Publications

2022
Chapter

Interrogating Corporate Purpose: Values Based Firms and the Struggle to Build a Just and Sustainable World

By: Rebecca Henderson

Book Abstract: Defining a just economy in a tenuous social-political time. If we can agree that our current social-political moment is tenuous and unsustainable—and indeed, that may be the only thing we can agree on right now—then how do markets, governments, and... View Details

Keywords: Moral Sensibility; Social Issues

12 Nov 2001
Research & Ideas

Can Religion and Business Learn From Each Other?

of moral problems that are very stressful to deal with. It needs mutual learning. It needs multiple perspectives. There's a third reason that popped up in the 90s: globalization. There now is an awareness that if you are in any kind of a... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

January 2018
Case

Merck CEO Ken Frazier Quits President Trump's Advisory Council

By: Andy Zelleke and Brian Tilley

In the first six months of Donald Trump’s presidency, Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier appeared alongside Trump at least three times at press events, one of which commemorated the first and only meeting of the president’s Manufacturing Job Initiative (better known at the... View Details

Keywords: CEO Role; Politics; Corporate Governance; Moral Sensibility; Managerial Roles; United States

April 2014
Article

Evil Genius? How Dishonesty Can Lead to Greater Creativity

By: F. Gino and S. Wiltermuth

We propose that dishonest and creative behavior have something in common: they both involve breaking rules. Because of this shared feature, creativity may lead to dishonesty (as shown in prior work), and dishonesty may lead to creativity (the hypothesis we tested in... View Details

Keywords: Moral Sensibility; Creativity; Attitudes

November 27, 2023
Article

How James Mwangi Worked to Democratize Banking Across Africa

By: Ranjay Gulati

Keywords: Personal Development and Career; Moral Sensibility; Decisions; Financial Services Industry

March 2013 (Revised March 2015)
Case

iMatari

By: Joseph L. Badaracco and Matthew Preble

In late 2012, recent Harvard Business School graduate Hannah Lopez is given the opportunity to lead entry into a new market for Plámo, a company that created startup companies in Europe and emerging markets based upon existing successful business models. She had only... View Details

Keywords: Ethical Behavior; Ethical Judgment; Entrepreneurship; Imitation; Ethics; Moral Sensibility; Values and Beliefs; Europe; Middle East

March 2018
Article

Polluted Morality: Air Pollution Predicts Criminal Activity and Unethical Behavior

By: Jackson G. Lu, Julia J. Lee, F. Gino and Adam D. Galinsky

Air pollution is a serious problem that influences billions of people globally. Although the health and environmental costs of air pollution are well known, the present research investigates its ethical costs. We propose that air pollution can increase criminal and... View Details

Keywords: Pollutants; Behavior; Moral Sensibility; Crime and Corruption

September 2017
Case

Harvard Men's Soccer

By: Alison Wood Brooks and Katherine Coffman

In the fall of 2016, the Crimson, Harvard’s undergraduate newspaper, broke a story revealing that the 2012 Harvard Men’s Soccer team had produced a sexually explicit “scouting report” about the Women’s Soccer team. The story generated national headlines and... View Details

Keywords: Moral Sensibility; Ethics; Gender; Social Issues

April 2017
Article

The Responsibilities and Role of Business in Relation to Society: Back to Basics?

By: Nien-he Hsieh

In this address, I outline a back-to-basics approach to specifying the responsibilities and role of business in relation to society. Three “basics” comprise the approach. The first is arguing that basic principles of ordinary morality, such as a duty not to harm,... View Details

Keywords: Business And Society; Corporate Responsibility; Harm; Human Rights; Institutions; Pareto Efficiency; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Moral Sensibility; Society; Rights

22 Jul 2016
Working Paper Summaries

Who Pays for White-Collar Crime?

Keywords: by Paul Healy and George Serafeim

September 2000
Case

MBA in Jeopardy (C)

By: Lynn S. Paine, Gagan Gupta and Phani K. Nagarjuna

Supplements the (A) case. View Details

Keywords: Moral Sensibility; Interdisciplinary Studies; Education; Performance; Crime and Corruption; Education Industry

June 2020
Article

Air Pollution, State Anxiety, and Unethical Behavior: A Meta-Analytic Review

By: J Lu, J. Lee, F. Gino and A. Galinsky

Lu, Lee, Gino, and Galinsky (2018) reported four studies demonstrating that air pollution predicted unethical behavior and that one mediating mechanism was state anxiety. In contrast, Heck and colleagues reported two null-effect studies on air pollution, trait... View Details

Keywords: State Anxiety; Pollution; Behavior; Moral Sensibility; Analysis

2014
Article

Paying It Forward: Generalized Reciprocity and the Limits of Generosity

By: Kurt Gray, Adrian F. Ward and Michael I. Norton

When people are the victims of greed or recipients of generosity, their first impulse is often to pay back that behavior in kind. What happens when people cannot reciprocate, but instead have the chance to be cruel or kind to someone entirely different—to pay it... View Details

Keywords: Moral Sensibility; Behavior; Situation or Environment; Attitudes

January 2011 (Revised June 2012)
Case

Joe Gifford in Tal Afar, Iraq (A)

By: Joseph Badaracco, Richard Burgess Jr., Robert Carpio III and William Wheeler

A Lieutenant leading a platoon in Iraq must make a complex ethical, military, and leadership decision: whether to risk his life and that of other soldiers to reenter a home rigged with an explosive and save three Iraqis. View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Moral Sensibility; Leadership; Management; Problems and Challenges; Iraq

2003
Article

The "Moralities" of Poaching: Manufacturing Personal Artifacts on the Factory Floor

By: Michel Anteby

Keywords: Production; Moral Sensibility; Factories, Labs, and Plants

February 1999
Case

Guaranty Trust Bank PLC Nigeria (D)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Hal Hogan

Supplements the (A) case. View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development; Trends; Moral Sensibility; Ethics; Organizational Culture; Law; Banking Industry; Nigeria

2023
Working Paper

'It Wouldn’t Have Mattered Anyway': When Overdetermined Outcomes Justify Our Sins

By: Stephanie C. Lin, Julian J. Zlatev and Dale T. Miller

We identify and document an “overdetermined outcome defense” which occurs when one learns that circumstances besides one’s own actions were sufficient to produce a negative effect (e.g., deciding not to go to the gym, but later discovering that the gym had been... View Details

Keywords: Moral Sensibility; Decision Making; Outcome or Result; Behavior

July 1991 (Revised March 1992)
Background Note

Integrity and Management

By: Joseph L. Badaracco

Describes the role that issues of personal integrity play in managers' decisions. Defines personal integrity, the factors that influence it, the situations in which it becomes particularly relevant to company decisions, and ways of overcoming the blind spots that can... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Moral Sensibility; Planning; Situation or Environment; Trust; Value

Article

Don't Let Power Corrupt You

By: Julie Battilana and Tiziana Casciaro

Although power is essential to taking charge and driving change, it makes leaders vulnerable to two traps that can not only erode their own effectiveness but also undermine their teams. Hubris—the excessive pride and self-confidence that can come with power—causes... View Details

Keywords: Humility; Empathy; Hubris; Leadership; Power and Influence; Moral Sensibility; Performance Effectiveness