Publications

December 2017 (Revised November 2018)
Case

Tesla Motors (B): Merging with SolarCity

By: Stuart C. Gilson and Sarah L. Abbott

In 2016, electric car manufacturer Tesla announced that it was making an offer to acquire solar panel manufacturer SolarCity in an all-stock offer worth $2.6 billion in Tesla stock. Tesla’s co-founder and CEO, Elon Musk, believed that the merger would generate... View Details

Keywords: M＆A; M＆A Valuation; Investing; Equities; Equity; Valuation; Mergers and Acquisitions; Auto Industry; Energy Industry; United States

Dante Roscini holds the Professor of Management Practice Chair endowed by the MBA Class of 1952 at Harvard Business School. He joined the faculty in 2008 after a two-decades-long career in finance. He currently teaches the course Business, Government, and the... View Details

08 Sep 2018
News

10 Things You Didn’t Know About Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly

Web

Commercialization of the Polarizer - Edwin H. Land & Polaroid | Harvard Business School

Corporation. All existing and pending patents were transferred to the new corporation. 17 Wheelwright left the company in the early 1940s, but stayed on as a member of the Board View Details

30 Aug 2006
Op-Ed

The Compensation Game

of board membership, combined with the small size of the overall director community, results in a closed culture among people who share many... View Details

Keywords: by Lucian Bebchuk & Rakesh Khurana

21 Sep 2009
Research & Ideas

Excessive Executive Pay: What’s the Solution?

have their director candidates' names included on the ballots sent out by the company (dissident shareholders now must send out their own ballots); puts an end to staggered boards at all companies (boards... View Details

Keywords: by Roger Thompson

25 Feb 2014
First Look

First Look: February 25

Download working paper: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1999484 Consequences to Directors of Shareholder Activism By: Gow, Ian D., Sa-Pyung Sean Shin, and Suraj Srinivasan Abstract—We... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

March 2011 (Revised May 2012)
Case

Shanghai Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park Development Co., Ltd.

By: Robert G. Eccles, Catherine Zhang, Cheng-hua Tzeng, Liang Cheng and Penelope Rossano

This case is about the establishment, growth, and direction of the Shanghai Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park ("Zhangjiang Park"), which is located in the Pudong New Area of Shanghai. Considered to be one of the most competitive hi-tech industry clusters in China, the combined... View Details

Keywords: Industry Clusters; Information Technology; Capital Markets; Urban Development; Buildings and Facilities; Competition; Business Strategy; Governing and Advisory Boards; Technology Industry; Real Estate Industry; Shanghai

18 Feb 2015
First Look

First Look: February 18

500 boards as an empirical context, this study shows that the presence of directors who lack top-level experience but own large shareholdings is negatively associated with firm... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

April 2011 (Revised December 2013)
Case

Boardroom Change in Norway

By: Jay W. Lorsch and Melissa Barton

In 2003, the Norwegian Parliament amended the Public Limited Companies Act in order to achieve greater representation of women on corporate boards. According to the amendment, all state-owned companies and public limited companies were required to have at least 40%... View Details

Keywords: Laws and Statutes; Gender; Corporate Governance; Norway

September 2022 (Revised September 2024)
Case

Esas Group: Investing Together, Staying Together

By: Christina R. Wing and Alpana Thapar

This case opens in June 2022, after Esas Group, one of Turkey’s largest family-owned investment firms, implements a series of changes to professionalize the business and help transition family members from operators to responsible investors. In December 2019, the Group... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Transition; Business or Company Management; Organizational Structure; Governing and Advisory Boards; Governance; Financial Services Industry; Turkey

16 Mar 2003
Research & Ideas

At the Center of Corporate Scandal Where Do We Go From Here?

had the kind of in-depth look it deserves, yet it is at the core of a number of the problems we've seen. The board View Details

Keywords: by Kim B. Clark

November 1996
Case

Del Webb Corporation (B), The

By: Jay W. Lorsch and Samanta Graff

On November 16, 1987, the Del Webb board appointed Phil Dion chairman and CEO. This case outlines the development and implementation of a strategy to focus exclusively on real estate development and to liquidate all other assets. Discusses the appointment of two new... View Details

Keywords: Crisis Management; Management Succession; Strategic Planning; Governing and Advisory Boards; Business and Shareholder Relations; Conflict of Interests; Real Estate Industry

Benjamin Esty is the Roy and Elizabeth Simmons Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Over the years, he has taught a variety of courses ranging from advanced corporate finance and project finance to competitive strategy and leadership. He... View Details

Keywords: banking; asset management; investment banking industry; consumer products; shipping; wine; financial services

August 2021 (Revised April 2022)
Case

KKR

By: Jo Tango and Alys Ferragamo

In June of 2021, KKR’s executive team convened to prepare for an upcoming board meeting. From a small, three-person partnership that started in 1976 and invested only in U.S. LBOs, the firm 45 years later was a public company that employed over 1,600 people and managed... View Details

Keywords: Governing and Advisory Boards; Public Equity; Globalized Markets and Industries; Growth and Development Strategy; Profit; Strategy; Finance; Private Equity; United States

13 Apr 2021
News

Unlocking Diversity's Promise: Psychological Safety, Trust and Inclusion

2014
Working Paper

The Founder's Resource‐Dependence Challenge

By: Noam Wasserman

Does the degree to which founders keep control of their startups affect company value? I argue that founders face a "control dilemma" in which a startup's resource dependence drives a wedge between the startup's value and the founder's ability to retain control of... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Value; Business Startups