Publications

November 1, 2019
Article

How Tech CEOs Are Redefining the Top Job

By: Boris Groysberg and Tricia Gregg

2015
Working Paper

Are CEOs Born Leaders? Lessons from Traits of a Million Individuals

By: Renée Adams, Matti Keloharju and Samuli Knüpfer

What makes a CEO? We merge data on the traits of more than one million Swedish males, measured at age 18 in a mandatory military enlistment test, with data on their service as a CEO of any Swedish company decades later. CEOs have higher cognitive and non-cognitive... View Details

Keywords: Personal Characteristics; Management Teams

SSRN

Read Now

February 2014
Article

Governance and CEO Turnover: Do Something or Do the Right Thing?

By: Ray Fisman, Rakesh Khurana, Matthew Rhodes-Kropf and Soojin Yim

We study how corporate governance affects firm value through the decision of whether to fire or retain the CEO. We present a model in which weak governance—which prevents shareholders from controlling the board—protects inferior CEOs from dismissal, while at the same... View Details

Keywords: Governing and Advisory Boards; Value; Retention; Resignation and Termination; Corporate Governance; Management Teams; Business and Shareholder Relations

Read Now

27 Jun 2007
Lessons from the Classroom

Learning to Make the Move to CEO

of the AMP experience." Applicants are generally 3 to 5 years away from achieving the rank of CEO or its equivalent, and they must be endorsed and sponsored by their company's highest levels of management. Every Friday, participants... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Education

29 Mar 2016
Working Paper Summaries

Do CEO Activists Make a Difference? Evidence from a Field Experiment

Keywords: by Aaron K. Chatterji and Michael W. Toffel

April 2002
Supplement

Spotfire Update: Reflections by Chris Ahlberg, CEO and Rock Gnatovich, President

CEO Chris Ahlberg and President Rock Gnatovich discuss and reflect on some of the critical issues that Spotfire faced at the time of the case. View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Problems and Challenges

Research Summary

The Strategic and Performance Consequences of CEO Succession

By: Rakesh Khurana

The argument of this paper (with Nitin Nohria) is that research on executive turnover treats the departures of predecessors and the origin of successors as independent events. This approach has led to mixed empirical findings with respect to measuring the effects of... View Details

March 16, 2015
Article

The 3 Things CEOs Worry About the Most

By: Boris Groysberg and Katherine Connolly Baden

July 30, 2002
Guest Column

Fishing for CEOs in Your Own Backyard

By: Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Rakesh Khurana

Keywords: Management

June 2017
Article

Options Compensation as a Commitment Mechanism in Oligopoly Competition

By: Jun Ishii and David Hao Zhang

We analyze how CEO stock options compensation can be used as a commitment device in oligopolistic competition. We develop a two-stage model where shareholders choose managerial compensation to commit their managers to being aggressive in equilibrium. Our results may... View Details

Keywords: CEO Compensation; Ceo Risk-taking; Strategic Delegation; Stock Options; Executive Compensation

25 Apr 2011
Research & Ideas

What CEOs Do, and How They Can Do it Better

what the boss is doing all day. For all of the minute-to-minute monitoring of employee performance from the time of Henry Ford onward, it's amazing how little any of us really know about how CEOs of major companies spend their time.... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

January 2017
Case

Where Should Pat Gelsinger's Time Go?

By: Raffaella Sadun

Pat Gelsinger, CEO of VMware, is deciding how to structure the firm presence in cloud computing. He can pursue the opportunity in multiple ways: doubling down the investments in an internal and nascent cloud offering, partnering with established third parties, or... View Details

Keywords: CEO Time Use; Corporate Strategy; Time Management

Educators

26 Mar 2018
Working Paper Summaries

The Impact of CEOs in the Public Sector: Evidence from the English NHS

Keywords: by Katharina Janke, Carol Propper, and Raffaella Sadun; Health

21 Oct 2022
Research & Ideas

People Trust Business, But Expect CEOs to Drive Social Change

Public trust in business remains relatively unshaken amid economic turbulence and a lingering pandemic, even as faith in the media and government falters, but leaders could do more to address social issues, a new global opinion survey shows. However, not everyone... View Details

Keywords: by Scott Van Voorhis

October 14, 2019
Article

The CEO's Guide to Retirement

By: Bill George

Some CEOs remain in the role too long, hurting investors, employees, and their own legacy. The author sees a frequent reason for that: CEOs don’t know how to identify the optimal time to retire, and they procrastinate because they can’t imagine what they will do after... View Details

Keywords: CEO; Executive Retirement; Retirement; Decision Making; Planning

17 Jul 2017
Op-Ed

Op-Ed: As America Recedes from Global Leadership, Its CEOs are Stepping Up

change, NATO, immigration, and energy in direct opposition to what they need to build their companies. As a result, they are stepping up to take the lead on vital global issues. Business leaders have a history of stepping in This is the fourth time in my lifetime that... View Details

Keywords: by Bill George

May 2017 (Revised January 2018)
Teaching Note

CEO Succession at Cisco (A), (B), & (C), and Cisco Systems: In Search of the Next CEO

By: Boris Groysberg, J. Yo-Jud Cheng and Annelena Lobb

Teaching Note for HBS Nos. 417-031, 417-032 and 417-033. This note can also be used with "Cisco Systems: In Search of the Next CEO," HBS No. 416-027. View Details

January 2005 (Revised August 2014)
Exercise

Hamilton Real Estate: Confidential Role Information for the CEO of Estate One (BUYER)

By: Deepak Malhotra

Presents a two-party negotiation between the executive VP of Pearl Investments and the CEO of Estate One for the sale of real estate in the town of Hamilton. View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Price; Information; Contracts; Managerial Roles; Agreements and Arrangements; Sales; Strategy; Value; Real Estate Industry

Article

When Hiring CEOs, Focus on Character

By: Aiyesha Dey

The author, an associate professor at Harvard Business School, has studied the ways in which the lifestyle behaviors of CEOs—in particular, materialism and a propensity for rule breaking—may spell trouble for a company. Her research, which includes looking at... View Details

Keywords: CEOs; Lifestyle; Risk Management; Recruitment; Ethics