Board Directors - Publications - Faculty & Research

26 May 2022
HBS Case

Apple vs. Feds: Is iPhone Privacy a Basic Human Right?

that technology companies should provide a backdoor into suspects’ phones. “Sophisticated criminals will come to count on these means of evading detection. It’s the equivalent of a closet that can’t be opened,” said James Comey, director... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

07 Jun 2011
First Look

First Look: June 7

at both the senior management and director levels affect corporate philanthropic contributions. We also find that organizational structure constrains the philanthropic influence of board members, but not... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

08 Mar 2019
Research & Ideas

Seven Negotiation Lessons from Amazon's HQ Disaster in Queens

grievances, fears, and agendas quickly coalesced into a vocal anti-Amazon movement, much in evidence at two hostile city council meetings. When the newly Democratic state senate appointed an opponent of the deal to an obscure board that... View Details

Keywords: by James K. Sebenius; Real Estate; Construction

20 Oct 2009
First Look

First Look: October 20

http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/610028-PDF-ENG Pandora: Royalties Kill the Web Radio Star? (A) Harvard Business School Case 310-026 Joe Kennedy, president and CEO of Pandora, one of the largest and most popular web (Internet) radio broadcasters, had just received... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

13 Feb 2020
Book

Open Your Organization to Honest Conversations

buying Alstom, GE’s chief energy competitor, but ignored warnings from wary board directors and senior executives who claimed Alstom had made bad deals and otherwise performed poorly. Since the acquisition,... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

13 Feb 2014
Research & Ideas

Managing the Family Business: Leadership Roles

requires that key stakeholders join together into one or more groups: A shareholders' council and an annual meeting of the owners to serve the governance needs of the owners. A board of directors to serve... View Details

Keywords: by John A. Davis

15 Dec 2015
First Look

December 15, 2015

https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=50225 Harvard Business School Case 515-701 Wynton Marsalis & Jazz at Lincoln Center Under the leadership of artistic director Wynton Marsalis, Jazz at Lincoln Center (JALC) hosts... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

28 Nov 2005
Research & Ideas

Unilever: Transformation and Tradition

it was less effective when their relationship was more distant. The large and executive Board provided little check on the actions of the Special Committee. Directors executed policy rather than making it.... View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones; Consumer Products

30 Jul 2001
What Do You Think?

What’s the Future of Corporate Governance?

pays for it? Should there be an independent firm that is appointed by the SEC?" What do you think? Original Article Observers such as Jay Lorsch, in his book Pawns and Potentates, has argued that boards of View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

07 Jul 2003
Research & Ideas

4+2 = Sustained Business Success

its connections with people at all levels of the company. Inspire management to hone its capacity to spot opportunities and problems early. Appoint a board of directors whose members have a substantial stake... View Details

Keywords: by Nitin Nohria, William Joyce & Bruce Roberson

01 Jun 2007
What Do You Think?

How Should Pay Be Linked to Performance?

for shareholders. However, there is a sense, expressed by John Ippolito, that there is a lack of perception in boards of directors of "what constitutes 'creating value' in the enterprise many View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

28 Aug 2012
First Look

First Look: August 28

delayed for 20 days a shareholder vote on the sale of Del Monte Foods Co. (Del Monte) to a consortium of three private equity firms. In his opinion, Laster was critical of Del Monte's board, noting that the directors may not have properly... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

23 Jul 2012
Research & Ideas

The Power of Conversational Leadership

going in three years. But your frontline customer-facing people might. Having communication that goes bottom-up is just as important as having communication that goes top-down." To try to suss out best practices for communication, the authors interviewed communications... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

25 Apr 2011
Research & Ideas

What CEOs Do, and How They Can Do it Better

curiosity of trying to understand the life of a CEO." But what they did discover should help CEOs learn to be more effective with their time, and provide boards with a new tool to help assess the effectiveness of their chief... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

15 Jan 2014
Research & Ideas

Managing the Family Business: It Takes a Village

depends, to a surprising extent, on capable leaders. If boards of directors of public, anonymously-owned companies didn't believe that leadership mattered so much, they wouldn't pay such huge salaries to... View Details

27 Jun 2011
Research & Ideas

Recovering from the Need to Achieve

real sense of purpose and a "flatness"—in career and in life. They often go through patches of life without creating or enhancing meaningful relationships, and even lack strength to deal with life's failures. A former chief development officer and managing... View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard

03 Dec 2020
Research & Ideas

Cut Payroll Costs with Transparency, Fairness, and Compassion

through this.’” Salary and benefit cuts Many salary cuts in 2020 have been top-heavy, focused around boards of directors, CEOs, and other senior executives. During the pandemic, executive pay cuts are not about assigning blame but about... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg and Sarah Abbott

28 Mar 2012
What Do You Think?

Are Factory Jobs Important to the Economy?

manufacturing jobs as a share of total non-farm employment have fallen from 20% to 10% over the same time frame." Worse yet, there is the possibility that the jobs created today and tomorrow may not be as good as the factory jobs of the past. After writing the March... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Manufacturing

09 Aug 2021
Research & Ideas

OneTen: Creating a New Pathway for Black Talent

Financial resources don’t determine the quality of education, but it would be absurd to deny that money helps. "Adding to the challenge, 65 percent of Black college students are also juggling full-time jobs or families." Merck CEO Kenneth C. Frazier, one of OneTen’s... View Details

Keywords: by Rawi E. Abdelal, Katherine Connolly Baden, and Boris Groysberg

10 Aug 2009
Research & Ideas

High Commitment, High Performance Management

CEOs and boards of directors is hard but ultimately the only path to sustained commitment and performance. Human nature is such that we do not want to know the truth, and lower levels are afraid to speak... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

Publications