Publications

2007
Book

From Higher Aims to Hired Hands: The Social Transformation of American Business Schools and the Unfulfilled Promise of Management as a Profession

By: Rakesh Khurana

Is management a profession? Should it be? Can it be? This major work of social and intellectual history reveals how such questions have driven business education and shaped American management and society for more than a century. The book is also a call for reform.... View Details

Keywords: Social History; Business Education; Moral Sensibility; Profit; Leadership; Managerial Roles; United States

Research Summary

Business Leaders and the Social Sector

By: James E. Austin

This research involed a multifaceted, multi-year study of corporate and business leader involvement in the social sector. This examined: the extent and nature of, and motivation for, Harvard Business School graduates' involvement with nonprofit and social-sector ... View Details

28 Mar 2004
Research & Ideas

HBS Celebrates Social Enterprise Initiative

significant challenges to overcome? A: It was refreshing and encouraging to experience the strong positive response to the SEI from HBS students, alums, faculty, and staff. By providing support, encouragement, and intellectual legitimacy,... View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls

17 Apr 1997
Conference Presentation

Responsibility in an Age of Interdependence

By: Lynn S. Paine

Keywords: Corporate Accountability; System

2024
Working Paper

Corporate Culture Homogeneity and Top Executive Incentive Design: Evidence from CEO Compensation Contracts

By: Dennis Campbell, Ruidi Shang and Zhifang Zhang

We examine how corporate cultures characterized by high degrees of homogeneity in the underlying values and beliefs of organizational members are related to the design of CEO incentive compensation contracts. We argue that culture homogeneity within firms lowers... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Culture; Compensation Design; Accounting; Management Control; Incentive Systems; Organizational Culture; Job Design and Levels; Governance; Executive Compensation; Motivation and Incentives

2024
Chapter

Corporations as the Central Institutions of Society

By: Joseph L. Badaracco

Mark Twain observed that, “Prediction is very difficult—particularly when it involves the future,” and he was right. One way to reduce the risk of becoming an infamous forecaster—like the experts who told us the Internet would quickly collapse, that Apple would never... View Details

Keywords: Trends; Business and Government Relations; Organizations; Power and Influence; Society

February 2022
Case

Launching the Social

By: Tom Eisenmann, Lindsay N. Hyde and Tom Quinn

This case features the same protagonists as Ample Hills Creamery (HBS No. 822-073), and can be used as a continuation of that story.
Ample Hills Creamery started in 2010 as a temporary ice cream pushcart in Brooklyn, New York City. On the strength of inventive... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Small Business; Brands and Branding; Partners and Partnerships; Expansion

Educators

2021
Working Paper

Accounting for Product Impact in the Oil and Gas Industry

By: Katie Panella, George Serafeim and Katie Trinh

We apply the product impact measurement framework of the Impact-Weighted Accounts Initiative (IWAI) in two competitor companies within the oil and gas industry. We design a monetization methodology that allows us to calculate monetary product impact estimates of... View Details

SSRN

11 Oct 2016
Working Paper Summaries

Corporate Purpose and Financial Performance

Keywords: by Claudine Gartenberg, Andrea Prat, and George Serafeim

2018
Other Teaching and Training Material

Finance Reading: Corporate Governance

By: John Coates and Suraj Srinivasan

Core Curriculum Readings in Finance cover the fundamental concepts, theories, and frameworks in finance. This reading presents an overview of corporate governance, focusing on for-profit businesses that are privately owned by dispersed investors—that is, not owned by a... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Corporate Governance; For-Profit Firms; Private Ownership; Conflict of Interests

25 Aug 2017
Op-Ed

Op-Ed: After Charlottesville, Where Does a CEO's Responsibility Lie?

strongly pro-Trump Fox News) wrote to all employees that he was donating $1 million to the Anti-Defamation League in reaction to the president’s statements. This issue raises the question, where does a CEO's responsibility lie when... View Details

Keywords: by Gautam Mukunda

21 Nov 2005
Research & Ideas

The Geography of Corporate Giving

Why companies support nonprofits and other socially responsible activities is an intriguing question for both academics and practitioners. After all, there is no clear-cut evidence that View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

September 2018
Article

When and Why Randomized Response Techniques (Fail to) Elicit the Truth

By: Leslie K. John, George Loewenstein, Alessandro Acquisti and Joachim Vosgerau

By adding random noise to individual responses, randomized response techniques (RRTs) are intended to enhance privacy protection and encourage honest disclosure of sensitive information. Empirical findings on their success in doing so are, however, mixed. In nine... View Details

Keywords: Truth-telling; Lying; Privacy; Information Disclosure; Survey Research; Surveys; Attitudes; Behavior

2021
Article

The Sustainable Corporate Governance Initiative in Europe

By: Mark Roe, Holger Spamann, Jesse M. Fried and Charles C.Y. Wang

In July 2020, the European Commission published the “Study on directors’ duties and sustainable corporate governance” by EY. The Report purports to find evidence of debilitating short-termism in EU corporate governance and recommends many changes to support sustainable... View Details

Keywords: Short-termism; Hedge Funds; Shareholder Activism; Securities Regulation; Agency Costs; Political Economy; Payouts; Repurchases; Corporate Governance; Investment Funds; Investment Activism; Research and Development; Investment; European Union

SSRN

Article

Multinationale et fermetures de filiales : les conséquences sociales et politiques de décisions économiques

By: Sabine Pitteloud and Leo Grob

À travers l’analyse détaillée de deux cas de fermeture de filiale dans les années 1970, cet article s’intéresse aux conséquences sociales et politiques multiples des décisions de désinvestissement des sociétés multinationales. La première étude de cas porte sur la... View Details

Keywords: Multinationals; Labor Relations; Corporate Citizenship; Business ＆ Government Relations; Disinvestment; Multinational Firms and Management; Business and Government Relations; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact

2015
Chapter

Managerial Responsibility and the Purpose of Business: Doing One's Job Well

By: Nien-he Hsieh

Business managers routinely make decisions that significantly affect the lives of others in both positive and negative ways. In the light of these wide-ranging effects, much scholarship has been devoted to specifying the responsibilities of managers of for-profit... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Goals and Objectives

November 2020 (Revised March 2022)
Teaching Note

Social Salary Setting at Spiber

By: Ashley Whillans and John Beshears

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 920-050. The case tells the story of Spiber, a Japanese technology start-up company. To reflect the company’s values, the leadership team implemented a new and unique salary-setting process: each employee had the authority to choose their... View Details

Keywords: Compensation; General Management; Employee Benefits; Incentives; Motivation; Compensation and Benefits; Fairness; Motivation and Incentives; Management; Happiness; Negotiation; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Japan

July 2017
Article

Business Responsibilities for Human Rights: A Commentary on Arnold

By: Nien-hê Hsieh

Human rights have come to play a prominent role in debates about the responsibilities of business. In the business ethics literature, there are two approaches to the question of whether businesses have human rights obligations. The “moral” approach conceives of human... View Details

Keywords: Rights; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Moral Sensibility; Society