Publications

June 2008 (Revised January 2010)
Case

Name Your Price: Compensation Negotiation at Whole Health Management (A)

By: Brian J. Hall, Deepak Malhotra and Nicole Bennett

MBA student Monroe Davies is asked by a potential employer to determine his own compensation package. This case follows Jim Hummer, President and CEO of Whole Health Management and Davies through a unique recruitment process that raises questions of compensation and... View Details

Keywords: Compensation and Benefits; Recruitment; Job Interviews; Negotiation Process; Personal Development and Career; Motivation and Incentives; Value

2010
Chapter

What Is Leadership: The CEO's Role in Large, Complex Organizations

By: Michael E. Porter and Nitin Nohria

What is the role of the CEO in a large, complex enterprise? What makes a CEO effective? At first blush, these questions seem easy to answer. A CEO is the epitome of leadership. He or she exercises ultimate power and is responsible for making the most critical choices... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Leadership; Managerial Roles; Power and Influence

14 Aug 2017
News

Extremely disappointed Trump didn't agree with Frazier

Article

The C-Suite Skills That Matter Most

By: Raffaella Sadun, Joseph B. Fuller, Stephen Hansen and PJ Neal

Landing a job as a CEO today is no longer all about industry expertise and financial savvy. What companies are really seeking are leaders with strong social skills. That’s what the authors discovered after analyzing nearly 7,000 job descriptions for C-suite roles.... View Details

Keywords: C-Suite; Skills; Skills Development; Social Skills; Management Skills; Interpersonal Communication; Talent and Talent Management

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09 Sep 2015
News

Leadership Lessons of the Great Recession: Options for Economic Downturns

February 2000 (Revised December 2000)
Case

Coca-Cola's New Vending Machine (A): Pricing To Capture Value, or Not?

By: Charles King III and Das Narayandas

Chairman and CEO M. Douglas Ivester stumbles when he tells a Brazilian newsmagazine about a new Coke vending machine that can automatically raise prices in hot weather. Reaction around the world is swift and negative. View Details

Keywords: Price; Strategy; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Product Development; Global Range; Public Opinion; Value Creation

January–February 2024
Article

Leaders Must React: A Framework for Responding to Unforeseen Events

By: Nitin Nohria

To be successful, CEOs must articulate a compelling vision, align people around it, and motivate them to execute it. But there’s one thing that can make or break them: how they respond in real time to unforeseen events.

On average, addressing unexpected... View Details

Keywords: Crisis Management; Management Skills; Leadership Style

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02 Aug 2016
News

The Real Reason Uber Is Giving Up in China

March 2000 (Revised November 2000)
Case

IBM Corporation Turnaround

By: Robert D. Austin and Richard L. Nolan

Describes the details of IBM's dramatic corporate turnaround in the early 1990s led by CEO Louis V. Gerstner. Accounts of events are from interviews with IBM executives. Covers the factors that led to the company's decline and actions taken to recover. View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Restructuring; Management Teams; Management Practices and Processes; Leading Change; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Computer Industry; Information Technology Industry

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

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Executive Compensation; Retention; Policy; Motivation and Incentives; Performance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Mergers and Acquisitions; Wages; United States

SSRN

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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

August 2023
Case

Ripple 2023

By: David B. Yoffie, Andy Wu and Sarah von Bargen

This case covers Ripple’s events from 2020–2023. The focus of this case is Ripple’s 2023 victory over the SEC, which sued Ripple in 2020 claiming that they did not register their XRP coins as securities. After Ripple’s victory, CEO Garlinghouse faced numerous... View Details

Keywords: Cryptocurrency; Currency; Lawsuits and Litigation; Business Strategy

November 2022
Case

GE: A New Way Forward?

By: David J. Collis and Haisley Wert

One of the most iconic American companies, General Electric (GE) was founded in 1892 in New York state. Named among the original dozen companies on the Dow Jones index in 1896, it was the list’s most tenacious holdout, maintaining its “blue chip” stock status for over... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; GE; Conglomerate; Conglomerates; Corporate Strategy; Management; History; Leadership; Problems and Challenges; Change Management; Transformation; Strategic Planning; Value Creation; New York (state, US)

June 2017
Case

Maggie Wilderotter: The Evolution of an Executive

By: Boris Groysberg, Sarah L. Abbott and Robin Abrahams

In a career that spanned over 30 years, Maggie Wilderotter served as CEO of two publicly traded companies and served on 32 corporate and 9 association and nonprofit boards of directors. As CEO of Frontier Communications, a U.S. telecom company with over $25 billion in... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Managing People; Networks; Strategy And Leadership; Personal Development and Career; Personal Characteristics; Leadership Style; Social and Collaborative Networks; Gender; Power and Influence; Telecommunications Industry; United States

November 2009 (Revised July 2012)
Case

Board Leadership at Entergy Corporation

By: Jay W. Lorsch and Melissa Barton

Wayne Leonard became CEO of Entergy in 1999. After serving as CEO for close to eight years, the Entergy Board named Leonard Chairman and CEO. View Details

Keywords: Management Teams; Governing and Advisory Boards; Leadership

News

Huge loss for Priceline

Research Summary

Job Market Paper

When to Take the Leap:
The Antecedents and Consequences of Leapfrog CEOs

Much of the prior research on CEO successions focuses on differences between CEOs appointed from within the firm and those appointed from outside;... View Details

February 2005 (Revised March 2005)
Case

The P&G Acquisition of Gillette

By: Jay W. Lorsch and Ashley Robertson

Raises issues about the role of boards of directors in compensating CEOs and, specifically, the rewards granted to CEOs for arranging a change-of-control for their companies. View Details

Keywords: Governing and Advisory Boards; Acquisition; Corporate Governance; Consumer Products Industry; United States