Publications

26 Dec 2017
News

Breaking Down the New U.S. Corporate Tax Law

2005
Chapter

The Professionalization of Corporate Directors

By: Martin Lipton and Jay W. Lorsch

Keywords: Management Teams; Governing and Advisory Boards

October 2006 (Revised November 2006)
Course Overview Note

Instructor's Guide to Leadership and Corporate Accountability (LCA)

By: Lynn S. Paine

To provide instructors with a roadmap to the Harvard Business School's required first-year MBA Course Leadership and Corporate Accountability. Describes the objectives of the course, as well as its structure, content, and guiding framework. A day-by-day synopsis,... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Corporate Accountability

December 2003
Case

Manville Corporation Fiber Glass Group (C) (Abridged)

By: Lynn S. Paine

Manville Corp.'s senior managers are surprised when Japanese government officials advise them not to go forward with their plan to add a cancer warning label to diatomaceous earth (DE) products sold in Japan. The International Agency for Research on Cancer has ruled... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Moral Sensibility; Safety; Government Administration; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Decision Choices and Conditions; Ethics; Announcements; Industrial Products Industry; Japan

15 Apr 2024
News

Corporate Debt and Financial Crises

The Error at the Heart of Corporate Leadership

Agency theory, a new model of governance promulgated by academic economists in the 1970s, is behind the idea that corporate managers should make shareholder value their primary concern and that boards should ensure they do. The theory regards shareholders as... View Details

22 Aug 2017
News

Corporate Responsibility In The Age Of Trump

January 1998 (Revised April 1998)
Case

Sealed Air Corporation: Globalization and Corporate Culture (B)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Karen Wruck

Sealed Air Corp.'s CEO and COO are considering what approach they should take to building a seamless corporate culture worldwide. Anticipating continuing growth and expansion, especially outside the United States, they are concerned with preserving and promoting the... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Culture; Business or Company Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Expansion; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Policy; Leadership; United States; Europe; Asia

September–October 2012
Article

Toward a New Culture for Corporate Boards

By: Robert C. Pozen

A decade of business scandals and regulatory reforms find corporate America... facing fresh scandals and calls for more reforms. Robert Pozen, former chair of MFS Investment, noted director, and Harvard Business School faculty member, wonders if we have been fixing the... View Details

Keywords: Governing and Advisory Boards; Ethics; Change; United States

Article

A Framework for Research on Corporate Accountability Reporting

By: Karthik Ramanna

This paper provides an accounting-based conceptual framing of the phenomenon of corporate accountability reporting. Such reporting is seen as arising from a delegator's (e.g., a citizenry) demand to hold a delegate (e.g., shareholders) to account. When effective,... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Accountability; Value; Financial Reporting; Business and Shareholder Relations

SSRN

Read Now

21 Nov 2005
Research & Ideas

The Geography of Corporate Giving

generate homogeneity within communities in regard to corporations' social activities. We suggest that there are three main factors that influence corporations to follow locally established patterns: what the View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

September 2006
Teaching Note

Models of the Corporation (TN)

By: Joseph L. Badaracco Jr. and Aldo Sesia

Keywords: Corporate Governance

November 1999 (Revised April 2002)
Case

International Business Machines Corporation (B)

By: David F. Hawkins

IBM changes pension plan from a defined benefit plan to a cash-balance plan. Teaching purpose: To understand pension accounting. View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Transformation; Business Earnings; Private Sector; Personal Finance; Cash; Information Infrastructure; Taxation; Computer Industry; Accounting Industry

July 2002 (Revised April 2003)
Case

Computer Associates International, Inc.: Governance and Investor Communication Challenge

By: Paul M. Healy and Krishna G. Palepu

Sanjay Kumar, the CEO of Computer Associates, faces investor communication challenges following the company's implementation of a new business model and the accompanying change method used to recognize revenue. Despite management's confidence that the new business... View Details

Keywords: Business Earnings; Earnings Management; Stock Shares; Problems and Challenges; Communication Strategy; Accrual Accounting; Business Model; Budgets and Budgeting; Corporate Governance; Revenue; Computer Industry; Information Technology Industry

November 2010
Technical Note

Technical Note: An Abridged History of the American Corporation

By: Rakesh Khurana, Andrew David Klaber and Eric Baldwin

This note examines the development of the corporate form in the United States from the eighteenth century to the present, focusing primarily on legal issues. It identifies several major trends in the history of the American corporation: the transition of corporations... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Corporate Accountability; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; History; Code Law; Managerial Roles; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Private Ownership; United States

2016
Working Paper

Managing Reputation: Evidence from Biographies of Corporate Directors

By: Ian D. Gow, Aida Sijamic Wahid and Gwen Yu

We examine how corporate directors manage reputation through disclosure choices in biographies in proxy statements filed with the SEC. Directors are more likely to withhold information about directorships at firms that experienced adverse events. Withholding such... View Details

Keywords: Director Monitoring; Strategic Disclosure; Management; Corporate Disclosure; Reputation

SSRN

April 1995
Supplement

Cooper Industries' Corporate Strategy (B)

By: David J. Collis and Elizabeth Wynne Johnson

Brings students up to date regarding a recent decision by the chairman. View Details

Keywords: Governing and Advisory Boards; Decisions; Corporate Strategy

November 1996
Case

Del Webb Corporation (C), The

By: Jay W. Lorsch and Samanta Graff

Dion and the other Del Webb directors were open to having Industrial Equity Pacific (IEP) and Webcott Holdings representation on the board. The IEP representative was perceived as reserved and lacking in sophistication. Cotter of Webcott, however, struck the directors... View Details

Keywords: Crisis Management; Management Succession; Strategic Planning; Governing and Advisory Boards; Horizontal Integration; Conflict Management

August 2008
Case

The Chubb Corporation in China

By: Li Jin, Michael Shih-ta Chen and Aldo Sesia

The Chubb Corporation, headquartered in the U.S., was the holding company for a number of property and casualty insurance companies which operated in 29 countries. In 1979, the Chinese government, as part of its "reform and open" policy invited a delegation of Chubb... View Details

Keywords: Insurance; Globalized Firms and Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Emerging Markets; Market Entry and Exit; Business and Government Relations; Insurance Industry; China; United States