Focuses on one principal's efforts to staff her school in the context of a large-scale effort to reform instruction across an urban school district.

Describes ongoing reform efforts in the area of human resources at the School District of Philadelphia. Portrays the challenges and opportunities facing the district's new senior vice-president of human resources, Tomas Hanna, as he attempts to reinvent the district's existing, and primarily "transactional," human resources department into a group that can lead and execute a districtwide human capital management strategy. Provides .....more

Highlights how one school district leverages human capital management to help create a high-performing system. May be used with: (9-PEL-029) Reinventing Human Resources at the School District of Philadelphia.

In 1993, Medtronic Chairman Winston Wallin and CEO Bill George want to reevaluate their respective roles, as well as the entire corporate governance process at Medtronic. The board at Medtronic has long been very actively involved in the supervision of the company. Wallin and George seek to preserve that tradition, while at the same time navigating a significant turnover of board personnel due to term limits and a mandatory retirement age. The case .....more

In "What Is Business's Social Compact?," HBR Reprint #94102, Bernard Avishai examines the nature of businesses's social responsibility in a competitive environment that has superseded Adam Smith's division of labor. The nature of work has undergone, and continues to undergo, a fundamental transformation. In this new economy, learning organizations must become teaching organizations as well. Does business have an obligation not .....more

After a decline in influence during the Reagan-Bush years, the labor movement is infused with a new sense of optimism, a feeling that Lynn Williams, president of the United Steelworkers of America, shares. Admittedly, labor's numbers are bad and getting worse. Unions represent only 11.5% of the private labor force, down from a 16.8% 10 years ago and 35% 40 years ago. But, as Williams points out in this interview, labor's influence extends .....more

Business leaders continue to blame the cost of health care for jeopardizing the global competitiveness of U.S. industries, and they continue to turn to Washington for the solution. In a study of 16 countries, the authors have discovered that health care costs do not directly hinder U.S. competitiveness. The real problem is employers' hands-off approach to health care. Companies can control costs and improve health care delivery by treating health .....more

Going from Catholic nun and teacher to president and CEO of a $5.7 billion bank is a monumental leap. But Rosemarie Greco found that teaching school is not so different from managing a business. Hired in 1968 by Fidelity Bank in Philadelphia as a secretary, Greco was determined that every day on the job she would learn something new about banking. This led to a promotion to the training department of human resources, putting Greco on a career path .....more

Managers who supervise employees with AIDS face untenable choices that seem to pit their humanity against their obligation to the organization. Over a period of four years, two of Banas's direct subordinates developed AIDS, and he watched them suffer through debility, slowly deteriorating performance, and eventual death. He also watched the gradual decline of their staff's productivity and morale. Banas discovered that AIDS patients fall into .....more

Inroads is an organization headed by Reginald Dickson that puts talented black and Hispanic young people on a career path in business. Dickson believes today's corporate leaders must tap into the huge reservoir of minority talent if they are going to keep up with the changing demographics of the 1990s. And minority youth must be trained and willing to accept the challenge to break into the American mainstream. Programs have long existed for getting .....more