Publications

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April 2014
Article

Golden Parachutes and the Wealth of Shareholders

By: Lucian A. Bebchuk, Alma Cohen and Charles C.Y. Wang

Golden parachutes (GPs) have attracted substantial attention from investors and public officials for more than two decades. We find that GPs are associated with higher expected acquisition premiums and that this association is at least partly due to the effect of GPs... View Details

Keywords: Golden Parachute; Acquisitions; Takeovers; Acquisition Takeover; Acquisition Likelihood; Acquisition Premiums; Agency Costs; Managerial Slack; Dodd-Frank; Executive Compensation; Acquisition; Corporate Governance; Business and Shareholder Relations

December 1999
Case

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (A1): "Dot-comming" the World: Philip Nenon on a Billion Dollar Bet

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Jane Roessner

A group at Sun Microsystems, Inc. proposed that a recent acquisition that made fault-tolerant computers for telecommunications was a major opportunity for Sun. If the board provided funding to expand the acquisition's portfolio of products and make them part of the... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Governing and Advisory Boards; Motivation and Incentives; Expansion; Technology Industry

Mar 2012
Article

Choosing the United States

share of location decisions, even for high-value business activities such as R&D that it has traditionally been able to attract. In part, this is because U.S. policy makers are not addressing weaknesses in the national business environment. There are also problems... View Details

02 Sep 2014
First Look

First Look: September 2

the effect of mandatory sustainability reporting on corporate disclosure practices. Specifically, we examine regulations mandating the disclosure of environmental, social, and governance information in... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Fast Answer

Student Proposed Fellowship Program - Resources for selecting your organization

institutions, government institutions, labor unions, etc. Add other relevant criteria, e.g. geography. Orbis - Profiles of international public and private companies and foundations. From the main page, select the... View Details

May 2019
Article

Who Consumes Firm Disclosures? Evidence from Earnings Conference Calls

By: Anne Heinrichs, Jihwon Park and Eugene F. Soltes

Using a set of proprietary records, we examine who consumes quarterly earnings conference calls and under which circumstances the calls are consumed. While there is significant interest in calls by institutional investors and sell-side analysts, we find that investors... View Details

Keywords: Disclosure; Conference Calls; Firm News; Corporate Disclosure; Business Earnings; Situation or Environment

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June 2009
Case

The Role of the Audit Committee in Risk Oversight

By: Jay W. Lorsch and Kaitlyn Simpson

An audit committee chair considers how he can help his committee become more effective given the increasing regulatory demands on audit committees. He also wrestles with the lack of specificity in audit committee duties and whether his committee should take on... View Details

Keywords: Accounting Audits; Corporate Governance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Governing and Advisory Boards; Laws and Statutes; Risk Management

24 Feb 2022
Blog Post

African American Student Union Spotlight on the Public Sector

leveraged your unique professional experience in the public sector at HBS? My unique professional experience in the public sector has enabled me to become a passionate voice for corporate accountability, public-private partnerships, and... View Details

December 2022 (Revised May 2024)
Background Note

Brief Note on Staggered Boards

By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz

This background note discusses the evolution, use, and prevalence of staggered boards. By comparison with unitary boards whose members are all elected annually for one-year terms, staggered boards are divided into subsets of directors, with one subset up for election... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Business History; Trends; Decision Choices and Conditions; United States

2021
White Paper

Report on Racial Inclusion in the Boardroom: A Workshop Convened by Harvard Business School's Leadership Initiative and Board Leadership Project

By: James I. Cash, Linda A. Hill, Hubert Joly, Lynn S. Paine and Suraj Srinivasan

Keywords: Board Of Directors; Inclusion; Organization Culture; Corporate Governance; Diversity; Equity; Governing and Advisory Boards; Race; Fairness; Organizational Culture

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February 2005 (Revised March 2006)
Case

PCAOB, The (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Kim Bettcher

Members of the Public Co. Accounting Oversight Board--a private-sector, nonprofit body created by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002--must determine the form and content of a new auditing standard on internal control that will fulfill the requirements of Section 404 of the... View Details

Keywords: Law; Financial Reporting; Corporate Governance; Standards; Government Administration; Accounting Audits

15 Sep 2016
Research & Ideas

Political Dysfunction Makes America Less Competitive

economic growth and competitiveness—including reforming the corporate tax code, easing immigration for high-skilled immigrants, investing in infrastructure, and aggressively addressing abuses in the international trading system—divisive... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

01 Mar 2006
News

Tap into Valuable Alumni Resources

faculty’s latest research, brings together corporate leaders and government officials from around the globe, and provides unparalleled networking. You can also learn about programs tailored to alumni career... View Details

Keywords: Peter Cooper; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

01 Dec 2005
News

What’s Next for You?

to sustain.” Once that internal motivation is identified, the transition to a new role — whether in the corporate world or in areas such as academia, government service, or the nonprofit sector — can still... View Details

Keywords: Educational Support Services; Educational Services

12 Jan 2015
Research & Ideas

Regulators Ease Up on Companies Generating Political Benefits

levers that politicians pull to spring the trap, including appointment of favored regulators, control of budget appropriations, and direct arm bending of regulators on behalf of companies they favor. In all these models, the cycle of influence always starts with a... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

December 1997
Case

American Cyanamid (A) & (B) (Combined)

American Home Products' (AHP) $9 billion hostile takeover of American Cyanamid (Cyanamid) was the largest merger-and-acquistion transaction in 1994, and made AHP the fourth largest pharmaceutical firm in the United States. At the time of AHP's offer, Cyanamid had... View Details

Keywords: Governing and Advisory Boards; Mergers and Acquisitions; Corporate Governance; Conflict and Resolution; Pharmaceutical Industry