to become the world’s largest on the basis of market capitalization. Osaka has bumped London to fourth place. Of the world’s ten […]

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While many believe that technological disruption has been rampant for decades, the internet has actually caused much less creative destruction than people...

A history of the user icons on our phones and computers

This post is part of an HBR Spotlight examining leadership lessons from the military. For four years in the early 1980s, John Meyer spent most of his...

Over and over again, executives make decisions that aren't in their companies' best interests, in response to pressure from Wall Street. Though many believe...

This Conversation Starter comes from Joshua N. Weiss, Associate Director of the Global Negotiation Project at Harvard Law School. The views expressed...

As every manager knows, new technologies are transforming products, markets, business processes, and entire industries, revolutionizing the business environment. Yet the more technology looms as a factor of competition, the more the emphasis in managerial books, executive education classes, and corporate training seminars is on the “soft” arts of leadership, change management, and employee motivation. […]

Many nations in Asia and Africa have now become fully responsible for their destiny. What kind of nations will they become? Will they be swept along by the vision of progress through authoritarian discipline exemplified by the Communist nations? Or will they recognize and seek the ideal of individual freedom, of truth, of respect for […]

Lack of standardization has held the sector back.

China and India, ancient allies and modern competitors, are rebuilding economic ties after almost five decades. Consequently, multinational companies face the most challenging—and potentially rewarding—business landscape ever.

I was privileged to be having lunch with Jack Welch a while back, and took the opportunity to ask him what he thought the most pressing issue facing American...

Charles Clinton Spaulding and Maggie Lena Walker built operations that supported and strengthened the communities around them.

Lessons on market expansion from the cofounder of Square.

Jared Gordan, the president of the Industrial Products Division for Compunext, is a first-rate manager. In just three years, he's turned around a flagging...