RJR Nabisco Board: Guardians of the Gate? (B)

Jay W. Lorsch

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Supplement | HBS Case Collection | April 1991 (Revised July 1991)

RJR Nabisco Board: Guardians of the Gate? (B)

by Jay W. Lorsch

Abstract

The special committee of the RJR Nabisco board has extended the bidding deadline for the company by 10 days. The case explains the process by which Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and the management group bid against one another for ownership of RJR Nabisco. The board of directors is left with a decision: who has submitted the best bid?

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Situation or Environment; Bids and Bidding; Decision Making; Managerial Roles; Governing and Advisory Boards; Management Teams; Consumer Products Industry; Food and Beverage Industry;

Format: Print

4 pages

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Citation:

Lorsch, Jay W. "RJR Nabisco Board: Guardians of the Gate? (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 491-121, April 1991. (Revised July 1991.)

About the Author

Jay W. Lorsch

Louis E. Kirstein Professor of Human Relations

Organizational Behavior

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Case | HBS Case Collection | March 2018

A Nonprofit Board in Transition at Farrington Nature Linc

Jay Lorsch and Emily Irving

Citation:
Lorsch, Jay, and Emily Irving. "A Nonprofit Board in Transition at Farrington Nature Linc." Harvard Business School Case 418-066, March 2018. View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | June 2017 (Revised October 2017)

Uber in 2017: One Bumpy Ride

Suraj Srinivasan, Jay W. Lorsch and Quinn Pitcher

Uber Technologies Inc., the popular ride-hailing company, entered 2017 having doubled its bookings in 2016 and achieving a valuation of nearly $70 billion, making it the largest venture capital-backed company in the world. Co-founder and CEO Travis Kalanick embodied the company, with a hard-charging attitude embedded in the company’s workplace culture that allowed it to successfully take on the entrenched taxi industry. Uber looked to enjoy another year of global growth in 2017, until lawsuits and a cascading series of scandals surrounding that same workplace culture led a group of powerful investors to seek Kalanick’s resignation to protect their investment. This case presents an overview of the growth of Uber, the impact of Kalanick, and the role that Uber’s board of directors had in shaping the company’s growth. It centers on the factors leading to Uber board members and investors to call for Kalanick’s resignation, focusing on how board oversight can help shape company culture and how entrepreneurial boards deal with founder CEOs. It then deals with the events that happened in the aftermath of Kalanick's resignation, including the appointment of Dara Khosrowshahi as CEO and the changes, the lawsuit brought against Kalanick by venture capital firm Benchmark Capital, and the governance changes proposed at the end of September 2017.

Keywords: Governance; Technology; Transportation; Venture Capital; Organizational Culture; Technology Industry; Transportation Industry; United States;

Citation:
Srinivasan, Suraj, Jay W. Lorsch, and Quinn Pitcher. "Uber in 2017: One Bumpy Ride." Harvard Business School Case 117-070, June 2017. (Revised October 2017.) View Details

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Article | Annals of Corporate Governance

Understanding Boards of Directors: A Systems Perspective

Jay W. Lorsch

In this essay, my goal is to explore why, despite the tireless efforts of talented people, research on corporate governance has been slow and uneven, and where that research should turn to next to be most valuable to practitioners. My belief is that the most fruitful work thus far has recognized that corporate boards are dynamic social systems, has identified all the forces that shape those systems, and has acknowledged that boards should seek to represent a wide variety of stakeholders, not just shareholders. The best way for me to establish this argument is to trace the history of research on corporate boards and analyze the trends in that research, including the relative value of the types of data that researchers in this field have used. Ultimately, I identify what I consider to be the best path forward in studying these complex social systems. I have made a deliberate choice to focus primarily on research that reflects firsthand experience with boards rather than on research that utilizes data derived from questionnaires and other secondary sources. Not everyone will agree with my choices, but my hope is that my perspective will nonetheless provide some guidance for people working in this evolving field to understand the true complexity of corporate boards.

Keywords: corporate governance; corporate boards; business admnistration; social systems; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; System;

Citation:
Lorsch, Jay W. "Understanding Boards of Directors: A Systems Perspective." Annals of Corporate Governance 2, no. 1 (February 2017): 1–49. View Details

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RJR Nabisco Board: Guardians of the Gate? (B)

Abstract

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