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- September 2008 (Revised October 2008)
- Case
Shareholder Activists at Friendly Ice Cream (A1)
By: Fabrizio Ferri, V.G. Narayanan and James Weber
Two activist investors, one a founder and one a hedge fund manager, seek to improve board oversight at a chain restaurant company. Prestley Blake founded Friendly Ice Cream in 1935 with his brother, and the two created a chain of full-service restaurants. In 1979, they... View Details
- September 2008 (Revised October 2008)
- Supplement
Shareholder Activists at Friendly Ice Cream (A2)
By: V.G. Narayanan, Fabrizio Ferri and James Weber
The A1 and A2 versions of the “Shareholder Activists at Friendly Ice Cream (A)” split the original A case into two parts. The A1 case ends as activists Sardar Biglari and Phil Cooley prepare to meet with CEO Don Smith at Friendly's headquarters in September 2006. The... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
CEO and CFO Career Penalties to Missing Quarterly Analysts Forecasts
By: Rick Mergenthaler, Shiva Rajgopal and Suraj Srinivasan
We find that missing the quarterly analyst consensus earnings forecast is associated with career penalties in the form of a reduced bonus, smaller equity grants, and a greater chance of forced dismissal for both CEOs and CFOs during the period 1993-2004. These results... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
Hiring Cheerleaders: Board Appointments of 'Independent' Directors
By: Lauren Cohen, Andrea Frazzini and Christopher J. Malloy
We test the hypothesis that firms appoint independent directors who are overly sympathetic to management, while still technically independent according to regulatory definitions. We explore a subset of independent directors for whom we have detailed, micro-level data... View Details
- July 2008 (Revised September 2010)
- Case
Sony Ericsson WTA Tour (A)
By: Jay W. Lorsch and Kaitlyn Simpson
Larry Scott, the new CEO of the Women's Tennis Association, arrives amidst turmoil. Players and tournaments clash over opposing interests. As a result, the board members who represent them are equally divided and feel conflicted about their role. They aren't sure how... View Details
- July–August 2008
- Article
Interview with a Quality Leader: Regina E. Herzlinger on Consumer-Driven Healthcare
Regina E. Herzlinger is the Nancy R. McPherson Professor of Business Administration Chair at the Harvard Business School, Cambridge, MA. She received her bachelor's degree from MIT and her doctorate from the Harvard Business School The first woman to be tenured and... View Details
- June 2008
- Background Note
A Note on Limited Partner Advisory Boards
By: Josh Lerner, G. Felda Hardymon and Ann Leamon
This note explores the limited partner advisory boards. Based on interviews with seven experienced limited partners who serve on a number of different advisory boards, it presents the roles of the advisory board, the ways it can influence the general partner, and the... View Details
- June 2008 (Revised July 2008)
- Case
How Serial Entrepreneurs Build and Manage a Board of Directors in a Venture-Backed Start Up
By: Michael J. Roberts, William A. Sahlman and Sasha Novakovich
This case includes structured interviews with four serial entrepreneurs about the way in which they built and used their boards in each of their companies and what they have learned through that process. These entrepreneurs were asked similar questions, such as "How do... View Details
- Article
A Head Start on Succession
By: Joseph L. Bower
Our studies of CEO succession over the past several years have shown some improvements in the trends in CEO turnover, often resulting from outside pressures for improved oversight and better corporate governance. The next step in improving CEO succession—and ultimately... View Details
- April 2008 (Revised September 2008)
- Case
Shareholder Activists at Friendly Ice Cream (A)
By: Fabrizio Ferri, V.G. Narayanan and James Weber
Two activist investors, one a founder and one a hedge-fund manager, seek to improve board oversight at a chain restaurant company. Prestley Blake founded Friendly Ice Cream in 1935 with his brother, and the two created a chain of full-service restaurants. In 1979 they... View Details
- March 2008 (Revised March 2009)
- Case
Transforming AMFAM
By: Rakesh Khurana, Rajiv Lal and Cathy Ross
On a winter day in December 2007 at the American Family Mutual Insurance Company (AMFAM) headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin, Dave Anderson and Jack Salzwedel remained in the conference room after the senior management meeting had concluded. Anderson, CEO of AMFAM since... View Details
- March 2008 (Revised July 2009)
- Case
U.S. Subprime Mortgage Crisis: Policy Reactions (A)
By: Laura Alfaro and Renee Kim
By March 2008, the U.S. Government and the U.S. Federal Reserve Board had taken various policy measures over the last few months to tackle the subprime mortgage crisis that threatened to drag the economy into a recession. The Bush administration approved a fiscal... View Details
- February 2008 (Revised October 2010)
- Case
Mellon Financial and The Bank of New York
By: Carliss Y. Baldwin and Ryan Taliaferro
Bob Kelly, the new CEO of Mellon Financial, is considering the terms of a proposed "merger of equals" with The Bank of New York, just before the final Board meeting to approve the deal. The combination offers a great strategic fit, and the expected synergies are large.... View Details
- January 2008 (Revised September 2008)
- Supplement
Marketing the "$100 Laptop" (C)
By: John A. Quelch and David Chen
In October 2007, the OLPC reported production delays and missed its shipment date. In early November, the $100 PC finally went into production, with initial shipments planned for Uruguay and Mongolia, and mid-month launched the "Give One, Get One" program. It enabled... View Details
- January 2008 (Revised February 2008)
- Case
South Dakota Wheat Growers
By: David E. Bell and Mary L. Shelman
As a farmer-owned cooperative, South Dakota Wheat Growers (SDWG) serves the needs of its 3,600 active farmer-members by supplying farm inputs and organizing the marketing and transportation of grain produced in the co-op's service territory. For almost 80 years, the... View Details
- January 2008 (Revised July 2008)
- Case
Opportunity Partners
By: Robin Greenwood and James Quinn
Philip Goldstein, the principal in a growing hedge fund and prominent activist investor, has taken a position in a Mexico-based closed-end fund. Following a hard-fought proxy contest in which he advocated for management to eliminate the fund's substantial discount,... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
The Small World of Investing: Board Connections and Mutual Fund Returns
By: Lauren Cohen, Andrea Frazzini and Christopher J. Malloy
This paper uses social networks to identify information transfer in security markets. We focus on connections between mutual fund managers and corporate board members via shared education networks. We find that portfolio managers place larger bets on firms they are... View Details
- December 2007 (Revised March 2013)
- Case
Queensland Sugar Limited
By: David E. Bell and Mary L. Shelman
Until industry deregulation in 2006, Queensland Sugar ran Australia's single desk marketing system for raw sugar exports. Since deregulation, eight of the ten Queensland sugar millers have elected to continue collective marketing through QSL. However, several millers... View Details
- December 2007 (Revised October 2008)
- Case
The American National Red Cross (A)
By: Jay W. Lorsch, Eliot Sherman and David Chen
Describes the governance issues facing the Board of Governors of the American Red Cross. After a series of issues--FDA consent decree on its blood operations; the response to 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina--the Red Cross board was under pressure to fix its governance from... View Details
- November 2007 (Revised March 2008)
- Case
Tyco International: Corporate Governance
By: Rakesh Khurana and James Weber
Examines how Tyco and its board recovered from its corporate scandals. Describes how its CEO and board set out to institute processes, guidelines, and a culture that would make Tyco into a company widely recognized for its world class corporate governance. View Details