Business structures

Too little conflict can be as big a problem as too much.

Four questions to ask before you make a painful decision.

When a crisis forces outside directors to navigate major changes, investors and directors must adopt new roles. The largest such case to date provides some useful lessons. The Royal Dutch/Shell Group was a 60/40 joint venture between Royal Dutch Petroleum and Shell Transport and Trading. It was run by a five-person committee of managing directors […]

L. Gordon Crovitz of Dow Jones describes how his company and Reuters successfully launched Factiva.

Most companies default to the same approach for executing each new strategy. Here’s a framework for your journey.

Smart firms can learn to distinguish what type of work leads to big profits — and what doesn’t.

As the traditional avenues of corporate growth become less attractive, many companies find the appeal of new venture strategies harder to resist. Though difficult to implement and often slow to repay investment, these strategies do offer the promise of facilitating entry into new business areas with innovative, usually technology-based products. And for large companies with […]

Owners need to get their house in order first.

Strategies for whether your business is solely owned, sibling controlled, or diffusely owned.

JVs are subject to far less public exposure - and fewer quotas and disclosure requirements - than other businesses.

Three elements to focus on.

Valuation used to be the province of finance specialists. That’s no longer true.

Beware the corrosive effects of fake harmony.

Fully half of all joint ventures are a failure. That's worrying, given that partnerships and alliances are central to many companies' business models....

How the next generation can embrace the future — while respecting the past.

Procter & Gamble’s radical strategy of open innovation now produces more than 35% of the company’s innovations and billions of dollars in revenue.

End users can energize your workforce far better than your managers can.

Advice from people who've made it work.

Innovation tends to decline from one generation to the next. But it doesn’t have to.

You don't stay in business for generations without diversifying.