Publications

2009
Chapter

On the Goals of Successful Family Companies

By: John A. Davis and Renato Tagiuri

Providing clear goals for a company and communicating them are among the most powerful means for guiding the behavior of the people in an organization. In this article, we explore the range of objectives or goals of family-owned and -managed companies and identify... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Interpersonal Communication; Goals and Objectives; Organizational Culture; Family Ownership

28 Apr 2021
News

Liberty Mutual Insurance Elects George Serafeim of Harvard Business School to the Company's Board of Directors

Shikhar Ghosh

Shikhar Ghosh is a Professor of Management Practice in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit. He currently teaches in the elective curriculum and is the course head for 3 Technologies that will Change the World. Shikhar received the Apgar Award for innovation in... View Details

November 2008 (Revised March 2011)
Case

a-connect: In Search of Talent Partners (A)

By: Robert G. Eccles and Dilyana Karadzhova

a-connect was started in 2002 by three former McKinsey partners who wanted to develop an alternative business model consulting firm, which they have positioned as a high-end staffing company. The company has been very successful, growing to revenues of CHF 30 million... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Decision Choices and Conditions; Initial Public Offering; Selection and Staffing; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketplace Matching; Expansion; Consulting Industry

13 Sep 2006
Op-Ed

Rising CEO Pay: What Directors Should Do

pressure is the fear of losing an adequately performing CEO. To make sure this does not happen, compensation committees rely on surveys by compensation consultants about CEO pay in similar companies but without regard to company... View Details

Keywords: by Jay W. Lorsch

February 1997 (Revised March 1998)
Case

Smith Breeden Associates: The Equity Plus Fund (A)

By: Robert C. Merton and Alberto Moel

In early 1997, Smith Breeden Associates, a money management and consulting firm, was pondering the future of the Equity Plus Fund. The Equity Plus Fund was an S&P enhanced-index fund that tried to outperform the S&P Index by replicating the index using low-cost... View Details

Keywords: Assets; Cash; Financial Markets; Financial Strategy; Mortgages; Investment Funds; Investment Portfolio; Marketing; Performance; Consulting Industry

George Serafeim is the Charles M. Williams Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. He co-leads a Lab, within Harvard's Digital, Data, Design Institute, and serves on the faculty steering commitee of Harvard University's Salata Institute. He... View Details

Keywords: asset management; insurance industry; automobiles; industrial goods; fashion; food; green technology

October 2021
Case

Financial Reporting at Mattel

By: Aiyesha Dey, Trung Nguyen, Marshal Herrmann and Julia Kelley

In September 2020, Diana Ferguson was nearing her first Audit Committee meeting as the newly appointed Audit Committee chair of Mattel, Inc. Mattel was just recovering from an accounting scandal which had revealed the company’s poor internal controls and weak board... View Details

01 Sep 2015
First Look

First Look -- September 1, 2015

across firms. Using information disclosed in proxy statements of publicly traded companies, I predict and find that firms connected through board interlocks or common compensation consultants display a higher degree of isomorphism in the... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Michael W. Toffel

Professor Toffel is the Senator John Heinz Professor of Environmental Management. His research examines how companies are addressing climate change (especially decarbonization) and other environmental and working condition issues in their operations and supply... View Details

Alvin E. Roth

Al Roth is the George Gund Professor of Economics and Business Administration in the Department of Economics at Harvard University, and in the Harvard Business School. His research, teaching, and consulting interests are in game theory, experimental economics, and... View Details

Keywords: e-commerce industry; education industry; health care; information; internet; legal services

Willis M. Emmons

WILLIAM (WILLIS) EMMONS is Senior Lecturer and Director of the C. Roland Christensen Center for Teaching and Learning at Harvard Business School, a position he has held since 2004. As Director of the Christensen Center, Emmons oversees programs to... View Details

Keywords: airline; infrastructure industry; pharmaceuticals; telecommunications; utilities

2009
Article

Feeling the Heat: The Effects of Performance Pressure on Teams' Knowledge Use and Performance

By: Heidi K. Gardner

Why do some teams fail to use their members' knowledge effectively, even after having correctly identified each other's expertise? This paper identifies performance pressure as a critical barrier to effective knowledge utilization in teams. I theorize that performance... View Details

Keywords: Experience and Expertise; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Performance Effectiveness; Performance Expectations; Groups and Teams

Find at Harvard

September 2003 (Revised November 2005)
Case

Best Buy Co., Inc. (A): An Innovator's Journey

By: Dorothy A. Leonard and Brian DeLacey

The CEO of Best Buy, a hugely successful retailing company, has hired consulting firm Strategos to imbue the company with an improved innovative capability. The six-month program of experimental learning yields new business ideas and also trains Best Buy employees as... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Management Teams; Creativity; Adoption; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Employees; Learning; Training; Programs; Retail Industry; United States