Business administration and support services

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.

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

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.

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 […]

After days of meetings, J.F. Winchester, president of MDC Industries, felt no closer to a decision about whether MDC should exercise its option to buy a new and safer wallboard technology. Sitting down at his desk, he noticed the file marked “Goerner Wallboard Press Coverage,” which the media relations director had dropped off last week. […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. […]

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?

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.

On December 7, 1990, U.S. Trade Representative Carla Hills appeared before the press in Brussels to announce the collapse of the four-year-long Uruguay Round of world trade talks. Casting blame on others, particularly on an intransigent European Community that refused to retreat on agricultural subsidies, she warned of dire consequences: world trade conflicts, global depression, […]

Because of the prevailing gloom in current economic headlines, it is easy to forget that these same headlines portrayed 1979 as a year of record corporate profitability. And once a recovery gets under way, it should not be long before we are deluged by another flood of optimism. But the optimism will be misplaced. Inflation […]

Leaders can make change happen only if they have a coherent strategy for persuasion. The impressive turnaround at a world-renowned teaching hospital shows how to plan a change campaign—and carry it out.

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 […]