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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

2016
Working Paper

Shareholder Activism on Sustainability Issues

By: Jody Grewal, George Serafeim and Aaron Yoon

Shareholder activism on sustainability issues has become increasingly prevalent over the years, with the number of proposals filed doubling from 1999 to 2013. We use recent innovations in accounting standard setting to classify 2,665 shareholder proposals that address... View Details

Keywords: Sustainability; Activism; Activist Investors; Activist Shareholder; Corporate Social Responsibility; Environment; Corporate Performance; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Performance; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Governance; Business and Shareholder Relations; Investment Activism

2022
Article

Which Corporate ESG News Does the Market React To?

By: George Serafeim and Aaron Yoon

Using a dataset that classifies firm-level ESG news as positive and negative, we examine how stock prices react to different types of ESG news. We analyze 111,020 firm-day observations for 3,126 companies and find that prices react only to issues identified as... View Details

Keywords: ESG; ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance; ESG Ratings; Social Capital; Environment; Sustainability; CSR; Stock Price; Stock Market Expectations; Materiality; Market Reaction; Environmental Sustainability; Governance; Social Issues; Performance; News

To be competitive, companies must grow innovative new businesses. Corporate entrepreneurship, however, isn't easy. New ventures face innumerable barriers and seldom mesh smoothly with well-established systems, processes, and cultures. Nonetheless, success requires a... View Details

January 1994 (Revised May 1996)
Background Note

Leading for Integrity: Corporate Purpose and Responsibility

By: Lynn S. Paine

Outlines several differing conceptions of corporate purpose and responsibility that emerged in the 1970s and 1980s. View Details

Keywords: Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Performance Evaluation; Corporate Strategy

Educators

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22 Jan 2019
Working Paper Summaries

Corporate Sustainability: A Strategy?

Keywords: by Ioannis Ioannou and George Serafeim

2010
Working Paper

Corporate Governance and Internal Capital Markets

We exploit an exogenous shock to corporate ownership structures created by a recent tax reform in Germany to explore the link between corporate governance and internal capital markets. We find that firms with more concentrated ownership are less diversified and have... View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Capital Markets; Corporate Governance; Taxation; Ownership; Performance Efficiency; Diversification; Germany

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05 Jul 2006
Working Paper Summaries

Improving Corporate Governance with the Balanced Scorecard

Keywords: by Robert S. Kaplan & Michael E. Nagel

August 2012
Supplement

William Jeffrey: Performance at Bay Colony (B)

By: Lena G. Goldberg

The decision-making process, policies and procedures, and legal obligations of the Board, the company's inside counsel and the company's outside counsel are explored in connection with on-boarding, investigating alleged misconduct of, and terminating a company's CEO,... View Details

Keywords: Leadership And Managing People; Employment Law; Business or Company Management; Law; Leadership; Governing and Advisory Boards; Employment; Corporate Governance; Financial Services Industry; Massachusetts

18 Apr 2012
News

Good corporate citizenship can pay off

November 1992 (Revised May 1993)
Case

American Mobile Satellite Corporation

By: Frank V. Cespedes and Laura Goode

American Mobile Satellite Corp. (AMSC) has a license to provide wireless mobile communications via satellite throughout the United States and 200 miles of coastal waters. The first satellite launch is scheduled for 1994 and, in the interim, AMSC is providing limited... View Details

Keywords: Wireless Technology; Decisions; Distribution Channels; Marketing Strategy; Product Development; Sales; Emerging Markets; Resource Allocation; Performance Capacity; Communications Industry; Information Technology Industry; United States

22 Jul 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Corporate Social Responsibility and Access to Finance

Keywords: by Beiting Cheng, Ioannis Ioannou & George Serafeim

02 Feb 2004
Research & Ideas

Mapping Your Corporate Strategy

Since the 1990s, the Balanced Scorecard system has cut a path in business as a more rigorous way to measure performance by quantifying what had been considered intangible assets, such as human capital, information, and culture. The system... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

Article

Credit and Punishment: Are Corporate Bankers Disciplined for Risk-Taking?

By: Janet Gao, Kristoph Kleiner and Joseph Pacelli

We examine whether bankers face disciplining consequences for structuring poorly performing corporate loans. We construct a novel data set containing the employment histories and loan portfolios of a large sample of corporate bankers and find that corporate credit... View Details

Keywords: Syndicated Loans; Credit Events; Career Outcomes; Loan Officers; Banks and Banking; Financing and Loans; Risk Management; Corporate Finance; Personal Development and Career

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September – October 2011
Article

The Rise and Consequences of Corporate Sustainability Reporting

By: Ioannis Ioannou and George Serafeim

For many decades the cornerstone of corporate reporting has been financial information that is presented in a company's annual, semi-annual, and quarterly reports. These comprehensive financial reports—required by law for public companies in most countries... View Details

Keywords: Sustainability; ESG Reporting; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Annual Reports; Operations; Strategy; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Performance; Business Model; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Corporate Disclosure

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16 Apr 2012
Research & Ideas

The Inner Workings of Corporate Headquarters

portfolio," says Stuart. "All that is premised on the coordinating role of the corporate headquarters and corporate staff positions." The key word is theoretically. As Stuart explains, there... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

01 Aug 2016
Research & Ideas

Retail Execs Underplay Current Performance to Investors--but Why?

Business School finance professor Kenneth A. Froot in the April working paper What Do Measures of Real-Time Corporate Sales Tell Us about Earnings Surprises and Post-Announcement Returns? “It’s startling to find that managers are not even... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Financial Services

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

Keywords: Business Startups; Governing and Advisory Boards; Executive Compensation; Retention; Managerial Roles; United States