Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(542)
- Faculty Publications (120)
- October 2012 (Revised February 2013)
- Case
Jim Johnson's Re-election to the Goldman Sachs Board
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Kelly Baker
The case presents the opposition by a leading institutional investor in Goldman Sachs to the re-election of Jim Johnson to the board of directors of the company. The investor, Sequoia Fund, opposes the re-election citing Jim Johnson's prior track record as the CEO of... View Details
- August 2012
- Case
ARISE: A Destination-for-a-Day Spa
By: Michael Beer and Lynda St. Clair
A new Dallas-based health and beauty spa aims to use a highly distinctive human resource system as the foundation of its competitive strategy. By encouraging employees to act as "personal wellness coaches" (PWCs) with high commitment and broad responsibilities, the... View Details
- 2012
- Article
Hiring Cheerleaders: Board Appointments of 'Independent' Directors
By: Lauren Cohen, Andrea Frazzini and Christopher Malloy
We provide evidence that firms appoint independent directors who are overly sympathetic to management, while still technically independent according to regulatory definitions. We explore a subset of independent directors for whom we have detailed, micro-level data on... View Details
- April 2012 (Revised February 2017)
- Case
Dovernet
By: Robert Simons and Natalie Kindred
This case illustrates the implications of using stringent performance measurement systems to create performance pressure, motivate employee achievement, and sharpen a firm's competitiveness. It opens by describing the downsides of the ruthlessly competitive culture at... View Details
- February 2012
- Case
Henkel: Building a Winning Culture
By: Robert Simons and Natalie Kindred
This case illustrates a CEO-led organizational transformation driven by stretch goals, performance measurement, and accountability. When Kasper Rorsted became CEO of Henkel, a Germany-based producer of personal care, laundry, and adhesives products, in 2008, he was... View Details
- 2012
- Working Paper
Earnings Management from the Bottom Up: An Analysis of Managerial Incentives Below the CEO
By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Julie Wulf
Performance-based pay is an important instrument to align the interests of managers with the interests of shareholders. However, recent evidence suggests that high-powered incentives also provide managers with incentives to manipulate the firm's reported earnings. The... View Details
- December 2011
- Article
CEO and Board Chair Roles: To Split or Not to Split?
By: Aiyesha Dey, Ellen Engel and Xiaohui Liu
We examine the performance and compensation implications of firms' decisions to combine the roles of CEO and board chairman (duality). We document that firms that split the CEO and chairman positions due to investor pressure have significantly lower announcement... View Details
- November 2011
- Article
Corporate Governance When Founders Are Directors
By: Feng Li and Suraj Srinivasan
We examine CEO compensation, CEO retention policies, and M&A decisions in firms where founders serve as a director with a non-founder CEO (founder-director firms). We find that founder-director firms offer a different mix of incentives to their CEOs than other firms.... View Details
- July 2011 (Revised September 2011)
- Case
CEO Compensation at GE: A Decade with Jeff Immelt
By: V.G. Narayanan and Lisa Brem
When ISS, a large shareholder advisory group, recommended a "no" vote on Jeff Immelt's award of 2 million stock options in April 2011, GE's compensation committee had to decide whether to rescind or amend the award or ignore the ISS recommendation. Was Immelt's 2010... View Details
- April 2011
- Case
Designs by Kate: The Power of Direct Sales
By: John A. Deighton and Sarah Abbott
The sales representatives at Designs by Kate (DBK) sell private label jewelry at hosted parties and through online social media channels. They are also responsible for recruiting, training, and managing new sales reps. CEO and founder Kate Creevey designed the... View Details
- February 2011
- Case
Stanley Black & Decker, Inc.
This case allows instructors to explore shareholder value creation and transfer opportunities in merger and acquisition transactions. It also invites an examination of corporate governance issues surrounding CEO compensation. This case is quite brief (a total of 4... View Details
- January 2011 (Revised April 2020)
- Case
Executive Compensation at Talent Partners
By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff
Talent Partners' CEO was very successful at growing the business and establishing its leadership position. He was compensated with a mix of salary and options and he did not own any equity in the company. The options were set so that if Talent Partners achieved its... View Details
- 2011
- Working Paper
Do U.S. Market Interactions Affect CEO Pay? Evidence from UK Companies
By: Joseph J. Gerakos, Joseph D. Piotroski and Suraj Srinivasan
This paper examines the extent that interactions with U.S. markets impact the compensation practices of non-U.S. firms. Using a sample of large U.K. companies, we find that the total compensation of U.K. CEOs is positively related to the extent of the firm's... View Details
- October 2010 (Revised October 2011)
- Case
Ken Langone: Member, GE Compensation Committee
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Lizzie Gomez
On September 2003, Richard Grasso stepped down as chairman and CEO of the New York Stock Exchange, following weeks of intense public criticism over the size of his $190 million compensation package. As chairman of the committee that oversaw Grasso's payout, Ken Langone... View Details
- 2010
- Working Paper
Corporate Governance When Founders Are Directors
By: Feng Li and Suraj Srinivasan
We examine CEO compensation, CEO retention policies, and M&A decisions in firms where founders serve as a director with a non-founder CEO (founder-director firms). We find that founder-director firms offer a different mix of incentives to their CEOs than other firms.... View Details
- July 2010 (Revised December 2010)
- Case
Post-Crisis Compensation at Credit Suisse (A)
By: Clayton S. Rose and Aldo Sesia
On October 20, 2009, Brady Dougan, the CEO of Credit Suisse Group, announced a new compensation plan for the bank. The announcement had followed quickly on the heels of the G-20 meeting the prior month where, in the wake of the financial crisis, the major governments... View Details
- April 2010
- Article
Executive Pay and 'Independent' Compensation Consultants
By: K. J. Murphy and Tatiana Sandino
Executive compensation consultants face potential conflicts of interest that can lead to higher recommended levels of CEO pay, including the desires to "cross-sell" services and to secure "repeat business." We find evidence in both the US and Canada that CEO pay is... View Details
- January 2010 (Revised April 2013)
- Case
Aubrey McClendon's Special Incentive Compensation at Chesapeake Energy (A)
By: Paul Healy, Clayton S. Rose and Aldo Sesia
Aubrey McClendon, founder and CEO of Chesapeake Energy, was, according to Fortune Magazine, the highest paid U.S. CEO in 2008 receiving over $100 million in total compensation. McClendon received this compensation despite a significant drop in the company's stock price... 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
- March 2009
- Article
The Impact of Shareholder Activism on Financial Reporting and Compensation: The Case of Employee Stock Options Expensing
By: F. Ferri and Tatiana Sandino
We examine the economic consequences of more than 150 shareholder proposals to expense employee stock options (ESO) submitted during the proxy seasons of 2003 and 2004, the first case in which the SEC allowed a shareholder vote on an accounting matter. Our results... View Details