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December 2008 (Revised January 2011)
Case

Arcadia Biosciences: Seeds of Change

By: Arthur A. Daemmrich, Forest L. Reinhardt and Mary Louise Shelman

Arcadia Biosciences is an entrepreneurial California agricultural biotech company seeking to earn carbon credits by modifying commodity crops for use in China and India. Eric Rey, Arcadia's CEO, faced a strategic inflection point in early September 2008. The company... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Environmental Sustainability; Science-Based Business; Climate Change; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Biotechnology Industry; China; India; California

09 Sep 2024
HBS Case

McDonald’s and the Post #MeToo Rules of Sex in the Workplace

job and getting banned from serving as an executive or director at any other company for five years. This consensual workplace relationship—forbidden under the iconic fast-food chain’s fraternization policy because View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman; Food & Beverage

12 Nov 2001
Research & Ideas

The Three Components of Family Governance

family informed about these. Help the family reach decisions and speak with one voice about its goals. Keep the board of directors informed about family views about the company... View Details

January 2007 (Revised April 2007)
Case

The Tale of the Lynx (A and B)

By: Noam T. Wasserman

The founders of Lynx Solutions have survived major challenges within their board of directors, the firing of Lynx's founder-CEO and departure of its successor CEO, and a crisis sparked by media allegations that it had been spying on its users. Now that the company is... View Details

Keywords: Governing and Advisory Boards; Business Growth and Maturation; Ethics; Decision Choices and Conditions; Management Succession; Conflict and Resolution; Management Teams; Information Technology Industry

14 Feb 2019
Video

Entrepreneurial Journeys of the 2018-19 Blavatnik Fellows

October 2013 (Revised November 2013)
Case

Blackstone and the Sale of Citigroup's Loan Portfolio

By: Victoria Ivashina and David Scharfstein

The credit boom that preceded the 2007-2009 financial crisis led to several lending practices that exposed banks to large risks. In particular, when the financial crisis unraveled, there were several billion dollars' worth of leveraged buyout (LBO) loans that were... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Private Equity; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Credit Derivatives and Swaps; Financial Markets; Investment; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry

25 Apr 2023
HBS Seminar

Bart Vanneste, UCL School of Management

15 Sep 2015
Working Paper Summaries

Materiality in Corporate Governance: The Statement of Significant Audiences and Materiality

Keywords: by Robert G. Eccles & Tim Youmans

October 2017
Supplement

Maggie Wilderotter: The Evolution of an Executive: Video Supplement

By: Boris Groysberg, Sarah L. Abbott and Robin Abrahams

In a career that spanned over 30 years, Maggie Wilderotter served as CEO of two publicly traded companies and served on 32 corporate and nine association and non-profit boards of directors. The case looks at the progression of Wilderotter’s career; the decisions she... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Managing People; Networks; Strategy And Leadership; Personal Development and Career; Personal Characteristics; Leadership Style; Social and Collaborative Networks; Gender; Power and Influence; Telecommunications Industry; United States

October 2003 (Revised April 2005)
Case

Innovation Corrupted: The Rise and Fall of Enron

By: Malcolm S. Salter

Presents an historical overview of Enron's rise and fall and summarizes what is currently known about (1) the evolution of Enron's business model, (2) the organizational processes Enron officials relied on to drive and monitor the business, (3) emergent behavior... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Behavior; Governing and Advisory Boards; Success; Transformation; Failure; Business Processes; Energy Industry; United States

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October 2019 (Revised February 2025)
Case

A Conversation with Ellen J. Kullman, Chairman & CEO of DuPont, 2009-2015

By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz

Ellen J. Kullman, the retired Chairman and CEO of DuPont, describes how she guided the storied science and technology company through a contentious proxy battle with activist investor Trian Partners, which acquired DuPont shares in 2013 and sought to break up the... View Details

Keywords: Agribusiness; Capital Structure; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance; Institutional Investing; Leadership; Leadership Style; Management; Transformation; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Chemical Industry; United States

June 2008 (Revised February 2013)
Case

Vignettes on Governance of Private Equity Firms

By: G. Felda Hardymon, Ann Leamon and Eugenia Adofo

In a series of vignettes, Nigella Hardy-Smyth of an international development agency that invests in emerging markets private equity firms must decide how to handle various situations that arise. As a member of the Limited Partner Advisory Board of each of the five... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Investment Funds; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Managerial Roles; Emerging Markets; Partners and Partnerships

23 Jul 2012
Research & Ideas

The Power of Conversational Leadership

Harvard Business School Professor Boris Groysberg. "Nobody knows what strategic conversations are actually unfolding." For that reason, many CEOs are reconsidering the classic command-and-control structure in which a few people are sending all the directives from the... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

December 2022
Article

Does Industry Employment of Active Regulators Weaken Oversight?

By: Jonas Heese

I study whether industry employment of active regulators weakens oversight. To examine this question, I exploit that the Financial Reporting Enforcement Panel (FREP), the German capital-market regulator responsible for enforcing public firms’ compliance with accounting... View Details

Keywords: Conflict-of-interest Policies; Directorships; Enforcement Actions; Industry Employment; Self-regulatory Organizations; Governance Compliance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Policy; Conflict of Interests

December 2003 (Revised October 2006)
Case

Globalizing the Cost of Capital and Capital Budgeting at AES

By: Mihir A. Desai and Douglas Kurt Schillinger

With electricity generating businesses around the world, AES Corp. is seeking a methodology for calculating the cost of capital for its various businesses and potential projects. In the past, AES used the same cost of capital for all of its capital budgeting, but the... View Details

Keywords: International Finance; Risk Management; Globalized Firms and Management; Cost of Capital; Valuation; Emerging Markets; Foreign Direct Investment; Capital Budgeting; Energy Industry; South America