Publications

2021
Working Paper

Shareholder Activism and Firms' Voluntary Disclosure of Climate Change Risks

By: Caroline Flammer, Michael W. Toffel and Kala Viswanathan

This paper examines whether—in the absence of mandated disclosure requirements—shareholder activism can elicit greater disclosure of firms’ exposure to climate change risks. We find that environmental shareholder activism increases the voluntary disclosure of climate... View Details

Keywords: Shareholder Activism; Climate Risk; Corporate Accountability; Climate Change; Corporate Disclosure; Corporate Governance; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Shareholder Relations; Risk and Uncertainty; Natural Environment; Environmental Sustainability; Financial Services Industry; United States

SSRN

October 16, 2019
Article

Where ESG Fails

By: Michael E. Porter, George Serafeim and Mark Kramer

We are entering a new stage of understanding of the linkage between investment performance and social impact. Previous approaches, such as socially responsible investing and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) screening, have obscured the opportunities for... View Details

Keywords: ESG; Sustainability; Environment; Social Impact; Impact Investing; ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance; ESG Reporting; Shared Value; Environmental Sustainability; Social Issues; Investment; Value; Strategy

October 2019 (Revised November 2019)
Case

C16 Biosciences: Lab-Grown Palm Oil

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Olivia Hull

Synthetic biology start-up C16 Biosciences wants to solve a big problem: replace palm oil, a major contributor to deforestation and climate change, with a lab-grown substitute. CEO Shara Ticku has ambitious plans to supply her lab-grown palm oil to food manufacturers,... View Details

Keywords: Science-Based Business; Environmental Sustainability; Social Entrepreneurship; Product Development; Product Positioning; Venture Capital; Strategy; Decision Making; Food and Beverage Industry; Consumer Products Industry

September 2019 (Revised August 2020)
Case

Engineering an Inclusive Bioeconomy

By: Tarun Khanna, Raffaella Sadun and Susie L. Ma

In 2019, entrepreneur Juan Carlos Castilla-Rubio was developing a project he hoped could generate and share wealth from the natural resources of the Amazon without destroying those resources. His idea, called Earth Bank of Codes (EBC), would create a library of the... View Details

Article

Advancing Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Research Through Open Innovation Competitions

By: Andrea Blasco, Michael G. Endres, Rinat A. Sergeev, Anup Jonchhe, Max Macaluso, Rajiv Narayan, Ted Natoli, Jin H. Paik, Bryan Briney, Chunlei Wu, Andrew I. Su, Aravind Subramanian and Karim R. Lakhani

Open data science and algorithm development competitions offer a unique avenue for rapid discovery of better computational strategies. We highlight three examples in computational biology and bioinformatics research where the use of competitions has yielded significant... View Details

Keywords: Computational Biology; Bioinformatics; Innovation Competitions; Research; Collaborative Innovation and Invention

August 2019 (Revised November 2019)
Case

Sustainable Investing at J.P. Morgan Private Bank

By: Sara Fleiss and Luis Viceira

This case features Monica Issar, then Global Head of J.P. Morgan Endowments & Foundations Group in the Private Bank. In just five years, she and J.P. Morgan have grown the Outsourced Chief Investment Officer (OCIO) business from $5 billion in AUM from primarily family... View Details

Keywords: Sustainability; Investment; Management; Strategy; Social Issues; Environmental Sustainability; Banking Industry

2019
Working Paper

The Impact of Professionals' Contributions to Online Knowledge Communities on Their Workplace Knowledge Work

By: Hila Lifshitz - Assaf and Frank Nagle

Knowledge work is becoming increasingly challenging as pace of change in the knowledge frontier is increasing. Organizations have created multiple mechanisms to minimize knowledge gaps and increase learning such internal training, mentorship programs as well as... View Details

Keywords: Open Source; Future Of Work; Software Development; Knowledge Work; Online Community; Learning; Knowledge Sharing; Applications and Software; Open Source Distribution; Performance Productivity

2019
Chapter

Poor Mao's Almanack? Empire, Political Economy, and the Transformation of Social Science

By: Sophus A. Reinert

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2019
Article

Creativity from Paradoxical Experience: A Theory of How Individuals Achieve Creativity while Adopting Paradoxical Frames

By: Goran Calic, Sébastien Hélie, Nick Bontis and Elaine Mosakowski

Purpose: Extant paradox theory suggests that adopting paradoxical frames, which are mental templates adopted by individuals in order to embrace contradictions, will result in superior firm performance. Superior performance is achieved through learning and creativity,... View Details

Keywords: Cognition and Thinking; Creativity; Learning

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2019
Working Paper

Biometric Monitoring, Service Delivery and Misreporting: Evidence from Healthcare in India

By: Thomas Bossuroy, Clara Delavallade and Vincent Pons

Developing countries increasingly use biometric identification technology in hopes of improving the reliability of administrative information and delivering social services more efficiently. This paper exploits the random placement of biometric tracking devices in... View Details

Keywords: Biometric Technology; Health Care and Treatment; Technological Innovation; Analytics and Data Science; Quality; Performance Improvement; India

January 2019 (Revised February 2020)
Case

Should a Pension Fund Try to Change the World? Inside GPIF's Embrace of ESG

By: George Serafeim

In the fall of 2018, Hiro Mizuno, the Chief Investment Officer (CIO) of GPIF, the Japanese Government Pension Fund, was reflecting on his efforts to integrate Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues into every aspect of GPIF’s portfolio. His efforts ranged... View Details

Keywords: Pension Funds; ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance; Investment Funds; Environmental Sustainability; Social Issues; Governance; Leading Change; Economy; Performance Improvement; Japan

2018
Working Paper

Corporate Sustainability: A Strategy?

By: George Serafeim

We explore the conditions under which firms maintain their competitive advantage through sustainability-based differentiation when faced with imitation pressures by industry peers. We document growing intraindustry convergence on sustainability actions over time for... View Details

Keywords: Sustainability; Corporate Performance; Industry Analysis; CSR; ESG; ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance; Environment; Social Responsibility; Strategy And Execution; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Strategy; Performance; Corporate Strategy

SSRN

2019
Article

Big Data

By: John A. Deighton

Big data is defined and distinguished from a mere moment in the “ancient quest to measure.” Specific discontinuities in the practice of information science are identified that, the paper argues, have large consequences for the social order. The infrastructure that runs... View Details

Keywords: Big Data; Digital Infrastructure; Privacy; Algorithm; Data Generators; Marketplace Icon; Analytics and Data Science; Infrastructure; Power and Influence; Society

2018
Article

Insight into Gender Differences in STEM: Evidence from Peer Reviews in an Engineering Class

By: Jacqueline N. Lane, Bruce Ankenman and Seyed Iravani

As the service industry moves toward self-service, peer feedback serves a critical role in this shift for educational services. Peer feedback is a process by which students provide feedback to each other. One of its major benefits is that it enables students to become... View Details

Keywords: Peer Review; Peer Feedback; STEM Education; Anonymity; Education; Gender; Education Industry

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November 2018
Article

Global Evidence on Economic Preferences

By: Armin Falk, Anke Becker, Thomas Dohmen, Benjamin Enke, David Huffman and Uwe Sunde

This article studies the global variation in economic preferences. For this purpose, we present the Global Preference Survey (GPS), an experimentally validated survey data set of time preference, risk preference, positive and negative reciprocity, altruism, and trust... View Details

Keywords: Economic Preferences; Economics; Behavior; Surveys; Analytics and Data Science; Global Range

November 2018
Case

Sportradar (A): From Data to Storytelling

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Karen Elterman and Oliver Gassmann

In 2013, the Swiss sports data company Sportradar debated whether to expand from its core business of data provision to bookmakers into sports media products. Sports data was becoming a commodity, and in the future, sports leagues might reduce their dependence on... View Details

October 2018 (Revised August 2023)
Case

Safecast: Bootstrapping Human Capital to Big Data

By: Ethan Bernstein and Stephanie Marton

On March 11, 2011, at 2:46pm, a 9.1-on-the-Richter-scale, six-minute long earthquake unleashed a tsunami that ravaged the Tohoku region of Japan, damaging the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power facility and releasing sufficient radioactive material into the air and ocean... View Details

Article

The Critical Role of Second-order Normative Beliefs in Predicting Energy Conservation

By: Jon M. Jachimowicz, Oliver P. Hauser, Julia D. O'Brien, Erin Sherman and Adam D. Galinsky

Sustaining large-scale public goods requires individuals to make environmentally friendly decisions today to benefit future generations. Recent research suggests that second-order normative beliefs are more powerful predictors of behaviour than first-order personal... View Details

Keywords: Climate Change; Energy; Environmental Sustainability; Household; Behavior; Values and Beliefs; Forecasting and Prediction

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August 2018
Case

Christine Lagarde (A): A French Prime Minister Calls

By: Julie Battilana and Carin-Isabel Knoop

This case covers formative events and influences in Christine Lagarde’s childhood and her trajectory from studying political science and law to heading the world’s largest law firm. As she prepares to transition back to practice in 2005, the new Prime Minister of... View Details

Keywords: Personal Development and Career; Power and Influence; Decision Making