Publications

October 2008 (Revised September 2011)
Supplement

PepsiCo's Bid for Quaker Oats (C)

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin

Third in a series of PepsiCo's bid for Quaker Oats. Describes the auction for Quaker Oats including terms of the bids. After winning the auction, Coke's stock price fell dramatically. Coke's Board then refused to approve the deal and withdrew. Quaker then approached... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Stocks; Governing and Advisory Boards; Auctions; Bids and Bidding; Negotiation Tactics; Valuation; Food and Beverage Industry

20 Feb 2006
Research & Ideas

Are Company Founders Underpaid?

The initial impetus was when I was doing my early field research on founders and heard complaints from them about their inability to increase their compensation compared to their non-founder colleagues, which I found surprising. For instance, a founder complained that... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Financial Services; Technology

Gerald C. Chertavian

Gerald Chertavian is the Founder of Year Up, one of the nation’s largest and most effective youth workforce development programs. Chertavian was a successful technology entrepreneur and Wall Street banker, but it was through his many years as a Big Brother... View Details

February 1991 (Revised March 1995)
Case

Alantar, Inc.

By: Jay W. Lorsch

The CEO and chairman of Alantar, Inc. is confronted with the problem of how to create a more effective board of directors and also how to provide for his own successor. View Details

Keywords: Governing and Advisory Boards; Management Succession; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Ecuador

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

May 1987
Supplement

Disctech, Inc., Video

Focuses on 1) the roles of management, auditors, and the board of directors in making judgments about accounting reserves and 2) the task of "controlling" top management. View Details

Keywords: Management; Governing and Advisory Boards; Accounting

Rohit Deshpandé is a Baker Foundation Professor and Sebastian S. Kresge Professor of Marketing, Emeritus at Harvard Business School, where he has been teaching in the Advanced Management Program,... View Details

Keywords: advertising; agribusiness; airline; banking; beauty products; beverage; financial services; home video games; marketing industry; pharmaceuticals; telecommunications; tourism; video games

June 2020
Case

Recovering Trust After Corporate Misconduct at Wells Fargo

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Jonah S. Goldberg

The case describes widespread misconduct at Wells Fargo Community Bank in the period leading up to 2017 and the company’s subsequent attempts to improve internal controls, company culture, and corporate governance. The case examines the potential causes of large scale... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Misconduct; Internal Controls; Banks and Banking; Crime and Corruption; Corporate Governance; Organizational Culture; Governance Compliance; Management Systems; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Performance Improvement; Governing and Advisory Boards

January 2017 (Revised September 2017)
Case

Sales Razor Technologies

By: Paul Gompers and Noam Wasserman

Describes the issues facing a founder-CEO regarding building a board of directors, assembling an executive team, managing tension between co-founders, and outsourcing system development work. View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Conflict Management; Governing and Advisory Boards; Employees; Management Teams; Product Development; Technology Industry

February 2013
Article

Exceptional Boards: Environmental Experience and Positive Deviance from Institutional Norms

By: Judith Walls and Andrew J. Hoffman

This paper explores the phenomenon of positive organizational deviance from institutional norms by establishing practices that protect or enhance the natural environment. Seeking to explain why some organizations practice positive environmental deviance while others do... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Networks; Organizational Culture; Governing and Advisory Boards; Environmental Management

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31 Jan 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Boardroom Centrality and Firm Performance

Keywords: by David F. Larcker, Eric C. So & Charles C.Y. Wang

Nitin Nohria

Nitin Nohria served as the tenth dean of Harvard Business School from 2010-2020. He previously served as co-chair of the Leadership Initiative, Senior Associate Dean of Faculty Development, and Head of the Organizational Behavior unit.

As Dean, building on... View Details

March 2009 (Revised December 2009)
Case

Relational Investors and Home Depot (A)

By: Jay W. Lorsch and Kaitlyn Simpson

In 2006, amidst shareholder upset over CEO Robert Nardelli's compensation and Home Depot's declining stock price, Relational Investors decided to further investigate the situation. As experts in turning around underperforming and undervalued companies, Relational's... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Financial Management; Investment; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Ownership Stake; Business and Shareholder Relations; Corporate Strategy

20 Jun 2013
News

How HTC Lost Its Way With Smartphones

John D. Macomber

John Macomber is a Senior Lecturer in the Finance unit at Harvard Business School. His professional background includes leadership of real estate, construction, and information technology businesses. At HBS, Mr. Macomber's work focuses on climate adaptation and the... View Details

Keywords: building materials; construction; energy; green technology; infrastructure industry; real estate; transportation; utilities; waste management; insurance industry

2009
Working Paper

Corporate Misgovernance at the World Bank

By: Ashwin Kaja and Eric D. Werker

We test for evidence of corporate misgovernance at the World Bank. Most major decisions at the World Bank are made by its Board of Executive Directors. However, in any given year the majority of the Bank's member countries do not get a chance to serve on this powerful... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Banks and Banking; Financing and Loans; International Finance; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards

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Article

The Board's New Innovation Imperative: Directors Need to Rethink Their Roles and Their Attitude to Risk

By: Linda A. Hill and George Davis

As firms scramble for competitive advantage, boards—once the cautious voices urging management to mitigate risk—are now calling for breakthrough innovation. Indeed, avoiding risk is now seen as the riskiest proposition of all. In speaking with CEOs and board members... View Details

Keywords: Governing and Advisory Boards; Innovation Leadership; Risk and Uncertainty; Corporate Governance

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March 2009
Case

Baosteel Group: Governance with Chinese Characteristics

By: Lynn S. Paine and G.A. Donovan

The new outsider-dominated board of directors of China's state-owned Baosteel Group must decide whether to modify the Group's structure. With the completion of a pending acquisition, the Group will control four publicly listed steel-producing subsidiaries, and board... View Details

Keywords: Business Subsidiaries; Corporate Governance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Governing and Advisory Boards; State Ownership; China