The risks of Railtrack
Lessons can be learnt from Railtrack’s failure. The government should re-appraise how projects should be financed and managed in the future.
Knowing the unknowable
Historians and insurers will both have to re-write their books following the terrorist attacks on America.
Choice as control
We are told that corporations are becoming ever more powerful; a match even for national economies. Before getting too concerned it is worth considering the nature of this authority.
Insiders calls the tune
Treating the value of share options as a cost makes a dramatic difference to the reported profits of many technology companies. And it points to a broader issue. In the knowledge economy, the distinction between employee remuneration and shareholder return is fundamentally changed
A New Public Sector
Since the early days of privatisation, there has been an evident need for a framework which gave operational autonomy and managerial responsibility in public services but which was not the framework of the plc. But there is merit in pluralism here too.
Shock of the new
Not all business strategy problems have answers, including those of BT, as Sir Christopher Bland will find when he takes over.
More spark for less grief
The Central Electricity Generating Board dominated the British electricity market for almost 50 years, representing the best of central planning. However, it is competitive markets that, whilst far from from being perfect, deliver the greatest economic benefits.
High street homilies
As Marks and Spencer goes "back to basics", its story is a paradigm of what happened to British business in the last decade. Was the company's problem that it changed too little - or that it changed too much?
Intellectual rights and wrongs
What do the arguments over Napster and South African drugs have in common? Both illustrate weaknesses in the existing regime for the management of intellectual property.