Publications

Find at Harvard

November 2019 (Revised February 2020)
Case

Starbucks: Reaffirming Commitment to the Third Place Ideal

By: Francesca Gino, Katherine B. Coffman and Jeff Huizinga

On April 12, 2018, two African American entrepreneurs had scheduled a business meeting at a Starbucks in Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse Square neighborhood. They sat without ordering, waiting for a local businessman to show up for the meeting. The store manager called 911... View Details

Keywords: Mission and Purpose; Values and Beliefs; Prejudice and Bias; Crisis Management; Employees; Training

23 Oct 2019
Working Paper Summaries

Decarbonization Factors

Keywords: by Alex Cheema-Fox, Bridget LaPerla, George Serafeim, David Turkington, and Hui (Stacie) Wang

2023
Article

Let's Coordinate! The Reinforcement of a ‘Liberal Bastion’ within European Industrial Federations, 1978-1987

By: Sabine Pitteloud

This article focuses on the establishment in the 1970s of a new international private governance forum, the so-called ‘Interlaken Conferences’, which gathered together the leading figures of the Industrial Federations of the Federal Republic of Germany, Austria,... View Details

Keywords: Business Interest Association; Lobbying; Neo-Liberalism; Neocorporatism; Coordination; Economic Policy; Business and Government Relations; Labor Unions; Economics; Policy; Europe

2018
Working Paper

Hot or Not? What Makes Product Categories Attractive to Fair Trade and Eco-labeling Organizations

By: Kristin Sippl

This paper probes extant theory on product diversification in the empirical realm of fair trade and eco-labeling organizations (i.e., certification organizations). While much is known about diversification in for-profit firms, less is known about the more complex... View Details

Keywords: Hybrid Organizations; Fair Trade; Eco-labeling; Goods and Commodities; Diversification; Strategy

2023
Working Paper

State Employment as a Strategy of Autocratic Control in China

By: Jaya Y. Wen

This paper presents evidence that autocrats use state-owned firms to strategically pacify social unrest via employment provision, a role that may contribute to their favorable treatment and persistence across settings. I use variation in a regional conflict between... View Details

Keywords: State Ownership; Employment; Government and Politics; Conflict Management; China

October 2001 (Revised June 2004)
Case

Harrah's Entertainment Inc.

By: Rajiv Lal and Patricia Carrolo

Describes a situation facing Philip Satre, chairman and CEO of Harrah's Entertainment, Inc. Satre was reading a May 2000 Wall Street Journal story that discussed the company's marketing success in targeting low rollers, the 100% growth in stock price and profits in the... View Details

Keywords: Budgets and Budgeting; Marketing; Marketing Reference Programs; Performance Evaluation; Motivation and Incentives; Competitive Strategy

March 2016
Teaching Note

Advanced Leadership Pathways: Laurent Adamowicz and Bon'App

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Tessa Natanay Hamilton and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone

After a successful career as Chairman and CEO of Paris-based luxury food company, Fauchon, Laurent Adamowicz sought to provide a solution to a large scale complex problem. Ultimately, Adamowicz created a mobile application to provide consumers with more accessible and... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Change Management; Social Entrepreneurship; Nutrition; Business and Community Relations

25 Mar 2022
Video

Omobola Johnson

Omobola Johnson, the former Minister of Communication Technology in Nigeria, discusses her participation in the co-founding of WimBiz, a Nigerian non-profit organization that seeks “to be the catalyst that elevates the status and influence of women and their... View Details

November 2022 (Revised March 2024)
Case

Northvolt: Building Batteries to Fight Climate Change

By: George Serafeim, Debora L. Spar, P. Tufano and Julia M. Comeau

In 2016, Swedish entrepreneurs Carl-Erik Lagercrantz and Peter Carlsson founded an electric battery company called Northvolt with the dual goals of creating a company to address climate change and bringing battery manufacture to Europe. Northvolt, which succeeded in... View Details

Keywords: Batteries; Climate Change; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Green Technology; Mission and Purpose; Goals and Objectives; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Green Technology Industry; Battery Industry; Sweden; Europe

September–October 2018
Article

The Paradox of Responsive Authoritarianism: How Civic Activism Spurs Environmental Penalties in China

By: Christopher Marquis and Yanhua Bird

Recognizing the need to better understand institutional change processes in authoritarian states, which play an increasingly prominent role in the world economy, we examine the efficacy of civic activism aimed at spurring governmental action concerning the... View Details

Keywords: Civic Activism; Authoritarianism; Regulation; Corporate Sustainability; Environmental Sustainability; Government and Politics; Business and Government Relations; Social Issues; Change; China

Find at Harvard

Register to Read

10 Jan 2005
Research & Ideas

Motivation and the Cross-Sector Alliance

these social leaders viewed those advantages as a vehicle for contributing to solutions of certain social problems. According to Juan Carr, founder of the Solidarity Network... View Details

Keywords: by James Austin, Ezequiel Reficco & SEKN research team

Value Shift

Today, corporate accountability is as vital to the bottom line as an effective business model. Value Shift makes a strong case for the merits of corporate responsibility and shows how a value-positive orientation contributes to superior performance through... View Details

2020
Working Paper

Incentive Power and Knowledge Sharing Among Employees: Evidence from the Field

By: Wei Cai, Susanna Gallani and Jee-Eun Shin

There is consensus, both in the literature and in practice, about knowledge sharing within organizations being a key determinant of success. However, organizations struggle to sustain employees’ engagement in knowledge sharing. One challenge lies in the fact that,... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Knowledge Sharing; Employee Driven Innovation; Innovation Appropriability; Contract Design; High-powered Incentives; Low-powered Incentives; Incentives; Pay-for-Performance; Rank-and-file; Employees; Knowledge Sharing; Innovation and Invention; Motivation and Incentives; Creativity; Performance

Keywords: Dairy

Research Summary

Making Markets Work: An Executive Education Program for Africa

By: Debora L. Spar

In the last decades of the 20th century economic growth was distributed unevenly across the world. While some countries experienced sustained and unprecedented prosperity, others fell further and further behind. This widening gap was particularly evident in Africa,... View Details

17 May 2004
Research & Ideas

Why We Don’t Study Corporate Responsibility

managers' social initiatives are akin to using a dishwasher to wash clothes. Corporations can contribute best to society if they do what they do best: employ a workforce to provide goods and services to the... View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls

October 1996 (Revised May 2001)
Case

Cantuga Farmworkers Clinic (A)

By: James E. Austin and Catherine Overholt

The board of directors of a rural health clinic fires its executive director. The case elaborates the evolution and progress of the clinic under this director during a period of growth and a changing health care environment. Factors contributing to and questioning the... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Resignation and Termination; Managerial Roles; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Performance Evaluation; Problems and Challenges; Rank and Position; Social Enterprise; Health Industry