Corporate Governance →
- 22 Jul 2016
- Working Paper Summaries
Who Pays for White-Collar Crime?
Punishments of white-collar crime are systematically related to perpetrator, transaction, and company characteristics. This variation is consistent with executives determining appropriate punishments by an economic analysis of costs and benefits. Even so, senior male executives receive lighter punishments than female peers, for example. These and other variations suggest that not all decisions about punishment are taken with shareholders’ interests in mind: The self-interest of host company executives is also an important consideration.
- 17 Nov 2015
- Lessons from the Classroom
How Activist Investors Became Respectable
Once reviled as villains operating on the fringes of the market, activist investors like Carl Icahn are now powerful forces at work in the mainstream of business, says Professor Joseph Fuller. And their influence is only growing. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 03 Jul 2013
- What Do You Think?
What Are the Limits of Transparency?
Summing Up: What's the proper balance in an organization between transparency and opaqueness? Many of Jim Heskett's readers would err on the side of management forthrightness. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 17 May 2011
- Working Paper Summaries
The Consequences of Mandatory Corporate Sustainability Reporting
The number of firms reporting sustainability information has grown significantly in the past decade, both due to voluntary actions and to mandates from several national governments and stock exchange authorities. In this paper, London Business School's Ioannis Ioannou and Harvard Business School's George Serafeim investigate whether mandatory sustainability reporting has any effect on a company's tendency to engage in socially responsible management practices. Key concepts include: The researchers show that mandatory sustainability reporting effectively promotes socially responsible managerial practices. Overall, supervision of managers by boards of directors improves, bribery and corruption decreases, and credibility of managers in society increases. In companies where sustainability reporting is a requirement, employee training becomes a higher priority, and corporate boards supervise management more effectively. These positive results are more pronounced in countries that have stronger law enforcement, countries where assurance of sustainability data is more frequent, and countries that are generally more developed. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 11 May 2011
- Research & Ideas
Building a Better Board
While corporate board members take their jobs more seriously than ever, they are not necessarily as helpful or effective as they could be, says HBS senior lecturer Stephen Kaufman. He recently sat down with HBS Working Knowledge to discuss what he considers to be the biggest practical issues facing boards today. Key concepts include: Board directors may not give an honest assessment of the company because they fear reprisal from the CEO or the other board members. In accurately evaluating a CEO's performance, board members must get feedback from other employees at the company, who possess insight into day-to-day operations that the directors do not. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 10 Sep 2010
- Working Paper Summaries
The Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility on Investment Recommendations
Security analysts are increasingly awarding more favorable ratings to firms with corporate socially responsible (CSR) strategies, according to this paper by Ioannis Ioannou and HBS professor George Serafeim. Their work explores how CSR strategies can affect value creation in public equity markets through analyst recommendations. Key concepts include: Top executives and managers interested in implementing CSR strategies in their organizations know that negative analysts' reactions, and subsequent value destruction in capital markets is a real possibility when they initially attempt to implement such strategies. Managers should be aware that not only what is communicated matters but also to whom it is communicated in the investment community. Research analysts differ in their ability to understand the implications of CSR. Among theoretical contributions, the research integrates diverse theoretical streams and offers the first empirical piece of evidence about how CSR strategies are perceived as value-creating by an important information intermediary: sell-side analysts. The work also integrates the CSR management literature with a large body of research in accounting and finance, to shed light on aspects of CSR activity for which little is known and much less is being understood; namely, the channels and the mechanisms through which the CSR impact is perceived and realized in public equity markets. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 19 Jan 2010
- Sharpening Your Skills
Sharpening Your Skills: Managing the Economic Crisis
The economic crisis is tapping the inner reserves of experienced leaders and introducing a new generation of managers to crisis management. These previous WK articles explore leadership, the role of the Board, the emotional needs of managers, and the risk to corporate giving programs. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 12 Jul 2004
- Research & Ideas
Enron’s Lessons for Managers
Like the Challenger space shuttle disaster was a learning experience for engineers, so too is the Enron crash for managers, says Harvard Business School professor Malcolm S. Salter. Yet what have we learned? Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 20 Jan 2003
- Research & Ideas
Fixing Corporate Governance: A Roundtable Discussion at Harvard Business School
Bad business practices on a huge scale have made corporate governance Topic A of late. In a roundtable discussion, Harvard Business School professors Krishna Palepu, Jay Lorsch, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Nancy Koehn, Brian Hall, and Paul Healy explore guidelines for change. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 13 May 2002
- Op-Ed
A Cure for Enron-Style Audit Failures
In an opinion piece in the Financial Times, Harvard Business School professor Jay Lorsch argues for legislation to create an independent, self-regulatory organization to oversee accounting firms. Enron, he says, is not an isolated incident. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
Retail Execs Underplay Current Performance to Investors--but Why?
In quarterly earnings calls with investors and analysts, some retail managers may underplay how their companies are actually performing, according to recent research by Kenneth Froot and colleagues. Open for comment; 0 Comments.