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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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.

HBR’s fictionalized case studies present dilemmas faced by leaders in real companies and offer solutions from experts. This one is based on research by Jeffrey Pfeffer. Adam Baker had been bothered all day by the blunt message his boss and mentor, Merwyn Straus, had delivered to him on the phone that morning: Adam was not […]

A few smart companies have stopped complaining about Sarbanes-Oxley, the investor-protection law, and turned it to their advantage—bringing operations under better control while driving down compliance costs.

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

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 […]

Some of the freshest ideas for evaluating employees are coming from an unexpected source: the public sector.

Whether, when, and how to take a family or individually owned company public are decisions that have faced a great many entrepreneurs. They have taken actions that have brought happiness and fulfillment to some and unhappiness to others. Perhaps people who are presently reflecting on such dilemmas can draw some useful thoughts from a study […]

Despite mounting pressure on businesses to prove their faithfulness to the earth, managers share no common understanding of what this might mean in their own companies. Many continue to see environmentalism against the backdrop of an adversarial public arena, as a struggle over ever-stricter emissions codes and wildly varying punishments for misconduct. Who can blame […]

America’s banking crisis presents choices both perilous and promising. Perilous, because the failure to act intelligently will lead to the most serious economic collapse since the Great Depression. As much as 25% of the U.S. banking system—representing assets of more than $750 billion—has begun to post such massive loan losses that it must focus on […]

Connecting with your best customers doesn’t have to involve Twitter or Facebook.

We all know we can learn from our mistakes. So why not go out and make some? Here’s a systematic way to make carefully planned mistakes that pay off.

Most businesspeople will serve on the board of a nonprofit organization at some point. But the governance of nonprofits can differ dramatically from the governance of businesses. Even the best intentions can prove disastrous when new board members fail to understand that their traditional business experience can carry them only so far.

Traditionally, business viewed the social sector as a dumping ground for spare cash, obsolete equipment, and tired executives. But today smart companies are approaching it as a learning laboratory.

Every industry and profession has its own vocabulary: words that describe technologies, processes, and materials. These can sound exotic to the uninitiated, but they’re critical to doing the job. Individual companies sometimes have their own custom-tailored definitions. As people move from firm to firm, they must master new terms and new meanings—or fail to assimilate. […]

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.