Publications

23 Aug 2016
News

7 Charts Show How Political Affiliation Shapes U.S. Boards

August 2003 (Revised January 2004)
Case

Board of Directors at The Coca-Cola Company, The

By: Jay W. Lorsch, Rakesh Khurana and Sonya Sanchez

Provides a history of the board of directors of the Coca-Cola Co. through 2003. Describes the evolution in the board's membership, practices, and structure and the role it played in the company's governance. Questions are raised about the relationship between the board... View Details

Keywords: Governing and Advisory Boards; Corporate Governance; Food and Beverage Industry

June 2002 (Revised January 2010)
Case

Delphi Corporation (A)

By: Jay W. Lorsch, Rakesh Khurana and Sonya Sanchez

The Delphi Corp.'s board of directors faces a transition as lead director Thomas Wyman approaches mandatory retirement. Chairman and CEO J.T. Battenberg reflects on Delphi's history and its successful reinvention by Wyman and Battenberg when it separated from its... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Leadership; Management Succession; Management Teams; Relationships; Corporate Strategy

2000
Book

Report of the NACD Blue Ribbon Commission on the Role of the Board in Corporate Strategy

By: Robert B. Stobaugh

Keywords: Corporate Strategy; Managerial Roles

Find at Harvard

17 Aug 2018
News

Worker Representation on Boards Won’t Work Without Trust

01 Dec 1998
News

New HBS Alumni Board Members

The second in a series of profiles of the twelve new members of the HBSAA Board of Directors. Since 1987, H. Perry Driggs, Jr. (MBA '61), has been president of Great Lakes Capital Corporation in Farmington... View Details

October 2018
Supplement

Zenefits Board of Directors (B)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz

Supplements the (A) case. View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Business Model; Corporate Accountability; Governing and Advisory Boards; Corporate Governance; Crisis Management; Entrepreneurship; Human Resources; Leadership; Risk Management; Venture Capital; Technology Industry; Telecommunications Industry; Information Technology Industry; United States; California

December 1993 (Revised April 2006)
Case

Marriott Corporation (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Charles A. Nichols

Marriott Corp.'s chairman and CEO must decide whether to recommend a restructuring of the company to the board of directors. The proposal he is considering would split the Marriott Corp., a premier hotel developer, owner, and manager, into two separate companies by a... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Restructuring; Governing and Advisory Boards; Decision Making; Ethics; Management Teams; Business and Shareholder Relations; Accommodations Industry

19 Aug 2014
News

Can Political Pressure Save The Market Basket Board From Itself?

01 Feb 1999
News

New HBS Alumni Board Members

The final in a series of profiles of the twelve new members of the HBSAA Board of Directors. Since 1994, New York native Thomas G. Mendell (MBA '74) has been a partner in the principal investments area at The Beacon Group, LLC, in New... View Details

2024
Working Paper

Corporate Culture Homogeneity and Top Executive Incentive Design: Evidence from CEO Compensation Contracts

By: Dennis Campbell, Ruidi Shang and Zhifang Zhang

We examine how corporate cultures characterized by high degrees of homogeneity in the underlying values and beliefs of organizational members are related to the design of CEO incentive compensation contracts. We argue that culture homogeneity within firms lowers... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Culture; Compensation Design; Accounting; Management Control; Incentive Systems; Organizational Culture; Job Design and Levels; Governance; Executive Compensation; Motivation and Incentives

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16 Sep 2015
Op-Ed

The Real Duty of the Board of Directors

We routinely hear board directors, CEOs, and CFOs of publicly-listed corporations refer to shareholders as owners of the corporation. Under this thinking, it is natural to conclude that the board’s duty is... View Details

Keywords: by Robert G. Eccles & Tim Youmans

March 2009 (Revised September 2010)
Case

HOYA Corporation (A)

By: W. Carl Kester and Masako Egawa

In 2007, HOYA of Japan must decide whether to change its friendly exchange offer for Pentax into a hostile cash tender offer. A surprising sequence of events had caused a friendly merger agreement to fall apart, resulting in a boardroom coup at Pentax and the... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Investment Activism; Corporate Governance; Governance Controls; Governing and Advisory Boards; Negotiation Tactics; Business and Shareholder Relations; Valuation; Japan

23 May 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Board Games: Timing of Independent Directors’ Dissent in China

Keywords: by Juan Ma & Tarun Khanna

31 May 2015
News

The trend towards board term limits is based on faulty logic

27 Mar 2013
News

Wells Fargo Investment Unit Paid Board Member’s Son $1.4 Million

August–September 2012
Article

The Future of Boards: Meeting the Governance Challenges of the 21st Century

By: Jay W. Lorsch

Predicting the challenges boards will face in the years ahead requires an understanding of how they and the governance they have provided has evolved in past years, as well as the challenges they face in the years ahead. Since I have been serving on and doing research... View Details

Keywords: Boards Of Directors; Corporate Governance; Governance; Succession; Compensation; Governing and Advisory Boards

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September 2015 (Revised February 2016)
Supplement

Novell (B): Board of Directors Aftermath of Hedge Fund Attack

By: Richard L. Nolan

No corporation and its board of directors is immune to a disruptive shareholder activist attack. The Novell (A) and (B) cases take students through a shareholder activist attack and its aftermath—a saga that spanned 5 years. The cases outline the activist playbook in... View Details

Keywords: Investment Activism; Governing and Advisory Boards; Decision Making