The Business

Adrian Wooldridge, management editor and Schumpeter columnist at The Economist magazine, on his new book, The Fourth Revolution: the Global Race to Reinvent the State, written with John Micklethwait. They argue that global financial problems and technological innovation are forcing states to change the way they operate.

Christine Bader, author of The Evolution of a Corporate Idealist: When Girl Meets Oil talks about what corporate social responsibility really means to big business.

When former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg left Bloomberg, Inc. to take office, he handed the reins to Peter Grauer. Grauer talks with The Business about leadership, the anatomy of the company, maintaining its momentum, and how he met the billionaire who changed his life.

A little over 100 years ago, the Chinese empire fell. 2000 years of imperial tradition ended, virtually overnight. After a century of searching for its political and moral core, China is once again poised to become the dominant global power. HBS Professors Bill Kirby, Warren McFarlan and Regina Abrami recently wrote Can China Lead? : Reaching the Limits of Power and Growth. Professor Kirby joins The Business to talk about China's major challenges and whether it will ever fulfill its potential. And then he breaks into song.

Harvard Business School Professor Ethan Bernstein talks about how, by planting researchers on factory lines in China, he found that giving employees more privacy can increase their productivity – a phenomenon he calls the Transparency Paradox.

HBS Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter on innovation, advanced leadership, and how to make change in an inflexible organization. She also tells Brian why she has no use for the ‘r-word’: Retirement.

HBS student and four-time Olympic medalist Angela Ruggiero just got back from the Russian town of Sochi, where she carried the Olympic torch on opening day. A former defenseman for the US women’s ice hockey team, Ruggiero is now a member of the International Olympic Committee and president of the Women’s Sports Foundation. We talked to her about Title IX, the transformative power of athletics, and the future of women’s sports.

You may remember Rick’s Café Americain as the gin joint in the movie Casablanca. For years Rick’s existed only on film. When Kathy Kriger, an American entrepreneur living in Casablanca, decided to bring Rick’s Café to life, she had no idea how hard it would be. In this episode Kriger tells The Business how corruption and lack of connections almost cost her her life-savings, and Harvard Business School professor Karthik Ramanna shares his advice on maintaining integrity in corrupt environments.

Music: Casablanca (Main Title), Knock on Wood (feat. Dooley Wilson), As Time Goes By (feat. Dooley Wilson), Casablanca (Medley), Ilsa Demands the Letters, Airport Finale - all from the Casablanca (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

What happens to institutions when technology gives people the power to do everything on their own? Today it is easier than ever for individuals to start businesses, engage in politics, share information and ideas, and disrupt the status quo. Harvard Kennedy School faculty member and author of The End of Big: How the Internet Makes David the New Goliath, talks about why institutions are struggling to keep up, and what they have to do to stay alive.

Harvard Business School Professor John Quelch, author of All Business: Why Place Matters More Than Ever in a Global, Virtual World talks about the increasing importance of place in global marketing.