Downsizing

Research on downsizing, gender, and race.

Big companies formerly took a reputational hit when they laid off massive numbers of workers. But according to E. Geoffrey Love and Matthew Kraatz, of the University of Illinois, U.S. business culture norms gradually changed from 1985 to 1994 as new ideas about boosting shareholder value took hold in executive suites and boardrooms. At the […]

When retailers' sales slip, the biggest opportunity to boost profits comes from improving execution. To do that, research shows, managers may actually...

Six strategies to help you navigate layoffs, reorgs, and economic instability.

The trend is to downsize corporate headquarters--but sometimes a bigger HQ is better.

Drawing on extensive research of Fortune 500 companies that have lived through industry downturns and economic recessions over the past two decades, Darrell...

If your firm has downsized recently, you're now managing a bunch of survivors - the lucky ones who didn't get laid off. But good fortune doesn't make...

Don't pretend you have all the answers. Do be prepared to deal with the messy emotions people may be experiencing.

In 1978, before restructuring was a common boardroom term, Jewel sold its Turn-Style discount department store business to the May Department Store Company. Because May could not immediately use many of the Turn-Style stores outside metropolitan Chicago, Jewel closed them. This meant that almost 3,000 full-and part-time employees were no longer needed. We in Jewel’s […]

The transition is coming sooner than you think.

"The layoffs happened on the sixteenth," recalls Tom (not his real name), a survivor of a massive blood-letting at a major financial services firm. Employees...

If Astrigo Holdings is to remain competitive, 10% of its workforce must be cut. Who goes, and who stays?

Ricardo Semler is a Brazilian industrialist whose company, Semco, manufactures marine equipment, food-service machinery, and other highly differentiated...

Deepening recession and continuing inflation have caught many companies in a cruel cash and profit squeeze. A growing number are fighting for survival and trying to cut costs to the bone. Thus inventory slashing and all-out attacks on material and direct labor costs are very much the order of the day in many companies. Usually, […]

Research shows it increases the chances of bankruptcy.

And it's hurting the companies they work for.

A golden statue of a winged youth once perched on the roof of AT&T's old headquarters. But when AT&T lowered the 24-foot-high statue for regilding so...

I know, I know. There's nothing more boring than when bloggers write about their own experiences as a way to make a broader point about life, work, or...

Harry Denton, the CEO in this fictional case study, has been caught off guard. As the head of Delarks, a venerable department-store chain in the Midwest,...

Harry Denton, the CEO in this fictional case study, has been caught off guard. As the head of Delarks, a venerable department-store chain in the Midwest,...