Publications

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September 2023
Teaching Note

Patagonia: 'Earth Is Now Our Only Shareholder'

By: Brian Trelstad, Nien-hê Hsieh, Michael Norris and Susan Pinckney

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 323-057. Patagonia’s change of ownership from a privately held company to a perpetual purpose trust and 501(c)(4) nonprofit in order to use the company’s profit to fight the environmental crisis and be a model for future businesses. View Details

03 Jan 2019
Working Paper Summaries

Financing the Response to Climate Change: The Pricing and Ownership of US Green Bonds

Keywords: by Malcolm Baker, Daniel Bergstresser, George Serafeim, and Jeffrey Wurgler

26 Apr 2023
Cold Call Podcast

How Martine Rothblatt Started a Company to Save Her Daughter

Keywords: Re: Debora L. Spar; Pharmaceutical; Medical Devices & Supplies; Health

Deborah M. Winshel

Deborah Winshel is a member of the Faculty of the Harvard Business School where she teaches Leadership and Corporate Accountability to first year MBAs and executives.

Most recently, Deborah was a Managing Director and Global Head of Social Impact at... View Details

09 Jul 2020
Video

Sylvia Escovar

Sylvia Escovar, the President of the Colombia-based oil and gas distribution company Terpel, discusses the challenge of income inequality in Colombia, the role of Fundación Terpel in demonstrating that business... View Details

August 2021
Article

Business Education as If People and the Planet Really Matter

By: Andrew J. Hoffman

Mounting concern over capitalism’s inability to address systemic challenges in our natural world (i.e. climate change) and social world (i.e. income inequality) is prompting reexamination of capitalism within business groups. This article argues that a concurrent... View Details

Keywords: Climate Change; Equality and Inequality; Corporate Governance; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Social Issues; Business Education; Transformation

Ranjay Gulati

Ranjay Gulati is the Paul R. Lawrence MBA Class of 1942 Professor of Business Administration and the former Unit Head of the Organizational Behavior Unit at Harvard Business School. His pathbreaking research, which focuses on unlocking organizational and unleashing... View Details

Keywords: biotechnology; computer; financial services; industrial goods; information technology industry; pharmaceuticals; professional services; retailing

A New Approach to Building Your Personal Brand

For better or worse, in today's world everyone is a brand. Whether you're applying for a job, asking for a promotion, or writing a dating profile, your success will depend on getting others to recognize your value. So, you need to get comfortable marketing yourself. In... View Details

October 2021 (Revised October 2022)
Case

The Opioid Settlement and Controversy Over CEO Pay at AmerisourceBergen

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Li-Kuan Ni

In 2020, AmerisourceBergen Corporation, a Fortune 50 company in the drug distribution industry, agreed to settle thousands of lawsuits filed nationwide against the company for its opioid distribution practices that critics alleged had contributed to the nationwide... View Details

Educators

December 2011
Exercise

What We Carry: Success, Failure, and Happiness in Family Systems

By: Timothy Butler

The purpose of this exercise is to enable participants to identify essential career and life themes. The core task of the exercise is to extract themes, images, metaphors and "dynamic tensions" from a list of exciting careers that have been selected from a larger... View Details

Keywords: Family and Family Relationships; Success; Failure; Happiness

August 1977 (Revised November 1995)
Supplement

Process Engineering Proposal

By: John J. Gabarro

An "in-basket" decision-making exercise in case form, to be used with Nuclear Tube Assembly Room (A) (Condensed). The purpose is to pose students with several related problems which require immediate analysis arriving at some decisions and planning how to implement... View Details

Keywords: Conflict Management; Operations; Change Management; Engineering

October 2022 (Revised December 2022)
Case

SMART: AI and Machine Learning for Wildlife Conservation

By: Brian Trelstad and Bonnie Yining Cao

Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool (SMART), a set of software and analytical tools designed for the purpose of wildlife conservation, had demonstrated significant improvements in patrol coverage, with some observed reductions in poaching and contributing to wildlife... View Details

Keywords: Business and Government Relations; Emerging Markets; Technology Adoption; Strategy; Management; Ethics; Social Enterprise; AI and Machine Learning; Analytics and Data Science; Natural Environment; Technology Industry; Cambodia; United States; Africa

Educators

11 Mar 2010
Working Paper Summaries

The Many Faces of Nonprofit Accountability

Keywords: by Alnoor Ebrahim

2020
Working Paper

Designing, Not Checking, for Policy Robustness: An Example with Optimal Taxation

By: Benjami Lockwood, Afras Y. Sial and Matthew C. Weinzierl

Economists typically check the robustness of their results by comparing them across plausible ranges of parameter values and model structures. A preferable approach to robustness—for the purposes of policymaking and evaluation—is to design policy that takes these... View Details

Keywords: Optimal Taxation; Robust Optimization; Taxation; Income; Policy; Design

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2020
Working Paper

Scientific Production: An Exploration into Organization, Resource Allocation, and Funding

By: Jerry Thursby, Marie Thursby, Karim R. Lakhani, Kyle R. Myers, Nina Cohodes, Sarah Bratt, Dennis Byrski, Hannah Cohoon and Maria Roche

Production of scientific knowledge is core to civilizational advancement in economic and material wellbeing of societies. Despite its fundamental importance, however, a systematic effort to quantitatively study the factors underlying scientific production, particularly... View Details

Keywords: Funding; Science; Knowledge; Research; Information Management; Resource Allocation

Article

Inaccurate Group Meta-Perceptions Drive Negative Out-Group Attributions in Competitive Contexts

By: J. Lees and M. Cikara

Across seven experiments and one survey (n = 4,282), people consistently overestimated out-group negativity towards the collective behaviour of their in-group. This negativity bias in group meta-perception was present across multiple competitive (but not cooperative)... View Details

Keywords: Intergroup Competition; Psychology; Political Polarization; Judgment And Decision-making

January 1996 (Revised July 1996)
Case

Rabobank Nederland

By: Kenneth A. Merchant and Robert S. Kaplan

Describes the account manager's role and the history of one credit application. The purpose is to evaluate various methods the bank uses to influence account managers' behaviors. Also describes some alternatives being considered to improve the information systems used... View Details

Keywords: Financial Management; Managerial Roles; Accounting; Information Management; Banks and Banking; Power and Influence; Banking Industry; Netherlands

May 8, 2020
Article

Lead Your Team Into a Post-Pandemic World

By: Hubert Joly

The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic has tested leaders, especially as it relates to how they lead their workers. As the crisis goes on, many that the author has spoken with have begun to frame it around three distinct phases: The Shelter-in-Place Phase, the Re-opening... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Re-opening; Health Pandemics; Leadership; Employees; Communication; Human Needs

March 2013
Case

Currency Wars

By: Laura Alfaro and Hilary White

In February 2013, the G-20 finance ministers met in Moscow, Russia to discuss the rising anxieties over a potential international currency war. It was speculated that certain countries were purposely devaluing their currencies in order to improve their competitiveness... View Details

Keywords: Currency; Competitiveness; Trade Policy; Devaluation; Exchange Rate; Monetary Policy; Quantitative Easing; Inflation Targeting; Capital Flows; Central Banking; Currency Exchange Rate; Competitive Strategy; Emerging Markets; Policy; Trade; Conflict and Resolution; Banking Industry; Public Administration Industry; Moscow

Educators