Organizations: Governance

89 Results

 

Which Does More to Determine the Quality of Corporate Governance in Emerging Economies, Firms or Countries?

Andrea Hugill and Jordan Siegel

Governance scholars debate the relative importance of country characteristics and firm characteristics in understanding variations in corporate governance practices of firms in emerging economies. One of the main questions is whether weak or incomplete public institutions dictate the governance quality of firms located in these countries. Results of analysis in this paper provide evidence that many emerging economy firms distinguished themselves above and beyond their home country peers in corporate governance ratings during the last decade. This rise was due primarily to firm-level characteristics. The fact that firm characteristics, and especially fixed effects, played a substantially greater role in emerging economies suggests that there is something happening inside these firms that allowed them to differentiate themselves from their home institutions and peer firms. These findings are important for both investors and firms in emerging economies. Investors will be able to observe corporate governance variance within countries and identify valuable investment opportunities. Also, firms should enjoy a sense of agency in their prospects for growth, unhampered by an environment with weak and incomplete governance institutions or low financial market development. Read More

Boardroom Centrality and Firm Performance

David F. Larcker, Eric C. So, and Charles C.Y. Wang

Economists and sociologists have long studied the influence of social networks on labor markets, political outcomes, and information diffusion. These networks serve as a conduit for interpersonal and inter-organizational support, influence, and information flow. This paper studies the boardroom network formed by shared directorates and examines the implications of having well-connected boards, finding that firms with the best-connected boards on average earn substantially higher future excess returns and other advantages. Read More

Few Women on Boards: Is There a Fix?

Women hold only 14 percent of the board seats at S&P 1500 companies. Why is that, and what—if anything—should business leaders and policymakers do about the gender disparity? Research by Professor Boris Groysberg and colleagues shows that male and female board members have very different takes on the issue. Open for comment; 17 Comments posted.

Governing Misvalued Firms

Dalida Kadyrzhanova and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

For decades, economists have argued that stocks can get priced irrationally and that this divergence from fundamental value may impact managerial decisions. If overvaluation leads to misbehavior and if strong governance curbs misbehavior, then governance should be particularly valuable in times of overvaluation. This simple yet powerful idea surprisingly has not been explored in the literature. In this paper, the authors fill the gap and ask whether strong corporate governance is especially important during periods of overvaluation when agency costs of managerial misbehavior are high. Results of joint tests of the perverse effects of overvaluation and the ability of governance to counteract them suggest that boards and shareholders looking to create long run value need to increase vigilance and oversight during times when the firm's stock is outperforming. This vigilance is especially important when CEOs have powerful pay-for-performance incentives. Read More

New Agenda for Corporate Accountability Reporting

Professor Karthik Ramanna explains three ways to make corporate accountability reports potentially more useful to constituencies that include shareholders, communities, bondholders, and customers. Open for comment; 2 Comments posted.

Penn State Lesson: Today’s Cover-Up was Yesterday’s Opportunity

While leaders may rationalize that a cover-up protects the interests of their organizations, the inevitable damage harms their institutions far more than acknowledging a mistake, says professor Bill George. Open for comment; 15 Comments posted.

Book Excerpt: ’The Future of Boards’

In an excerpt from The Future of Boards, Professor Jay Lorsch discusses why directors are newly questioning their roles. Closed for comment; 0 Comments posted.

The Future of Boards

In The Future of Boards: Meeting the Governance Challenges of the Twenty-First Century, Professor Jay Lorsch brings together experts to examine the state of boards today, what lies ahead, and what needs to change. Open for comment; 3 Comments posted.

Conflict Policy and Advertising Agency-Client Relations: The Problem of Competing Clients Sharing a Common Agency

Alvin J. Silk

This paper takes a fresh look at a recurring and often contentious issue in agency-client relations: Should an advertising agency simultaneously serve competing accounts or should the agency be restricted from doing so? Professor Alvin J. Silk traces the evolution and current state of industry practices with respect to conflict norms and policies; reviews the body of conceptual and empirical research that is available about the sources and consequences of conflicts, and outlines some directions for future research to address unresolved policy issues. Read More

OSHA Inspections: Protecting Employees or Killing Jobs?

As the federal agency responsible for enforcing workplace safety, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is often at the center of controversy. Associate Professor Michael W. Toffel and colleague David I. Levine report surprising findings about randomized government inspections. Open for comment; 11 Comments posted.

Technology Choice and Capacity Portfolios Under Emissions Regulation

David Drake, Paul R. Kleindorfer, and Luk N. Van Wassenhove

What technologies should firms invest in when emissions are costly? With the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme in the EU, California's Assembly Bill 32, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in the northeastern US, and now Australia's Clean Energy Bill, more and more firms are having to ask themselves that question when planning their capacity portfolios. This paper uses formal theory to analyze firms' technology choice and capacity portfolios, both when emissions are taxed and when they are regulated under cap-and-trade. David Drake, Paul R. Kleindorfer, and Luk N. Van Wassenhove find that even when average emissions price is assumed to be equivalent to that under an emissions tax, firms are more profitable under cap-and-trade. The emissions price uncertainty under cap-and-trade that many argue will destroy value instead equips firms with a real option that increases value. In addition to comparing profits under emissions tax and cap-and-trade regimes, the authors identify a number of potential adverse outcomes that can arise as a consequence of emissions legislation that should be taken into consideration when formulating future climate policy. Read More

A Few Firms Have Outsized Influence in D.C.

New research by Harvard Business School Associate Professor William R. Kerr suggests the number of companies affecting government policy through lobbying may be smaller—but more powerful—than previously thought. Open for comment; 4 Comments posted.

What Impedes Oil and Gas Companies’ Transparency?

Paul Healy, Venkat Kuppuswamy, and and George Serafeim

Oil and gas companies face asset expropriations and corruption by foreign governments in many of the countries where they operate. In addition, most of these companies operate in multiple host countries. What determines their disclosure of business activities and hence transparency? Paul Healy, Venkat Kuppuswamy, and George Serafeim examine three forms of disclosure costs that oil and gas managers could potentially consider. Both the US government and the European Union are currently considering laws that would require oil and gas companies to disclose information about operations in host countries. Read More

Creating a Global Business Code

In the wake of corporate scandals, many companies are looking more closely at how to manage business conduct worldwide. Realizing the complexity of this issue, Harvard Business School professors Rohit Deshpandé, Lynn S. Paine, and Joshua D. Margolis decided to evaluate standards of corporate conduct around the world—one of the most daunting research projects the three faculty have undertaken. Open for comment; 9 Comments posted.

CEO Bonus Plans: And How to Fix Them

Kevin J. Murphy and Michael C. Jensen

Discussions about incentives for CEOs in the United States begin, and often end, with equity-based compensation. After all, stock options and (more recently) grants of restricted stock have comprised the bulk of CEO pay since the mid-1990s, and the changes in CEO wealth due to changes in company stock prices dwarf wealth changes from any other source. Too often overlooked in the discussion, however, is the role of annual and multiyear bonus plans—based on accounting or other non-equity-based performance measures—in rewarding and directing the activities of CEOs and other executives. In this paper, Kevin J. Murphy and Michael C. Jensen describe many of the problems associated with traditional executive bonus plans, and offer suggestions for how these plans can be vastly improved. The paper includes recommendations and guidelines for improving both the governance and design of executive bonus plans and, more broadly, executive compensation policies, processes, and practices. The paper is a draft of a chapter in Jensen, Murphy, and Wruck (2012), CEO Pay and What to Do About it: Restoring Integrity to both Executive Compensation and Capital-Market Relations, forthcoming from Harvard Business School Press. Read More

What Environmental Ratings Miss

Auden Schendler and Michael Toffel

Environmental ratings of companies are based on "green" management efforts and the environmental performance of their operations. In this paper, Michael Toffel and Auden Schendler argue that these ratings neglect companies' actions that seek to influence environmental policy, which can have a much broader impact than their internal efforts. As a result, sustainability ratings risk seriously misleading consumers and investors, and can even enable "greenwashing" by allowing corporations to game the system, gaining high rankings for greening their operations despite advocating for less stringent environmental policy. Toffel and Schendler argue that environmental ratings should factor in political contributions, CEO advocacy work, and engagement with non-governmental organizations, among other actions. This would erode the environmental ratings of companies advocating weaker environmental policy, and bolster the ratings of those advocating more stringent environmental policy. Read More

Non-Audit Services and Financial Reporting Quality: Evidence from 1978-1980

Kevin Koh, Shivaram Rajgopal, and Suraj Srinivasan

What are the costs and benefits of auditors providing non-audit services? In this paper, the authors investigate whether high non-audit services (NAS) fees relative to audit fees are associated with poor quality financial reporting. Associate Professor Suraj Srinivasan and colleagues look specifically at a sample of S&P 500 firms during the years 1978-80. The authors thus provide an early history analysis of a long-standing regulatory concern that NAS fees create an economic dependence that causes the auditor to acquiesce to the client's wishes in financial reporting, reducing the quality of the audit. This concern led the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to prohibit auditors from providing most consulting services. The authors find that, contrary to regulatory concerns, NAS are associated with better quality financial reporting: lower earnings management and higher earnings informativeness. Conclusions rely on the specific institutional features of the years 1978-80. Read More

How Firms Respond to Mandatory Information Disclosure

Anil R. Dosh, Glen W.S. Dowell, and Michael W. Toffel

Companies are facing increasing pressure to reveal information about their operations, including their environmental performance. This research examines which types of organizations are especially likely to reduce their pollution levels once they face mandatory disclosure requirements. Research conducted by Anil Doshi and Michael Toffel of Harvard Business School, and Glen Dowell of the Johnson School of Management at Cornell University compares the responses of companies based on their proximity to headquarters and to corporate siblings, organizational size and the density of their surrounding communities, and whether they are part of publicly- or privately-held firms. Read More

Rupert Murdoch and the Seeds of Moral Hazard

Harvard Business School faculty Michel Anteby, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, and Robert Steven Kaplan explore the moral, ethical, and leadership issues behind Rupert Murdoch's News of the World fiasco. Open for comment; 12 Comments posted.

The Consequences of Mandatory Corporate Sustainability Reporting

Ioannis Ioannou and George Serafeim

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. Read More

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. Open for comment; 10 Comments posted.

The Importance of ‘Don’t’ in Inducing Ethical Employee Behavior

In a new study, HBS professors Francesca Gino and Joshua D. Margolis look at two ways that companies can encourage ethical behavior: the promotion of good deeds or the prevention of bad deeds. It turns out that employees tend to act more ethically when focused on what not to do. That can be problematic in firms where success is commonly framed in terms of advancement of positive outcomes rather than prevention of bad ones. Open for comment; 18 Comments posted.

Creating the Founders’ Dilemmas Course

In HBS professor Noam Wasserman's second-year MBA course, Founders' Dilemmas, students study the quandaries that virtually all entrepreneurs will face when trying to realize the dream of launching a start-up—from deciding when to start the company to learning how to make a graceful exit. Guest speakers discussing their experiences include All-Star pitcher-turned-entrepreneur Curt Schilling and Tom & Tom, the Nantucket Nectars guys. Open for comment; 12 Comments posted.

Activist Board Members Increase Firm’s Market Value

Board members nominated by activist investors presumably have one primary goal: change the status quo. Does that agenda create or diminish value of the firm in the eyes of shareholders? New evidence offered by Harvard Business School professors Bo Becker, Daniel B. Bergstresser, and Guhan Subramanian suggests financial markets value a new approach. Open for comment; 3 Comments posted.

Making the Numbers? ‘Short Termism’ & the Puzzle of Only Occasional Disaster

Nelson P. Repenning and Rebecca M. Henderson

Executives at public companies are always under pressure to "meet the numbers" each quarter, often so much so that they sacrifice long-term investments in order to make everything look rosy in the short term. In this paper, Harvard Business School professor Rebecca M. Henderson and Sloan School of Management professor Nelson P. Repenning set out to reconcile the apparently contradictory strategies of short-term results and long-term investments. Read More

How Transparent Should Boards Be?

Summing Up: When should boards fire CEOs? How transparent should boards be? Jim Heskett's readers are divided as they look at the HP/Mark Hurd case. What do you think? (Online forum has closed; next forum opens October 8.) Closed for comment; 50 Comments posted.

The Role of Organizational Scope and Governance in Strengthening Private Monitoring

Lamar Pierce and Michael W. Toffel

Governments have long debated which tasks should be outsourced to the private sector. Although often justified on the basis of the cost-efficiencies of market competition, outsourcing to private firms carries its own risks, which can reduce the quality of services provided. In addition to more conventional services such as garbage and recycling collection, some governments outsource the enforcement of laws and regulations. This paper by Olin Business School's Lamar Pierce and HBS professor Michael W. Toffel examines the automobile emissions testing market in one state where this form of regulatory enforcement has been outsourced to the private sector. Their analysis illustrates the importance of considering organizational scope and private governance mechanisms such as monitoring provided by corporate headquarters and independent third-parties in efforts to assure the reliability of firms that provide outsourced services. Read More

Corporate Governance and Internal Capital Markets

Zacharias Sautner and Belén Villalonga

What is the impact of corporate ownership on corporate diversification and on the efficiency of firms' internal capital markets? Corporate governance and internal capital markets are two topics closely intertwined in theoretical research; for example, agency problems—which corporate governance mechanisms seek to mitigate in a variety of ways—are at the heart of every theory of inefficient internal capital markets. Yet surprisingly few empirical studies have looked into the actual link between corporate governance and internal capital markets. This paper by University of Amsterdam professor Zacharias Sautner and HBS professor Belén Villalonga seeks to fill the gap by taking advantage of a natural experiment provided by a tax change in Germany in 2002. The researchers provide direct evidence of the effect of governance structures on how markets work, as well as new evidence about the benefits and costs of ownership concentration. Read More

Audit Quality and Auditor Reputation: Evidence from Japan

Douglas J. Skinner and Suraj Srinivasan

High-quality external auditing is a central component of sound corporate governance, yet what determines audit quality? Douglas J. Skinner, of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and Suraj Srinivasan, of Harvard Business School, study the Japanese audit market, where recent events provide a powerful setting for investigating the effect of auditor reputation on audit quality absent litigation effects. Specifically, Skinner and Srinivasan analyze events surrounding the collapse of ChuoAoyama, the PricewaterhouseCoopers affiliate in Japan that was implicated in a massive accounting fraud at Kanebo, a large Japanese cosmetics company. Taken as a whole, the researchers' evidence provides support for the view that auditor reputation is important in an economy where the legal system does not provide incentives for auditors to deliver quality. Read More

The Many Faces of Nonprofit Accountability

Alnoor Ebrahim

Nonprofit leaders face multiple, and sometimes competing, accountability demands: from numerous actors (upward, downward, internal), for varying purposes (financial, governance, performance, mission), and requiring differing levels of organizational response (compliance and strategic). Yet is it feasible, or even desirable, for nonprofit organizations to be accountable to everyone for everything? The challenge for leadership and management is to prioritize among competing accountability demands. This involves deciding both to whom and for what they owe accountability. HBS professor Alnoor Ebrahim provides an overview of the current debates on nonprofit accountability, while also examining the tradeoffs inherent in a range of accountability mechanisms. Read More

A Reexamination of Tunneling and Business Groups: New Data and New Methods

Jordan I. Siegel and Prithwiraj Choudhury

"Tunneling" refers to efforts by firms' controlling owner-managers to take money for themselves at the expense of minority shareholders. Looking at emerging economies in general and at India in particular, HBS professor Jordan I. Siegel and doctoral student Prithwiraj Choudhury argue for a simultaneous analysis of corporate governance and strategic activity differences in order to reveal the quality of firm-level corporate governance. The development of rigorous methodology in corporate governance is not merely an academic issue but has enormous real-world consequences. It is critical that scholars gain deeper empirical and theoretical insights into the question of whether these business groups serve primarily as theft devices for the controlling owners, or whether they serve primarily as a positive force that enables the creation of scale and scope efficiencies. Read More

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. Read More

Shareholders Need a Say on Pay

"Say on pay" legislation now under debate Washington D.C. can be a useful tool for shareholders to strengthen the link between CEO pay and performance when it comes to golden parachutes, says Harvard Business School professor Fabrizio Ferri. Here's a look at how the collective involvement of multiple stakeholders could shape the future of executive compensation. Read More

Estimating the Effects of Large Shareholders Using a Geographic Instrument

Bo Becker, Henrik Cronqvist, and Rüdiger Fahlenbrach

Are large shareholders good monitors of management? A public firm's shareholders have extensive legal control rights in the corporation, but in practice much of this control is delegated to managers. In companies with small, dispersed shareholders, owners may find it costly to coordinate and exercise monitoring and control, leaving management with considerable discretion. Large shareholders, however—by concentrating a block of shares in the hands of a single decision-maker—may play a beneficial role in facilitating effective owner control. Yet large shareholders are not without their costs. HBS professor Bo Becker and coauthors develop and test a framework to quantify the impact of large owners (individual non-managerial blockholders, not mutual funds or other institutions) on several key aspects of firm behavior. They show that such shareholders play an important role for corporate governance in sizable U.S. public firms, and can affect several firm policies. Read More

Improving Accountability at the World Bank

Its legitimacy and effectiveness on the line, the World Bank faces criticism from its constituents and the civil society organizations that serve them. What options and arguments for accountability make the most sense for global governance institutions like the World Bank? HBS professor Alnoor Ebrahim testified before the U.S. House of Representatives on paths to change. Read More

Excessive Executive Pay: What’s the Solution?

Now that the worst fears about economic meltdown are receding, what should be done about lingering issues such as over-the-top executive compensation? Does government have a role? Is it time we rethink corporate governance? HBS faculty weigh in. From the HBS Alumni Bulletin. Read More

Perspectives from the Boardroom--2009

Jay W. Lorsch, Joseph L. Bower, Clayton S. Rose, and Suraj Srinivasan

Chief executives and regulators have been blamed for the current economic crisis, but in some ways what is surprising is that boards have generally escaped notice. Clearly the experience of corporate boards in the downturn has not been explored. To understand what transpired in the boardrooms of complex companies, and to offer a prescription to improve board effectiveness, eight senior faculty members of the HBS Corporate Governance Initiative talked with 45 prominent directors about what has happened to their companies and why. These directors, who serve on the boards of financial institutions and other complex companies, were asked two broad questions: How well did their boards function before the recession? And, what do they believe should be improved as they look to the future?

This white paper [PDF] first explains how the interviewees characterize the strengths of their boards, then examines in depth six areas in which they identified shortcomings or needs for improvement: 1) clarifying the board's role; 2) acquiring better information and deeper knowledge of the company; 3) maintaining a sound relationship with management; 4) providing oversight of company strategy; 5) assuring management development and succession; 6) improving risk management. Finally, the paper discusses two issues that appeared not to trouble the interviewees but that the public feels are important: executive compensation and the relationship between the board and shareholders. This paper was written by Jay Lorsch with the assistance of Joseph Bower, Clayton Rose, and Suraj Srinivasan. The interviews were conducted by Joseph Bower, Srikant Datar, Raymond Gilmartin, Stephen Kaufman, Rakesh Khurana, Jay Lorsch, and Clayton Rose. Read More

Quality Management and Job Quality: How the ISO 9001 Standard for Quality Management Systems Affects Employees and Employers

David I. Levine and Michael W. Toffel

Nearly 900,000 organizations in 170 countries have adopted the ISO 9001 Quality Management System standard. This is a remarkable figure given the lack of rigorous evidence regarding how the standard actually affects organizational practices and performance. Proponents claim that quality programs such as ISO 9001 improve both management practices and production processes, and that these improvements, in turn, will increase both sales and employment. Documenting and training proper work practices can also reduce potentially dangerous "work arounds," and thus could reduce the risk of workplace accidents and injuries. Some critics, on the other hand, point to the potential for quality programs such as ISO 9001 to be detrimental to employees by documenting work practices, resulting in routinization that may reduce skill requirements and increase repetitive motion injuries. This paper reports the first large-scale evaluation of how ISO 9001 affects workers, focusing in particular on employment, total payroll, average annual earnings, and workplace health and safety. Read More

Innovation Corrupted: How Managers Can Avoid Another Enron

Malcolm S. Salter

The train wreck that was Enron provides key insights for improving corporate governance and financial incentives as well as organizational processes that strengthen ethical discipline, says HBS professor emeritus Malcolm S. Salter. His new book, Innovation Corrupted: The Origins and Legacy of Enron's Collapse, is a deep reflection on the present and future of business. Read More

Evaluating the Impact of SA 8000 Certification

Michael J. Hiscox, Claire Schwartz, and Michael W. Toffel

The Social Accountability 8000 Standard (SA 8000), along with other types of certification standards and corporate codes of conduct, represents a new form of voluntary "private-governance" of working conditions in the private sector, initiated and implemented by companies, labor unions, and nongovernmental activist groups cooperating together. There is an ongoing debate about whether this type of governance represents real and substantial progress or mere symbolism. This paper reviews prior evaluations of private codes of conduct governing workplace conditions, including Ethical Trading Initiative's Base Code, Nike's Code of Conduct, and Fair Trade certification. The authors then discuss several best practices that should be employed in future evaluations of such codes of conduct. Read More

Coming Clean and Cleaning Up: Is Voluntary Disclosure a Signal of Effective Self-Policing?

Michael W. Toffel and Jodi L. Short

This paper demonstrates some of the benefits and limitations of industry self-policing programs. Many self-regulation programs are operated exclusively by the private sector, often in the hope of garnering goodwill with consumers or staving off more stringent government regulation. Less well known are voluntary self-regulation programs operated by government regulators seeking innovative approaches to further regulatory objectives and to stretch shrinking agency budgets. Little is known about the effects of these programs, or how they might contribute to the overall effectiveness of a regulatory regime. Michael Toffel and Jodi Short seek to determine whether the self-policing required under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Audit Policy affects the behavior of regulators and participating facilities and the relationship between them. Specifically, the researchers examine whether self-policing is associated with improved environmental performance at these facilities and whether regulators reduce their scrutiny over self-policing facilities. Read More

Board of Directors’ Responsiveness to Shareholders: Evidence from Shareholder Proposals

Yonca Ertimur, Fabrizio Ferri, and Stephen R. Stubben

How well do boards of directors respond to shareholder concerns? The recent wave of corporate scandals has raised questions about the effectiveness of boards in their monitoring role. The subsequent reform debate focused on enhancing boards' independence from management, increasing their accountability to shareholders through a different board election system, and improving boards' internal processes and practices. One direct example of this alleged lack of responsiveness to shareholder concerns is the historically low frequency of adoption of non-binding shareholder proposals receiving a majority vote, even when the vote is overwhelmingly in favor of the proposal and has been repeated for a number of years. Ignoring majority-vote shareholder proposals may be increasingly expensive, however, both for the targeted firms and for the individual directors. HBS professor Ferri and coauthors analyze the frequency of implementation of non-binding, majority-vote shareholder proposals and examine the determinants and consequences of the boards' implementation decisions. Read More

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

Lauren H. Cohen, Andrea Frazzini, and Christopher Malloy

How does information flow in security markets, and how do investors receive information? In the context of information flow, social networks allow a piece of information to flow along a network often in predictable paths. HBS professors Lauren Cohen and Christopher Malloy, along with University of Chicago colleague Andrea Frazzini, studied a type of dissemination through social networks tied to educational institutions, examining the information flow between mutual fund portfolio managers and senior officers of publicly traded companies. They then tested predictions on the portfolio allocations and returns earned by mutual fund managers on securities within and outside their networks. Read More

Accountability in Complex Organizations: World Bank Responses to Civil Society

Alnoor S. Ebrahim and Steve Herz

What difference has civil society activism made to the World Bank? More specifically, how and to what extent have civil society actors furthered the accountability of the World Bank to its constituents? The case of the World Bank is important for 2 main reasons: The Bank has not only been a major target of civil society activism, but it has also been comparatively responsive in developing various forms of engagement with civil society, possibly more than any other multilateral institution. This paper describes key accountability challenges facing the institution and reviews accountability mechanisms currently in place at 4 different organizational levels. It then explores efforts from civil society groups to increase accountability, and notes the successes and failures of these reform efforts. Read More

How Firms Respond to Being Rated

Aaron K. Chatterji and Michael W. Toffel

(Previously titled "Shamed and Able: How Firms Respond to Information Disclosure.") As national governments lose the ability to regulate business activities, interest groups and concerned citizens are turning to private governance to monitor global supply chains, ensure product safety, and provide incentives for improved corporate environmental performance. Proponents hope that private governance incentives will encourage firms to act responsibly, but critics worry that these developments will merely forestall necessary government regulation. Social ratings provide one way to benchmark and compare firms' social performance. But are such ratings schemes effective? This paper investigates the effects of third-party environmental ratings, and finds that firms are particularly likely to respond to such ratings by improving their environmental performance when two circumstances arise simultaneously: (1) when the ratings threaten their legitimacy, and (2) when they face relatively low cost improvement opportunities. Read More

The Causes and Consequences of Industry Self-Policing

Jodi L. Short and Michael W. Toffel

The corporate confession is a paradox, as described in this paper aimed at managers, policymakers, and citizens. Why would a firm that identifies regulatory compliance violations within its own operations turn itself in to regulators, rather than quietly fix the problem? Economic intuition suggests that firms will self-disclose violations only when the cost of doing so is less than the expected cost of hiding violations. However, while the cost of doing so can be increased regulatory scrutiny, there is often almost no expected cost of hiding violations. To explore the complex behavior of corporate self-disclosure, Short and Toffel conducted a large-scale analysis in the context of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Audit Policy. They investigated what factors lead organizations to self-disclose violations that went undiscovered by regulators, and asked whether these self-disclosing organizations were obtaining any unofficial regulatory benefits above and beyond formal penalty mitigation. They also evaluated whether self-policing promotes the regulatory objective of improving compliance records. Read More

The Hedge Fund as Activist

Do hedge funds improve management of the companies they invest in? A new study by Harvard Business School professor Robin Greenwood and coauthor Michael Schor argues that, in fact, hedge funds create shareholder value through anticipation of change, not necessarily delivering it. Read More

HBS Cases: How Wikipedia Works (or Doesn’t)

For HBS professor Andrew McAfee, Wikipedia is a surprisingly high-quality product. But when his concept of "Enterprise 2.0" turned up on the online encyclopedia one day—and was recommended for deletion—McAfee and colleague Karim R. Lakhani knew they had the makings of an insightful case study on collaboration and governance in the digital world. Read More

Self-Regulatory Institutions for Solving Environmental Problems: Perspectives and Contributions from the Management Literature

Andrew King and Michael W. Toffel

What role can business managers play in protecting the natural environment? Academic research on when it might "pay to be green" has advanced understanding of how and when firms achieve sustained competitive advantage. The focus of such research, however, has begun to change in light of limits to available "win-win" opportunities and to gaps in regulation. This paper, intended as a book chapter, reviews current literature and explores the potential of self-regulatory institutions to solve environmental problems. Read More

Industry Self-Regulation: What’s Working (and What’s Not)?

Michael W. Toffel

Self-regulation has been all over the news, but are firms that adopt such programs already better on important measures like labor and quality practices? Does adopting a program help companies improve faster? In this Q&A, HBS professor Michael Toffel gives a reality check and discusses the trends for managers. Read More

Learning from Private-Equity Boards

Boards of professionally sponsored buyouts are more informed, hands-on, and interventionist than public company boards. HBS professor emeritus Malcolm S. Salter argues that this board model could have helped Enron—and perhaps your company as well. Read More

CEO Succession: The Case at Ford

When Ford Motor Company looked to replace Bill Ford as CEO, it turned not to another auto industry insider but instead to Boeing's Alan Mulally. We talk with Harvard Business School professor Joseph L. Bower to better understand Ford's move and the larger issues of CEO succession. Read More

Resolving Information Asymmetries in Markets: The Role of Certified Management Programs

Michael W. Toffel

Hundreds of thousands of firms rely on voluntary management programs to signal superior management practices to interested buyers, regulators, and local communities. Such programs typically address difficult-to-observe management attributes such as quality practices, environmental management, and human rights issues. The absence of performance standards and, in most cases, verification requirements has led critics to dismiss voluntary management programs as marketing gimmicks or "greenwash." Toffel examines whether a voluntary environmental management program with a robust verification mechanism attracts participants with superior environmental performance, and whether the program elicits improved environmental performance. His study focuses on the ISO 14001 Environmental Management System Standard, but the results have implications for voluntary management programs that govern many other difficult-to-observe management issues. Read More

Governing Sumida Corporation

In a new Harvard Business School case, Professor Lynn Paine and her colleagues explore the nature of corporate governance systems by studying Japanese electronics components maker Sumida Corp. CEO Shigeyuki Yawata looks to create a governance structure that would be transparent to investors and stakeholders worldwide. Read More

Coerced Confessions: Self-Policing in the Shadow of the Regulator

Jodi L. Short and Michael W. Toffel

Are regulators necessary? In industry, self-regulation and self-policing have been touted as a new paradigm of regulation that trades outmoded "command-and-control" strategies for industry-directed, market-based solutions. Short and Toffel's work, one of the first empirical studies to address self-policing behavior, examined a rich data set of companies' voluntary disclosures of regulatory violations under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Audit Policy. The goal: to learn how violators behave when offered the option of voluntarily self-disclosing. The results show that even as corporations are given an expanding role in their own governance, the success of "voluntary" self-policing depends on the continued involvement of regulators with coercive powers. Read More

Rising CEO Pay: What Directors Should Do

Compensation committees are under pressure to keep CEO pay high, even as shareholders and the media agitate for moderation. The solution? Boards of directors need better competitive information and an ear to what shareholders are saying, says Jay Lorsch. Read More

The Compensation Game

Do CEOs deserve "star" compensation? The idea that CEO pay is driven by the invisible hand of market forces is a myth from which chief executives have long benefited, say Harvard professors Lucian Bebchuk and Rakesh Khurana. Read More

Enron Jury Sent the Right Message

Although the actions of Enron's executives were in many areas neither clearly legal nor illegal, jurors sent an unambiguous message that all executives should heed: Truth telling and ethical discipline are the cornerstone values in corporate governance. Read More

Corporate Governance Activists are Headed in the Wrong Direction

Corporate governance reformers are pushing the idea of majority voting for directors. But that solution, as Joseph Hinsey sees it, won't produce the desired outcome. The answer? Keep CEOs and board chairs separate. Read More

What Companies Lose from Forced Disclosure

Romana L. Autrey

Increased corporate financial reporting may benefit many parties, but not necessarily the companies themselves. New research from Harvard Business School professor Romana Autrey and coauthors looks at the relationship between executive performance and public disclosure. Read More

Should CEOs of Public Companies Offer Earnings Guidance?

A small but growing chorus of public company CEOs is deciding not to provide quarterly earnings guidance. Is this a good or bad development for shareholders, investors, analysts, the marketplace, and the company’s short- and long-term health? Closed for comment; 17 Comments posted.

Building an IT Governance Committee

Boards need to take more accountability for IT, argue professors Richard Nolan and Warren McFarlan. In this excerpt from their recent Harvard Business Review article, the authors detail what an IT governance committee should look like. Read More

Governance and CEO Turnover: Do Something or Do the Right Thing?

Ray Fisman, Rakesh Khurana, and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

CEOs who become "entrenched" by the board of directors can gain an extra buffer between themselves and angry shareholders. Entrenchment has potential costs (a poorly performing CEO hangs on to the job) but also benefits (the board can deflect shareholder cries for dismissal of a CEO who was merely unlucky). The authors hope to shift the emphasis of the debate on entrenchment to a consideration of these tradeoffs and to shift the focus of the entrenchment-performance discussion toward the decisions, such as CEO dismissal, that are directly tied to the actions of the board. Read More

Mapping Your Board’s Effectiveness

To be effective, board members must understand their company’s strategy. Professor Robert S. Kaplan offers methods for using the Balanced Scorecard and strategy maps to increase board power. From Strategy & Innovation. Read More

For Greater Transparency, Is Section 404 an Effective Response?

Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires that managers certify the integrity of their internal controls for financial reporting. In the end, are shareholders getting their money’s worth? Are more costly amendments to come? Closed for comment; 15 Comments posted.

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? Read More

How to Build a Better Board

Jay W. Lorsch

Boards need to work smarter and with a design in mind, says professor Jay Lorsch. Lorsch discusses his new book Back to the Drawing Board, co-written with Colin B. Carter. Read More

Improving Corporate Governance with the Balanced Scorecard

Robert S. Kaplan and Michael E. Nagel

The authors review the key roles of corporate boards and recommend a Balanced Scorecard approach to help boards work smarter, not harder. Kaplan and Nagel recommend a three-part Balanced Scorecard program: Part 1: An Enterprise Scorecard that includes enterprise-wide strategic objectives, performance measures, targets, and initiatives; Part 2: A Board Scorecard that defines and clarifies the strategic contributions and requirements of the board, and provides a tool to manage the board's performance; Part 3: Executive Scorecards, which define strategic contributions of top management and are used to select, evaluate, and reward senior executives. Read More

Boards and Corporate Governance: A Balanced Scorecard Approach

HBS professors Robert S. Kaplan and Krishna G. Palepu discuss a Balanced Scorecard approach to how companies can create shareholder value through more effective governance. Read More

To Whom Should Boards be Accountable?

A well-respected and influential newspaper was forced into a public auction by a hostile buy-out offer. Let's say you were on the board. How would you have reacted? Closed for comment; 18 Comments posted.

Sharing the Responsibility of Corporate Governance

Sandra J. Sucher

Is business malfeasance always the board's fault? HBS professor Constance Bagley argues that everyone has a stake in ethical behavior and moral reasoning. Read More

Greed, Fear, and The System Hinder Corporate Reform

If we’re going to fix the system we need to take a realistic look at the possibilities and limitations of regulation, said panelists. Here’s their diagnosis. Read More

What It Takes to Restore Trust in Business

What’s still wrong with American business? Start with pervasive conflicts of interest and the limits of enforcement. Read More

SEC Commissioner Sees “Healing and Reform”

SEC Commissioner Harvey J. Goldschmid blames corporate failures in part on inadequate gatekeepers, but sees healing in history. Read More

Shareholders Key to Corporate Reform

Want fundamental corporate reform? Start with shareholders, say Harvard Business School professor Cynthia Montgomery and research associate Rhonda Kaufman. Excerpted from Harvard Business Review. Read More

At the Center of Corporate Scandal Where Do We Go From Here?

What’s at the heart of recent corporate misdeeds and scandals? Harvard Business School Dean Kim B. Clark looks at the causes and the potential remedies needed to restore public trust in institutions of business. Read More

Fixing Corporate Governance: A Roundtable Discussion at Harvard Business School

Brian J. Hall, Paul M. Healy, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Nancy F. Koehn, Jay W. Lorsch, and Krishna G. Palepu

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. Read More

How Will We Respond to the “Moment of Truth” in Option Plans?

Closed for comment; 3 Comments posted.

What Leaders Need to Do To Restore Investor Confidence

Thomas R. Piper

Where corporate ethics are concerned, the buck stops with the CEO, says HBS professor Thomas R. Piper. In this interview from the Harvard Management Update, Piper explains how corporate malfeasance found a foothold and suggests ways that all companies can restore trust. Read More

The Irrational Quest for Charismatic CEOs

Rakesh Khurana

Companies reflexively look to charismatic CEOs to save them, and that's a bad idea, says HBS professor Rakesh Khurana. In this excerpt from his new book and in an e-mail interview with HBS Working Knowledge, he explains how the CEO cult arose. Read More

Have We Carried the Concept of Alignment Too Far?

Closed for comment; 13 Comments posted.

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. Read More

Will the Societal Effects of Enron Exceed Those of September 11?

Closed for comment; 19 Comments posted.

Governance in India and Around the Globe

India is not known for rigid corporate governance standards. Is software giant Infosys changing all that? A working paper by HBS professors Tarun Khanna and Krishna Palepu looks at how globalization may—or may not—foster convergence of corporate governance. Read More

Why Corporate Budgeting Needs To Be Fixed

Not to mince words, but corporate budgeting is a joke, argues HBS professor emeritus Michael C. Jensen in this Harvard Business Review excerpt. The problem isn't with the budget process—it's when budget targets are used to determine compensation. Read More

The Three Components of Family Governance

Having described the framework of family business governance and the governance of the business, John Davis discusses the most challenging of the family business governance topics—governance of the family itself. Read More

What’s the Future of Corporate Governance?

Closed for comment; 4 Comments posted.

Looking for CEOs in All the Wrong Places

In searching for a new CEO, many companies depend on board contacts to find candidates and diminish the role of search firms. And that may be a big mistake, suggests HBS assistant professor Rakesh Khurana. Read More

Where Is the Microsoft Board?

Closed for comment; 14 Comments posted.