Milton Friedman was wrong. In his seminal 1970 essay , the Nobel Prize-winning economist wrote that companies have no social responsibility beyond making money for shareholders. This doctrine of shareholder primacy guided generations of business executives, board members, and policymakers who ensured that firms forged ahead in the free market with profits as the sole objective...
A well-intentioned feature of U.S. law helps firms planning initial public offerings (IPOs) maintain confidentiality on their regulatory filings and related correspondence until two weeks before they launch their road shows...
NBA Hall of Famer and perennial pitchman Shaquille O’Neal is joining the Papa John’s board of directors as its first African-American member, a move the pizza chain hopes will boost its faltering brand after racially insensitive remarks from its founder sunk sales...
A series of scandals has sparked a crisis of confidence in Wells Fargo, the nation’s third-largest bank whose roots harken back to the Gold Rush era when it provided financial services to miners in the Wild West. The most recent scandals — which included falsifying and accessing without authorization more than 2.1 million deposit and credit card accounts — has led to one of the biggest stains on the bank’s reputation in its 165-year history...
Many commentators suggest that gender diversity in the corporate boardroom improves company performance because of the different points of view and experience it offers. However, rigorous, peer-reviewed academic research paints a different picture. Despite the intuitive appeal of the argument that gender diversity on the board improves company performance, research suggests otherwise...
For anyone other than a highly dedicated professional, it’s virtually impossible to effectively parse a big company’s financial statements anymore. They’re absurdly dense, complex, jargon-filled, and longer than a Russian novel. More to the point, all of those issues have been ...
Corporate boardrooms are waking up to the encroaching, systemic threat of cybersecurity risks. But while awareness is growing — more than 80% of boards now discuss cybersecurity at most, if not all, of their meetings — many directors simply are not ...
In the realm of corporate governance, recent research has confirmed a finding that should instinctively make sense: When a company’s board has a higher proportion of independent directors, the company itself behaves in a more transparent way. What’s less obvious is whether the greater transparency is a result of having more outside directors, or whether companies that put greater stock in transparency are more likely to acquire more outside directors...
I’m thinking about your several board [memberships]. A simple and obvious question to get us going, for effective leadership of your boardroom — either as independent director or, if you have been an executive in your boardroom, or lead director or ...
Do corporate leaders time the release of information to the public to boost their stock prices just before their equity vests? According to new research co-authored by Wharton’s Alex Edmans, there is a correlation...
In a discussion of his new book, 'Boards That Lead: When to Take Charge, When to Partner, and When to Stay Out of the Way,' co-author Michael Useem describes the expanded role of boards of directors – including Lenovo’s – in today’s more demanding corporate culture...
Multimillion-dollar severance packages paid to exiting CEOs routinely make news -- particularly when the leader's tenure was universally panned or when the firm was in major cost-cutting mode. Such payouts have become the norm among large firms, observers say, and they have withstood both public outcry and legislative action. But when stakeholders believe an exit package represents a true ...