Publications

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26 Jul 2011
First Look

First Look: July 26

supplement:http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/611080-PDF-ENG Marshall & Gordon: Designing an Effective Compensation System (A) Heidi K. Gardner and Kerry HermanHarvard Business School Case 411-038 CEO... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

January 31, 2019
Article

The Backlash to Larry Fink's Letter Shows How Far Business Has to Go on Social Responsibility

By: Mark R. Kramer

Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, the world’s largest investor with $6 trillion under management, evoked heated controversy with his remarks last week that his company would change its hiring and potentially its compensation structure to advance diversity and ensure that... View Details

Keywords: Diversity; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose

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October 2014
Case

Honeywell and the Great Recession (A)

By: Sandra J. Sucher and Susan J. Winterberg

CEO Dave Cote spent six years turning around an ailing Honeywell and in 2008 Cote and his team face a new challenge: how to respond to the Great Recession. Cote does not want to give up the gains he made in transforming and unifying Honeywell. With a fall-off in... View Details

Keywords: Layoffs; Furloughs; Downsizing; Work Sharing; Short Time Work; Recessions; Earnings Forecast; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Cost Management; Executive Compensation; Crisis Management; Financial Crisis; Manufacturing Industry

Research Summary

Overview

By: Tatiana Sandino

In studying management control systems, Professor Sandino aims to understand how different control mechanisms can help lead employees within an organization to achieve common goals. Her work builds on contingency theory by exploring environmental, strategic, and... View Details

2013
Chapter

Who Chooses Board Members?

By: Ali Akyol and Lauren Cohen

We exploit a recent regulation passed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to explore the nomination of board members to US publicly traded firms. In particular, we focus on firms’ use of executive search firms versus allowing internal members (often... View Details

Keywords: Boards; Boards Of Directors; Executive Search Firms; Governance; SEC Regulation; Governing and Advisory Boards; Management Succession; Executive Compensation

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2015
Case

Advanced Leadership Pathways: Mike Critelli and Dossia Service Corporation

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Patricia Bissett Higgins

In 2010, Mark Critelli was a well-seasoned corporate executive who had recently transitioned from being the CEO of a Fortune 500 company to that of a startup called Dossia. As an AL Fellow, he knew that despite believing in Dossia’s mission to empower individuals with... View Details

June 2007 (Revised December 2007)
Case

AFL-CIO: Office of Investment and Home Depot

By: Rakesh Khurana and James Weber

Describes the AFL-CIO: Office of Investments activities in their campaign to improve governance at Home Depot by calling attention to Home Depot CEO Robert Nardelli's compensation package and the company's poor performance. The AFL-CIO Office of Investments advocates... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Executive Compensation; Labor Unions; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business and Shareholder Relations

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

Keywords: Recruitment; Management; Corporate Governance; Performance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Executive Compensation; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Prejudice and Bias

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September 2020 (Revised November 2020)
Case

PDS: Ring-Fencing the Ranch

By: Dennis Campbell, Tarun Khanna and Kerry Herman

Pallak Seth, Group CEO of PDS Multinational Fashions, is contemplating options to bring better collaboration across his global apparel supply chain platform. PDS, a group of 50-plus subsidiary companies, each led by its own CEO and with different apparel industry... View Details

Keywords: Collaboration; Supply Chain Management; Performance; Partners and Partnerships; Employee Stock Ownership Plan; Apparel and Accessories Industry

August 2006 (Revised September 2008)
Case

Duane Morris: Balancing Growth and Culture at a Law Firm

By: Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams

After nearly 100 years as a mid-size regional law firm, Duane Morris entered a period of spectacular growth led by CEO Sheldon Bonovitz. Originally founded by Quakers, the firm had a distinct organizational culture featuring a number of unique or unusual business... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Culture; Competitive Advantage; San Francisco

03 Apr 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, April 3, 2018

Download working paper: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=52552 Harvard Business School Case 918-036 GiveDirectly How should nonprofits design compensation systems to attract and retain talent? GiveDirectly is a respected... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

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

Keywords: Restructuring; Financial Management; Investment; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Ownership Stake; Business and Shareholder Relations; Corporate Strategy

January 2009
Supplement

KPMG (B): Risk and Reform

By: Robert G. Eccles and Eliot Sherman

Under the leadership of Tim Flynn, Chairman and CEO of KPMG, the firm made a number of changes in compensation, governance, and culture in order to address the underlying reasons for actions that occurred prior to him becoming CEO that led to the accounting giant... View Details

Keywords: Communication Strategy; Ethics; Corporate Governance; Governance Compliance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Governing and Advisory Boards; Compensation and Benefits; Employee Relationship Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation

25 Oct 2011
First Look

First Look: October 25

Almost all CEO and executive bonus plans have serious design flaws that limit their benefits dramatically. Such poorly designed executive bonus plans destroy value by providing incentives to manipulate the timing of earnings, mislead the... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

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

SSRN

January 2020 (Revised December 2024)
Case

Governing PG&E

By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz

The five commissioners of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) listened intently at a public forum in April 2019 as PG&E Corporation’s out-going chairman Richard Kelly described the company’s proposed new board. PG&E, which provided electricity and natural... View Details