Publications

03 Dec 2018
Research & Ideas

How Companies Can Increase Market Rewards for Sustainability Efforts

flavijus For the first time, a link has been drawn between public sentiment about a company’s sustainability practices and how that company is valued in the market. The results are important both for investors searching for under-valued, socially responsible companies,... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

28 Feb 2021
Working Paper Summaries

Measuring Employment Impact: Applications and Cases

Keywords: by Katie Panella and George Serafeim

2013
Book

Manufacturing Morals: The Values of Silence in Business School Education

By: Michel Anteby

Corporate accountability is never far from the front page and Harvard Business School trains many future business leaders. But how does HBS formally and informally ensure its members embrace proper business standards? Relying on his faculty experience, Michel Anteby... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Moral Sensibility; Business Education; Higher Education; Education; Education Industry; United States

02 Mar 2010
First Look

First Look: March 2

equity-bondholder conflicts are economically important, determine capital structure choices, and affect welfare. Download the paper: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/10-070.pdf The Many Faces of Nonprofit Accountability Author:Alnoor... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

November 2005 (Revised December 2016)
Case

Bally Total Fitness (A): The Rise, 1962–2004

By: John R. Wells, Elizabeth A. Raabe and Gabriel Ellsworth

From a single, modest club in 1962, Bally Total Fitness had grown to become—in management’s words—the “largest and only nationwide commercial operator of fitness centers” in the United States in 2004. Bally had faced its share of challenges, but the last couple of... View Details

Keywords: Bally Total Fitness; Fitness; Gyms; Health Clubs; Chain; Securities And Exchange Commission; Paul Toback; Weight Loss; Exercise; Contracts; Personal Training; Retention; Accounting; Accounting Audits; Accrual Accounting; Finance; Advertising; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; For-Profit Firms; Customers; Customer Satisfaction; Public Equity; Financing and Loans; Revenue; Revenue Recognition; Geographic Scope; Multinational Firms and Management; Health; Nutrition; Business History; Lawsuits and Litigation; Management; Business or Company Management; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing; Operations; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Public Ownership; Problems and Challenges; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business Strategy; Competition; Corporate Strategy; Expansion; Segmentation; Trends; Cost Management; Profit; Growth and Development; Leadership Style; Five Forces Framework; Private Ownership; Opportunities; Motivation and Incentives; Competitive Strategy; Health Industry; United States; Illinois; Chicago

09 Nov 2010
First Look

First Look: November 9, 2010

paper: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1638429 Accounting Scholarship That Advances Professional Knowledge and Practice Author:Robert S. Kaplan Abstract Recent accounting scholarship has... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

June 2013 (Revised September 2016)
Supplement

Governance and Sustainability at Nike (B)

By: Lynn S. Paine, Nien-he Hsieh and Lara Adamsons

Two members of Nike's executive team must decide what sustainability targets to propose to Nike's CEO and to the corporate responsibility committee of Nike's board of directors. Set in 2012, the case traces the evolution of Nike's approach to environmental and social... View Details

Keywords: Nike; Hannah Jones; Mark Parker; Phil Knight; Philip Knight; Eric Sprunk; Jill Ker Conway; Phyllis Wise; Don Blair; Sustainable Business And Innovation; SB＆I; Flyknit; DyeCoo; Footwear; Athletic Footwear; Apparel; Athletic Apparel; Sustainability; Greenpeace; Detox Campaign; Dirty Laundry; Water; Water Use; Water Pollution; Water Resources; Corporate Responsibility Committee; Judgment; Board Of Directors; Board Committees; Environmental And Social Sustainability; Footwear Industry; Decision Choices and Conditions; Decisions; Ethics; Fairness; Globalized Firms and Management; Multinational Firms and Management; Globalized Markets and Industries; Governance; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance; Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Innovation Leadership; Innovation Strategy; Goals and Objectives; Management Practices and Processes; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Performance; Alignment; Supply Chain; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Judgments; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Asia; China; United States; Oregon; Portland

Other Article

My Favorite Slide: The Entrepreneurial Gap Applied to Health Care

By: Robert S. Kaplan and Robert Simons

Value-based health care increases physicians’ accountability for patient outcomes. Many have resisted, claiming that patient outcomes are influenced by many forces outside their control, such as patient’s compliance with post-acute and rehab care. The difference... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Outcome or Result; Motivation and Incentives

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23 Jan 2020
Research & Ideas

Businesses Need a 'Catalyst' to Make CSR Practices Stick

Many companies follow a tried-and-true approach to pursuing corporate social responsibility practices. They set aside a certain amount per year to fund a CSR office, which then tries to help clean up the environment or improve the quality... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

2010
Chapter

Identity-Based Leader Development

By: Scott Snook, Herminia Ibarra and Laura Ramo

Despite the wealth of managerial and scholarly attention paid to leadership development, only recently has a new perspective emerged that explicitly links leadership and identity. Research and theorizing on leadership development have yet to specify the processes that... View Details

Keywords: Leadership Development; Identity; Transition; Transformation; Perspective; Managerial Roles; Business Processes; Personal Development and Career

12 Feb 2014
Research & Ideas

Private Sector, Public Good

Should business play a role in supporting public institutions, and perhaps addressing the world's social challenges? When Harvard Professor Rebecca Henderson asked her colleagues and business executives that question over the last few... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

2024
Working Paper

How Inflation Expectations De-Anchor: The Role of Selective Memory Cues

By: Nicola Gennaioli, Marta Leva, Raphael Schoenle and Andrei Shleifer

In a model of memory and selective recall, household inflation expectations remain rigid when inflation is anchored but exhibit sharp instability during inflation surges, as similarity prompts retrieval of forgotten high-inflation experiences. Using data from the New... View Details

Keywords: Cognition and Thinking; Inflation and Deflation; Personal Finance

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2009
Working Paper

Prices or Knowledge? What Drives Demand for Financial Services in Emerging Markets?

By: Shawn A. Cole, Thomas Sampson and Bilal Zia

Financial development is critical for growth, but its micro-determinants are not well understood. We test leading theories of low demand for financial services in emerging markets, combining novel survey evidence from Indonesia and India with a field experiment. We... View Details

Keywords: Banks and Banking; Saving; Knowledge Acquisition; Emerging Markets; Motivation and Incentives; Financial Services Industry; India; Indonesia

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January–February 2019
Article

Corporate Purpose and Financial Performance

By: Claudine Gartenberg, Andrea Prat and George Serafeim

We construct a measure of corporate purpose within a sample of U.S. companies based on approximately 500,000 survey responses of worker perceptions about their employers. We find that this measure of purpose is not related to financial performance. However, high... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Purpose; Purpose; Employee Motivation; Belief Systems; Corporate Performance; Human Capital; Middle Management; Culture; Corporate Culture; Meaning; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Culture; Employees; Perception; Values and Beliefs; Performance Effectiveness

SSRN

October 2008
Article

It's Time to Make Management a True Profession

By: Nitin Nohria and Rakesh Khurana

In the face of the recent institutional breakdown of trust in business, managers are losing legitimacy. To regain public trust, management needs to become a true profession in much the way medicine and law have, argue Khurana and Nohria of Harvard Business School. True... View Details

Keywords: Competency and Skills; Education; Ethics; Corporate Accountability; Management; Trust; Value Creation

February 2013 (Revised December 2015)
Case

Groom Energy Solutions: Selling Efficiency

By: Michael W. Toffel, Kira R. Fabrizio and Stephanie van Sice

Groom Energy Solutions helps organizations reduce their energy use and costs through the implementation of energy efficiency measures, which create long-term financial and environmental benefits. With early success serving customers in the cold storage and industrial... View Details

Keywords: Groom Energy Solutions; Jon Guerster; Salem, MA; Energy Management; Energy Efficiency Paradox; Sustainability Management; Manufacturing; Cold Storage; Commercial Real Estate; Enterprise Smart Grid; Carbon Accounting; LED Lighting; Sustainability Research; Entrepreneurship; Environmental Entrepreneurship; Energy Entrepreneurship; Energy Services; Electricity; Startup; Expansion; Growth; Sustainability; Business Startups; Forecasting and Prediction; Energy Conservation; Revenue; Geographic Location; Human Resources; Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Operations; Service Delivery; Strategic Planning; Science; Environmental Sustainability; Climate Change; Society; Social Issues; Technology Adoption; Energy Industry; Green Technology Industry; Technology Industry; Utilities Industry; United States; Boston

18 Sep 2007
First Look

First Look: September 18, 2007

http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/08-013.pdf Evidence on the Effects of Unverifiable Fair-Value Accounting Authors:Karthik Ramanna and Ross L. Watts Abstract SFAS 142 requires firms to use fair-value estimates to determine goodwill... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

February 2010 (Revised December 2011)
Case

Ricoh Company, Ltd.

By: Robert G. Eccles, Amy C. Edmondson, Marco Iansiti and Akiko Kanno

Ricoh, the Japanese copier manufacturer, is committed to reducing its environmental impact to one-eighth of its 2000 levels by 2050. It has already introduced three stages of environmental awareness to its operations, and its recycled copier business broke even in... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Accounting; Financial Reporting; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Investment; Operations; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Electronics Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Japan

May 2013
Article

Here's a Tip: Prosocial Gratuities Are Linked to Corruption

By: Magnus Thor Torfason, Francis J. Flynn and Daniella Kupor

We investigated the link between tipping, an altruistic act, and bribery, an immoral act. We found a positive relationship between these two seemingly unrelated behaviors, using archival cross-national data for 32 countries, and controlling for per capita GDP, income... View Details

Keywords: Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Crime and Corruption; Behavior