Publications

19 Feb 2019
Working Paper Summaries

Relative Performance Transparency: Effects on Sustainable Choices

Keywords: by Ryan W. Buell, Shwetha Mariadassou, and Yanchong Zheng

April 2021
Case

Glass-Shattering Leaders: Ros Atkins

By: Boris Groysberg and Colleen Ammerman

Ros Atkins launched the 50:50 Project on a BBC news program he anchored, deciding with his team to start tracking the gender of the contributors and experts featured on the show. Before long, it was clear that monitoring the data led to increased awareness of a gender... View Details

Keywords: Gender Equality; Allyship; Representation; Leadership; Gender; Equality and Inequality; Media; Analytics and Data Science

December 1993 (Revised April 1994)
Case

Polaroid: Managing Environmental Responsibilities and Their Costs

Costs relating to companies' impact on the environment are increasing at a dramatic rate. Thus, managing, measuring, and reporting of these costs has become an important issue for managers. Accounting for environmental responsibilities is one of the largest and most... View Details

Keywords: Cost; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Accounting; Environmental Sustainability

February 2008 (Revised May 2012)
Supplement

The Big Easy, Not So Easy: The Letter

By: Nicolas P. Retsinas and Ben Creo

A short, supplemental case to "The Big Easy, Not So Easy" (208-068). Doris Koo must respond to new challenges at Lafitte in New Orleans. View Details

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

04 May 2021
Working Paper Summaries

Accounting for Product Impact in the Telecommunications Industry

Keywords: by George Serafeim and Katie Trinh; Telecommunications

29 Jul 2020
Working Paper Summaries

Two Case Studies on the Financing of Forest Conservation

Keywords: by Andrew Baxter, Connor Cash, Josh Lerner, and Ratnika Prasad

26 Apr 2011
Op-Ed

HBS Faculty Comment on Environmental Issues for Earth Day

Earth Day focuses the world's attention on the both the dangers and opportunities facing the planet. But sustainability and the intersection between business and the environment are issues that need to be addressed all the time, as cities grow, resources diminish, and... View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Energy; Utilities

1997
Chapter

The Dysfunctional Aspects of Environmental Standards

By: A. E. Tenbrunsel, K. A. Wade-Benzoni, D. M. Messick and M. H. Bazerman

Keywords: Standards; Environmental Sustainability

September 2019 (Revised August 2020)
Case

Engineering an Inclusive Bioeconomy

By: Tarun Khanna, Raffaella Sadun and Susie L. Ma

In 2019, entrepreneur Juan Carlos Castilla-Rubio was developing a project he hoped could generate and share wealth from the natural resources of the Amazon without destroying those resources. His idea, called Earth Bank of Codes (EBC), would create a library of the... View Details

Profile

Samantha Ernst

When Samantha Ernst arrived at Wellesley, “I thought I’d be a math major,” she says. “Then I took multi-variable calculus and wanted to jump off a bridge.” Instead, Samantha studied economics. “I liked it because it’s a mix of people and numbers – a View Details

10 Oct 2005
Research & Ideas

Corporate Responsibility and the Environment: What is the Right Thing To Do?

It's a question often debated, but seldom answered authoritatively: Do companies have a social responsibility to protect the environment beyond legal requirements? Specifically, may companies do so within the scope of their fiduciary responsibilities to their... View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls

November 1974 (Revised September 1984)
Case

Environmental Pressures (B)

By: Norman A. Berg

Keywords: Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact

February 2021
Technical Note

Probability Distributions

By: Michael Parzen and Paul Hamilton

This technical note introduces students to the concept of random variables, and from there the normal and binomial distributions. After a brief introduction to random variables, the note describes the standard properties of the normal distribution: a single peak, and a... View Details

Keywords: Analysis; Risk and Uncertainty; Theory; Analytics and Data Science

December 2011
Article

Data Impediments to Empirical Work on Health Insurance Markets

By: Leemore S. Dafny, David Dranove, Frank Limbrock and Fiona Scott Morton

We compare four datasets that researchers might use to study competition in the health insurance industry. We show that the two datasets most commonly used to estimate market concentration differ considerably from each other (both in levels and in changes over time),... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Analytics and Data Science; Market Participation; Insurance Industry

2017
Chapter

Venture Capital Data: Opportunities and Challenges

By: Steven N. Kaplan and Josh Lerner

This paper describes the available data and research on venture capital investments and performance. We comment on the challenges inherent in those data and research as well as possible opportunities to do better. View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Analytics and Data Science; Research

October 1995 (Revised October 1996)
Case

Singapore Unlimited: Building the National Information Infrastructure

By: Lynda M. Applegate, John L. King, Soon-Siong Neo and Carin-Isabel Knoop

Describes the actions taken by the government of Singapore to enable the country to survive and prosper after it achieved independence in the late 1960s. Recognizing that its small size, limited natural resources, but excellent location placed it in a vulnerable... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Natural Environment; Expansion; Policy; Infrastructure; Singapore; Southeast Asia

Article

Transition to Clean Technology

By: Daron Acemoglu, Ufuk Akcigit, Douglas Hanley and William R. Kerr

We develop a microeconomic model of endogenous growth where clean and dirty technologies compete in production and innovation, in the sense that research can be directed to either clean or dirty technologies. If dirty technologies are more advanced to start with, the... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Entrepreneurship; Environmental Sustainability; Green Technology Industry

Read Now

January 2013
Supplement

The Great East Japan Earthquake (C): Ishinomaki Kouwan Hospital's Response

By: Hirotaka Takeuchi, Yukiko Sakai, Rebecca Agonafir, Peter Cholewinski, Allison Kean and Emily Kloeblen

On the evening of March 11, 2011, Mayama Fumihiro, the Managing Director of Ishinomaki Kouwan Hospital knew that it would be a long, cold night. The 103 staff members and 162 patients and families were huddled on the top two floors of the four-story hospital, where... View Details

Keywords: East Japan; Earthquake; Ishinomaki Kouwan Hospital; Natural Disasters; Crisis Management; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry; Japan

2011
Chapter

Prospective Codes Fufilled: A Potential Neural Mechanism of Will

By: Thalia Wheatley and Christine E. Looser

One of my few shortcomings is that I can’t predict the future.
Lars Ulrich, Metallica.

Lars Ulrich was right and wrong. He was right in the way we most often think about the future—as a long stretch of time during which multiply... View Details

Keywords: Free Will; Neuroscience; Responsibility; Prospection; Forecasting and Prediction; Science; Cognition and Thinking