Publications

22 Jan 2020
News

Making Stakeholder Capitalism a Reality

March 2025
Case

The Changing Climate on Wall Street

By: Clayton S. Rose, Maxim Pike Harrell and Michael Norris

Increasing and conflicting regulatory requirements and political pressures regarding climate change tested the leaders of U.S. financial institutions, as they struggled to determine how best to comply while managing their business and its risks. In October 2024,... View Details

Allen Grossman was appointed a Harvard Business School Professor of Management Practice in July 2000. He joined the Business School faculty in July 1998, with a concurrent appointment as a Visiting Scholar at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE). He... View Details

Keywords: education industry; nonprofit industry

December 2014
Article

Market Competition, Earnings Management, and Persistence in Accounting Profitability Around the World

By: Paul M. Healy, George Serafeim, Suraj Srinivasan and Gwen Yu

We examine how cross-country differences in product, capital, and labor market competition, and earnings management affect mean reversion in accounting return on assets. Using a sample of 48,465 unique firms from 49 countries, we find that accounting returns mean... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Performance; Valuation; Equity Valuation; Persistence; Competitive Advantage; Institutions; Earnings Management; Labor Market; Capital Markets; Competition; Profit; Performance; Supply and Industry; Financial Statements; Government and Politics; Globalized Markets and Industries

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06 May 2021
News

Can The Stakeholder Model Give American Business a Global Competitive Advantage?

11 Oct 2007
Working Paper Summaries

How Firms Respond to Being Rated

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

2025
Chapter

Institutional Entrepreneurship and Climate Change

By: Ann-Kristin Bergquist and Geoffrey Jones

This chapter explores when and why private regulatory governance systems became the primary form of global environmental governance. The chapter explores two different historical paths in such private regulation and how they came about. The first path involved... View Details

Keywords: Institutional Entrepreneurship; Environment; Climate Change; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Environmental Regulation; Standards; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact

March 2018
Case

Sachem Head's Activism at Autodesk

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Quinn Pitcher

In 2015, activist hedge fund Sachem Head Capital, led by founder Scott Ferguson, launched an activist campaign at computer aided design (CAD) software maker Autodesk. The activist campaign, waged mainly in private, was over Autodesk's lackluster financial performance,... View Details

Keywords: Shareholder Activism; Investing; Activist Investing; Technology; CEO Turnover; Hedge Fund Activism; Benchmarking; Corporate Governance; Information Technology; Investment Activism; Performance Improvement; Management Succession; United States

February 2005 (Revised April 2006)
Case

Richard Grasso and the NYSE, Inc. (A)

By: William W. George and Andrew N. McLean

In 2003, the New York Stock Exchange faces heated controversy over the pay of Chairman Richard Grasso. Traces Grasso's development and his success serving stakeholders while transforming operations at the world's largest exchange. Describes how Grasso's compensation... View Details

Keywords: Financial Markets; Corporate Governance; Executive Compensation; Leadership; Performance; Financial Services Industry; New York (state, US)

May 2016
Case

Revitalizing State Bank of India

By: Srikant M. Datar, N. M. Bhatta, Rishikesha T. Krishnan and Rachna Tahilyani

State Bank of India is India’s oldest and largest bank with the government of India as its majority shareholder. Arundhati Bhattacharya, a 35-year veteran of the bank, is appointed as its chairman in October 2013. Her appointment coincides with Moody’s downgrading the... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Transformation; Communication Strategy; Leadership Style; Organizational Culture; Organizational Change And Adaptation; Performance Evaluation; Culture; Corporate Social Responsibility And Impact; Human Resources; Employees; Compensation And Benefits; Recruiting; Capital Markets; Performance Expectations; Financial Services Industry; Asia; India

May–June 2015
Article

Higher-Ambition CEOs Need Higher-Ambition Boards

By: Edward Ludwig, Elise Walton and Michael Beer

The authors opine that ambitious chief executives (CEOs) of corporations need corporate boards which are also ambitious and accommodative of them. According to the authors good corporate governance and financial performance are the main requirements for good board-CEO... View Details

Keywords: Governing and Advisory Boards; Management Succession; Performance; Corporate Governance; Management Teams

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Research Summary

Overview

By: Tatiana Sandino

In studying management control systems, Professor Sandino aims to understand how different control mechanisms can help lead employees within an organization to achieve common goals. Her work builds on contingency theory by exploring environmental, strategic, and... View Details

September 3, 2020
Article

How to Measure a Company’s Real Impact

By: Ronald Cohen and George Serafeim

Impact transparency will reshape capitalism. By shifting the pursuit of profit away from negligently creating problems to purposefully creating valuable solutions for the world, it will redefine success, so that its measure is not just money, but the positive impact we... View Details

Keywords: Impact; Impact Investing; Impact Measurement; Impact Investment; Impact Investment Funds; Accountability; Accounting Information; Corporate Performance; Sustainability; Social Impact; Capitalism; Accounting; Corporate Accountability; Performance; Measurement and Metrics; Social Enterprise; Society

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08 Mar 2021
Blog Post

International Women's Day Featured Stories

missing an actionable dataset that quantifies its climate impact. To address this gap, I am building Metric to provide ESG analytics software that measures corporate ESG View Details

02 Jan 2024
What Do You Think?

Do Boomerang CEOs Get a Bad Rap?

(AdobeStock/Vincent) The return of Robert Iger as CEO of Walt Disney followed by a poorer-than-expected company performance has rekindled the debate about whether the decision to bring back formerly successful CEOs to revitalize an... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

April 2004 (Revised September 2007)
Case

Accounting Fraud at WorldCom

By: Robert S. Kaplan and David Kiron

The principal players in WorldCom's accounting fraud included CFO Scott Sullivan, the General Accounting and Internal Audit departments, external auditor Arthur Andersen, and the board of directors. The case provides sufficient detail to allow for a full discussion of... View Details

Keywords: Governance Controls; Governing and Advisory Boards; Crime and Corruption; Ethics; Financial Reporting; Organizational Culture; Corporate Governance; Accounting Audits