Publications

Research Summary

Cross-Sector Partnering

By: James E. Austin

This on-going research project is examining the motivations, dynamics, and effectiveness determinants of partnering between nonprofit organizations, businesses, and government entities. The first major output of the research focusing on nonprofits and businesses was... View Details

September 3, 2020
Article

How to Measure a Company’s Real Impact

By: Ronald Cohen and George Serafeim

Impact transparency will reshape capitalism. By shifting the pursuit of profit away from negligently creating problems to purposefully creating valuable solutions for the world, it will redefine success, so that its measure is not just money, but the positive impact we... View Details

Keywords: Impact; Impact Investing; Impact Measurement; Impact Investment; Impact Investment Funds; Accountability; Accounting Information; Corporate Performance; Sustainability; Social Impact; Capitalism; Accounting; Corporate Accountability; Performance; Measurement and Metrics; Social Enterprise; Society

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February 2008 (Revised May 2012)
Case

The Big Easy, Not So Easy

By: Nicolas P. Retsinas, Arthur I Segel and Ben Creo

Enterprise Community Partners must determine whether to rebuild the Lafitte housing projects in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans and, if so, how to mitigate the risks. Set in January 2007, more than a year after Hurricane Katrina made landfall, the case examines how... View Details

Keywords: Natural Disasters; Housing; Projects; Risk Management; Urban Development; Reputation; New Orleans

September 2023
Case

FoodCloud: Tackling Food Insecurity and Climate Change in One Bite

By: Brian Trelstad and Emer Moloney

In 2013, Aoibheann O’Brien and Iseult Ward founded FoodCloud, a non-profit social enterprise that aimed to address food waste and food insecurity issues. Through its technology platform, Foodiverse, FoodCloud connected surplus food from retailers with community groups... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit Organizations; Expansion; Technological Innovation; Environmental Sustainability; Social Issues; Growth and Development Strategy; Green Technology Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Republic of Ireland; Europe

2019
Book

Creative Construction: The DNA of Sustained Innovation

By: Gary P. Pisano

Creative Construction tackles the myth that larger enterprises are inherently incapable of transformative innovation and are doomed to be disrupted by nimble start-ups. If larger enterprises seem incapable of transformative innovation, it is due to how we design... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Business Growth and Maturation; Innovation Strategy; Organizational Culture; Management Systems; Creativity; Leading Change

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August 2023 (Revised February 2024)
Case

Toby Norman: Is Passion Enough for Simprints to Thrive?

By: Jon M. Jachimowicz, Amram Migdal and Max Hancock

As co-founder and CEO of Simprints—a social enterprise with the mission to “transform the way the world fights poverty"—Toby Norman was at a crossroads. His organization had developed ground-breaking technology used to verify aid delivery, reached more than 2.5 million... View Details

Keywords: Mission and Purpose; Motivation and Incentives; Social Enterprise; Employees; Growth and Development Strategy

January 2016
Case

Haiti Hope: Innovating the Mango Value Chain

By: Amy C. Edmondson and Jean-François Harvey

This case study examines a market-based approach to economic development through the eyes of NGO TechnoServe's project manager, implementing a US$9.5 million five-year public-private partnership between Coca-Cola, IDB, and USAID. The case ends at the beginning of the... View Details

November 2005
Case

Playgrounds and Performance: Results Management at KaBOOM! (A)

By: Herman B. Leonard, Marc J. Epstein and Laura Winig

KaBOOM!, a successful playground-building social enterprise funded through corporate partnerships, wants to develop a performance measurement system that will enable the organization to expand its impact substantially. The board of directors and management are trying... View Details

Keywords: Governing and Advisory Boards; Growth and Development Strategy; Social Enterprise; Performance Evaluation; Management Systems; Design; Construction Industry

Research Summary

Overview

Professor Nagle studies how competitors can collaborate on the creation of core technologies, while still competing on the products and services built on top of them. His research falls into the broader categories of the futures of work, the economics of IT, and... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Strategy; Technological Innovation; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Economic Growth; Entrepreneurship; Technology; Internet; Mobile Technology; Online Technology; Technology Adoption; Technology Networks

June 2016
Case

Publicis Groupe 2016: Maurice and the Millennials

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Jonathan Cohen

Having built Publicis Groupe through acquisitions maintained as separate brands, CEO Maurice Lévy wanted to transform the advertising and marketing firm to an integrated digital-ready enterprise to address industry changes. In early 2016, following a reorganization, he... View Details

May 2015
Case

China Yintai: Developing Shared Value in China

By: Christopher Marquis, Ying Zhang and Shiyu Yang

Under the leadership of CEO and President Shen Guojun, China Yintai was increasingly committed to philanthropic initiatives. Drawing upon his experience as an entrepreneur and a philanthropist, Mr. Shen saw the urgent need to build bridges between business practices... View Details

Keywords: Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; China

November 2022 (Revised October 2024)
Case

'A Marshall Plan for Africa': James Mwangi and Equity Group Holdings

By: Caroline M. Elkins, Debora L. Spar, Zeke Gillman and Julia M. Comeau

Financial Inclusion. Dignity. Trust. These were the core principles driving James Mwangi’s transformation of Equity Building Society, insolvent in 1991, into what is, today, Equity Group Holdings, East and Central Africa’s largest retail banking institution. Raised in... View Details

Keywords: Income Inequality; Micro Finance; Microcredit; Microfinance; Banks and Banking; Equality and Inequality; Mission and Purpose; Business Model; Social Entrepreneurship; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; Africa; Kenya

16 May 2005
Research & Ideas

Nonprofit Networking: The New Way to Grow

of the mainline business of the nonprofit." In a talk on "Networks for Social Impact," Wei-Skillern discussed her findings with other professors and researchers on May 3 at the HBS Social... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

January 2013
Case

Omidyar Network: Pioneering Impact Investment

By: Michael Chu and Lauren Barley

Omidyar Network, having deployed to date over $500 million in ways ranging from donations to commercial equity capital, must decide whether to back Anudip, an Indian organization dedicated to providing the rural unemployed and marginalized with livelihoods linked to... View Details

Keywords: Social Enterprise; Social Entrepreneurship; Investment; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; India

August 2020 (Revised July 2021)
Case

From Farm Boy to Financier: Eiichi Shibusawa and the Creation of Modern Japan

By: Geoffrey Jones, Gabriel Ellsworth and Ryo Takahashi

This case describes the career of Eiichi Shibusawa (1840-1931), a serial entrepreneur who is widely known as the “father of Japanese capitalism” and as a pioneer of socially responsible investment. Born in feudal Edo Japan, following the Meiji Restoration in 1868... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Personal Development and Career; Business History; Ethics; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Economy; Society; Japan

10 Jan 2022
Research & Ideas

How to Get Companies to Make Investments That Benefit Everyone

solutions in a new Stanford Social Innovation Review article, The Problem of Social Benefit. “We talk less about how we can encourage positive spillovers.” A virtuous cycle of View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert

05 Dec 2013
What Do You Think?

Is Walmart Defying Economic Gravity?

posed for many years: How much longer will Walmart's business model be sustainable? Will it be endangered by its size, increases in the minimum wage laws, or other business and social trends that have plagued nearly every other large... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Retail

April 2009 (Revised April 2012)
Case

Bono and U2

By: Nancy F. Koehn, Katherine Miller and Rachel Wilcox

This case traces the 30-year development of the rock band U2 and the development of its four members as artists, business leaders, and humanitarians (with particular attention paid to lead singer Bono's global humanitarian work). The case examines the beginnings of the... View Details

Keywords: Arts; Business Model; Social Entrepreneurship; Globalized Markets and Industries; Leadership; Brands and Branding; Personal Development and Career; Social Enterprise; Music Industry