Publications

11 Apr 2023
Op-Ed

The First 90 Hours: What New CEOs Should—and Shouldn't—Do to Set the Right Tone

for a strategic plan, not a detailed document engraved in stone, but a clear sense of strategic direction and vision that will have excited them sufficiently to warrant entrusting you with the CEO role. Once you start implementing... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch

09 Aug 2021
Research & Ideas

OneTen: Creating a New Pathway for Black Talent

Americans launch careers in the next 10 years by “cultivating a comprehensive system that focuses on skills first and enables greater opportunities for earned success.” The hope is that this approach will lift up high-potential Black... View Details

Keywords: by Rawi E. Abdelal, Katherine Connolly Baden, and Boris Groysberg

09 May 2000
Research & Ideas

Stock Options Are Not All Created Equal

plans provide very different incentives and entail different risks. Fixed Value Plans. With fixed value plans, executives receive options of a predetermined value every year over the life of the plan. A company's board may, for example, stipulate that the View Details

Keywords: by Brian Hall

21 Aug 2019
Research & Ideas

What Machine Learning Teaches Us about CEO Leadership Style

positive, but a negative facial expression may create the opposite meaning,” says Choudhury. Finding CEOs to test But where could the researchers find enough CEOs to conduct... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

17 Jul 2017
Op-Ed

Op-Ed: As America Recedes from Global Leadership, Its CEOs are Stepping Up

As America recedes from global leadership under President Donald Trump’s “America First” policies, a new generation of business statesmen is stepping up to take on global issues of monumental importance: global trade, climate change, job creation, and healthy living.... View Details

Keywords: by Bill George

September 2019
Case

Sonia Millar: Negotiating for the C-Suite

By: Joshua D. Margolis and Anne Donnellon

This case addresses the nuances of gender dynamics and career progression at the top of the organization, where even women who have strong leadership expertise, experience, and alliances with powerful male colleagues still get stuck. Told from the point of view of... View Details

Keywords: Executives; CEO; Promotion; Gender Bias; Personal Development and Career; Gender; Diversity; Power and Influence

November 2012 (Revised September 2013)
Case

Learning Resources: A Hands-On Toy Company Deals with New Challenges and Opportunities

By: Boris Groysberg and Anahita Hashemi

Learning Resources is a family-owned educational toy company that, by late 2011, was facing a myriad of challenges, including increased competition, entry into new markets, new distribution methods, rising costs of production in China, and changing customer behavior.... View Details

Keywords: Leading Teams; Strategy Formulation; Strategy And Execution; Innovation; Corporate Culture; Industry Analysis; Organizational Alignment; Entrepreneurs; Sales Channels; Leadership; Strategy; Change Management; Innovation Leadership; Family Business; Entrepreneurship; Product Design; Sales; Retail Industry; United States

21 Oct 2022
Research & Ideas

People Trust Business, But Expect CEOs to Drive Social Change

Public trust in business remains relatively unshaken amid economic turbulence and a lingering pandemic, even as faith in the media and government falters, but leaders could do more to address social issues, a new global opinion survey shows. However, not everyone... View Details

Keywords: by Scott Van Voorhis

01 Feb 2016
Research & Ideas

CEOs and Coaches: How Important is Organizational 'Fit?'

enough? Do companies often try to fit square pegs in round holes when they hire exceptional managers? Does finding a “good fit” matter and does a “good fit” create value for a team or a company? Research has shown, quantitatively, that... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg & Abhijit Naik; Sports

01 Aug 2012
What Do You Think?

Should CEOs Worry About ‘Too Big to Succeed?’

Summing Up Is There a "Right Size" for a Company? This month's question of whether "too big to succeed" should be a larger worry of CEOs than "too big to fail" as usual produced more questions than answers... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Manufacturing; Financial Services

20 May 2019
Research & Ideas

Activist CEOs Are Rising Up—and Their Customers Are Listening

When former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz announced earlier this year he was thinking about running for president of the United States, it wasn’t a new idea. Past CEOs seeking the White House have included Carly Fiorina, Ross Perot, Herman Cain, Steve Forbes, Mitt... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

April 2004
Article

Do CEOs in Mergers Trade Power for Premium? Evidence from 'Mergers of Equals'

By: Julie Wulf

I analyze chief executive officer (CEO) incentives to negotiate shared control in the postmerger governance of the surviving firm. In order to do this, I study abnormal returns in a sample of "mergers of equals" (MOEs) transactions in which the two firms are... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Negotiation; Governance Controls; Power and Influence; Value Creation; Business and Shareholder Relations; Governing and Advisory Boards; Motivation and Incentives; Market Transactions

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02 Oct 2019
What Do You Think?

What Grade Would You Give Walmart CEO Doug McMillon?

here. Within the past few weeks, a decision by Doug McMillon, CEO of Walmart (and, by implication, the Walmart board), has given us an opportunity to judge the Roundtable’s new criteria. (Worth... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Retail

09 Aug 2013
Research & Ideas

Read All About It: Digital CEO Buys Traditional Media!

has been considerable speculation about Bezos's personal objectives in acquiring the Post. More influence in Washington? A philanthropic interest? Or a friendship with Don Graham? No one really knows. What we do know is that it's an unlikely business marriage. Digital... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Aisner; Journalism & News; Publishing

18 Jun 2014
Research & Ideas

Leading Innovation is the Art of Creating ‘Collective Genius’

As Harvard Business School Professor Linda A. Hill began to dig into the scholarship around leadership and innovation, she soon realized there was a lot of research on both. What she didn't find, however, was work linking the two. Specifically, what is the role of the... View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard

2014
Working Paper

The Contract Year Phenomenon in the Corner Office: An Analysis of Firm Behavior During CEO Contract Renewals

By: Ping Liu and Yuhai Xuan

This paper investigates how executive employment contracts influence corporate financial policies during the final year of the contract term, using a new, hand-collected data set of CEO employment agreements. On the one hand, the impending expiration of fixed-term... View Details

Keywords: Management Style; Contracts; Behavior; Employment

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April 2019
Case

Boxed

By: Laura Huang, Andy Wu and Jiayi Bao

Boxed.com (“Boxed”) is an ambitious e-commerce retailer start-up, founded by visionary CEO Chieh Huang in 2013. From starting in Huang’s garage in 2013, to winning Emerging E-Retailer of the Year in 2016, to having 4 operational distribution centers in 2018, Boxed used... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Management; Business Startups; Leadership; Strategy; Success; E-commerce; Retail Industry