Publications

May – June 1990
Article

Why Sane People Shouldn't Serve on Public Boards

By: William A. Sahlman

Keywords: Governance

September 2013
Case

United Rentals (A)

By: Jay W. Lorsch, Kathleen Durante and Emily McTague

In December 1997 United Rentals (URI) went public on the NYSE. Ten years later, during the peak of the economic meltdown, the company's performance was in decline. United Rentals had experienced its share of problems in the prior years and was still struggling to... View Details

Keywords: Board Of Directors; Board Dynamics; Accounting Fraud; Governance; Board Committees; Merger; Corporate Governance; Construction Industry; United States

04 Jan 2022
What Do You Think?

Firing McDonald’s Easterbrook: What Could the Board Have Done Differently?

a board member, I’ve unfortunately had to confront these issues. The McDonald’s board faced these issues in October 2019. The company’s CEO at the time, Steve Easterbrook, was found to have “engaged in a... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

January–February 1993
Article

Crisis Prevention: How to Gear Up Your Board

By: W. J. Salmon

Keywords: Crisis Management

Article

Board Member: To Be or Not To Be?

By: Blythe J. McGarvie

First Quarter, winter 2006
Article

Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy and Boards of Directors

By: Herman B. Leonard and V. Kasturi Rangan

Keywords: Strategy; Governance

November 29, 2011
Article

The Role of The Board in Creating a Sustainable Strategy

By: Robert G. Eccles, Ioannis Ioannou and George Serafeim

While conceptually elegant, the belief that a corporation's role is to maximize value for shareholders is under increasing challenge as society's expectations for companies change. An equally elegant new concept that takes account of these dual pressures has yet to... View Details

Keywords: Value Creation; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Corporate Strategy; Business and Shareholder Relations; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Performance Expectations; Governing and Advisory Boards; Management Practices and Processes; Decisions; Risk and Uncertainty; Cost vs Benefits; Information

2008
Working Paper

The Small World of Investing: Board Connections and Mutual Fund Returns

By: Lauren Cohen, Andrea Frazzini and Christopher J. Malloy

This paper uses social networks to identify information transfer in security markets. We focus on connections between mutual fund managers and corporate board members via shared education networks. We find that portfolio managers place larger bets on firms they are... View Details

Keywords: Asset Pricing; Investment Portfolio; Governing and Advisory Boards; Knowledge Sharing; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Social and Collaborative Networks; Financial Services Industry

September 2000
Article

The Role of the Board in Corporate Strategy

By: Robert B. Stobaugh and Warren L. Batts

Keywords: Governance; Corporate Strategy

May 2006
Article

The Board of Directors and the Company Lawyers

By: Jay W. Lorsch and John L. Howard

Keywords: Governance; Employees; Law

1999
Chapter

Why Sane People Shouldn't Serve on Public Boards

By: William A. Sahlman

Keywords: Governing and Advisory Boards

March 2023 (Revised April 2023)
Case

Independent Governance of Meta’s Social Spaces: The Oversight Board

By: Jesse M. Shapiro, Natalia Rigol, Benjamin N. Roth and William R. Kerr

Julie Owono is a member of the Oversight Board, an outside entity with the authority to make binding decisions on tricky moderation questions for Meta's companies. She considers the Board's impact, and its future. View Details

Keywords: Business and Government Relations; Social Media; Fairness; Governing and Advisory Boards; Technology Industry; Communications Industry

September 2015 (Revised February 2016)
Case

Novell (A): When an Activist Hedge Fund Came Calling on the Board

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

June 2008 (Revised July 2008)
Case

How Serial Entrepreneurs Build and Manage a Board of Directors in a Venture-Backed Start Up

By: Michael J. Roberts, William A. Sahlman and Sasha Novakovich

This case includes structured interviews with four serial entrepreneurs about the way in which they built and used their boards in each of their companies and what they have learned through that process. These entrepreneurs were asked similar questions, such as "How do... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards

October 2008
Article

The Small World of Investing: Board Connections and Mutual Fund Returns

By: Lauren Cohen, Andrea Frazzini and Christopher J. Malloy

This paper uses social networks to identify information transfer in security markets. We focus on connections between mutual fund managers and corporate board members via shared education networks. We find that portfolio managers place larger bets on firms they are... View Details

Keywords: Financial Markets; Information Management; Social and Collaborative Networks; Announcements; Investment Portfolio; Investment Return; Investment Funds; Asset Pricing; Governing and Advisory Boards

April 2024
Article

An Integrative Model of Hybrid Governance: The Role of Boards in Helping Sustain Organizational Hybridity

By: Anne-Claire Pache, Julie Battilana and Channing Spencer

Hybrid organizations must sustainably attend to multiple goals embedded in different institutional spheres. Past research has highlighted the value for hybrids in recruiting board members representing different logics to avoid attentional drifts; yet, diverse boards... View Details

Keywords: Governing and Advisory Boards; Business or Company Management; Organizational Structure

January 2024 (Revised November 2024)
Technical Note

Legal Analysis: Corporate Governance and the Board of Directors

By: Louis Caldera