Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(2,210)
- Faculty Publications (482)
- June 2019 (Revised February 2020)
- Case
Eric Hawkins Leading Agile Teams @ Digitally-Born AppFolio (A)
By: Tsedal Neeley, Paul Leonardi and Michael Norris
Eric Hawkins, director of engineering at AppFolio—a digital technology firm that offered cloud-based business software to small and medium sized companies—was shocked by an unusual request from his senior leadership team. Could Hawkins and one of his agile teams build... View Details
- June 2019 (Revised November 2019)
- Technical Note
Sustaining Corporate Culture in a Growing Organization
By: Dennis Campbell and Tatiana Sandino
An organization’s culture can be a significant source of sustainable competitive advantage. For the organization, it can attract job candidates who fit and align employees working in different teams around common goals. For employees, a strong culture can generate... View Details
- April 2019 (Revised December 2021)
- Case
Sears: The Demise of an American Icon
By: Kristin Mugford and Sarah L. Abbott
In 2019, ESL Investments’ $5.2 billion offer to purchase Sears Holdings out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy, was accepted, despite opposition from the company's unsecured creditors and other parties. ESL, which was led by Eddie Lampert, had acquired a stake in Sears following... View Details
- 2019
- Working Paper
Rehabilitating Corporate Purpose
In this paper, I address how the ascendance of the theory of shareholder value maximization into the central consciousness of public corporations and its canonization as the only legitimate expression of corporate purpose has contributed to both a widening breach... View Details
- April 2019 (Revised March 2020)
- Case
Handy: The Future of Work? (A)
By: Nien-hê Hsieh and Kieron Stopforth
Witnessing numerous lawsuits alleging that online platform companies misclassified workers as contractors when they were actually employees, Handy’s founders faced a series of decisions. Handy was an online platform business that enabled customers to book appointments... View Details
- Article
Assessing the Impact of CEO Activism
By: Aaron K Chatterji and Michael W. Toffel
CEO activism refers to corporate leaders speaking out on social and environmental policy issues not directly related to their company’s core business. Distinct from nonmarket strategy and traditional corporate social responsibility, the recent wave of CEO activism... View Details
- February 2019
- Article
Bounded Ethicality and Ethical Fading in Negotiations: Understanding Unintended Unethical Behavior
By: McKenzie Rees, Ann E. Tenbrunsel and Max Bazerman
The business scandals in the past several decades led to the rising importance of ethics as a topic central to management scholarship. Behavioral scientists in particular were attracted to the topic in far greater numbers, and the study of ethical decision-making... View Details
- January 2019
- Supplement
The De Beers Group: Launching GemFair for Artisanal Diamonds
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher
In April 2018, the De Beers Group launched a pilot project called GemFair to create a new supply of ethically and environmentally sourced diamonds from artisanal and small-scale mines (ASM) in Sierra Leone. Whether this project would yield a meaningful supply of rough... View Details
- January 2019
- Teaching Note
Accenture's Code of Business Ethics
By: Eugene Soltes
Teaching Note for HBS No. 119-049. View Details
- January 2019
- Case
Accenture's Code of Business Ethics
By: Eugene Soltes
Leaders of Accenture’s compliance and ethics program are seeking to design a new code of business ethics for its global workforce of over 400,000 employees. The case explores the decision-making process that went into the design process and ultimately how they created... View Details
- November 2018 (Revised January 2019)
- Module Note
Responsibilities to Investors (Abridged)
By: Lena G. Goldberg and Joseph L. Badaracco
This note focuses on managers’ responsibilities—economic, legal, and ethical—to investors. In capitalist and some socialist economies, these responsibilities traditionally have been grounded in fiduciary duties and are typically part of the common law or statutory law... View Details
- November 2018 (Revised December 2018)
- Case
CalSTRS Takes on Gun Violence
By: Vikram S Gandhi and Caitlin Reimers
In Spring of 2018, Chris Ailman, CIO of the $200 billion pension plan for California public school teachers (CalSTRS) was mandated by his board to “prioritize engagement with makers and retailers of firearms in California” following a series of gun-related tragedies in... View Details
- November 2018 (Revised January 2022)
- Case
JUUL and the Vaping Revolution
By: Michael W. Toffel, John Masko and Sarah Mehta
In late 2019, San Francisco-based electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) maker JUUL Labs (pronounced “jewel”) faced intense pressure. Sales of JUUL products exceeded $1 billion in 2018, dominating the e-cigarette category. While JUUL Labs’ stated goal was to help current... View Details
Keywords: Electronic Cigarettes; E-Cigarettes; Vaping; Nicotine Replacement; JUUL; Juuling; Advertising; Digital Marketing; Customers; Innovation and Invention; Marketing; Ethics; Brands and Branding; Marketing Communications; Marketing Strategy; Product Marketing; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Social Issues; Information Technology; Technology Industry; San Francisco; California
- Article
Business, Governments and Political Risk in South Asia and Latin America since 1970
By: G. Jones and Rachael Comunale
This article contributes to the literature on political risk in business and economic history by examining both new perspectives (risk encountered by companies domestically, rather than risk for foreign investors) and new settings (emerging markets economies in Latin... View Details
- October 2018
- Case
Zenefits Board of Directors (A)
By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz
In early 2018, the time seemed right for Zenefits investor and director Lars Dalgaard to reflect on whether Zenefits had the right board of directors to shepherd the company through its next stages of growth. For the company whose name combined the words “benefits,”... View Details
Keywords: Ethics; Business Model; Corporate Accountability; Governing and Advisory Boards; Corporate Governance; Crisis Management; Entrepreneurship; Human Resources; Leadership; Risk Management; Venture Capital; Technology Industry; Telecommunications Industry; Information Technology Industry; United States; California
- October 2018
- Supplement
Zenefits Board of Directors (B)
By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz
Supplements the (A) case. View Details
Keywords: Ethics; Business Model; Corporate Accountability; Governing and Advisory Boards; Corporate Governance; Crisis Management; Entrepreneurship; Human Resources; Leadership; Risk Management; Venture Capital; Technology Industry; Telecommunications Industry; Information Technology Industry; United States; California
- October 2018
- Supplement
Zenefits Board of Directors (C)
By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz
Supplements the (A) case. View Details
Keywords: Ethics; Business Model; Corporate Accountability; Governing and Advisory Boards; Corporate Governance; Crisis Management; Entrepreneurship; Human Resources; Leadership; Risk Management; Venture Capital; Technology Industry; Telecommunications Industry; Information Technology Industry; United States; California
- October 2018
- Case
African Bank Investments Limited (A)
By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz
Less than a year after joining the board of African Bank Investments Limited (ABIL), the newest director finds himself in difficult discussions with other directors about removing the struggling company’s CEO. The case is set in South Africa in mid-2014 as shares in... View Details
- October 2018
- Supplement
African Bank Investments Limited (B)
By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz
Less than a year after joining the board of African Bank Investments Limited (ABIL), the newest director finds himself in difficult discussions with other directors about removing the struggling company’s CEO. The case is set in South Africa in mid-2014 as shares in... View Details
- Article
Getting Clear on Corporate Culture: Conceptualisation, Measurement and Operationalisation
By: Nien-he Hsieh, Benjamin Lange, David Rodin and Mira L. A. Wolf-Bauwens
This article provides a review of existing literature on corporate culture, drawing on work from the disciplines of business ethics, management studies, psychology, anthropology, and economics, as well as interviews with business leaders. It surveys different... View Details