Peter Drucker, sometimes called the father of modern management, once commented that health care organizations are the most difficult to manage of all organizations. For example, American health care is defined by legislative mandate yet implemented in the private sector.

Strategic sourcing, including early supplier involvement and outsourcing, provides significant competitive advantage to companies and represents a fundamental change in the way firms drive the bottom line.

For Marianne Jennings, a healthy market economy depends on four pillars — business, investors, government and customers. Each relies on the others in a symbiotic relationship that leads to mutual benefit and smooth operations.

Many companies have noted that attrition among women and minorities in the professional and managerial ranks hampers progress on building a diverse workplace.

"85 percent of CEOs have innovation on a short list of strategic priorities. But then they put it off," said Tom Kelley, the featured speaker at Arizona State University's 2007 Design Excellence Dinner.

Cognizant of the way information ricochets through the media these days, companies need to redouble efforts to be sure that the information they release about themselves is the right data at the moment, and that it's accurately transmitted.

The chair reserved for the president and CEO at Herman Miller, a successful and innovative office furniture maker, must have appeared comfortable when Brian Walker took the helm in 2000, but it soon became a hot seat.

In an early morning speech recently, attorney Mark Belnick recounted his career as a litigator at a powerful New York firm, and the events that made him a defendant in one of the Tyco corruption cases.

After watching dozens of chief purchasing officers come and go as the leaders of supply chain operations in 30 of the world's largest companies, researchers came to a simple conclusion: The CPO's chair has become a true corporate hot seat.

Risk management is the major change that has swept the construction industry in the past decade, according to Robert G. Hunt, chairman and chief executive officer of Hunt Construction Group.