Corporate Values - Publications - Faculty & Research

2011
Working Paper

Fiduciary Duties and Equity-Debtholder Conflicts

By: Bo Becker and Per Stromberg

We use an important legal event as a natural experiment to examine the effect of management fiduciary duties on equity-debt conflicts. A 1991 Delaware bankruptcy ruling changed the nature of corporate directors' fiduciary duties in firms incorporated in that state.... View Details

Keywords: Borrowing and Debt; Capital Structure; Equity; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Laws and Statutes; Conflict and Resolution; Welfare or Wellbeing; Delaware

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08 Jan 2014
What Do You Think?

Do Productivity Increases Contribute to Social Inequality?

agreed: "The main reason for the rising inequality is that Free Trade has encouraged/required manufacturing to be offshored and outsourced If we replaced the Free Trade policies with a Balanced Trade policy, using (import licences) issued in the same View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

30 Oct 2014
Working Paper Summaries

The Nobel Prize: A ‘Heritage-based’ Brand-oriented Network

Keywords: by Mats Urde & Stephen A. Greyser

November 2001 (Revised December 2002)
Case

Tracking Stocks at Genzyme (A)

By: Malcolm S. Salter

Genzyme, a tracking stock pioneer, has used its innovative capital structure as a way to frame and grow its R&D-intensive business. Facing the question of how best to integrate a new acquisition into its tracking stock structure, Genzyme's top management is forced to... View Details

Keywords: Integration; Value Creation; Motivation and Incentives; Conflict of Interests; Stocks; Capital Structure; Research and Development; Corporate Governance; Biotechnology Industry

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September 2023
Article

Stock Price Reactions to ESG News: The Role of ESG Ratings and Disagreement

By: George Serafeim and Aaron Yoon

We investigate whether ESG ratings predict future ESG news and the associated market reactions. We find that the consensus rating predicts future news, but its predictive ability diminishes for firms with large disagreement between raters. Relation between news and... View Details

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2024
Book

The Fading Light of Democratic Capitalism: How Pervasive Cronyism and Restricted Suffrage Are Destroying Democratic Capitalism as a National Ideal ... And What to Do About It

By: Malcolm S. Salter

What are we to do about declining public trust and confidence in democratic capitalism, which many citizens consider a cornerstone of our national ideology and identity? In this book, I address how we can rekindle the fading light of democratic capitalism as an... View Details

Keywords: Government and Politics; Power and Influence; Economic Systems; Culture

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Leonard A. Schlesinger is Baker Foundation Professor at the Harvard Business School where he serves as Chair of the School’s Practice based faculty and faculty Chair of the MBA Field Global Immersion program. He has served as a member of the HBS faculty from 1978 to... View Details

On Competition, Updated and Expanded Edition

For the past two decades, Michael Porter's work has towered over the field of competitive strategy. On Competition, Updated and Expanded Edition brings together more than a dozen of Porter's landmark articles from the Harvard Business Review. Five are new... View Details

November 2012 (Revised August 2013)
Case

A Politician in a Leather Suit and the Paradox of Japanese Capitalism

By: Karthik Ramanna and Matthew Shaffer

Two lost decades later, capitalism in Japan embodies peculiar contradictions—preserving wealth and social stability in the face of declining economic power. Scant transparency in Japanese corporate practices plays an important role in this phenomenon. Sometimes... View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Economic Systems; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Fairness; Values and Beliefs; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance; Civil Society or Community; Japan; Tokyo

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23 Apr 2012
Research & Ideas

How to Brand a Next-Generation Product

notice a new name.” Like Apple, most consumer-centric companies deal with the dilemma of how to brand the next- generation of an existing product. Product upgrades make up the majority of corporate research and development activity.... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

Video

Ghassan E. Nuqul

Ghassan E. Nuqul, Chairman of the Nuqul Group, outlines the company’s core values and shares how his father’s history as a refugee inspired him to strive for success in business. View Details

08 Jan 2001
Research & Ideas

Can Japan Compete? [Part Two]

to intervene in the process of competition and to improve the environment for competition. One of the points you mention in your book is that Japanese corporate practice has encouraged permanent employment. How is employee loyalty... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace & Hilah Geer

Research Summary

Managing Workplace Reforms and Organization-Wide Transformations

Richard E. Walton is studying (with doctoral candidate Scott Hamlin and research associate Kathleen Scharf) the development and diffusion of new forms of union-management partnership together with other new practices in the steel industry. To test and elaborate... View Details

18 Aug 2017
Op-Ed

Op-Ed: Courageous Leader Triggers a Moral Revolt of CEOs Against Trump

Nothing like this has happened in 50 years. Forty-three CEOs of major American corporations revolted against President Trump this week, which led to the shutdown of two presidential advisory councils. In so doing, these leaders may have... View Details

Keywords: by Bill George

November 2015 (Revised August 2016)
Case

Unilever's New Global Strategy: Competing through Sustainability

By: Christopher A. Bartlett

In January 2009, when Paul Polman was appointed CEO of Unilever, he inherited a company in long-term decline at the beginning of a major global financial crisis. As the first outsider ever recruited to lead the company, Polman lost little time in challenging the... View Details

Keywords: Globalized Firms and Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Competitive Strategy; Environmental Sustainability; Consumer Products Industry

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03 Jul 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, July 3, 2018

and the normative orientation of medical professionals. Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=54600 Summer 2018 California Management Review CSR Needs CPR: Corporate Sustainability and Politics By: Lyon,... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

Jill J. Avery

Dr. Jill Avery is a Senior Lecturer of Business Administration and C. Roland Christensen Distinguished Management Educator in the marketing unit at Harvard Business School. She is a respected authority on branding and brand management, customer relationship... View Details

Keywords: consumer products; arts; advertising; automobiles; retailing; fashion; hotels ＆ motels; food; beverage

January 2014 (Revised April 2025)
Supplement

The PGA Tour (B)

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Cole Magrath

In 1994, the PGA Tour (the "Tour"), the dominant incumbent professional golf circuit, had created tremendous value for its players. In the 1974 season, players competed for $8 million in prize money; by the 1994 season, the total prize purse had increased to $56... View Details

Keywords: PGA Tour; Tim Finchem; Deane Beman; Golf; Professional Golf; Business Model; Value Creation; Adaptation; Sports; Business Strategy; Sports Industry; United States

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31 Aug 2009
Research & Ideas

Why Competition May Not Improve Credit Rating Agencies

and debt markets. “These findings throw some doubt on the policy that has been pursued pretty much unanimously by decision-makers in Washington, D.C. to increase competition among raters.” Credit rating agencies provide an assessment of the creditworthiness of a View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Financial Services

February 2022
Case

Paul Polman

By: Elizabeth A. Keenan, Youngme Moon and Susie Ma

Over his 40-year career, Paul Polman had led some of the world’s largest consumer goods companies, making his biggest mark as CEO of Unilever—a multi-national corporation that produced everything from soap to soup. Polman was also well-regarded as a leader in corporate... View Details