Publications

14 Jan 2013
Research & Ideas

Few Women on Boards: Is There a Fix?

anniversary of the first women to enter Harvard Business School's two-year MBA program. Differing Takes On Quotas Last year Groysberg teamed up with researcher Deborah Bell on a comprehensive survey of corporate directors around the... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

01 Mar 2007
News

Daniel Vasella

the test as he methodically refashioned the two old-line chemical companies with disparate corporate cultures into a single entity focused on health care and powered by an innovative approach to R&D. Today, Novartis is one of the world’s... View Details

Keywords: Roger Thompson; multinational pharmaceutical company; prescription drugs; vaccines; Medicare; generics business; Health, Social Assistance

Web

Demystifying the Family Enterprise - Course Catalog

necessary to support it. Module two deep dives into the Operating Company and the Corporate governance structure necessary to support the Family Organization. In Module two, we also study non-Family minority... View Details

01 Mar 2010
News

Lords of Strategy

John Weber In his new book, The Lords of Strategy: The Secret Intellectual History of the New Corporate World (Harvard Business Press), Walter Kiechel III (MBA ’76) traces the rise of modern management consulting from the 1960s to the... View Details

Keywords: Garry Emmons; Publishing Industries (except Internet); Information; Management of Companies and Enterprises; Management; Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services; Professional Services

22 Nov 2006
Research & Ideas

CEO Succession: The Case at Ford

remain the company's executive chairman.) Harvard Business School professor Joseph L. Bower, the Donald Kirk David Professor of Business Administration, is an expert on corporate strategy, organization, and leadership. He discusses the... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Aisner; Auto; Employment

01 Sep 2004
News

Promise & Perils

artificially lowers wages. In March 2004, the AFL-CIO filed a trade-dispute petition seeking U.S. government action to pressure the Chinese to abolish the dual-class citizenship system. Given the growing attention to View Details

Keywords: Roger Thompson; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

June 2009
Case

Executive Remuneration at Royal Dutch Shell (A)

By: Jay W. Lorsch and Kaitlyn Simpson

The remuneration committee at Shell decided to exercise their discretionary power to award five top executives a bonus for 2008, even though they had not met the necessary performance measures under the compensation plan. Proxy advisors RiskMetrics and the British... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Governance Controls; Executive Compensation; Performance Evaluation; Business and Shareholder Relations; Energy Industry

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

Read Now

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

02 Sep 2008
First Look

First Look: September 3, 2008

and the distribution of farm sizes remained extremely unequal. We identify two primary causes for the slow progress of reform: first, the high cost of implementing these programs was a major factor in reducing take-up. On the other hand, the View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

17 Nov 2015
News

Carbon Neutral

as well as reduce the corporate tax rate, a longtime goal of congressional Republicans. The idea was the brainchild of Eacho and George Frampton, a lawyer who worked on environmental issues at Covington & Burling and former environmental... View Details

Keywords: Michael Blanding

02 Aug 2004
What Do You Think?

For Greater Transparency, Is Section 404 an Effective Response?

of the article. Richard Eckel opined that "A basic misconception is that Section 404 increases transparency afforded to stakeholders... What 404 does is require that corporate leadership demonstrate that the processes used to produce... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

Web

Research Links | Baker Library | Bloomberg Center | Harvard Business School

the Corporate Image Gary Works Photograph Album Resources Research Links Films & TV Bibliography From the Director Site Credits Special Collections Search Exhibition Introduction The Founding of U.S. Steel and the Power of Public Opinion... View Details

July 2009 (Revised May 2010)
Case

Pfizer: Letter from the Chairman (A)

By: Robert L. Simons and Natalie Kindred

This case explores maximizing shareholder value as a goal in executive decision making. Over a period of nine years, three different Pfizer CEOs make critical decisions intended to increase shareholder value. But the results are disappointing. To allow students to... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance; Annual Reports; Business and Shareholder Relations; Value Creation; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States

24 Apr 2006
Research & Ideas

Managing Alignment as a Process

business units and, in particular, how they would work together to create synergy. Align the business units with the corporate strategy. Align the support units with the business units. Create a governance... View Details

Keywords: by Robert S. Kaplan & David P. Norton; Apparel & Accessories; Fashion; Consumer Products; Retail

06 Sep 2005
What Do You Think?

What are the Lessons of New Orleans?

Red Cross. They should be listened to for counsel in scenario planning before the next natural nightmare hits. . . ." Nikhil Zaveri proposed that ". . . there should be training and development of citizens by the government, involving the View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

January 2018 (Revised March 2018)
Case

Wenzhou Kangning Hospital: Changing Mental Healthcare in China

By: William C. Kirby, Wei Zhang, Yuanzhuo Wang and Nancy Hua Dai

The city of Wenzhou in the Province of Zhejiang, long known in China for entrepreneurship, now hosts the country’s largest privately owned mental health hospital group. This case traces the development of Wenzhou Kangning Hospital Co, Ltd. from founding to just before... View Details

Keywords: Mental Health; Hospital; IPO; China; Zhejiang; Wenzhou; Private Healthcare; Private Hospital; Health Care and Treatment; Private Ownership; Corporate Governance; Growth and Development; Entrepreneurship; Health Industry; China

September 1999 (Revised July 2022)
Case

The Goldman Sachs IPO

By: Ashish Nanda, Malcolm S. Salter, Boris Groysberg and Sarah Matthews

Addresses the proposed IPO and raises questions regarding how agency costs may rise or fall as Goldman converts from a private partnership to a public limited corporation. View Details

Keywords: Initial Public Offering; Going Public; Corporate Governance; Agency Theory; Transformation; Financial Services Industry