Sustainability - Publications - Faculty & Research

January 2013 (Revised April 2013)
Technical Note

Relational Contracts and the Roots of Sustained Competitive Advantage

This note focuses on organizational "competencies" or "capabilities" as a potential source of sustained competitive advantage. Research in this area hypothesizes that some firms outperform their competition because they can do things that their rivals cannot. View Details

Keywords: Competitive Advantage; Performance

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2022
Case

Mandalay Homes: Building Sustainable Innovation in Residential Construction

By: Andrew J. Hoffman

Mandalay Homes, a home builder based in northern Arizona, is a market leader in energy efficiency based construction. The company is now at a crossroads for developing a strategy for the future. Internal leadership is in agreement that quality is better than quantity... View Details

Keywords: Green Building; Renewable Energy; Environmental Sustainability; Business Strategy; Construction Industry

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2003
Chapter

Designing Sustainability at BMW Group: The Designworks/USA Experience

By: Michael W. Toffel, Natalie Hill and Kellie McElhaney

This case study describes how an industrial design company developed a Sustainability Management System (SMS) standard, designed and implemented an SMS throughout its business, and then became the first company in the world to achieve third-party SMS certification. The... View Details

Keywords: Design; Governance Compliance; Management Practices and Processes; Standards; Environmental Sustainability; United States

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1985
Book

The Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance

By: M. E. Porter

Keywords: Competitive Advantage; Performance Consistency

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23 Dec 2017
News

Exploring a New Agenda for Corporate Sustainability

06 Jan 2012
News

Is sustainability now the key to corporate success?

25 Apr 2014
News

Sustaining a commitment to the environment

board of the Westchester Land Trust, Riverkeeper, and the Mount Auburn Cemetery. At Harvard University, he funded the Harvard Sustainability Initiative in Infrastructure Design at the Graduate School of Design to develop a set of View Details

09 Dec 2019
News

ESG Notebook: 6 Practical Approaches To Increasing Corporate Sustainability

06 May 2022
Blog Post

Career Advice: Starting a Sustainable Startup

Career Advice: Starting a Sustainable Startup Tell us a little about what you were doing before HBS and what brought you to HBS. I’ve always found myself drawn to working on products and services that can have a positive impact on the... View Details

14 Dec 2015
News

How Accounting Can Help Build a Sustainable Economy

11 Sep 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Chief Sustainability Officers: Who Are They and What Do They Do?

Keywords: by Kathleen Miller & George Serafeim

13 Nov 2020
Working Paper Summaries

The European Commission’s Sustainable Corporate Governance Report: A Critique

Keywords: by Mark Roe, Holger Spamann, Jesse Fried, and Charles Wang

16 Apr 2013
News

New Guidelines to Help Companies Report on Sustainability Issues

April 2011 (Revised June 2011)
Case

Internet Securities, Inc.: Path to Sustainability

By: Lynda M. Applegate, William R. Kerr and Ryan Johnson

Founded in 1994 when the Internet was still a "toy for techies," the case is set in 1998 when Internet IPOs were red-hot. Internet Securities provides hard-to-find financial, business, economic, and political information on emerging markets. Information from over 600... View Details