THE MAGAZINE

How to Manage Virtual Teams

Teams are the typical building blocks of an organization. Dispersed teams can actually outperform groups that are all in one place. To succeed, however, virtual collaboration must be managed in specific ways. Businesses will have to emphasize teamwork even more than before, a global culture is more important than ever, and don't expect face-to-face meetings to disappear. Read more »
Also in the new Business Insight: learn lessons from the developing world, what managers really do, how to be a smart protégé, and much more.

What Does “Product Quality” Really Mean?

By David A. Garvin

Product quality is rapidly becoming an important competitive issue. The superior reliability of many Japanese products has sparked considerable soul-searching among American managers.1 In addition, several surveys have voiced consumers’ dissatisfaction with the existing levels of quality and service of the products they buy.2 In a recent study of the business units of major North [...]

The Leadership Challenge — A Call for the Transformational Leader

By Noel M. Tichy and David O. Ulrich

Some optimists are heralding in the age of higher productivity, a transition to a service economy, and a brighter competitive picture for U.S. corporations in world markets. We certainly would like to believe that the future will be brighter, but our temperament is more cautious. We feel that the years it took for most U.S. [...]

From The Magazine

Fall 2009

Special Report: Sustainability

8 Reasons That Sustainability Will Change Management

Michael S. Hopkins

Transparency, accidental innovation, trust, collaboration — as sustainability affects how the world works, so will it affect how business works in the world.

Intelligence: Management

Debunking Management Myths

Martha E. Mangelsdorf

In this interview, Henry Mintzberg questions some of the conventional wisdom about managerial work.