Publications

Article

Trust and Incentives in Agency

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Daniel F Spulber

Contracts between a principal and an agent are not formed in a vacuum. Although formal contracts between a principal and an agent contain explicit incentives for performance, the relationship between a principal and an agent also involves implicit incentives. Three... View Details

Keywords: Trust; Motivation and Incentives; Agency Theory; Contracts; Market Transactions; Performance; Relationships; Societal Protocols; Legal Liability; Cost

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November 2001 (Revised April 2005)
Case

Lonestar

By: Michael A. Wheeler and Georgia Levenson

Explores the legal and ethical responsibilities of a manager who believes that he has heard of a serious instance of sexual harassment, but who has been implored by the victim not to report it. Discussion can focus on the immediate problem or be expanded to a broader... View Details

Keywords: Working Conditions; Management Practices and Processes; Ethics; Crisis Management; Legal Liability

March 1992 (Revised December 1992)
Case

Salomon and the Treasury Securities Auction

By: Dwight B. Crane

Set in June 1991, two months prior to Salomon Brothers' announcement that the firm had violated the Treasury Department's rules governing the auctions of new Treasury securities. Salomon Vice Chairman John Meriwether must decide how to address problems that continue to... View Details

Keywords: Debt Securities; Managerial Roles; Ethics; Market Transactions; Bonds; Investment Banking; Crisis Management; Auctions; Legal Liability; Banking Industry

February 2003 (Revised April 2012)
Case

Sheila Mason & Craig Shepherd

Describes a marketing executive and an engineer who are starting a company together. Each is still at his/her former employer, and each has signed a different employment agreement that, on paper, may prohibit soliciting customers or employees. Focuses on how... View Details

Keywords: Resignation and Termination; Intellectual Property; Contracts; Legal Liability; Entrepreneurship; Ethics

06 Jun 2023
Cold Call Podcast

The Opioid Crisis, CEO Pay, and Shareholder Activism

Keywords: Re: Suraj Srinivasan; Health; Pharmaceutical; Distribution

May 2004 (Revised March 2005)
Case

Music Downloads

By: David B. Yoffie and Deborah Freier

Examines the competition between competing music formats. In the '90s, the MP3 format challenged the traditional means of music distribution by allowing for storage of near CD-quality recordings at 1/10th of their previous size. The threat to traditional distribution... View Details

Keywords: Disruption; Music Entertainment; Legal Liability; Distribution; Competition; Internet and the Web; Technology Adoption; Information Infrastructure; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Music Industry

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18 Jul 2006
First Look

First Look: July 18, 2006

excessively beholden to chief executive officers. Regulation and the use of the legal system have been the predominant means of disciplining directors, but each has its drawbacks, particularly in terms of the disincentives they create for... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2011
Article

Bias in Search Results?: Diagnosis and Response

By: Benjamin Edelman

I explore allegations of search engine bias, including understanding a search engine's incentives to bias results, identifying possible forms of bias, and evaluating methods of verifying whether bias in fact occurs. I then consider possible legal and policy responses,... View Details

Keywords: Prejudice and Bias; Motivation and Incentives; Outcome or Result; Markets; Legal Liability; Policy; Search Technology; Performance Evaluation; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms

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December 2022 (Revised February 2023)
Case

Daniel Defense: Responding to the Shooting at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, TX

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher

At 11:33am on May 24, 2022, an 18-year-old man from Uvalde, Texas walked into the Robb Elementary School carrying a semi-automatic "AR-15-style” rifle manufactured by Daniel Defense and killed 19 children and two adults. Three days later, Representative Carolyn Maloney... View Details

Keywords: Gun Violence; Gun Policy; Second Amendment; Legal Liability; Government Legislation; Marketing Strategy; Business or Company Management; Product Marketing; Ethics; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Moral Sensibility; Crime and Corruption; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Manufacturing Industry; Advertising Industry; United States

23 Sep 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Operational Failures and Problem Solving: An Empirical Study of Incident Reporting

Keywords: by Julia Adler-Milstein, Sara J. Singer & Michael W. Toffel; Health

October 2021 (Revised October 2022)
Case

The Opioid Settlement and Controversy Over CEO Pay at AmerisourceBergen

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Li-Kuan Ni

In 2020, AmerisourceBergen Corporation, a Fortune 50 company in the drug distribution industry, agreed to settle thousands of lawsuits filed nationwide against the company for its opioid distribution practices that critics alleged had contributed to the nationwide... View Details

October 2022 (Revised September 2023)
Case

SolarWinds Confronts SUNBURST (A)

By: Frank Nagle, George A. Riedel, William R. Kerr and David Lane

On December 12, 2020, SolarWinds learned that malware had been inserted in its software, potentially granting hackers access to thousands and thousands of its 300,000 customers. General Counsel Jason Bliss needed to orchestrate the company response without knowing how... View Details

Keywords: Cyberattacks; Cybersecurity; Corporate Disclosure; Crisis Management; Customer Focus and Relationships; Legal Liability; Information Technology Industry; United States

11 Jun 2018
Research & Ideas

Why South Korea's Samsung Built the Only Outdoor Skating Rink in Texas

legal system is predicated on a jury of our peers deciding a case based on their own independent opinions, not on their warm feelings from the advertisement they saw on their way to the courthouse. To prevent unfair persuasion, Cohen... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Legal Services

14 Nov 2007
First Look

First Look: November 14, 2007

the target's separately identifiable assets and liabilities (including research and development capital) provides a rare occasion where estimated fair values of U.S. firms' research and development (R&D) capital based on private... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

28 May 2019
Research & Ideas

Investor Lawsuits Against Auditors Are Falling, and That's Bad News for Capital Markets

liability standards, requiring plaintiffs such as institutional investors to prove that auditors knew, or should have known, their clients’ financial statements contained errors. In both decisions, Rule 10b-5 lost its bite. Investors are... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Financial Services; Accounting

17 Dec 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Integrity: Without It Nothing Works

Keywords: by Michael C. Jensen

December 2010
Article

The Case for Professional Boards

By: Robert C. Pozen

When the world's largest financial institutions had to be rescued from insolvency in 2008, many experts laid the blame at the feet of corporate boards. But insufficient board oversight is a problem that had supposedly been solved in 2002. As the United States... View Details

Keywords: Financial Institutions; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Governing and Advisory Boards; Failure; Accounting Audits; Quality; Behavior; Legal Liability; Experience and Expertise; Corporate Governance; Governance Controls; Performance Effectiveness; United States

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12 Aug 2020
Research & Ideas

Why Investors Often Lose When They Sue Their Financial Adviser

Years of bull market bliss gave brokerage clients few reasons to open their account statements—until March. Within one month, stocks in the United States notched their biggest one-day losses—and gains—as mounting fears about COVID-19’s economic impact and efforts to... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost; Financial Services

2009
Working Paper

Integrity: Without It Nothing Works

By: Michael C. Jensen

There is confusion between integrity, morality and ethics. In our much longer paper on the topic (see "Integrity: A Positive Model that Incorporates the Normative Phenomena of Morality, Ethics and Legality" (available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=920625)) my co-authors,... View Details

Keywords: Trust; Moral Sensibility; Legal Liability; Behavior