Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(3,323)
- Faculty Publications (776)
- February 2019 (Revised September 2021)
- Case
The a2 Milk Company
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher
The a2 Milk Company (a2MC) became the most valuable company listed on the New Zealand stock exchange in 2018 by capitalizing on a biochemical discovery related to the protein composition of cow's milk. Because many people find the A1 protein difficult to digest, and... View Details
Keywords: Judo Economics; Market Entry; Innovation; Barriers To Response; Industry Attractiveness; Advantage Horizon; Sustainability; First-mover Advantage; Scope; Strategy Execution; Strategic Evolution; Biochemistry; Genetics; Branding; Commodity; Milk; Dairy; Infant Formula; Farming; Porter's Five Forces; Competitive Advantage; Corporate Strategy; Value Creation; Competition; Disruption; Innovation and Invention; Five Forces Framework; Market Entry and Exit
- Article
Assessing the Impact of CEO Activism
By: Aaron K Chatterji and Michael W. Toffel
CEO activism refers to corporate leaders speaking out on social and environmental policy issues not directly related to their company’s core business. Distinct from nonmarket strategy and traditional corporate social responsibility, the recent wave of CEO activism... View Details
- January 2019 (Revised February 2020)
- Case
Should a Pension Fund Try to Change the World? Inside GPIF's Embrace of ESG
By: George Serafeim
In the fall of 2018, Hiro Mizuno, the Chief Investment Officer (CIO) of GPIF, the Japanese Government Pension Fund, was reflecting on his efforts to integrate Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues into every aspect of GPIF’s portfolio. His efforts ranged... View Details
- January 2019 (Revised July 2022)
- Case
Jain Irrigation Systems Limited: Continuing a Legacy
By: Forest Reinhardt, Gunnar Trumbull and Mahima Rao-Kachroo
Founded in 1963 by Bhavarlal Jain (Bhau), who believed in “providing solutions for every problem,” Jain Irrigation in 2018 had a global footprint and $1.1 billion in revenue. Bhau had insisted that his business add value to farmers' lives and promote sustainable... View Details
- 2018
- Working Paper
Corporate Sustainability: A Strategy?
By: George Serafeim
We explore the conditions under which firms maintain their competitive advantage through sustainability-based differentiation when faced with imitation pressures by industry peers. We document growing intraindustry convergence on sustainability actions over time for... View Details
Keywords: Sustainability; Corporate Performance; Industry Analysis; CSR; ESG; ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance; Environment; Social Responsibility; Strategy And Execution; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Strategy; Performance; Corporate Strategy
- January 2019 (Revised February 2019)
- Supplement
The a2 Milk Company
By: Benjamin C. Esty, Daniel Fisher and Greg Saldutte
The a2 Milk Company (a2MC) became the most valuable company listed on the New Zealand stock exchange in 2018 by capitalizing on a biochemical discovery related to the protein composition of cow's milk. Because many people find the A1 protein difficult to digest, and... View Details
Keywords: Judo Economics; Market Entry; Innovation; Barriers To Response; Industry Attractiveness; Advantage Horizon; Sustainability; First-mover Advantage; Scope; Strategy Execution; Strategic Evolution; Biochemistry; Genetics; Branding; Commodity; Milk; Dairy; Infant Formula; Farming; Porter's Five Forces; Competitive Advantage; Corporate Strategy; Value Creation; Competition; Market Entry and Exit; Disruption; Innovation and Invention; Five Forces Framework; Consumer Products Industry; New Zealand; Australia; China
- January 2019
- Supplement
The De Beers Group: Launching GemFair for Artisanal Diamonds
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher
In April 2018, the De Beers Group launched a pilot project called GemFair to create a new supply of ethically and environmentally sourced diamonds from artisanal and small-scale mines (ASM) in Sierra Leone. Whether this project would yield a meaningful supply of rough... View Details
- January 4, 2019
- Article
How Companies Can Balance Social Impact and Financial Goals
By: Marya L. Besharov, Wendy K. Smith and Michael Tushman
It’s notoriously difficult for a business to manage two separate-but-equal goals—making money and creating social value at the same time, for example, or managing an existing business at the same time that you invent a new one. Most attempts at managing these... View Details
- January 2019 (Revised July 2019)
- Case
New Balance: Managing Orders and Working Conditions
By: Michael W. Toffel, Eileen McNeely and Matthew Preble
New Balance Athletics, Inc., a major U.S.-based athletic footwear and apparel brand, sources most of its footwear products from independent suppliers whose factories are located in China, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Monica Gorman, vice president of responsible leadership... View Details
Keywords: Footwear; Athletic Footwear; Manufacturing; CSR; Sustainability; Quality Management; Supply Chains; Operations; Management; Production; Working Conditions; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Labor and Management Relations; Supply Chain Management; Supply Chain; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Consumer Products Industry
- January 2019
- Case
Capitalism, Entrepreneurship and Responsibility
By: Geoffrey Jones
This case contains excerpts from prominent business leaders and others expressing their views on the responsibilities, if any, of business leaders to other stakeholders in society. It begins with an excerpt from Andrew Carnegie, the nineteenth century steel magnate, in... View Details
- January 2019 (Revised October 2019)
- Case
Rural Taobao: Alibaba's Expansion into Rural E-Commerce
By: Tarun Khanna, Ryan Allen, Adam Frost and Wesley Koo
Alibaba's Rural Taobao initiative had been launched in 2014 as a public service initiative to increase e-commerce adoption in China’s remote rural areas. In the first two iterations of the initiative, dubbed “1.0” and “2.0,” Alibaba had partnered with local businesses... View Details
Keywords: Strategy; Business Growth; Ecommerce; Corporate Social Responsibility; Business And Government; Emerging Market; Digital Platforms; Internet and the Web; Emerging Markets; Rural Scope; Growth and Development Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Government Relations; Decision Making; E-commerce; China
- 2019
- Article
CEO Materialism and Corporate Social Responsibility
By: Robert Davidson, Aiyesha Dey and Abbie Smith
We study the role of individual CEOs in explaining corporate social responsibility (CSR) scores. We find that CEO fixed effects explain 59% of the variation in CSR scores, whereas firm fixed effects explain 2% of the variation in CSR scores. Specifically, firms led by... View Details
- 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
- Article
Health as a Way of Doing Business
By: Howard Koh, Sara J. Singer and Amy C. Edmondson
For too long, the worlds of business and health have been mired in a checkered, sometimes contentious, history. Millions of deaths worldwide can be attributed to risk factors including tobacco use, alcohol and drug misuse, and suboptimal dietary intake linked to... View Details
- Article
The Social Purpose of Corporations
By: Nien-he Hsieh, Marco Meyer, David Rodin and Jens van ‘t Klooster
To think about the purpose of corporations is to think about what corporations are for. In this article, we argue that the concept of a purpose has an important role in thinking about the moral evaluation of corporations. We make three contributions. First, we... View Details
- 2018
- Working Paper
OTC Intermediaries
By: Andrea L. Eisfeldt, Bernard Herskovic, Sriram Rajan and Emil Siriwardane
Over-the-counter (OTC) markets for financial assets are dominated by a relatively small number of core intermediaries and a large number of peripheral customers. In this paper, we develop a model of trade in a core-periphery network and estimate its key structural... View Details
- November 2018 (Revised January 2022)
- Case
JUUL and the Vaping Revolution
By: Michael W. Toffel, John Masko and Sarah Mehta
In late 2019, San Francisco-based electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) maker JUUL Labs (pronounced “jewel”) faced intense pressure. Sales of JUUL products exceeded $1 billion in 2018, dominating the e-cigarette category. While JUUL Labs’ stated goal was to help current... View Details
Keywords: Electronic Cigarettes; E-Cigarettes; Vaping; Nicotine Replacement; JUUL; Juuling; Advertising; Digital Marketing; Customers; Innovation and Invention; Marketing; Ethics; Brands and Branding; Marketing Communications; Marketing Strategy; Product Marketing; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Social Issues; Information Technology; Technology Industry; San Francisco; California
- September 2018 (Revised June 2019)
- Case
THE VELUX FOUNDATIONS: Selecting Impact Funds
By: Vikram Gandhi, Caitlin Reimers Brumme and Nathaniel Schwalb
After much internal debate, THE VELUX FOUNDATIONS of Denmark have decided to allocate a small percentage of their investment portfolio to impact investments. Cambridge Associates, one of the leading investment advisory firms in the world, has been engaged to assist... View Details
- 2018
- Working Paper
Taxation and Innovation in the 20th Century
By: Ufuk Akcigit, John Grigsby, Tom Nicholas and Stefanie Stantcheva
This paper studies the effect of corporate and personal taxes on innovation in the United States over the 20th century. We use three new datasets: a panel of the universe of inventors who patent since 1920; a dataset of the employment, location, and patents of firms... View Details
- Article
The Impact of the 'Open' Workspace on Human Collaboration
By: Ethan Bernstein and Stephen Turban
Organizations’ pursuit of increased workplace collaboration has led managers to transform traditional office spaces into “open,” transparency-enhancing architectures with fewer walls, doors, and other spatial boundaries, yet there is scant direct empirical research on... View Details
Keywords: Open Office; Transparency; Collaboration; Collective Intelligence; Workspace; Workspace Design; Architecture; Cubicles; Boundaries; Spatial Boundaries; Human Behavior; Propinquity; Co-location; Interaction; Sociometers; People Analytics; Buildings and Facilities; Communication; Design; Human Resources; Leadership; Management; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Networks; Social and Collaborative Networks; Information Technology; United States