Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(3,379)
- Faculty Publications (418)
- January–February 2018
- Article
Inclusive Growth: Profitable Strategies for Tackling Poverty and Inequality
By: Robert S. Kaplan, George Serafeim and Eduardo Tugendhat
More than a billion people in the developing world remain in extreme poverty and outside the formal economy. Traditional CSR programs have done little to alleviate the situation and rarely produce transformative change.
Instead of trying to fix local problems,... View Details
Instead of trying to fix local problems,... View Details
Keywords: Inclusive Growth; Sustainability; Social Impact; Business Strategy; Shared Value; Impact Investing; Inequality; Corporate Governance; Balanced Scorecard; Strategy Execution; Economic Growth; Developing Countries and Economies; Poverty; Equality and Inequality; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Strategy; Investment
- January 2018
- Article
The Globalization of Angel Investments: Evidence Across Countries
By: Josh Lerner, Antoinette Schoar, Stanislav Sokolinski and Karen Wilson
This paper examines investments made by 13 angel groups across 21 countries. We compare applicants just above and below the funding cutoff and find that these angel investors have a positive impact on the growth, performance, and survival of firms as well as their... View Details
- December 2017 (Revised March 2018)
- Case
Kellogg Company/eighteen94 capital
By: David Bell, Damien McLoughlin and Natalie Kindred
With 33,000 employees and revenues of $13 billion in 2016, Kellogg Company was the world’s largest producer of branded packaged cereal and a leader in branded convenience foods. Founded in 1906 and based in Michigan, the company had a proud history of product and... View Details
Keywords: CPG; Consumer Packaged Goods; Cereal; Battle Creek; Michigan; Breakfast; Snack; Agribusiness; Change Management; Growth Strategy; Corporate Venture Capital; Innovation; Startup; Brand; Brand ＆ Product Management; Advertising; Demand and Consumers; Innovation and Invention; Venture Capital; Food; Brands and Branding; Marketing; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States; Michigan; North America
- 2017
- Working Paper
Investment Timing with Costly Search for Financing
By: Samuel Antill
I develop a dynamic model of investment timing in which firms must first choose when to search for external financing. Search is costly and the arrival of investors is uncertain, leading to delay in financing and investment. Depending on parameters, my model can... View Details
- Article
Rethinking the Profession Formerly Known as Advertising: How Data Science Is Disrupting the Work of Agencies
By: John A. Deighton
The article discusses the notion of advertising as a profession in relation to the impact of digital analytics and data-driven marketing. Topics include the history of internet marketing, the investments of the content-driven internet firms Facebook Inc. and Google... View Details
- November 2017 (Revised April 2019)
- Case
Summa Equity: Building Purpose-Driven Organizations
By: George Serafeim
In 2015, Reynir Indahl left top Nordic private equity firm Altor Equity Partners to found Summa Equity (Summa). After long contemplation following the financial crisis, Indahl was convinced the financial system was producing negative externalities and that the current... View Details
Keywords: Corporate Purpose; ESG; ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance; Social Impact; Investment Management; Management Practices; Innovation; Voice; Environmental Impact; Private Equity; Social Enterprise; Finance; Capital Markets; Management Practices and Processes; Innovation Leadership; Leadership; Innovation and Management; Entrepreneurship; Mission and Purpose; Value Creation; Financial Services Industry; Norway; Sweden; Scandinavia
- September 2017 (Revised July 2021)
- Case
Asset Allocation at the Cook County Pension Fund
By: Emil Siriwardane, Juliane Begenau and Yuval Gonczarowski
Nickol Hackett, chief investment officer of the Cook County Pension Fund, is responsible for investing the fund’s $9 billion worth of assets on behalf of the employees of Cook County, Illinois. Like many other defined-benefit pensions at the time, the Cook County... View Details
- November 2017
- Comment
Discussion: Do Common Inherited Beliefs and Values Influence CEO Pay?
By: Lauren Cohen
The origin of preferences is something we know strikingly little about in economics. Given the central importance of preferences, we have not invested nearly the time we should into this concept. And so, as an overarching research direction, I am heartened by the push... View Details
- August 2017
- Article
Should Governments Invest More in Nudging?
By: Shlomo Benartzi, John Beshears, Katherine L. Milkman, Cass R. Sunstein, Richard H. Thaler, Maya Shankar, Will Tucker-Ray, William J. Congdon and Steven Galing
Governments are increasingly adopting behavioral science techniques for changing individual behavior in pursuit of policy objectives. The types of “nudge” interventions that governments are now adopting alter people’s decisions without coercion or significant changes... View Details
Keywords: Nudge; Nudge Unit; Choice Architecture; Behavioral Science; Behavioral Economics; Savings; Pension Plan; Education; College Enrollment; Energy; Electricity Usage; Preventive Health; Influenza Vaccination; Flu Shot; Open Materials; Behavior; Governance; Economics; Policy; Power and Influence
- July 2017 (Revised September 2017)
- Case
GM's Capital Allocation Framework
By: C. Fritz Foley, F. Katelynn Boland and Michael Lemm
In March of 2015, General Motors announced the details of a newly established capital allocation framework. This framework provided a target for return on invested capital, guidelines for capital structure choices, and policies related to payouts. Senior managers face... View Details
- 2017
- Working Paper
The Role of Taxes in the Disconnect Between Corporate Performance and Economic Growth
By: Urooj Khan, Suresh Nallareddy and Ethan Rouen
We investigate the relation between the growth in corporate profits and the overall U.S. economy, focusing on the impact of the U.S. corporate tax regime on this relation. We document that the growth of corporate profits, on average, has outpaced the growth of the... View Details
- April 2017
- Article
Private Equity and Industry Performance
By: Shai Bernstein, Josh Lerner, Morten Sorensen and Per Stromberg
The growth of the private equity industry has spurred concerns about its potential impact on the economy more generally. This analysis looks across nations and industries to assess the impact of private equity on industry performance. Industries where PE funds have... View Details
- March 2017
- Case
SKS Microfinance (Abridged)
By: Shawn Cole and Theresa Chen
Vikram Akula, CEO of SKS Microfinance, seeks a venture capital investment to fund his firm. SKS, one of the largest and fastest growing microfinance institutions in India, is a profitable, for-profit institution with a social mission. In what is one of the first... View Details
- February 2017 (Revised June 2017)
- Case
ExxonMobil: Business as Usual? (A)
By: George Serafeim, Shiva Rajgopal and David Freiberg
Climate change was becoming an important societal and business issue as more governments were introducing climate change related regulations and investors became increasibly worried about stranded assets within oil and gas firms. In September 2016, the U.S. Securities... View Details
- January 2017 (Revised November 2018)
- Case
Vox Capital: Pioneering Impact Investing in Brazil
By: Julie Battilana, Marissa Kimsey, Falko Paetzold and Priscilla Zogbi
Vox Capital was the first certified impact investing fund in Brazil. Founded in 2009, it provides early-stage capital for companies offering innovative and scalable solutions to enhance the lives of low-income Brazilians, while aiming to simultaneously generate... View Details
- December 2016
- Simulation
Venture Capital and Private Equity Game
By: Matthew Rhodes-Kropf, Josh Lerner, G. Felda Hardymon and Nathaniel Burbank
The Venture Capital and Private Equity Simulation enables groups of students to play the role of either an early or later stage private equity firm. Within the simulation, students raise funds, search for companies to invest in, complete deals, and manage a portfolio... View Details
- December 2016
- Article
Impact Investing: A Brief History
By: Brian Trelstad
Over the last decade, impact investing has become an increasingly-discussed topic in the realms of both business and public policy. Impact investors are motived by a desire to advance social or environmental goals and an intuition that pursuing two goals at once -... View Details
- November 2016
- Article
Corporate Sustainability: First Evidence on Materiality
By: Mozaffar Khan, George Serafeim and Aaron Yoon
Using newly available materiality classifications of sustainability topics, we develop a novel dataset by hand-mapping sustainability investments classified as material for each industry into firm-specific sustainability ratings. This allows us to present new evidence... View Details
- 2016
- Book
Building a Culture of Health: A New Imperative for Business
By: John A. Quelch and Emily C. Boudreau
This ambitious volume sets out to understand how every company impacts public health and introduces a robust model, rooted in organizational and scientific knowledge, for companies committed to making positive contributions to health and wellness. Focusing on four... View Details
- September 2016 (Revised March 2021)
- Case
DBL Partners: Double Bottom Line Venture Capital
By: Shawn Cole, Mark Kramer, Tony L. He, Anshul Maudar and T. Robert Zochowski
This case explores the origins and current practices of DBL, a San Francisco–based venture capital fund and one of the first impact investment funds to achieve significant financial returns to scale. This case allows for a competitive analysis of DBL's investment... View Details