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- July 2022
- Case
David Crane’s Clean(er) Energy Strategy at NRG
By: George Serafeim, Michael W. Toffel and Tom Quinn
In 2015, David Crane was the CEO of NRG, the second-largest energy producer in the United States. NRG got most of its power from fossil fuels, but Crane – hired as CEO in 2003 as NRG emerged from bankruptcy – had invested heavily in alternative energy, loudly...
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- 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...
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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
- April 2022
- Case
Marsha Simms: Trailblazer in Corporate Law
By: Robin Ely, Boris Groysberg, Colleen Ammerman and Olivia Hull
Follows the journey of lawyer Marsha Simms from her childhood in racially-segregated St. Louis to the upper echelons of the New York legal community. Describes her education, career choices, accomplishments, and setbacks. Highlights significant moments such as her...
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Keywords:
Leadership;
Career;
Career Management;
Diversity;
Inclusion;
Equity;
Gender;
Race;
Corporate Finance;
Law;
Leadership Development;
Personal Development and Career;
Relationships;
Power and Influence;
Social and Collaborative Networks;
Status and Position;
Social Issues;
Legal Services Industry;
United States;
New York (state, US)
- April 2022 (Revised August 2022)
- Case
Conflicts of Interest at Uptown Bank
By: Jonas Heese
In 2013, two employees debated whether to blow the whistle on their employer, Bell Bank, after completing an internal review that revealed undisclosed conflicts of interest. Bell Bank’s Asset Management business disproportionately invested clients’ money in Bell Bank’s...
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Keywords:
Whistleblower;
Whistleblowing;
Mutual Funds;
Conflicts Of Interest;
Decision Making;
Decisions;
Judgments;
Ethics;
Moral Sensibility;
Values and Beliefs;
Finance;
Financial Institutions;
Banks and Banking;
Financial Management;
Investment;
Investment Funds;
Governance;
Corporate Accountability;
Corporate Disclosure;
Corporate Governance;
Governance Compliance;
Governance Controls;
Policy;
Law;
Legal Liability;
Social Psychology;
Motivation and Incentives;
Perception;
Perspective;
Trust;
Financial Services Industry;
North and Central America;
United States
- March 2022 (Revised June 2022)
- Case
Transforming Kimball International, Inc. (A)
By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz
Kimball International, Inc. (KII), led by CEO Kristie Juster, and its board of directors, chaired by Kim Ryan, faced critical questions about KII’s future in the spring of 2021. Two years earlier, the board had appointed Juster as the new CEO of KII, a publicly traded,...
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Keywords:
Board Of Directors;
Board Committees;
Board Decisions;
Board Dynamics;
CEO Compensation;
CEO Succession;
Compensation Committee;
Compensation Consultants;
Compensation Design;
Compensation Mix;
Corporate Purpose;
COVID-19;
ESG;
Furniture;
Furniture Industry;
Manufacturing;
Midwest;
Pandemic;
Purpose;
Spin Off;
Strategic Change;
Strategic Decisions;
Strategic Evolution;
Target-setting;
Executive Compensation;
Family Ownership;
Governance;
Restructuring;
Strategy;
Transformation;
Manufacturing Industry;
United States
- March 2022
- Supplement
Transforming Kimball International, Inc. (B)
By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz
Supplements the (A) case.
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Keywords:
Board Of Directors;
Board Committees;
Board Decisions;
Board Dynamics;
CEO Compensation;
CEO Succession;
Compensation Committee;
Compensation Consultants;
Compensation Design;
Compensation Mix;
Corporate Purpose;
COVID-19;
ESG;
Furniture;
Furniture Industry;
Manufacturing;
Midwest;
Pandemic;
Purpose;
Spin-off;
Strategic Change;
Strategic Decisions;
Strategic Evolution;
Target-setting;
Executive Compensation;
Family Ownership;
Governance;
Restructuring;
Strategy;
Transformation;
Manufacturing Industry;
United States
- December 2021 (Revised December 2021)
- Case
PhonePe: Democratizing Payments in India
By: Michael Chu and Rachna Tahilyani
The co-founders of PhonePe, India’s leading digital payment platform are considering pursuing various growth opportunities in a huge country just entering the digital age. In a highly competitive industry, the founders are keenly aware that making the right choices is...
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- December 2021 (Revised February 2022)
- Case
Bed Bath & Beyond: The New Strategy to Drive Shareholder Value
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel W. Fisher
At one time, Bed Bath & Beyond was one of the most successful specialty retailers in the United States—its growth and profit margins far exceeded both peer retailers in the home goods market as well as many other discount retailers. But in 2014, its stock price peaked,...
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- November 2021 (Revised January 2022)
- Case
Nicole M. Jones and The Hangar℠: Delta Air Lines' Global Innovation Center
By: Linda A. Hill and Emily Tedards
In 2016, Nicole M. Jones was hired to lead The Hangar, Delta Air Lines’ new innovation center in Atlanta, Georgia. Delta’s leadership had intended for The Hangar to catalyze a new approach to innovation at the company. After conducting three months of research on...
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- October 2021
- Case
Financial Reporting at Mattel
By: Aiyesha Dey, Trung Nguyen, Marshal Herrmann and Julia Kelley
In September 2020, Diana Ferguson was nearing her first Audit Committee meeting as the newly appointed Audit Committee chair of Mattel, Inc. Mattel was just recovering from an accounting scandal which had revealed the company’s poor internal controls and weak board...
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Keywords:
Accounting;
Accounting Audits;
Financial Reporting;
Financial Statements;
Governance;
Corporate Accountability;
Corporate Disclosure;
Corporate Governance;
Governance Compliance;
Governance Controls;
Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Governing and Advisory Boards;
Lawsuits and Litigation;
Business and Shareholder Relations;
Consumer Products Industry;
Entertainment and Recreation Industry;
Financial Services Industry;
North and Central America;
United States;
California
- October 2021
- Article
Board Design and Governance Failures at Peer Firms
By: Shelby Gai, J. Yo-Jud Cheng and Andy Wu
Our study introduces board committees as a crucial determinant of board actions. We examine how directors who structurally link different board committees—referred to as multi-committee directors (MCDs)—explain why some board actions are merely symbolic while others...
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- October 2021
- Article
Directors' Perceptions of Board Effectiveness and Internal Operations
By: J. Yo-Jud Cheng, Boris Groysberg, Paul M. Healy and Rajesh Vijayaraghavan
We contribute to the growing literature on the effectiveness of corporate boards by examining the effect of two insights that have been largely unexplored in prior studies that use public data. First, since boards’ responsibilities are wide-ranging, more holistic...
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- September 2021
- Case
Vignettes on Professional Service Firm Governance
By: David G. Fubini, Suraj Srinivasan and Li-Kuan Ni
The two vignettes within “Vignettes on Professional Service Firm Governance” (HBS No. 122-024) present various issues relating to governance in professional service firms (“PSFs”). In the first, the Managing Director of a U.S. consulting firm contemplates whether to...
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Keywords:
Consulting Firms;
Professional Services;
Board Of Directors;
Professional Service;
Global Firm;
Executive Leadership;
Globalized Firms and Management;
Private Equity;
Governing and Advisory Boards;
Global Strategy;
Corporate Governance;
Governance Controls;
Leadership Development;
Leading Change;
Emerging Markets;
Strategic Planning;
Partners and Partnerships;
Service Industry;
United States;
India
- July 2021
- Article
Material Sustainability Information and Stock Price Informativeness
By: Jody Grewal, Clarissa Hauptmann and George Serafeim
As part of the SEC’s revision of Regulation S-K, many investors proposed the mandatory disclosure of sustainability information in the form of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data. However, progress is contingent on collecting evidence regarding which...
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Keywords:
Voluntary Disclosure;
Accounting Standards;
Sustainability;
Nonfinancial Information;
Corporate Social Responsibility;
Stock Price Informativeness;
Synchronicity;
Environmental Sustainability;
Corporate Disclosure;
Corporate Accountability;
Stocks;
Price;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Accounting;
Standards
- June 2021
- Case
Building the Governance to Take Capital SAFI to the Next Level
By: V.G. Narayanan, Asis Martinez Jerez and Mariana Cal
Asset management firm Capital SAFI wanted to attract new strategic investors and expand to other countries. Having the right corporate governance in place was critical to achieve this goal.
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Keywords:
Board Of Directors;
Transparency;
Sustainable Finance;
South America;
Latin America;
Corporate Governance;
Governance Controls;
Governing and Advisory Boards;
Business Organization;
Corporate Strategy;
Transformation;
Investment Funds;
Financial Services Industry;
Bolivia;
South America;
Latin America
- 2021
- White Paper
Report on Racial Inclusion in the Boardroom: A Workshop Convened by Harvard Business School's Leadership Initiative and Board Leadership Project
- May 2021 (Revised May 2022)
- Supplement
Odebrecht's 'Transformation Journey' (B)
By: Lynn S. Paine, Ruth Costas and Pedro Levindo
The case describes the changes in Odebrecht’s board of directors while the company had to file for court-supervised reorganization and cope with an ongoing feud within its founding family, and the new challenges that the Group’s leadership has to face. The changes in...
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- April 2021
- Case
Glass-Shattering Leaders: Michele Hooper
By: Boris Groysberg and Colleen Ammerman
Michele Hooper joined the board of the Dayton-Hudson Corporation when she was in her late thirties, becoming the company’s youngest director as well as the only woman and the only person of color in the boardroom. Such “firsts” were not unusual for Hooper, who had been...
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- March 2021 (Revised March 2021)
- Case
Hotwire.com: Navigating Through Turbulence
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Manny de Zarraga and Eric Levine
On September 10, 2001, after speaking at an industry conference at New York’s World Trade Center, Hotwire co-founder Spencer Rascoff boarded a flight from Newark to San Francisco. After returning home, Rascoff awoke the next morning to a phone call informing him that...
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Keywords:
September 11;
Corporate Entrepreneurship;
Business Growth and Maturation;
Disruption;
Decisions;
Job Cuts and Outsourcing;
Growth Management;
Digital Platforms;
Problems and Challenges;
Risk and Uncertainty;
Expansion;
Internet and the Web;
Leading Change;
Leadership Style;
Air Transportation Industry;
Tourism Industry;
San Francisco
- February 2021 (Revised September 2022)
- Case
Shareholder Activists and Corporate Strategy
By: David J. Collis and Caeden Brynie
This library case examines the rise of shareholder activism in recent years, particularly in the public eye, and analyzes its effects on corporate strategy, growth, and shareholder value. It looks at three contemporary targets of shareholder activism in particular—Bed...
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