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Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(2,358)
- People (5)
- News (533)
- Research (1,346)
- Events (10)
- Multimedia (13)
- Faculty Publications (671)
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- October 2024
- Module Note
Purpose of the Firm
By: Debora L. Spar and Julia M. Comeau
Purpose of the Firm (PoF) is a short module designed to explore how, and under what circumstances, business leaders can harness the power of capitalism and markets to “make a difference in the world”—that is, to address a significant societal problem as a commercial... View Details
Keywords: Social Accounting; Purpose; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Social Enterprise; Mission and Purpose; Leadership
Spar, Debora L., and Julia M. Comeau. "Purpose of the Firm." Harvard Business School Module Note 325-035, October 2024.
- December 2020
- Article
Stock Market Returns and Consumption
By: Marco Di Maggio, Amir Kermani and Kaveh Majlesi
This paper employs Swedish data containing security level information on households' stock holdings to investigate how consumption responds to changes in stock market returns. We exploit households’ portfolio weights in previous years as an instrument for actual... View Details
Keywords: Capital Gain; Dividend Income; Consumption; Near-rational Behavior; Investment Return; Household; Spending; Behavior
Di Maggio, Marco, Amir Kermani, and Kaveh Majlesi. "Stock Market Returns and Consumption." Journal of Finance 75, no. 6 (December 2020): 3175–3219. (DFA Distinguished Paper Prize.)
- 2002
- Chapter
Factories in the Countryside: The Industrial Workforce and Social Division in Nantong County, 1895-1937
By: Elisabeth Koll
- 2024
- Working Paper
The Fading Light of Democratic Capitalism: How Pervasive Cronyism and Restricted Suffrage Are Destroying Democratic Capitalism as a National Ideal…and What to Do about It
What are we to do about declining public trust and confidence in democratic capitalism, which many citizens consider a cornerstone of our national ideology and identity? While the answer is not entirely clear, I argue in this essay that any effort aimed at restoring... View Details
Salter, Malcolm S. "The Fading Light of Democratic Capitalism: How Pervasive Cronyism and Restricted Suffrage Are Destroying Democratic Capitalism as a National Ideal…and What to Do about It." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 24-062, March 2024.
- 2021
- Working Paper
The Changing Role of Business in Society
Business interaction with the U.S. government, historically based on securing industry or company special interests at the expense of the public good, has enabled and furthered government dysfunction. Gridlock within the American political system has precluded the... View Details
Keywords: Politics; Shared Value; Social Progress Index; Competitiveness; Walmart; BlackRock; ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance; ESG; Transparency; Campaign Contributions; Campaign Finance; Lobbying; Revolving Door; Political Ideology; Political Parties; Political Partisanship; Government And Business; Government Innovation; Elections; Democracy; Capitalism; Stakeholder Capitalism; Shareholder Engagement; Competition; Strategy; Government and Politics; Society; Social Issues; Human Needs; Wealth and Poverty; Business and Community Relations; Business and Government Relations; Corporate Accountability; Financial Services Industry; Banking Industry; United States
Porter, Michael E. "The Changing Role of Business in Society." Working Paper, July 2021.
- January 2018
- Case
Environmental Technology Fund Partners and E-Leather
By: Vikram S. Gandhi and Aldo Sesia
It is 2014 and Environmental Technologies Fund (ETF) Partners, a UK-based venture capital firm, has an opportunity to invest in a privately held UK company that manufactured engineered composition leather extracted from waste leather using an environmentally friendly... View Details
Keywords: Sustainability; Venture Capital; Investment Strategy; Investment; Strategy; Ownership; Valuation; Energy Conservation; Equity; Technological Innovation; Environmental Sustainability; Performance Efficiency; Manufacturing Industry; Financial Services Industry; United Kingdom
Gandhi, Vikram S., and Aldo Sesia. "Environmental Technology Fund Partners and E-Leather." Harvard Business School Case 318-001, January 2018.
- 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
Keywords: Capitalism; Justice; Corporate Purpose; Shareholder Value Maximization; Ethical Reciprocity; Economic Systems; Business Ventures; Mission and Purpose; Ethics; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact
Salter, Malcolm S. "Rehabilitating Corporate Purpose." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 19-104, April 2019.
- 2024
- Book
The Fading Light of Democratic Capitalism: How Pervasive Cronyism and Restricted Suffrage Are Destroying Democratic Capitalism as a National Ideal ... And What to Do About It
What are we to do about declining public trust and confidence in democratic capitalism, which many citizens consider a cornerstone of our national ideology and identity? In this book, I address how we can rekindle the fading light of democratic capitalism as an... View Details
Salter, Malcolm S. The Fading Light of Democratic Capitalism: How Pervasive Cronyism and Restricted Suffrage Are Destroying Democratic Capitalism as a National Ideal ... And What to Do About It. Cambridge Elements, Elements in Reinventing Capitalism. Cambridge University Press, 2024.
- February 2022 (Revised April 2024)
- Case
Aleph Farms: A New Culture of Meat
By: Elie Ofek and Jeff Huizinga
Aleph Farms, an Israeli food-tech start-up, was hoping to play a major role in disrupting the conventional meat sector. Compared to intensive agricultural practices, Aleph’s cultured (or lab-grown) meat solution held the promise of considerably reducing greenhouse gas... View Details
Keywords: Innovation; Disruptive Innovation; Adoption; Go To Market Strategy; Industry Evolution; Food Industry; Environmental And Social Sustainability; Marketing Of Innovations; Brand Building; Capital Expenditures-equipment; Disruption; Green Technology; Environmental Sustainability; Food; Market Entry and Exit; Brands and Branding; Consumer Behavior; Competitive Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry
Ofek, Elie, and Jeff Huizinga. "Aleph Farms: A New Culture of Meat." Harvard Business School Case 522-071, February 2022. (Revised April 2024.)
- 2014
- Working Paper
Eclipsed and Confounded Identities: When High-Status Affiliations Impede Organizational Growth
By: Daniel Malter
I propose that an organization's growth potential may suffer if its identity is eclipsed by or confounded with the organizations with which it collaborates and competes. Using status as a salient feature of identity, I devise two network measures to capture the degree... View Details
Keywords: Distinctiveness; Status; Networks; Resource Acquisition; Growth; Venture Capital; Status and Position; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Identity; Growth and Development Strategy
Malter, Daniel. "Eclipsed and Confounded Identities: When High-Status Affiliations Impede Organizational Growth." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 15-019, October 2014.
- Teaching Interest
Overview
By: Debora L. Spar
I currently teach an Elective Course on Capitalism and the State (CATS), and serve as Course Head for a new Required Curriculum course on the Social Purpose of the Firm (SPF). Previously, I developed and taught Managing International Trade and Investment (MITI) in the... View Details
- Article
Investors as Stewards of the Commons?
By: George Serafeim
Over the past few years, there has been a significant increase in the number of initiatives seeking to mobilize investor voice towards positive social impact. In this paper, I provide a framework outlining the role of investors as stewards of the commons. While... View Details
Keywords: Collaboration; Industry Self-regulation; Sustainability; ESG; Capital Markets; Investor Behavior; Investment Activism; Social Issues; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Cooperation
Serafeim, George. "Investors as Stewards of the Commons?" Journal of Applied Corporate Finance 30, no. 2 (Spring 2018): 8–17.
- March 2020
- Article
Governance Through Shame and Aspiration: Index Creation and Corporate Behavior
By: Akash Chattopadhyay, Matthew D. Shaffer and Charles C.Y. Wang
After decades of deprioritizing shareholders' economic interests and low corporate profitability, Japan introduced the JPX-Nikkei400 in 2014. The index highlighted the country's "best-run" companies by annually selecting the 400 most profitable of its large and liquid... View Details
Keywords: JPX-Nikkei 400 Index; Status Incentives; Return On Equity; Capital Efficiency; Social Norms; Index Inclusion; Reputation Incentives; Motivation and Incentives; Corporate Governance; Behavior; Investment Return; Status and Position; Japan
Chattopadhyay, Akash, Matthew D. Shaffer, and Charles C.Y. Wang. "Governance Through Shame and Aspiration: Index Creation and Corporate Behavior." Journal of Financial Economics 135, no. 3 (March 2020): 704–724.
- October 2020 (Revised November 2020)
- Case
Wilderness Safaris: Impact Investing and Ecotourism Conservation in Africa
By: James E. Austin, Megan Epler Wood and Herman B. "Dutch" Leonard
In 2018 the majority ownership of publicly owned Wilderness Safaris, the leading high-end ecotourism company in Africa with safari operations in eight countries, was acquired by The Rise Fund, one of the world’s largest private social impact investing funds, and by FS... View Details
Keywords: Investing; Investing For Impact; Ecotourism; COVID-19; Equity Financing; Strategy Formulation; Profitability; Environmental And Social Sustainability; Sustainability; Conservation Planning; Corporate Social Responsibility; Investment; Social Enterprise; Social Entrepreneurship; Environmental Sustainability; Strategy; Financing and Loans; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Health Pandemics; Tourism Industry; Africa; Rwanda; Angola
Austin, James E., Megan Epler Wood, and Herman B. "Dutch" Leonard. "Wilderness Safaris: Impact Investing and Ecotourism Conservation in Africa." Harvard Business School Case 321-020, October 2020. (Revised November 2020.)
- Article
The Effects of Media Slant on Firm Behavior
By: Vishal P. Baloria and Jonas Heese
The media can impose reputational costs on firms because of its important role as an information intermediary and its ability to negatively slant coverage. We exploit a quasi-natural experiment that holds constant the information event across firms, but varies the... View Details
Keywords: Media Slant; Reputational Capital; Strategic Corporate Decisions; Media; News; Communication Strategy; Reputation
Baloria, Vishal P., and Jonas Heese. "The Effects of Media Slant on Firm Behavior." Journal of Financial Economics 129, no. 1 (July 2018): 184–202.
- November 2012
- Article
The Organization of Firms Across Countries
By: Nicholas Bloom, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen
We argue that social capital as proxied by trust increases aggregate productivity by affecting the organization of firms. To do this we collect new data on the decentralization of investment, hiring, production, and sales decisions from Corporate Headquarters to local... View Details
Keywords: Decentralization; Social Capital; Theory Of The Firm; Firm Objectives, Organization, And Behavior; Business Economics; Management Of Technological Innovation And R&D; Technological Change: Choices And Consequences; Diffusion Processes; Organizational Structure; Performance Productivity; Trust; Technology Adoption; Multinational Firms and Management
Bloom, Nicholas, Raffaella Sadun, and John Van Reenen. "The Organization of Firms Across Countries." Quarterly Journal of Economics 127, no. 4 (November 2012). (Slides from 2008, Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 12-005, August 2011.)
- March–April 2021
- Article
Network-biased Technical Change: How Information Management Tools Overcome Some Biases but Exacerbate Others.
By: Gerald C. Kane and Lynn Wu
Organizations have long sought to improve employee performance by managing knowledge more effectively. In this paper, we test whether the adoption of digital tools for expertise search and access within an organization, often referred to as a support to an... View Details
Keywords: Digital Tools; Social Media; Social Networks; Transactive Memory Systems; Augmented Intelligence; Artificial Intelligence; Social and Collaborative Networks; Gender; Equality and Inequality; Technology Adoption; Knowledge Management; Performance Improvement; Power and Influence; Organizational Change and Adaptation
Kane, Gerald C., and Lynn Wu. "Network-biased Technical Change: How Information Management Tools Overcome Some Biases but Exacerbate Others." Organization Science 32, no. 2 (March–April 2021): 273–292.
- 2019
- Chapter
Interorganizational Collaboration and Start-Up Innovation
By: Vikas A. Aggarwal and Andy Wu
This chapter presents an overview of the literature on collaborative relationships between start-ups and incumbent firms, focusing on the implications of these relationships for start-up innovation and performance. Value creation in such relationships occurs when... View Details
Keywords: Alliance; Corporate Venture Capital; Complementary Assets; Appropriability; Business Startups; Joint Ventures; Knowledge; Innovation and Invention; Value Creation; Entrepreneurship
Aggarwal, Vikas A., and Andy Wu. "Interorganizational Collaboration and Start-Up Innovation." In The Oxford Handbook of Entrepreneurship and Collaboration, edited by Jeffrey J. Reuer, Sharon Matusik, and Jessica F. Jones, 611–627. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019.
- June 2014 (Revised November 2014)
- Case
Investing in Online Marketplaces
By: Andrei Hagiu and Hermes Alvarez
Simon Rothman had recently been promoted from executive-in-residence to Partner at esteemed venture capital firm Greylock Partners and placed in charge of managing a $100 million early-stage fund commitment dedicated to online marketplaces. In Greylock's view, 2014 was... View Details
Keywords: Business Models; Competitive Advantage; Entrepreneurship; Internet; Investments; Networks; Technology; Venture Capital
Hagiu, Andrei, and Hermes Alvarez. "Investing in Online Marketplaces." Harvard Business School Case 714-520, June 2014. (Revised November 2014.)
- Article
ESG Integration in Investment Management: Myths and Realities
By: Sakis Kotsantonis, Christopher Pinney and George Serafeim
The authors’ aim in this article is to set the record straight on the financial performance of sustainable investing while also correcting a number of other widespread misconceptions about this rapidly growing set of principles and methods.
Myth Number 1:... View Details
Keywords: ESG; Sustainability; Investment Management; Finance; Corporate Social Responsibility; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Investment; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Governance
Kotsantonis, Sakis, Christopher Pinney, and George Serafeim. "ESG Integration in Investment Management: Myths and Realities." Journal of Applied Corporate Finance 28, no. 2 (Spring 2016): 10–16.