Publications

April 1995 (Revised July 1996)
Case

Governance at Metallgesellschaft (A)

By: Jay W. Lorsch and Samanta Graff

MG Corp., a U.S. subsidiary of Germany's international conglomerate, Metallgesellschaft, engaged in a disastrous hedging strategy that nearly dragged the entire enterprise into bankruptcy. This case explores issues of responsibility and accountability among the... View Details

Keywords: Business Subsidiaries; Corporate Accountability; Business Conglomerates; Governing and Advisory Boards; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Corporate Governance; Mining Industry; Chemical Industry; Germany; United States

09 Dec 2012
News

Lessons from corporate America

November 2003 (Revised August 2005)
Case

First Commonwealth Financial Corporation

By: Robert S. Kaplan

First Commonwealth Financial Corp., a financial institution in central and southwestern Pennsylvania, implemented the Balanced Scorecard for describing and implementing its new customer-focused strategy. Its founder and chairman decided that the Balanced Scorecard also... View Details

Keywords: Balanced Scorecard; Corporate Strategy; Customers; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Customer Relationship Management; Executive Compensation; Financial Services Industry; Banking Industry; Pennsylvania

August 2019 (Revised March 2022)
Case

Family Matters: Governance at the Zamil Group

By: Christina R. Wing, Suraj Srinivasan and Esel Çekin

This case focuses on a large Saudi Arabian industrial conglomerate and family business Zamil Group’s corporate and family governance journey. The 12 sons of the founder led and grew the group successfully after taking over from their father in 1961. The secret to their... View Details

Keywords: Middle East; Family Ownership; Family-owned Business; Saudi Arabia; Family Business; Governance; Organizational Structure; Values and Beliefs; Steel Industry; Industrial Products Industry; Middle East; Saudi Arabia; Bahrain

February 2024 (Revised July 2024)
Case

Korea Venture Investment Corporation

By: Paul A. Gompers and Billy Chan

Financial service sector Korea Venture Investment Corporation (KVIC) is the venture capital arm of the Korean government with a founding mission to build a domestic startup ecosystem that would be as competitive as Silicon Valley. KVIC manages a basket of... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Society; Investment; Venture Capital; Mission and Purpose; State Ownership; Financial Services Industry; Asia; South Korea

Jan 25 2019
Tout

Earn the Corporate Director Certificate

October 2011
Case

Strategy and Governance at Yahoo! Inc.

By: Krishna G. Palepu, Suraj Srinivasan, David Lane and Ian McKown Cornell

Yahoo! faces a number of governance and strategic challenges in late 2011 as it tries to compete with rivals such as Google and find ways to monetize its shareholding and business links with Alibaba Group in China and Yahoo! Japan. The company is now valued at almost... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Strategy; Corporate Governance; Web Services Industry

August 2017
Supplement

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation in Motion: Video Supplement

By: Boris Groysberg and Sarah L. Abbott

Evan Siddall, newly appointed CEO of Canada Mortgage Housing Corporation, a governmental organization focused on the residential housing market, is charged with leading change at the organization. The case follows this process of change step by step and looks at the... View Details

Keywords: Leading Change; Organization Behavior; Government; Performance; Leadership; Change; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Nonprofit Organizations; Government Administration; Restructuring; Risk Management; Financial Services Industry; Canada

13 Oct 2010
Research & Ideas

How Government can Discourage Private Sector Reliance on Short-Term Debt

debt? Robin Greenwood: We have some earlier research on the determinants of corporate borrowing. In that work, we noticed that the maturity structure of corporate debt responds strongly to changes in the... View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Financial Services

March 2009 (Revised September 2010)
Case

HOYA Corporation (A)

By: W. Carl Kester and Masako Egawa

In 2007, HOYA of Japan must decide whether to change its friendly exchange offer for Pentax into a hostile cash tender offer. A surprising sequence of events had caused a friendly merger agreement to fall apart, resulting in a boardroom coup at Pentax and the... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Investment Activism; Corporate Governance; Governance Controls; Governing and Advisory Boards; Negotiation Tactics; Business and Shareholder Relations; Valuation; Japan

2021
Working Paper

Governance Transparency and Firm Value: Evidence from Korean Chaebols

By: Akash Chattopadhyay, Sa-Pyung Sean Shin and Charles C.Y. Wang

We examine Korean business groups' transition from circular-shareholding structures to (relatively simple) pyramidal-shareholding structures between 2011 and 2018. When firms were removed from ownership loops, chaebol families' control or incentive conflicts in them... View Details

Keywords: Business Groups; Cross Shareholding; Circular Shareholding; Pyramidal Ownership; Governance Transparency; Ownership Transparency; Earnings Response Coefficient; Business Conglomerates; Corporate Governance; Valuation; Business Earnings

SSRN

Read Now

06 Aug 2020
News

Interview with Professor Regina Herzlinger on Balancing Entrepreneurship and Corporate Governance with a Prominent Academic Career

TeachingInterests

Leadership and Corporate Accountability

By: Christina R. Wing

In this course, students learn about the complex responsibilities facing business leaders today. Through cases about difficult managerial decisions, the course examines the legal, ethical, and economic responsibilities of corporate leaders. It also teaches students... View Details

24 Dec 2012
News

Nancy Koehn, a professor at Harvard Business School, talks about government and corporate leadership. Koehn speaks with Betty Liu on Bloomberg Television's "In the Loop."

06 Aug 2020
News

Interview with Professor Regina Herzlinger on Balancing Entrepreneurship and Corporate Governance with a Prominent Academic Career

March – April 2008
Article

Interorganizational Trust, Governance Choice, and Exchange Performance

By: Ranjay Gulati and Jackson Nickerson

This paper looks at when and how preexisting interorganizational trust influences the choice of governance and in turn the performance of exchange relationships. We theorize that preexisting interorganizational trust complements the choice of governance mode (make,... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Organizational Culture; Performance Improvement; Conflict and Resolution; Trust

Find at Harvard

29 Jul 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Who Is Governing Whom? Senior Managers, Governance and the Structure of Generosity in Large U.S. Firms

Keywords: by Christopher Marquis & Matthew Lee

September 2021
Case

Vignettes on Professional Service Firm Governance

By: David G. Fubini, Suraj Srinivasan and Li-Kuan Ni

The two vignettes within “Vignettes on Professional Service Firm Governance” (HBS No. 122-024) present various issues relating to governance in professional service firms (“PSFs”). In the first, the Managing Director of a U.S. consulting firm contemplates whether to... View Details

July 2005
Case

Family Governance at the Cousin Consortium Stage

By: John A. Davis and Courtney Sampson

Explains the governance system for the Eddy family, who own the Port Blakely Companies. Provides the viewer with an inside look at the running of the family council and family assembly meetings. Also provides a brief history and overview of the forestry and real estate... View Details

Keywords: Conferences; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Corporate Governance; Business History; Business or Company Management; Family Ownership