Management - Leadership

Ryan W. Buell, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School; Tami Kim, a doctoral student at HBS; and Chia-Jung Tsay, an assistant professor at University College London, set up four scenarios in a real cafeteria for two weeks.

PwC's workforce is strikingly young: Two-thirds of its employees are in their twenties and early thirties. In the past, the assumption has been that most hires will eventually move on to other firms or other careers, while a few will be promoted all the way up to partner--rewarding and justifying years of long hours in service to clients.

Commercial success with a new technology usually depends on the exclusive ownership of a critical asset or capability. But to create the technology, an innovator draws on knowledge from many different sources. Inventors who mismanage that tension often fail to successfully commercialize their innovations.

A colleague of mine recently made this prediction: People who work together will soon start asking one another, "What courses are you taking?" It'll be the new "What are you reading?"

…As soon as Harold Leeson, the CEO of Natural Foods, pulled into the parking lot of his company's headquarters, his phone rang. It was Kenneth King, one of his board members. Harold braced himself before answering.

In today's organizations, innovators are in demand everywhere--from the factory floor to the salesroom, the IT help desk to the HR department, the employee cafeteria to the C-suite. Innovation isn't a department, the authors say; it's a mindset that should permeate your entire enterprise.

Health care providers in much of the world are trying to respond to the tremendous pressure to reduce costs--but evidence suggests that many of their attempts are counterproductive, raising costs and sometimes decreasing the quality of care.

When Google bought Nest, a maker of digital thermostats, for $3.2 billion just a few months ago, it was a clear indication that digital transformation and connection are spreading across even the most traditional industrial segments and creating a staggering array of business opportunities and threats.

Information technology is revolutionizing products, from appliances to cars to mining equipment. Products once composed solely of mechanical and electrical parts have become complex systems combining hardware, sensors, electronics, and software that connect through the internet in myriad ways.

The knock on most business leaders is that they don't take the long view--that they're fixated on achieving short-term goals to lift their pay. So which global CEOs actually delivered solid results over the long run? Our 2014 list of top performers provides an objective answer.