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- January 2025
- Case
A Tiger in the Tank: Exxon Sues Investors
By: Clayton S. Rose, Sarah Sasso and James Weber
In June 2024, investors were trying to make sense of ExxonMobil’s (Exxon) lawsuit against two impact investors, Arjuna Capital (Arjuna) and Follow This, that had just been dismissed by the U.S. District Court of Northern Texas. Exxon’s suit challenged the rights of two... View Details
Keywords: Disruption; Talent and Talent Management; Customer Satisfaction; Decision Making; Demographics; Ethics; Corporate Accountability; Employees; Recruitment; Retention; Leadership; Crisis Management; Risk Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Civil Society or Community; Social Issues; Adaptation; Investment Activism; Lawsuits and Litigation; Business and Shareholder Relations; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Health Industry; Energy Industry; United States; Netherlands; Norway
- December 2024
- Article
Proxy Advisory Firms and Corporate Shareholder Engagement
By: Aiyesha Dey, Austin Starkweather and Joshua White
We study how Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) affect firms’ engagement with shareholders. Our analyses exploit a quasi-natural experiment using say-on-pay voting outcomes near a threshold that triggers ISS to review engagement activities. Firms receiving ISS... View Details
- April 2023
- Case
Strive Asset Management
By: Suraj Srinivasan, Lynn S. Paine and Aldo Sesia
Strive Asset Management, which launched in 2022, was actively targeting several leading U.S. companies in the upcoming 2023 proxy voting season to stop acquiescing to those large asset managers and other institutional shareholders who were pressing those companies to... View Details
- March 2023
- Teaching Note
Sustainability Reporting at Dollar Tree, Inc.
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Li-Kuan Ni
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 122-044. The case discusses the ESG strategy of Dollar Tree Inc., a U.S. Fortune 500 company in the deep discount retail industry and the shareholder pressure faced by the company. In 2022, the company faced a shareholder resolution from... View Details
Keywords: ESG; Sustainability; Shareholder Activism; Dollar Tree; Sustainability Reporting; ESG Reporting; Board Of Directors; Shareholder Engagement; GHG; Environmental Accounting; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Trends; Communication; Announcements; Voting; Environmental Management; Climate Change; Environmental Sustainability; Values and Beliefs; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Disclosure; Corporate Governance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Policy; Reports; Business or Company Management; Risk Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Outcome or Result; Strategic Planning; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Situation or Environment; Opportunities; Civil Society or Community; Social Issues; Public Opinion; Strategy; Adaptation; Alignment; Business Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Value Creation; Retail Industry; United States; Virginia
- January 2023
- Teaching Note
The Opioid Settlement and Executive Pay at AmerisourceBergen
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Li-Kuan Ni
Teaching Note for HBS Case No 122-014. In 2020, AmerisourceBergen Corporation, a Fortune 50 company in the drug distribution industry, agreed to settle thousands of lawsuits filed nationwide against the company for its opioid distribution practices that critics alleged... View Details
Keywords: Opioids; Shareholder Activism; Investment Activism; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance; Governance Compliance; Governance Controls; Executive Compensation; Risk Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Distribution Industry; Health Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States; West Virginia; Tennessee; Ohio; Pennsylvania
- June 2022 (Revised August 2022)
- Case
Sustainability Reporting at Dollar Tree, Inc.
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Li-Kuan Ni
The cases discusses the ESG strategy of Dollar Tree Inc., a U.S. Fortune 500 company in the deep discount retail industry and the and shareholder pressure faced by the company. In 2022, the company faced a shareholder resolution from a renowned shareholder advocacy... View Details
Keywords: ESG; Sustainability; Shareholder Activism; Dollar Tree; Sustainability Reporting; ESG Reporting; Board Of Directors; Shareholder Engagement; GHG; Environmental Accounting; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Trends; Communication; Announcements; Voting; Environmental Management; Climate Change; Environmental Sustainability; Values and Beliefs; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Disclosure; Corporate Governance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Policy; Reports; Business or Company Management; Risk Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Outcome or Result; Strategic Planning; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Situation or Environment; Opportunities; Civil Society or Community; Social Issues; Public Opinion; Strategy; Adaptation; Alignment; Business Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Value Creation; Retail Industry; United States; Virginia
- January 2022 (Revised February 2022)
- Case
Introducing EVA at ISS: A Better Way to Evaluate CEO Performance and Compensation?
By: Jonas Heese, Charles C.Y. Wang and James Weber
In early 2019, Anthony Campagna, the global director of fundamental research at ISS EVA, a unit of the proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), was preparing to release ISS's analyses of public company performance and CEO compensation ahead of Say... View Details
- October 2021 (Revised May 2023)
- Case
Engine No. 1: An Impact Investing Firm Engages with ExxonMobil
By: Mark Kramer, Shawn Cole, Vikram S. Gandhi and T. Robert Zochowski
ExxonMobil, the world's fifth largest source of carbon emissions, remained committed to aggressively expanding its oil & gas business despite global warming. During the COVID pandemic this strategy resulted in massive losses as the price and demand for oil declined. ... View Details
- October 2021 (Revised October 2022)
- Case
The Opioid Settlement and Controversy Over CEO Pay at AmerisourceBergen
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Li-Kuan Ni
In 2020, AmerisourceBergen Corporation, a Fortune 50 company in the drug distribution industry, agreed to settle thousands of lawsuits filed nationwide against the company for its opioid distribution practices that critics alleged had contributed to the nationwide... View Details
Keywords: Opioids; Drug; Investors; Shareholder Activism; Investment Activism; Executive Compensation; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance; Governance Compliance; Governance Controls; Risk Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Legal Liability; Distribution Industry; Health Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States; West Virginia; Tennessee; Ohio; Pennsylvania
- August 2021
- Case
Danone S.A.: Becoming a Mission-Driven Company (A)
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Emilie Billaud
Emmanuel Faber became CEO of Danone SA, the French food and beverage company, in 2014. Right from the start, he ran the company with a dual commitment to both profit and purpose (i.e., ESG objectives). In fact, in 2018, he said, “It’s time to make sustainable business... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
Proxy Advisory Firms and Corporate Shareholder Engagement
By: Aiyesha Dey, Joshua White and Austin Starkweather
We examine the influence of proxy advisors on firms’ shareholder engagement behavior. Our analyses exploit a quasi-natural experiment using Say-On-Pay voting outcomes near a threshold that triggers a review of engagement activities by Institutional Shareholder Services... View Details
- July 2020 (Revised March 2021)
- Case
Board Diversity at Amazon (A)
By: Aiyesha Dey and Anu Atluru
The case revolves around the decisions that the board of directors of ecommerce giant Amazon would need to make in response to the controversial letter that activist shareholder CtW investment group sent to Amazon’s shareholders, urging them to vote in favor of a... View Details
Keywords: Board Of Directors; Boards; Governing and Advisory Boards; Diversity; Gender; Race; United States
- February 2020 (Revised June 2020)
- Case
Shaping the Governance Debate at ISS
By: Suraj Srinivasan, Jonah S. Goldberg and Calvin O. Liou
ISS is the world’s largest provider of corporate governance research, data, analytics, and voting services. The case uses the effort of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to impose an array of new regulations that would severely restrict the functioning of... View Details
- January 2020
- Article
Compensation Consultants and the Level, Composition, and Complexity of CEO Pay
By: Kevin J. Murphy and Tatiana Sandino
We provide fresh evidence regarding the relation between compensation consultants and CEO pay. First, firms that employ consultants have higher-paid CEOs—this result is robust to firm fixed effects and matching on economic and governance variables. Second, while this... View Details
- 2019
- Working Paper
Stewardship Codes and Shareholder Voting on Disputed Ballot Measures
By: Trang T. Nguyen and Charles CY Wang
This study examines the impact of stewardship codes on investor voting behavior in disputed ballot measures-- where ISS's recommendation differs from management's recommendation-- across nine countries. U.S. institutional investors' voting behavior in adopting country... View Details
- 2020
- Working Paper
Are ISS Recommendations Informative? Evidence from Assessments of Compensation Practices
By: Ana Albuquerque, Mary Ellen Carter and Susanna Gallani
Using detailed information from the largest proxy advisor in the U.S., Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), we examine whether proxy advisors’ assessments of firms’ compensation practices are able to identify poor compensation practices as measured by subsequent... View Details
- November 2018 (Revised July 2023)
- Case
The Weir Group: Reforming Executive Pay (A)
By: Lynn S. Paine and Federica Gabrieli
In February 2018, the Remuneration Committee together with the full Board of Directors of the Scotland-based engineering company The Weir Group had to decide whether to seek a shareholder vote at the upcoming Annual General Meeting in April on a proposal to reform the... View Details
Keywords: General Management; Board Of Directors; Executive Committees; Human Resource Management; Compensation; Pay For Performance; Incentives; Bonuses; Incentive Programs; Employee Stock Ownership Plans; Performance Measurement; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Human Resources; Management; Executive Compensation; Change; Performance Evaluation; Employee Stock Ownership Plan; Europe; United Kingdom; Scotland
- October 2018
- Case
The Proxy Fight at ADP
By: Robin Greenwood and E. Scott Mayfield
In July 2017, shares of Automatic Data Processing, Inc. (ADP) surged 12% following a report that the activist investor Bill Ackman had acquired a sizable stake in the company and planned to nominate his own slate of directors at the company’s annual meeting in... View Details
- April 2018 (Revised June 2020)
- Case
Tesla's CEO Compensation Plan
By: Krishna G. Palepu and Sarah Mehta
Tesla’s board of directors proposed an unusual compensation plan for the company’s CEO Elon Musk. The plan payouts were entirely contingent on achieving very ambitious market value, sales, and EBIT targets over the next ten years. If all the targets were achieved,... View Details
- March 2018 (Revised January 2021)
- Case
China Vanke: Battle for Control (A)
By: Lynn S. Paine, Charles C.Y. Wang, Dawn H. Lau and Anthony K. Woo
In June 2016, the board of China Vanke, one of China’s largest and best-known private residential real estate developers, must vote on a proposed acquisition that is opposed by its largest shareholders, state-owned China Resources Co. and the lesser-known property... View Details