Corporate Performance - Publications - Faculty & Research

October 2024
Supplement

Hakluyt: from Corporate Intelligence to Trusted Advisors (B)

This case is a continuation of an earlier study chronicling Hakluyt & Company (Hakluyt)’s transformation from an obscure boutique to a global corporate advisory firm with an outsized reputation. In August 2024, the firm faced a pivotal moment as managing partner Varun... View Details

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June 2005 (Revised January 2008)
Case

Corey Robinson at Sprint Corporation (A)

By: Linda A. Hill, Anthony Mayo and Lisa Pode

Corey Robinson is promoted to a new position at Sprint during a time of much internal change within the company. Asks readers to consider how he sets the tone to his new management team and how effective he is in building credibility in his new leadership role. A... View Details

Keywords: Leadership Style; Management Skills; Management Teams; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Performance Effectiveness; Personal Development and Career; Power and Influence; Telecommunications Industry

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17 Jan 2018
Research & Ideas

If the CEO’s High Salary Isn't Justified to Employees, Firm Performance May Suffer

“When both occur—the CEO is overpaid and the employee is underpaid—that’s when you really see the firm performance suffer,” Rouen says. These firms can feel the backlash in a variety of ways: They may suffer weak View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

January 1998
Case

Connecticut Spring and Stamping Corporation (B)

By: H. Kent Bowen, Massimo Russo and Steven J. Spear

Connecticut Spring and Stamping Corp. (CSSC), a 50-year-old spring manufacturing and metal stamping firm, is experiencing slow sales growth and feeling the impact of global competition. The company has over 800 customers but little understanding of those customers'... View Details

Keywords: Globalization; Competency and Skills; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Production; Customer Relationship Management; Quality; Training; Performance Efficiency; Cost Management; Sales; System

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20 Jan 2003
Research & Ideas

Fixing Corporate Governance: A Roundtable Discussion at Harvard Business School

economy. There was a cycle of greed throughout the system, and boards, for their part, allowed it to go unchecked.— Jay Lorsch Koehn: Board performance and the culture of organizations as factors affecting a firm's integrity have been... View Details

Keywords: by Garry Emmons

2017
Other Article

Designing an Agile Software Portfolio Architecture: The Impact of Coupling on Performance

By: Alan MacCormack and Robert Lagerstrom

The modern industrial corporation encompasses a myriad of different software applications, each of which must work in concert to deliver functionality to end-users. However, the increasingly complex and dynamic nature of competition in today’s product-markets dictates... View Details

Keywords: Applications and Software; Design; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Performance Effectiveness

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February 2012
Case

Henkel: Building a Winning Culture

By: Robert Simons and Natalie Kindred

This case illustrates a CEO-led organizational transformation driven by stretch goals, performance measurement, and accountability. When Kasper Rorsted became CEO of Henkel, a Germany-based producer of personal care, laundry, and adhesives products, in 2008, he was... View Details

Keywords: Performance Measurement; Performance Appraisals; Human Resource Management; Values; Organizational Transformations; Pay For Performance; Strategy Execution; Values and Beliefs; Work-Life Balance; Organizational Culture; Human Resources; Performance Evaluation; Compensation and Benefits

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17 May 2004
Research & Ideas

Why We Don’t Study Corporate Responsibility

purpose to orient a company's activities, lend strategic direction, distinguish the company's activities and position, and infuse meaning and motivation into the efforts and activities of employees. Fourth, the purpose of the corporation... View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls

September 2012 (Revised November 2012)
Case

Integrated Reporting in South Africa

This case presents a 20-year history of the evolution of corporate governance and corporate reporting in South Africa starting in 1992 with a focus on the three King codes of corporate governance (King I in 1994, King II in 2000, and King III in 2009). From a reporting... View Details

Keywords: Integrated Reporting; Sustainability Reporting; Stock Exchanges; South Africa; Corporate Reporting; Regulation; Nonfinancial Performance; History; Corporate Disclosure; Markets; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Performance; Corporate Governance; South Africa

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2012
Chapter

Capturing the Link between Non-financial and Financial Performance in One Space

By: Robert G. Eccles, Jess Schulschenk and George Serafeim

Keywords: Integrated Reporting; Sustainability; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Performance

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March 1999
Case

Australia's Telstra Corporation (A): Going Public

By: W. Earl Sasser, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Cate Reavis

Frank Blount is named CEO of Telstra, Australia's state-owned telecommunications giant. In preparation for its 1997 IPO, he must reorganize the company from an inefficient public entity into a lean, customer-driven organization. View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Initial Public Offering; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Customer Focus and Relationships; State Ownership; Performance Effectiveness; Privatization; Telecommunications Industry; Australia

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June 2012
Article

A Reexamination of Tunneling and Business Groups: New Data and New Methods

By: Jordan I. Siegel and Prithwiraj Choudhury

One of the most rigorous methodologies in the corporate governance literature uses firms' reactions to industry shocks to characterize the quality of governance. This methodology can produce the wrong answer unless one considers the ways firms compete. Because... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Mergers And Acquisitions; Business Economics; Firm Organization; Firm Performance; Groups and Teams; Analytics and Data Science

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May 2013
Case

Transport Corporation of India (A): The Cross-selling Conundrum

By: V.G. Narayanan and Saloni Chaturvedi

Transport Corporation of India was a logistics company that provided multi-modal transport solutions to its customers. Set up in 1958, TCI had grown from a 'one man, one truck, one office' set-up to a company with revenues of $400 million in half a century. TCI's... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Business Divisions; Performance; Sales; Transportation Industry; India

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March 1996
Article

Does it Pay to be Green? An Empirical Examination of the Relationship Between Emission Reduction and Firm Performance

By: Stuart L. Hart and Gautam Ahuja

Evidence can be marshalled to support either the view that pollution abatement is a cost burden on firms and is detrimental to competitiveness, or that reducing emissions increases efficiency and saves money, giving firms a cost advantage. In an effort to resolve this... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Advantage; Performance Efficiency; Environmental Sustainability; Business Strategy

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10 Jun 2015
Research & Ideas

The Transparency Revolution in Corporate Reporting

inclusive capitalism. Below, he describes how such standardized reporting could empower both companies and investors, and how it could revolutionize business practices in the future. Christian Camerota: What prompted you to study the impact of ESG investments? George... View Details

Keywords: Re: George Serafeim

11 Aug 2017
Working Paper Summaries

Rethinking Measurement of Pay Disparity and Its Relation to Firm Performance

Keywords: by Ethan Rouen

Article

Selecting the Right Growth Metrics: Fewer but Better

By: Leonard A. Schlesinger

Keywords: Supply Chains; Big Data; Corporations; Franchising; Performance Metrics; Analytics and Data Science

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October 14, 2019
Article

A Guide to the Big Ideas and Debates in Corporate Governance

By: Lynn S. Paine and Suraj Srinivasan

How corporations govern themselves has become a matter of broad public interest in recent decades. Amid this many commentators and experts still disagree on such basic matters as the purpose of the corporation, the role of corporate boards of directors, the rights of... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Mission and Purpose; Governing and Advisory Boards; Business and Shareholder Relations; Performance; Measurement and Metrics

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06 Nov 2000
Research & Ideas

The Determinants of Corporate Venture Capital Success

Corporate-sponsored venture funds first appeared in the 1960s, about two decades after the first flowering of the venture capital industry. Ever since, they have mirrored the cyclic nature of the industry as a whole. But there are important differences, write Gompers... View Details

Keywords: by Paul Gompers & Josh Lerner