Publications

October 2006 (Revised May 2007)
Case

King Arthur Flour

By: Thomas J. DeLong, James Holian and Joshua Weiss

Steve Voigt, the CEO of King Arthur Flour, must determine how the company can continue to grow, whilst preserving its unique culture. In 1996, the company was sold to employees in as ESOP transaction. The following decade saw significant growth, despite declining sales... View Details

Keywords: Employee Stock Ownership Plan; Business or Company Management; Organizational Culture; Employee Ownership

October 2004
Case

Sales Force Training at Arrow Electronics (A)

By: Jason R. Barro, Brian J. Hall and Aaron Zimmerman

In the mid-1980s, Arrow, the world's largest electronics distributor, implemented a college recruiting program to hire salespeople. The program was part of an effort to increase the professionalism and skill set of the sales force in an industry where few salespeople... View Details

Keywords: Human Resources; Compensation and Benefits; Recruitment; Retention; Selection and Staffing; Salesforce Management; Competition

01 Dec 2023
News

Wide Horizon

There were three critical events that led John Rodakis (MBA 1997) to form the nonprofit N of One in 2014 and ultimately dedicate his life to surfacing breakthrough autism research. The first occurred on Thanksgiving of 2012. He had driven about four hours with his wife... View Details

Keywords: Dan Morrell; Photos by Sarah Wilson

08 Oct 2018
Research & Ideas

Knowing What Your Boss Earns Can Make You Work Harder

both of which helped signal how much effort individuals were putting into their job. They also studied compensation at all levels, including senior executives. Workers were surveyed on how much they thought, on average, peers and managers... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

06 Jun 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas: June 6, 2017

two questions. First, when (and why) should a company’s strategy be developed by its CEO versus by some outside analyst or other insider? Second, how does strategy interact with vision (in the sense of a strong belief about the right... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

01 Sep 2023
News

Returning to the Roots

It’s not a role he sought or expected. But when his brother died of a brain tumor late last year, Florent Latour (MBA 1999) became CEO of Maison Louis Latour, a winemaker established in 1797 in the Burgundy region of France. The 11th... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; wine; entrepreneurship; family business; innovation; climate change; Beverage and Tobacco Product Manufacturing; Manufacturing

Web

Business & Environment - Faculty & Research

prosperity. Recent Publications Transforming a Titan (A) By: George Serafeim and Lena Duchene June 2025 | Case | Faculty Research Dimitri Papalexopoulos, fourth-generation CEO of TITAN Cement, must decide whether to keep leading the... View Details

02 Jun 2022
Research & Ideas

Blissful Thinking: When It Comes to Finding Happiness, 'Your Dreams Are Liars'

and your relationship with your coworkers. The big problem that we’re having culturally, and the reason for the Great Resignation, is people like their jobs less, and people like their jobs less because their compensation is lower. And... View Details

Keywords: by Dan Morrell

01 Dec 2023
News

Thinking Ahead

business of delivering health care than making a diagnosis and prescribing medication,” she says. Today, as cofounder and CEO of Systole, a healthtech startup, Lee is developing a personalized, physician-driven digital exercise program... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; Illustrations by Chris Gash; News, Library, Internet, and Other Services; Information

14 Feb 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research: February 14

when it results from using discretion, suggesting that the benefit of repetition does not compensate for the cost of exercising discretion in this setting. Our research offers a behavioral perspective on queue management and highlights... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

June 2023 (Revised March 2024)
Case

Creating World-Class Board Governance at SECO

By: Krishna G. Palepu and Emer Moloney

In Spring 2023, SECO CEO Massimo Mauri had the ambition to grow the €200 million revenue technology company to a €1 billion company by 2030. Founded in Italy in the 1970s, the family-owned company had gone through a period of growth and internationalization,... View Details

16 Apr 2001
Research & Ideas

Breaking the Code of Change

want to develop business organizations that satisfy shareholders and yet have the capacity to adapt and survive as viable institutions in the long run. Theory E In 1994 Al Dunlap became CEO of troubled Scott Paper. Like Champion... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Beer & Nitin Nohria

07 Jul 2008
Research & Ideas

Innovation Corrupted: How Managers Can Avoid Another Enron

irregularities related to the off-balance-sheet partnerships. This forced Lay—who returned as CEO after Skilling resigned that August—to announce a $544 million charge against earnings, and a $1.2 billion write-down in shareholders'... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Energy; Utilities

Web

Business History - Faculty & Research

CEO of the ZEISS AG Group, mused on how far ZEISS had come in 175 years of being a pioneer in optics, and how the course he had charted since taking the helm of the company could keep it on track. In his role, he oversaw the four core... View Details

12 Nov 2001
Research & Ideas

The Three Components of Family Governance

size certainly, families generally benefit from having a family council. The family council can perform all of the following duties: Plan family assembly meetings, which otherwise the CEO usually has to arrange. Discusses current... View Details

Web

Resources for New Alumni - Alumni

resume in the Class of 2025: 2nd Year Spring Recruiting Resume Book, which CPD will continue to promote to employers until August 31. Research Tools View offer timing, sources and aggregated compensation by industry, function, location,... View Details

June 2017
Article

The Social Trajectory of a Finance Professor and the Common Sense of Capital

By: Marion Fourcade and Rakesh Khurana

This paper traces the career of Michael Jensen, a Chicago finance PhD turned Harvard Business School professor to reveal the intellectual and social conditions that enabled the emergence and institutionalization of what we call the “neoliberal common sense of capital,”... View Details

Keywords: Executive Pay; The Firm; Michael Jensen; Neo-Liberalism; Shareholder Value; Agency Theory; Corporate Governance; Executive Compensation; Business and Shareholder Relations; Transformation

Find at Harvard

2011
Other Unpublished Work

Functional Centralization and the Division of Labor in Management

By: Julie Wulf, Maria Guadalupe and Hongyi Li

This paper shows that the trend towards flatter hierarchies in large US firms since the mid-80's has been accompanied by increased centralization of activities at the top of the organization. In particular, the number of functional managers (e.g., Chief Financial... View Details

Keywords: Executive Compensation; Management Teams; Organizational Structure; Business Strategy; Diversification; Information Technology; United States