Nien-he Hsieh

Nien-he Hsieh

Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration

Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration

General Management
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Nien-he Hsieh
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(617) 495-6925
Featured Work Publications Research Summary Awards & Honors
Overview
Professor Hsieh’s research concerns ethical issues in business and the responsibilities of global business leaders. His work centers on the question of whether and how managers ought to be guided not only by considerations of economic efficiency, but also by values such as fairness and freedom and respect for basic rights. He has pursued this question in a variety of contexts, including the employment relationship and the operation of multinational enterprises in developing economies. He also studies foundational aspects of this question, examining principles for rational decision making when choices involve multiple values that appear incomparable.
Multinational Enterprises and Corporate Responsibility

Multinational enterprises, especially those operating in developing economies, face wide-ranging demands to help persons whose basic needs are unmet. Pharmaceutical companies, for example, are asked to provide access to life-saving therapies to patients in countries whose health-care systems do not provide for them, and apparel companies are pressured to require their suppliers to pay above-market wages to their workers.

In much of the debate, the answer to the question of whether managers have a responsibility to help meet these needs has turned on views about the nature and purpose of the for-profit corporation. To advance the conversation, Professor Hsieh addresses the question of responsibility in a manner consistent with a range of views about the corporation and without having to settle longstanding debates about such matters as shareholder primacy. The approach he takes is to start with widely accepted standards of minimally required conduct, such as a duty not to harm, and to examine what such standards require for the decisions of managers.

Managers and Employees: Justice at Work

The employment relationship represents another significant area for managerial decision making. While much of what managers and employees owe one another depends upon mutual agreement, not all of the terms can be specified in advance. Given these conditions, what are the responsibilities of managers? Professor Hsieh pursues this question by extending the influential work of Harvard political philosopher John Rawls. Professor Hsieh concludes that on the issue of managerial discretion, Rawls’s theory of justice is far more demanding than previously recognized. In his research, Professor Hsieh explores the implications for managerial responsibility as well as for the organization of work and economic institutions.

Incommensurable Values and Rational Decision Making
Rational decision making is widely thought to require comparing alternatives with respect to a single measure of value. Accordingly, asking managers to consider values in addition to economic efficiency has been criticized on the grounds that doing so violates the requirements of rationality. In this more foundational area of his research, Professor Hsieh examines possible responses to this criticism. One response is to recognize that seemingly incomparable alternatives are in fact comparable. Another response is to reconsider the role that comparisons play in rational decision making. A third response is to acknowledge that what appear to be considerations of economic efficiency may in fact reflect other values instead, such as equality or fairness.

Nien-hê Hsieh is the Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration in the General Management Unit at Harvard Business School. His research and teaching aims at helping business leaders and organizations determine and deliver on their responsibilities. He also studies what democratic values require for economic policies and institutions. Professor Hsieh teaches Leadership and Corporate Accountability (LCA) to first-year MBA students and Executive Education participants, and serves as Course Head for LCA. At Harvard University, he serves as Faculty Co-Director for the Justice, Health, and Democracy Impact Initiative at the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics, a Director at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, and on the Faculty Committee for the Scholars at Risk Program.

Professor Hsieh’s research centers on the question of whether and how managers, organzations, and economic institutions ought to be guided not only by considerations of efficiency, but also by values such as freedom and fairness and respect for basic rights and democracy. He has pursued this question in a variety of contexts, including the employment relationship, the operation of multinational enterprises in developing economies, and the ownership of productive property. Professor Hsieh also studies foundational aspects of this question, examining principles for rational decision making when choices involve multiple values that appear incomparable.

Professor Hsieh's work has been published in Business Ethics Quarterly, Economics and Philosophy, The Journal of Political Philosophy, Philosophy and Public Affairs, Social Theory and Practice, Utilitas, and various other journals. He is a past president of the Society for Business Ethics.

Professor Hsieh holds a B.A. in Economics from Swarthmore College, an M.Phil. in Politics from Oxford University, and a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University. He joined the faculty from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he was an associate professor of legal studies and business ethics and served as co-director of the Wharton Ethics Program. Before joining the faculty at Wharton in 2001, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard Business School, and he has held visiting fellowships at Harvard University, Oxford University, and the Research School for Social Sciences at the Australian National University. 


Featured Work
Helping Leaders Chart an Ethical Path

Professor Nien-hê Hsieh wrote the case “Cedar Environmental: Innovation vs. Corruption” with HBS’s Middle East and North Africa Research Center to explore the “gray area” of leadership—that uncomfortable and all-too-common space where leaders face difficult trade-offs across their responsibilities and commitments. During a class discussion among all 720 first-year MBA students, they considered the protagonist’s challenges as he tried to navigate in an industry in Lebanon rife with corruption.

Victorian Contributions to Political Economy and Business Ethics
John Ruskin – the nineteenth-century English writer, artist, philosopher, art critic, and philanthropist – may not be a household name among management theorists, but his work and thought have important implications for contemporary business and political economy. On the bicentenary of Ruskin's birth, the Houghton Library at Harvard University held the exhibit “Victorian Visionary: John Ruskin and the Realization of the Ideal” , which included contributions to the Library’s Ruskin collection by R. Dyke Benjamin (Harvard College ’59, Harvard Business School ’61). Produced for this exhibit, this article explores what Ruskin's views on labor, craftsmanship, and architecture suggest for how we organize the future of work.
Tackling Diversity in Case Discussions
Advice for Creating a Culture of Dialogue and Equity in Business Classrooms
Recognizing the importance of teaching managers to lead across lines of difference, this article presents a set of interrelated strategies for business educators to navigate topics of diversity and inclusion in the classroom. The authors advocate embedding principles of openness, respect, and intellectual precision in the content students engage with as well as the process of classroom management itself. In the process, several practical strategies are highlighted to help educators facilitate difficult and important conversations across lines of difference.
Journal Articles
Book Chapters
Cases
Teaching Notes
Other Publications and Materials
Research Summary
Overview
Professor Hsieh’s research concerns ethical issues in business and the responsibilities of global business leaders. His work centers on the question of whether and how managers ought to be guided not only by considerations of economic efficiency, but also by values such as fairness and freedom and respect for basic rights. He has pursued this question in a variety of contexts, including the employment relationship and the operation of multinational enterprises in developing economies. He also studies foundational aspects of this question, examining principles for rational decision making when choices involve multiple values that appear incomparable.
Multinational Enterprises and Corporate Responsibility

Multinational enterprises, especially those operating in developing economies, face wide-ranging demands to help persons whose basic needs are unmet. Pharmaceutical companies, for example, are asked to provide access to life-saving therapies to patients in countries whose health-care systems do not provide for them, and apparel companies are pressured to require their suppliers to pay above-market wages to their workers.

In much of the debate, the answer to the question of whether managers have a responsibility to help meet these needs has turned on views about the nature and purpose of the for-profit corporation. To advance the conversation, Professor Hsieh addresses the question of responsibility in a manner consistent with a range of views about the corporation and without having to settle longstanding debates about such matters as shareholder primacy. The approach he takes is to start with widely accepted standards of minimally required conduct, such as a duty not to harm, and to examine what such standards require for the decisions of managers.

Managers and Employees: Justice at Work

The employment relationship represents another significant area for managerial decision making. While much of what managers and employees owe one another depends upon mutual agreement, not all of the terms can be specified in advance. Given these conditions, what are the responsibilities of managers? Professor Hsieh pursues this question by extending the influential work of Harvard political philosopher John Rawls. Professor Hsieh concludes that on the issue of managerial discretion, Rawls’s theory of justice is far more demanding than previously recognized. In his research, Professor Hsieh explores the implications for managerial responsibility as well as for the organization of work and economic institutions.

Incommensurable Values and Rational Decision Making
Rational decision making is widely thought to require comparing alternatives with respect to a single measure of value. Accordingly, asking managers to consider values in addition to economic efficiency has been criticized on the grounds that doing so violates the requirements of rationality. In this more foundational area of his research, Professor Hsieh examines possible responses to this criticism. One response is to recognize that seemingly incomparable alternatives are in fact comparable. Another response is to reconsider the role that comparisons play in rational decision making. A third response is to acknowledge that what appear to be considerations of economic efficiency may in fact reflect other values instead, such as equality or fairness.
Awards & Honors
Winner of the 2023 Case Centre Award in the Ethics and Social Responsibility category for “Global Sourcing at Nike” (HBS Case 619-008) with Michael Toffel and Olivia Hull.
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