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What We Learned from Reading Jeff Bezos’ Patents

by Tricia Gregg and Boris Groysberg

By studying Jeff Bezos' personal patent records, Tricia Gregg and Boris Groysberg offer a unique glimpse into Amazon's strategy. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

NFL Head Coaches Are Getting Younger. What Can Organizations Learn?

by Boris Groysberg, Evan M.S. Hecht, and Abhijit Naik

Football team owners are hiring younger head coaches, hoping to unleash innovation and fresh thinking. How's that working out? Research by Boris Groysberg and colleagues. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

What Football Firings Teach Managers About Staying Relevant

by Boris Groysberg, Evan M.S. Hecht, and Abhijit Naik

Many executives are confident they can retain their skills over time. Experience shows they are wrong. Just look at the National Football League's "Black Monday" for proof, says Boris Groysberg. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Everyone Knows Innovation is Essential to Business Success—Except Board Directors

by Michael Blanding

In a recent survey of 5,000 board members, innovation was not ranked high on their list of priorities. What are they not seeing? ask Boris Groysberg and Yo-Jud Cheng. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Working for a Shamed Company Can Hurt Your Future Compensation

by Michael Blanding

People who work for a company guilty of malfeasance may see their future compensation curtailed, even if they are guilty of nothing, according to research by Boris Groysberg, Eric Lin, and George Serafeim. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Does Financial Misconduct Affect the Future Compensation of Alumni Managers?

by Boris Groysberg, Eric Lin, and George Serafeim

Analyzing data from an executive search firm, this paper explains how former employees who are free from wrongdoing still pay a price in stigma after incidents of corporate financial misconduct. The finding is potentially disquieting for all managers, because it suggests that one’s human capital can be impaired even long after one moves on and suggests the need for developing a human capital strategy for reacting to misconduct of past employers.

First Look at New Research, March 14

Sean Silverthorne

Is a Facebook 'like' worth anything? ... One company's Brexit strategy ... In Japan, 'womenomics' is a national priority.

Sharpening Your Skills: Making a Fast Start on a New Job

by Sean Silverthorne

Everyone has to begin a new job—even presidents! We look to the archives for what Harvard Business School experts have recommended for making a splashy start. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Sharpening Your Skills: New Insights into Career Development

Re: Multiple Faculty

When is a job promotion a bad thing? Does networking leave an oily substance on your clothing? From our archives we look at career change in the twenty-first century, where researchers are offering fresh insights into our dynamic workplaces.

CEOs and Coaches: How Important is Organizational 'Fit?'

by Boris Groysberg & Abhijit Naik

How big a factor is matching the right coach with the right team? As the Super Bowl approaches, Boris Groysberg and Abhijit Naik discuss football-related research that also has implications for the world of corporate hiring. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Is it Worth a Pay Cut to Work for a Great Manager (Like Bill Belichick)?

by Boris Groysberg & Abhijit Naik

Few of us want to take less money to move to another organization, but Boris Groysberg and Abhijit Naik point to research that shows hooking up with the right manager—whether in sports or business—can quickly increase your value even if your pay is less. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

NFL Black Monday: How Much Do Coaches Really Matter?

by Boris Groysberg & Abhijit Naik

Teams planning management changes on "Black Monday" can learn much from academic research on National Football League coaches, say Boris Groysberg and Abhijit Naik. The findings hold value not only for football teams, but for any organization that depends on leadership for success. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

The Use of Broker Votes to Reward Brokerage Firms’ and Their Analysts’ Research Activities

by David A. Maber, Boris Groysberg & Paul M. Healy

Broker votes are one of the most pervasive yet least understood reporting practices on Wall Street. The votes are essentially ratings of the value of brokers' investment research services. These ratings are produced by institutional investors (the "buy side") and solicited by broker dealers (the "sell side"). Little research to date, however, has examined the determinants of broker votes, their consequences, and their economic function. In this paper the authors use data gathered from a mid-sized investment bank for the years 2004 to 2007 in order to study how broker votes are related to institutional investors' commission payments and analysts' client services and compensation. Results overall suggest that broker votes help to facilitate implicit contractual relationships between sell-side brokers, their affiliated analysts, and their buy-side clients. Broker votes are neither mere popularity contests nor a simple reflection of trading in analysts' covered stocks. Instead, they appear to be a key component of the investment research industry's contracting technology, acting as the nexus for a set of relationships between sell-side brokers, their affiliated analysts, and their buy-side clients. The findings thus deepen our understanding of how information is exchanged on Wall Street and help to explain why the practice of collecting and aggregating client votes—a costly internal reporting procedure—has stood the test of time and has been replicated across countless sell-side research departments. Key concepts include: Broker votes facilitate a set of implicit contractual relationships between sell-side brokers, their affiliated analysts, and their buy-side clients. These voluntary contracting arrangements help to resolve inter- and intra-firm coordination problems. Broker votes may represent real efforts by buy-side clients to reward analysts for providing information that is difficult to reward through contemporaneous trading in analysts' covered stocks. Broker votes influence resource allocation within brokerage divisions, aligning analysts' incentives with their clients' objectives and hence the brokerage firm. Closed for comment; 0 Comment(s) posted.

HBS Cases: Women MBAs at Harvard Business School

by Carmen Nobel

Professor Boris Groysberg discusses his new case, "Women MBAs at Harvard Business School: 1962-2012," which delves into the experiences of the School's alumnae over the past 50 years. Closed for comment; 5 Comment(s) posted.

Few Women on Boards: Is There a Fix?

by Carmen Nobel

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. Closed for comment; 17 Comment(s) posted.

The Power of Conversational Leadership

by Carmen Nobel

Communication is always a challenge, especially in multinational corporations. Boris Groysberg and Michael Slind discuss why it makes sense to adopt the principles of face-to-face conversation in organizational communication. Closed for comment; 24 Comment(s) posted.

Book Excerpt: ‘Talk, Inc.’

Re: Boris Groysberg

In their book Talk, Inc. Boris Groysberg and Michael Slind show how several global companies are adapting the principles of face-to-face conversation to improve companywide corporate communication. Closed for comment; 1 Comment(s) posted.

The Stock Selection and Performance of Buy-Side Analysts

by Boris Groysberg, Paul Healy, George Serafeim, Devin Shanthikumar & Gui Yang

Important differences between buy- and sell-side analysts are likely to affect their behavior and performance. While considerable research during the last twenty years has focused on the performance of sell-side analysts (that is, analysts who work for brokerage firms, investment banks, and independent research firms), much less is known about buy-side analysts (analysts for institutional investors such as mutual funds, pension funds, and hedge funds). This paper examines buy recommendation performance for analysts at a large, buy-side firm relative to analysts at sell-side firms throughout the period of mid-1997 to 2004. The researchers find evidence of differences in the stocks recommended by the buy- and sell-side analysts. The buy-side firm analysts recommended stocks with stock return volatility roughly half that of the average sell-side analyst, and market capitalizations almost seven times larger. These findings indicate that portfolio managers (buy-side analysts' clients) prefer that buy-side analysts cover less volatile and more liquid stocks. The study also finds that the buy-side firm analysts' stock recommendations are less optimistic than their sell-side counterparts, consistent with buy-side analysts facing fewer conflicts of interest. This and future studies may help sell-side and buy-side executives to allocate their financial and human resources more strategically. Key concepts include: The failure to find that buy-side research out-performs that of sell-side analysts raises questions about whether investment firms should continue to rely on their own research rather than using research from sell-side analysts. Buy-side firms' analysts issued recommendations for companies with lower stock return volatility and larger market capitalizations than typical sell-side firms. Buy-side firm analysts recommended stocks with stock return volatility roughly half that of the average sell-side analyst (0.42% versus 0.95%), and market capitalizations almost seven times larger ($9.1 billion versus $1.3 billion). For stocks covered by both buy- and sell-side analysts, there were no differences in the buy recommendations' performance. Resolving whether buy-side research creates value is highly relevant to managers at buy-side firms who are faced with the challenge of allocating limited research resources. Closed for comment; 0 Comment(s) posted.

The New Challenge of Leading Financial Firms

by Carmen Nobel

Running a financial organization, never easy to begin with, has quickly become one of the most difficult leadership challenges that an executive can undertake, requiring mastery of talent management, change management, and ethics. An interview with Professor Boris Groysberg, who teaches a new HBS Executive Education program on the subject with Professor Paul M. Healy. Key concepts include: Leading a financial firm is very different from leading any other kind of institution, requiring deep skills in a multitude of areas. Financial firms make expensive bets on top talent, but often make hiring decisions without enough deliberation. Risk management, strategy for growth, and competing in emerging markets are especially critical for financial firms to get right. Open for comment; 13 Comment(s) posted.

Chasing Stars: Why the Mighty Red Sox Struck Out

by Carmen Nobel

When the Red Sox announced they had signed away veteran pitcher John Lackey from the Anaheim Angels, it was the start of one of the most expensive talent hunts in baseball history. So why were the Red Sox an epic failure in 2011? Lackey's lackluster performance is a case study in the perils of chasing superstars, says Professor Boris Groysberg. Key concepts include: Firms and sports teams alike often make the mistake of believing that star quality is portable from one organization to the next. In addition to an employee's innate talent, star performance is often also dependent on factors such as organizational culture, networking opportunities, and the general team dynamic. After luring a star performer away from a competitor, it behooves an organization to invest some resources in integrating that person into the new environment. Open for comment; 7 Comment(s) posted.