Financial performance measurement

It's an idea that needs to be a part of the future of work.

Researchers have struggled to establish a causal relationship between diversity and financial performance--especially at large companies, where decision...

The challenges are organizational.

In this issue's Spotlight we examine how a focus on maximizing shareholder value--which leads to short-termism for management and boards--can threaten...

Don’t undervalue the overlooked.

In "The Data: Where Long-Termism Pays Off," five charts reveal how long-term-focused companies surpass their short-term-focused peers on several important...

Every day, at almost every company, strategy is being hijacked by numbers. Because strategy is abstract, employees often mentally replace it with the...

In "The Error at the Heart of Corporate Leadership," Joseph Bower and Lynn Paine examine the foundations and flaws of agency theory, which views shareholders...

Start-ups seem to be getting bigger faster than ever--Uber is just one example of today's "unicorns," or private, venture-backed companies valued at a...

Don't get trapped in your P&L.

What you measure is what you get. Senior executives understand that their organization’s measurement system strongly affects the behavior of managers and employees. Executives also understand that traditional financial accounting measures like return-on-investment and earnings-per-share can give misleading signals for continuous improvement and innovation—activities today’s competitive environment demands. The traditional financial performance measures worked well […]

Investors have a quantitative understanding of how the market values a company. Management teams should too.

A new measure gets past the distortions of total shareholder return and puts buybacks into perspective.

More than 15 years ago Jim Collins, the author of the management best seller "Good to Great," introduced the flywheel as a metaphor for the enduring power...

Executives know that a company's measurement systems strongly affect employee behaviors. But the traditional financial performance measures that worked...

In "The CEO View: Defending a Good Company from Bad Investors," David Pyott, former chief of Allergan, describes how he fended off a hostile takeover...

A data-driven approach to design, measurement, and implementation

In "The Board View: Directors Must Balance All Interests," Barbara Hackman Franklin, an expert in corporate governance, proposes important changes boards...

This year, ESG moved from a “nice to have” to an essential part of corporate strategy — and there’s no going back.

Strategies for ensuring stakeholder voices are heard and ESG goals are met.