Publications

Article

People Make It So Hard to Ditch Plastic Straws

By: Scott Duke Kominers

Rarely has a minor consumer product received more vilification than the plastic straw. As a symbol of human wastefulness and our careless disregard for the environment, straws are the near-perfect villain. You use a plastic straw once and toss it, but it stays with us... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Sustainability; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Consumer Behavior

Read Now

2015
Chapter

Staying the Same While Changing: Organizational Identity in the Face of Environmental Challenges

By: Mary Ann Glynn, Christi Lockwood and Ryan Raffaelli

We explore the role of organizational identity in the adoption of new sustainability practices, focusing on how identity functions as a driver of (or sometimes a drag on) adoption. Drawing on illustrations from the U.S. hotel industry, we examine how sustainability... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Culture; Environmental Sustainability; Adoption; Accommodations Industry; United States

1990
Chapter

From Cross-Border Corporate Transactions to Environmental Accords

By: James K. Sebenius

Keywords: Globalized Firms and Management; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Agreements and Arrangements; Environmental Sustainability

June 2012 (Revised February 2014)
Case

Low-Carbon, Indigenous Innovation in China

By: Richard H.K. Vietor

For the past seven years or so, the Chinese government has been powering ahead with industrial policies to promote low-carbon energy technologies—wind, solar, electric batteries and vehicles, nuclear power, and even carbon capture and sequestration. In 2009, the... View Details

Keywords: Energy; Renewables; Carbon; Environment; Industrial Policy; Competitiveness; Environmental Sustainability; Policy; Renewable Energy; Competition; Globalized Markets and Industries; Energy Industry; China

January 2008 (Revised February 2008)
Case

Restructuring at Nova Chemical Corporation

Management of a diversified chemicals company faces two financial decisions: whether to finance a major investment in new production facilities for its rapidly expanding Environmental Products Division, and whether to sell a more slowly growing non-specialty chemicals... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Decision Choices and Conditions; Chemicals; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Finance; Chemical Industry

2008
Working Paper

Resolving Information Asymmetries in Markets: The Role of Certified Management Programs

By: Michael W. Toffel

Firms and regulators are increasingly relying on voluntary mechanisms to signal and infer quality of difficult-to-observe management practices. Prior evaluations of voluntary management programs have focused on those that lack verification mechanisms and have found... View Details

Keywords: Management Practices and Processes; Information; Standards; Performance Improvement; Programs; Environmental Sustainability; Manufacturing Industry; United States

SSRN

Read Now

February 2011
Supplement

Carbon Trading Simulation: Brown Cement Inc.

By: Peter A. Coles

This simulation presents students the opportunity to experience firsthand the economics of carbon markets and permit trading. Each student has private role information about a company he or she manages. The student must make decisions about pollution-reducing... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Economics; Investment; Business or Company Management; Market Design; Pollutants

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

SSRN

Read Now

Research Summary

Overview

By: Kyle R. Myers

Professor Myers studies the economics of what determines the rate and direction of innovation. He has examined the reallocation of scientists through the use of targeted research grants at the National Institutes of Health, and is working to further understand how... View Details

Article

Market Interest in Nonfinancial Information

By: R. G. Eccles, Michael P. Krzus and George Serafeim

Market interest in nonfinancial (e.g., Environmental, Social, and Governance [ESG]) information, including data produced by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), is growing. Using data from Bloomberg we analyze this interest from a variety of different perspectives, and... View Details

Keywords: Markets; Analytics and Data Science; Perspective; Environmental Sustainability; Social Issues; Corporate Disclosure; Projects; Interests

Find at Harvard

Profile

Justin Bardin

As a participant in the United States Navy's Immediate Graduate School Program, Justin Bardin is one of only twenty Naval Academy graduates selected for continued graduate studies, even as he maintains active duty status. "I had majored in political View Details

01 Mar 2006
News

Can the United States Avoid a Fractured Future?

ENRIQUEZ: People take too much for granted. PHOTO BY JEFF THIEBAUTH As CEO of Biotechonomy, a life-sciences research and venture capital firm, Juan Enriquez (MBA ’86) has examined the impact of life sciences on the global economy. In his... View Details

Keywords: Lewis I. Rice; Finance; Health, Social Assistance

Web

2021 Symposium - Race, Gender & Equity

professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School (where she remains a Senior Fellow), and an innovation specialist for nearly a decade at McKinsey & Company, she earned her PhD at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. She has a BA with honors in Political View Details

Web

THE VALUE OF THE PHYSICIAN SHADOW PROGRAM: Witnessing The Front Lines of Care Delivery - Blog: Health Supplement

Blog Blog Health Care and Life Science at HBS Filter Results Arrow Down Arrow Up Read posts from Author Alumni Author Blavatnik Fellow Author Blavatnik Fellowship Team Author Executive Education Author HBS Partners Author HBS Staff Author... View Details

25 Aug 2014
News

Wendell P. Weeks, MBA 1987

positions that helped him understand the complexities of the company—from shift supervisor in a manufacturing plant, to new product development, to business development. Weeks, a quick study, has 26 patents pending despite a lack of formal View Details

Keywords: Susan Young

01 Jun 2002
News

Steven Murch: Philanthropist-in-Training

the right field at precisely the right time. Upon adding an MBA to his computer science degrees from Carnegie Mellon and Stanford, Murch (who graduated from HBS as a Baker Scholar) went straight to Microsoft. For more than six years, he... View Details

Keywords: Margie Kelley; Construction of Buildings; Construction; Health, Social Assistance

07 Jul 2020
Research & Ideas

Market Investors Pay More for Resilient Companies

The steep market drop in the early days of the COVID-19 crisis is being used as a laboratory to study the importance of companies investing in stakeholder relations with their employees, suppliers, and customers, and how those investments could be strategic resources... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz; Financial Services

March 1998 (Revised June 1998)
Case

BCI Growth III: November 1993

By: Josh Lerner

Supplements BCI Growth III: May 1993. View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Business Growth and Maturation; Consolidation; Acquisition; Wastes and Waste Processing; Service Industry; United States

March 1998 (Revised December 1998)
Case

BCI Growth III: May 1993

By: Josh Lerner

A Vermont solid-waste company seeks mezzanine financing to finance its strategy of acquiring and consolidating local competitors. The mezzanine private equity group must decide whether this investment offers an attractive risk-return tradeoff. View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Business Growth and Maturation; Consolidation; Wastes and Waste Processing; Acquisition; Service Industry; Vermont