Publications

June 2017 (Revised October 2017)
Case

Uber in 2017: One Bumpy Ride

By: Suraj Srinivasan, Jay W. Lorsch and Quinn Pitcher

Uber Technologies Inc., the popular ride-hailing company, entered 2017 having doubled its bookings in 2016 and achieving a valuation of nearly $70 billion, making it the largest venture capital-backed company in the world. Co-founder and CEO Travis Kalanick embodied... View Details

Keywords: Governance; Information Technology; Transportation; Venture Capital; Organizational Culture; Technology Industry; Transportation Industry; United States

April 2021
Case

Glass-Shattering Leaders: Michele Hooper

By: Boris Groysberg and Colleen Ammerman

Michele Hooper joined the board of the Dayton-Hudson Corporation when she was in her late thirties, becoming the company’s youngest director as well as the only woman and the only person of color in the boardroom. Such “firsts” were not unusual for Hooper, who had been... View Details

Keywords: Governing and Advisory Boards; Diversity; Corporate Governance; Personal Development and Career

24 Sep 2018
Blog Post

Working to Keep Pirates At-Bay: My Summer in Cyber Security

After spending three years working in consulting before coming to HBS, I knew I wanted to use my summer to expand beyond the world of Board of View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship

September 1995
Case

Benjamin Rosen and Compaq

By: William A. Sahlman and Jason Green

Addresses the challenges faced by Ben Rosen and the company board of directors as continuing problems force it to make a decision about the ongoing governance of the firm. The issues are complicated by the current CEO and founder, Rod Canion, who has had, until... View Details

Keywords: Governing and Advisory Boards; Management Teams; Business or Company Management; Corporate Governance; Problems and Challenges; Decision Making; Information Technology Industry

September 8, 2009
Article

The New Governance Paradigm

By: Nathaniel Foote and Michael Beer

Boards members of failed banks in 2008 or of the many companies like Enron who were caught up in scandals are by and large honorable, well intentioned, and competent people. So what went wrong and what can be done about it. This article argues that the problem lies in... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Competency and Skills; Banks and Banking; Failure; Goals and Objectives; Leadership; Management Practices and Processes; Ethics; Performance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Crime and Corruption

2019
Working Paper

Bank Boards: What Has Changed Since the Financial Crisis?

By: Shiva Rajgopal, Suraj Srinivasan and Forester Wong

Several government-mandated committees investigating the financial crisis highlighted four key deficiencies in the composition of bank boards before the crisis: (i) group think among bank board members; (ii) absence of prior banking experience of board members; (iii)... View Details

Keywords: Banks and Banking; Governing and Advisory Boards; Corporate Governance; Financial Crisis; Change; Diversity

SSRN

Read Now

Jeffrey F Rayport is a faculty member in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard Business School, where he teaches in the School’s MBA and Executive Education Programs and on HBS Online. His primary focus in teaching and research is growth-stage technology... View Details

01 Oct 2001
News

Looking for a Leader: The Role of Executive Search Firms

At a recent gathering of chief executives in New York City, the heads of two companies shared pleasant dinner conversation. The first led a large, successful corporation; the second also happened to serve as... View Details

Keywords: Peter K. Jacobs; Telecommunications; Information

November 2005 (Revised October 2012)
Case

The MCI Takeover Battle: Verizon versus Qwest

By: Malcolm P. Baker and James Quinn

MCI's board of directors is considering competing bids from Verizon and Qwest. Qwest, a smaller company with a weaker balance sheet, is offering almost a billion dollars more. But Verizon, one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world, has a history of... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Decision Choices and Conditions; Capital Markets; Financial Strategy; Governing and Advisory Boards; Valuation; Telecommunications Industry; United States

Chip Bergh is a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School. Prior to joining HBS, Chip served as president and chief executive officer of Levi Strauss & Co. (LS&Co.) from September 2011 until January 2024. He also served on the Company’s Board of Directors... View Details

18 Aug 2011
Lessons from the Classroom

Business Plan Contest: 15 Years of Building Better Entrepreneurs

the power to impact the health of millions rallied the team, recalls Jon Puz (MBA '08), a director of account management at the health-care consultancy Carol Corp. (Puz... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Education

08 Jul 2002
What Do You Think?

Have We Carried the Concept of Alignment Too Far?

on my face, especially considering that during the last five years the U.S. has lectured Asia on ending collusion and cronyism." There is a general tone in responses to this month's column that there are few antidotes, including alignment, to greedy leaders and... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

21 Mar 2022
News

AI Chip Startups Pull In Funding as They Navigate Supply Constraints

June 2001 (Revised July 2001)
Case

Boston Lyric Opera

By: Robert S. Kaplan and Dennis Campbell

The Boston Lyric Opera was the fastest growing opera company in North America during the 1990s. Having successfully completed a move to a larger facility in 1999, the board and general director recognize the need to develop a formal strategic planning and governance... View Details

Keywords: Balanced Scorecard; Strategic Planning; Arts; Growth and Development Strategy; Governing and Advisory Boards; Fine Arts Industry; Massachusetts

01 Feb 1999
News

Q&A: Camille Tang Yeh of the Asia-Pacific Research Office

Camille Tang Yeh (MBA 1980) is the executive director of the School's new Asia-Pacific Research Office in Hong Kong. A native of Hong Kong, Yeh has almost twenty years View Details

Keywords: Educational Support Services; Educational Services

April 2018 (Revised June 2020)
Case

Tesla's CEO Compensation Plan

By: Krishna G. Palepu and Sarah Mehta

Tesla’s board of directors proposed an unusual compensation plan for the company’s CEO Elon Musk. The plan payouts were entirely contingent on achieving very ambitious market value, sales, and EBIT targets over the next ten years. If all the targets were achieved,... View Details

Keywords: CEO Compensation; Compensation Committee; Corporate Governance; Executive Compensation; Governing and Advisory Boards; Business and Shareholder Relations; Auto Industry; United States

February 2013
Article

Exceptional Boards: Environmental Experience and Positive Deviance from Institutional Norms

By: Judith Walls and Andrew J. Hoffman

This paper explores the phenomenon of positive organizational deviance from institutional norms by establishing practices that protect or enhance the natural environment. Seeking to explain why some organizations practice positive environmental deviance while others do... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Networks; Organizational Culture; Governing and Advisory Boards; Environmental Management

October 6, 2020
Article

Test Your Board's Readiness for the Post-COVID Era

By: Lynn S. Paine

Research suggests that well-run boards take the process of self-evaluation quite seriously, often using a combination of director surveys and personal interviews to assess the functioning and effectiveness of the board, its committees, and its individual members. As... View Details

Keywords: Health Pandemics; Governing and Advisory Boards; Performance Evaluation

Register to Read

April 1988 (Revised July 1989)
Case

Precista Tools AG (A)

A young woman manager in a Swiss family firm finds that her role as a managing director becomes bitterly unpleasant once her older brother decides to leave an engineering career and join the family business. That is what the father, who was head of the business had... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Family Business; Family and Family Relationships; Gender Characteristics; Switzerland