Shareholder Value Maximization - Publications - Faculty & Research

17 Nov 2015
Lessons from the Classroom

How Activist Investors Became Respectable

online well before any regulatory filing disclosed his holdings in the company. These tactics may have been designed for drama, but the investment strategy and its scale are nothing unusual today. Activist shareholders and the hedge funds... View Details

Keywords: by Joseph Fuller; Financial Services; Banking

01 Aug 2005
What Do You Think?

Is There an “Efficient Market” in CEO Compensation?

shareholders into a more active participative role, CEO compensation along with other governance challenges such as agency issues will continue to plague companies." Julie Dotson-Shaffer put it most succinctly: "Every contract... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

14 May 2019
Research & Ideas

Ethics Bots and Other Ways to Move Your Code of Business Conduct Beyond Puffery

When health insurer Cigna Corp. appeared in front of a judge for allegedly misleading shareholders on Medicare regulations this spring, plaintiffs thought they had a strong case. After all, Cigna had published its own document titled... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

06 Nov 2007
First Look

First Look: November 6, 2007

less fearful of imminent takeover, yet the pressure remains: They face shareholders who wonder why they aren't getting private-equity-level returns. Rather than dismiss the value private equity has created... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

15 Sep 2008
Research & Ideas

The Coming Transformation of Social Enterprise

I absolutely think it's too narrow a view. In the decade of the '90s, maximizing shareholder value became a corporate mantra. But the notion that the corporation exists only to... View Details

Keywords: by Roger Thompson

16 Jul 2024
Op-Ed

Corporate Boards Are Failing in Their No. 1 Duty

GE’s transition from Jack Welch to Jeff Immelt. In 20 years at the helm, Welch had grown shareholder value from $14 billion to $400 billion and Fortune had named him “Manager of the Century.” Immelt,... View Details

Keywords: by Bill George

13 Aug 2024
Op-Ed

Can AI Save Physicians from Burnout?

way of progress? But there’s a problem: Most US physicians do not practice within systems that prioritize physician or even patient well-being. The predominance of fee-for-service payment models often leads to incentive systems prioritizing patient volumes over patient... View Details

Keywords: by Susanna Gallani, Lidia Moura, and Katie Sonnefeldt; Health

28 Nov 2007
Research & Ideas

B2B Branding: Does it Work?

shareholder value be the same today if it had not made consumers aware of nylon, Lycra, and Stainmaster and linked these innovations to the Dupont name? Definitely not. Do you think brand-building is... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch; Consumer Products

01 Jun 2021
What Do You Think?

Are Employers Ready for a Flood of 'New' Talent Seeking Work?

important to them, and they make those positions part of their consideration set when exploring brand loyalty. So CEOs have no choice but (to) become activists to maximize shareholder value.” This still... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

May 2010 (Revised June 2010)
Supplement

Pfizer: Letter from the Chairman (B)

By: Robert L. Simons and Kathryn Rosenberg

This case continues the story begun in "Pfizer: A Letter from the Chairman" (HBS No. 110-003), revealing the letter Chairman and CEO Jeff Kindler wrote for the 2008 Annual Report. View Details

Keywords: Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance; Business and Shareholder Relations; Value Creation; Decision Choices and Conditions; Annual Reports; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States

Citation

Purchase

25 Aug 2009
First Look

First Look: August 25

reduction in monopoly price leads to the production of units that cost less than their value to consumers (standard channel); (ii) regulation calms down existing consumers because a reduction in the profits of an "unkind" firm... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

October 2024 (Revised March 2025)
Teaching Note

BWX Technologies

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Yuan Zou

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 124-071. View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Communication Intention and Meaning; Business and Shareholder Relations; Valuation; Diversification; United States; Canada

Citation

Purchase

02 Jul 2010
What Do You Think?

Is Profit as a “Direct Goal” Overrated?

Kay puts it, "The mistake is to make inferences about the relationships between outcomes and processes when we cannot observe and do not understand the processes themselves." The argument is that those things that contribute to long-term View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

18 Oct 2016
Op-Ed

Why Business Should Invest in Community Health

those cases. No matter the approach, shareholders and the public are unlikely to recognize the full value of a firm’s community health programs and other health-related efforts if those activities are... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch, Howard Koh, and Pamela Yatsko; Health

14 Nov 2012
Research & Ideas

New Agenda for Corporate Accountability Reporting

How do you measure corporate accountability? And can you do it credibly? Since the financial crisis of 2008-2009, for-profit corporations are facing greater demand to disclose more than revenues and expenses on annual financial reports. In response, some are pointing... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Accounting; Energy; Utilities

20 Oct 2015
First Look

October 20, 2015

integration affects prices, this paper provides evidence that prices can affect integration. Many theories in organizational economics and industrial organization posit that integration, while costly, increases productivity. It follows from firms' View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

02 Sep 2008
First Look

First Look: September 3, 2008

Building on previous theories of how social activists inspire field-level change, we hypothesize that shareholder actions and regulatory threats are likely to prime firms to cooperate with shareholder... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

26 Jan 2016
First Look

January 26, 2016

ways. In the light of these wide-ranging effects, much scholarship has been devoted to specifying the responsibilities of managers of for-profit business enterprises. Much of this scholarship is framed in relation to “shareholder primacy”—the view that managers should... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

06 Aug 2013
First Look

First Look: August 6

during the class period. Named directors receive more negative recommendations from Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), a proxy advisory firm, and significantly more negative votes from shareholders... View Details

Keywords: Anna Secino