Publications

Educators

March 2024 (Revised February 2025)
Case

Doing Business in Buenos Aires, Argentina

By: Joseph B. Fuller, Alan D. MacCormack, Nori Gerardo Lietz, Leonard A. Schlesinger, Karina Souza and Zeke Gillman

This case examines the challenges and opportunities of doing business in Argentina. It highlights Argentina's economic and political transformation in the decades leading up to 2024. The case gives an overview of some of the main obstacles faced by businesses operating... View Details

Keywords: Business History; Business and Government Relations; Corporate Strategy; Transformation; Economy; Air Transportation; Air Transportation Industry; Transportation Industry; Argentina; Latin America; Buenos Aires

Educators

Keywords: Education and Retail

05 Jul 2022
Op-Ed

Hear Me Out: Introverts Can Be Loud and You Might Like Microsoft Teams

efforts, so adding Teams management to that regime is also one-stop shopping. In my information governance consulting practice, I adopted Zoom as the pandemic hit (moving away from older products like WebEx and GoToMeeting), but quickly... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

05 Jul 2023
HBS Case

What Kind of Leader Are You? How Three Action Orientations Can Help You Meet the Moment

Because change is the only constant, leadership is never one-size-fits-all. Different challenges require different leadership styles. A recent note from Harvard Business School suggests that an organization’s success rides on the ability... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand

April 22, 2021
Article

Shareholders Are Pressing for Climate Risk Disclosures. That's Good for Everyone

By: Caroline Flammer, Michael W. Toffel and Kala Viswanathan

Does shareholder activism induce firms to voluntarily disclose climate change risks? And how do markets respond to these disclosures? New research finds that the extent of climate-risk disclosure increases by approximately 4.6% for each environment-related proposal... View Details

Keywords: Reporting; Transparency; Activism; Shareholder Activism; Shareholder Engagement; Climate Change; Corporate Disclosure; Investment Activism; Business and Shareholder Relations

Register to Read

November 7, 2019
Article

WeWork’s Saga Is a Cautionary Tale about Golden Parachutes and CEO Pay

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter

While the WeWork saga has dealt another blow to already-low public confidence in business, it should also strengthen cries for fundamental changes to a system that offers supersized compensation for undersized performance. View Details

Keywords: Executive Compensation; Change; Compensation and Benefits; Corporate Accountability; Initial Public Offering

Guhan Subramanian is the Joseph Flom Professor of Law and Business at the Harvard Law School and the Douglas Weaver Professor of Business Law at the Harvard Business School. He is the first person in the history of Harvard... View Details

November 2008
Case

Malaysia Airlines (A)

In the first six weeks on the job, the new CEO of Malaysia Airlines (MAS) has developed an ambitious turnaround plan, including aggressive job cuts and route eliminations, but MAS's largest shareholder, Khazanah Nacional, the sovereign wealth fund, is tasked with... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Economic Growth; Investment Funds; Sovereign Finance; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business and Government Relations; Business and Shareholder Relations; Air Transportation Industry; Malaysia

13 Apr 2015
News

Former SBA Chief: The Post-Recession Future Is Bright for Entrepreneurs

April 2011
Article

Institutional Tax Clienteles and Payout Policy

By: Mihir Desai and Li Jin

This paper employs heterogeneity in institutional shareholder tax characteristics to identify the relation between firm payout policy and tax incentives. Analysis of a panel of firms matched with the tax characteristics of the clients of their institutional... View Details

Keywords: Institutional Investors; Clienteles; Payout Policy; Private Equity; Investment; Taxation; Ownership Stake; Business and Shareholder Relations

March 2012
Article

The Incentive Bubble

By: Mihir Desai

The past three decades have seen American capitalism quietly transformed by a single, powerful idea—that financial markets are a suitable tool for measuring performance and structuring compensation. Stock instruments for managers, high-powered incentive contracts for... View Details

Keywords: Economic Systems; Financial Markets; Executive Compensation; Motivation and Incentives; Corporate Governance; Equality and Inequality; Human Capital; United States

Web

Placement - Doctoral

Nam Marketing, 2024 Placement: Ohio State University, Max M. Fisher College of Business, Department of Marketing and Logistics Dissertation: Communicating with consumers: How firms’ responses to societal change influence consumer behavior... View Details

01 Nov 2019
Video

Jaithirth Rao

Jerry Rao, serial entrepreneur and founder of the India-based Value and Budget Housing Corporation, describes the impact of regulation on the construction industry in India, and the need for further change to enable the building of affordable housing. View Details

2017
Article

True Happiness: The Role of Morality in the Concept of Happiness

By: Jonathan Phillips, Julian De Freitas, Christian Mott, June Gruber and Joshua Knobe

Recent scientific research has settled on a purely descriptive definition of happiness that is focused solely on agents' psychological states (high positive affect, low negative affect, high life satisfaction). In contrast to this understanding, recent research has... View Details

Keywords: Moral Cognition; Happiness; Moral Sensibility; Emotions; Well-being

15 Apr 2016
News

How America Grew

September 1997 (Revised August 2007)
Case

Bankruptcy and Restructuring at Marvel Entertainment Group

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Jason Auerbach

Marvel Entertainment Group is the leading comic book publisher in the United States, with superheros like Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, the X-Men, and Captain America. It is also one of the leading manufacturers of sports and entertainment trading cards under the... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Decision Choices and Conditions; Borrowing and Debt; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Governance Controls; Courts and Trials; Planning; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

Educators

2016
Working Paper

Managing Reputation: Evidence from Biographies of Corporate Directors

By: Ian D. Gow, Aida Sijamic Wahid and Gwen Yu

We examine how corporate directors manage reputation through disclosure choices in biographies in proxy statements filed with the SEC. Directors are more likely to withhold information about directorships at firms that experienced adverse events. Withholding such... View Details

Keywords: Director Monitoring; Strategic Disclosure; Management; Corporate Disclosure; Reputation

SSRN

07 Feb 2022
Research & Ideas

Digital Transformation: A New Roadmap for Success

challenges these leaders confronted and strategies for how to address them. Organizational change is never easy, but our roundtable discussions made clear that achieving digital maturity can be an especially arduous journey, even for... View Details

Keywords: by Linda A. Hill, Ann Le Cam, Sunand Menon, and Emily Tedards

September 2023
Teaching Note

Patagonia: 'Earth Is Now Our Only Shareholder'

By: Brian Trelstad, Nien-hê Hsieh, Michael Norris and Susan Pinckney

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 323-057. Patagonia’s change of ownership from a privately held company to a perpetual purpose trust and 501(c)(4) nonprofit in order to use the company’s profit to fight the environmental crisis and be a model for future businesses. View Details