Publications

September–October 2012
Article

Toward a New Culture for Corporate Boards

By: Robert C. Pozen

A decade of business scandals and regulatory reforms find corporate America... facing fresh scandals and calls for more reforms. Robert Pozen, former chair of MFS Investment, noted director, and Harvard Business School faculty member, wonders if we have been fixing the... View Details

Keywords: Governing and Advisory Boards; Ethics; Change; United States

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24 Jun 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Don’t Just Survive—Thrive: Leading Innovation in Good Times and Bad

Keywords: by Lynda M. Applegate & J. Bruce Harreld

November 1999
Case

Long-Term Capital Management, L.P. (C)

By: Andre F. Perold

Long-Term Capital Management, L.P. (LTCM) was in the business of engaging in trading strategies to exploit market pricing discrepancies. Because the firm employed strategies designed to make money over long horizons--from six months to two years or more--it adopted a... View Details

Keywords: Fluctuation; Capital; Financial Liquidity; Financing and Loans; Investment Funds; Investment Portfolio; Corporate Governance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Management; Risk Management; Markets; Motivation and Incentives; Financial Services Industry

November 2007 (Revised June 2011)
Case

ISS A/S (A)

By: Clayton S. Rose

Provides the opportunity to examine the nature and extent of a company's responsibilities to its bondholders, and to develop an enhanced understanding of the challenges in managing contractual obligations, and circumstances under which business leaders might agree to... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Bonds; Contracts; Private Equity; Leveraged Buyouts; Privatization; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Borrowing and Debt; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Europe

September 2016
Article

Disproportional Control Rights and the Bonding Role of Debt

By: Aiyesha Dey, Valeri Nikolaev and Xue Wang

We examine the governance role of debt in the context of U.S.-based dual class ownership structures. We hypothesize that the use of debt alleviates the conflict between shareholder classes by balancing the power of controlling insiders. We document that dual class... View Details

Keywords: Dual Class; Private Debt; Debt Covenants; Bonding Mechanisms; Ownership Type; Capital Structure; Borrowing and Debt

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27 Apr 2010
First Look

First Look: April 27

Joshua Coval, and Christopher Malloy Abstract This paper employs a new empirical approach for identifying the impact of government spending on the private sector. Our key innovation is to use changes in congressional committee... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

July 1979 (Revised August 2019)
Background Note

Note on Taxation

By: William J. Poorvu, Arthur I Segel, Glenn S. Miller, Michael D. Kummer, Charles F. Wu, Po Sit and Joseph M. Gerstel

Every real-estate transaction is affected by the tax consequences that result from its form and substance. Structuring a transaction without a thorough understanding of its tax considerations is likely to reduce the transaction's potential value. The failure to utilize... View Details

Keywords: Property; Taxation; Investment

Teaching Interest

Large-Scale Investment (LSI, MBA Elective Curriculum)

By: Benjamin C. Esty

Large-Scale Investment (LSI) is a case-based course about project finance that is designed for second-year MBA students. Project finance involves the creation of a legally independent project company financed with nonrecourse debt for the purpose of investing in a... View Details

Keywords: Project Finance; Corporate Finance; Corporate Governance; Valuation; Capital Budgeting

April 2006 (Revised July 2006)
Case

Managing National Intelligence (A): Before 9/11

By: Jan W. Rivkin, Michael Roberto and Erika Ferlins

Examines the management of national intelligence prior to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Describes the actions taken by a variety of government agencies, including the FBI, the CIA, the FAA, and the Department of Defense, to detect and deter such attacks. View Details

Keywords: War; National Security; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Crisis Management; Management Systems; Public Administration Industry; United States

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Web

Faculty & Research

bias with naive beliefs. The government chooses mandatory contributions to accounts, each with a different pre-retirement withdrawal penalty. Collected penalties are rebated lump sum. When households have homogeneous present bias, , the... View Details

William C. Kirby

William C. Kirby is T. M. Chang Professor of China Studies at Harvard University and Spangler Family Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. He is a Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor. He serves as Chairman of the Harvard... View Details

Keywords: education industry; wine

2023
Working Paper

Causes and Consequences of State Violence against Civilians: The Rohingya of Myanmar

By: C. Austin Davis, Paula Lopez-Pena, A. Mushfiq Mobarak and Jaya Wen

The Rohingya crisis is a severe, ongoing conflict involving large-scale violence and forced displacement, yet its causes are contested and its consequences lack systematic documentation. We marshal a variety of existing and original data to shed light on its drivers,... View Details

Keywords: War; Conflict and Resolution; Motivation and Incentives; Developing Countries and Economies; Myanmar

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2013
Case

Career Pathways, Performance Pay, and Peer-review Promotion in Baltimore City Public Schools

By: Susan Moore Johnson, John J-H Kim, Geoff Marietta, S. Elisabeth Faller and James Noonan

In the fall of 2012, Dr. Andres Alonso had much to celebrate about in his five-year tenure as CEO of Baltimore City Public Schools, including the approval and implementation of an innovative teachers' contract with a jointly-governed four-tier career pathway that tied... View Details

Keywords: Labor Management; Public Education; PELP; Union; Compensation; Collaboration; Public Education Leadership Project; Education; Labor; Compensation and Benefits; Education Industry; United States

March 2012
Article

The Incentive Bubble

By: Mihir Desai

The past three decades have seen American capitalism quietly transformed by a single, powerful idea—that financial markets are a suitable tool for measuring performance and structuring compensation. Stock instruments for managers, high-powered incentive contracts for... View Details

Keywords: Economic Systems; Financial Markets; Executive Compensation; Motivation and Incentives; Corporate Governance; Equality and Inequality; Human Capital; United States

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January 2024 (Revised February 2024)
Case

OpenAI: Idealism Meets Capitalism

By: Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai

In November 2023, the board of OpenAI, one of the most successful companies in the history of technology, decided to fire Sam Altman, its charismatic and influential CEO. Their decision shocked the corporate world and had people wondering why OpenAI had designed a... View Details

Keywords: AI; AI and Machine Learning; Governing and Advisory Boards; Ethics; Strategy; Technological Innovation; Leadership

14 Nov 2011
Working Paper Summaries

The Impact of Corporate Sustainability on Organizational Process and Performance

Keywords: by Robert G. Eccles, Ioannis Ioannou & George Serafeim; Accounting

22 May 2007
First Look

First Look: May 22, 2007

had lower average returns during our sample period, but the difference in average returns is smaller than would be implied by the global CAPM given the historical equity premium. Download the paper: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/07-084.pdf The Excess Burden of View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

June 1983 (Revised November 2001)
Case

EMI and the CT Scanner (A)

By: Christopher A. Bartlett

Describes the development of the first CT Scanner by EMI, a company new to the medical industry, and EMI's entry into the U.S. market. The company's early success is threatened by the entry of a dozen competitors (some very large and experienced), by government... View Details

Keywords: Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Technological Innovation; Market Entry and Exit; Industry Structures; Product Development; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry