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- All HBS Web
(1,697)
- News (279)
- Research (1,255)
- Events (2)
- Multimedia (14)
- Faculty Publications (808)
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- 12 Mar 2018
- Op-Ed
Op-Ed: Why BlackRock CEO Larry Fink Is Not a Socialist
their returns. They believe that companies must select among binary options of serving shareholders or serving society. This is a wrong-headed idea because companies with clarity about their purpose actually perform better in the long... View Details
- November 2018 (Revised January 2019)
- Module Note
Responsibilities to Investors (Abridged)
By: Lena G. Goldberg and Joseph L. Badaracco
This note focuses on managers’ responsibilities—economic, legal, and ethical—to investors. In capitalist and some socialist economies, these responsibilities traditionally have been grounded in fiduciary duties and are typically part of the common law or statutory law... View Details
Keywords: Responsibilities To Investors; Investors; Responsibility; Business and Shareholder Relations; Management; Ethics
Goldberg, Lena G., and Joseph L. Badaracco. "Responsibilities to Investors (Abridged)." Harvard Business School Module Note 319-066, November 2018. (Revised January 2019.)
- 2025
- Working Paper
The Invention of Corporate Governance
By: Yueran Ma and Andrei Shleifer
The analysis of corporate governance begins with a central feature of modern capitalism—the separation of ownership and control in large corporations—first empirically documented by Berle and Means (1932). Such separation entails several agency problems reflecting... View Details
Ma, Yueran, and Andrei Shleifer. "The Invention of Corporate Governance." NBER Working Paper Series, No. 33710, April 2025.
- 25 Oct 2006
- Op-Ed
Fixing Executive Options: The Veil of Ignorance
chunk of potential managerial wealth, and shareholders can remain assured that incentives are well aligned. Managers will not, however, know if they should try to accelerate earnings or delay them. They will not know what stock price they... View Details
Keywords: by Mihir Desai & Joshua Margolis
- 26 Mar 2008
- First Look
First Look: March 26, 2008
information provision strategies to encourage knowledge transfer within the organization. Download the paper: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/08-085.pdf Board of Directors' Responsiveness to Shareholders: Evidence from Shareholder... View Details
Keywords: Martha Lagace
- January 1993
- Article
Complementarity of Prior Accounting Information: The Case of Stock Dividend Announcements
By: R. Banker, S. Das and S. Datar
Banker, R., S. Das, and S. Datar. "Complementarity of Prior Accounting Information: The Case of Stock Dividend Announcements." Accounting Review 68, no. 1 (January 1993): 28–47.
- 22 Sep 2003
- Research & Ideas
When Protestors Knock at Your Door
LaMure: At least three lessons come to mind. First, as Debora notes, do not underestimate the power, influence, and tenacity of NGOs. In many cases, they are just as well organized and adamant about an issue as a firm is about maximizing View Details
Keywords: by Cynthia Churchwell
- 1 Mar 1992
- Lecture
The Role of Shareholders: An International Perspective
By: W. Carl Kester
Keywords: Business and Shareholder Relations
Kester, W. Carl. "The Role of Shareholders: An International Perspective." Lecture at the Forum on Corporate Governance and American Economic Competitiveness: The Role of Shareholders, Directors and Management, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Washington, D.C., March 1, 1992. (Panel speaker.)
- 21 Jan 2015
- Lessons from the Classroom
Managing the Family Business: Market Basket’s Lessons About Buyouts
One of the highlights of my year is in November, when teams of enterprising families meet for the Executive Education program I founded and still lead at Harvard Business School, Families in Business. One of the thornier problems we discuss concerns family View Details
Keywords: Retail
- January 1985
- Case
Revitalizing Businesses: Shareholder/Work Force Conflicts, Course Module
Fruhan, William E., Jr. "Revitalizing Businesses: Shareholder/Work Force Conflicts, Course Module." Harvard Business School Case 985-004, January 1985.
- 22 Apr 2002
- Research & Ideas
Profits and Prophets: The Role of Values in Investment
Sam Hayes That sparked a lively debate with Domini. While shareholder actions are important, they often don't get the job done, she said, listing a string of corporate abuses from slave labor to environmental decay practiced by publicly... View Details
Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne
- 07 Oct 2002
- Research & Ideas
What Leaders Need to Do To Restore Investor Confidence
committee to relationship managers. Q: Did the rules change? Or has the policing not been strong enough? A: Maximizing shareholder wealth has become the overarching corporate goal, and whatever it takes to accomplish that seems to be... View Details
Keywords: by Harvard Management Update
- Article
Does the Law and Finance Hypothesis Pass the Test of History?
By: Aldo Musacchio and John D. Turner
For the body of work known as the law and finance literature, the development of
financial markets and the concentration of ownership across countries is to a large
extent the consequence of the legal system nations created or inherited decades or
hundreds of years... View Details
Keywords: Finance; Business History; Financial Markets; Financial History; Business and Shareholder Relations; Law; Financial Services Industry; United States; United Kingdom; Brazil
Musacchio, Aldo, and John D. Turner. "Does the Law and Finance Hypothesis Pass the Test of History?" Special Issue on Law and Finance: A Business History Perspective. Business History 55, no. 4 (June 2013): 524–542.
- 10 Oct 2005
- Research & Ideas
Corporate Responsibility and the Environment: What is the Right Thing To Do?
help shareholder returns, that is designated CSP. Of course, if it serves the shareholder, then it is perfectly reasonable behavior that management should engage in. There is, in other words, nothing special about it. Q: The book brought... View Details
Keywords: by Manda Salls
- November 2018 (Revised January 2020)
- Case
Tesla, Inc. in 2018
By: Siko Sikochi, Suraj Srinivasan and Quinn Pitcher
On August 7, 2018 Elon Musk, Chairman and CEO of Tesla tweeted that he was considering taking Tesla private and had secured funding. Weeks went by without details about a deal and speculation grew that Musk had misled investors. He soon abandoned the idea, but the... View Details
Keywords: Disclosure Regulation; Board Independence; Corporate Governance; Business and Shareholder Relations; Governing and Advisory Boards
Sikochi, Siko, Suraj Srinivasan, and Quinn Pitcher. "Tesla, Inc. in 2018." Harvard Business School Case 119-013, November 2018. (Revised January 2020.)
- 2025
- Working Paper
Partisan Corporate Speech
By: William Cassidy and Elisabeth Kempf
We construct a novel measure of partisan corporate speech using natural language
processing techniques and use it to establish three stylized facts. First, the volume
of partisan corporate speech has risen sharply between 2012 and 2022. Second, this
increase has... View Details
Keywords: Natural Language Processing; Perspective; Communication; Public Opinion; Business and Shareholder Relations; Trends
Cassidy, William, and Elisabeth Kempf. "Partisan Corporate Speech." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 05-056, May 2025.
- January 1982 (Revised June 1983)
- Case
International Drilling Corp. (A)
Details the moral conflict experienced by Don Taylor, a new high-level executive in an oil drilling firm, when he discovered that the firm was deceiving its investors. What should he do and how should he go about it? Presents the emergence of Taylor's suspicions about... View Details
Goodpaster, Kenneth E. "International Drilling Corp. (A)." Harvard Business School Case 382-111, January 1982. (Revised June 1983.)
- 02 Oct 2019
- What Do You Think?
What Grade Would You Give Walmart CEO Doug McMillon?
about the new guidelines for corporate responsibility. “Companies must always consider their shareholders,” he wrote. “Doing ‘politically correct’ things may or may not improve shareholder value. ‘Politically correct’ is a fine line and a... View Details
- 02 Jul 2010
- What Do You Think?
Is Profit as a “Direct Goal” Overrated?
Kay puts it, "The mistake is to make inferences about the relationships between outcomes and processes when we cannot observe and do not understand the processes themselves." The argument is that those things that contribute to long-term View Details
Keywords: by Jim Heskett
- 17 May 2010
- Research & Ideas
What Brazil Teaches About Investor Protection
ago also provided investor-friendly provisions that protected shareholders from abuses by large shareholders, managers, and other corporate insiders—protections that were even better than what was offered in the country in the late 20th... View Details