Publications

28 Aug 2020
News

Rethinking Work During and After Lockdown

February 2018 (Revised March 2019)
Case

Sandlands Vineyards

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Gregory Saldutte

Approximately 80% of the wineries in the U.S. break even or lose money. An even greater percentage lose money on an economic basis (i.e., after a charge for the cost of equity). Tegan Passalacqua is a successful, young, Californian winemaker who specializes in making... View Details

Educators

October 2016 (Revised October 2017)
Case

Misaki Capital and Sangetsu Corporation

By: Ian Gow, Charles C.Y. Wang, Naoko Jinjo and Nobuo Sato

Japan’s corporate culture has traditionally prioritized the interests of stakeholders such as customers, employees, and suppliers over those of shareholders. After a decades-long economic slump, Japan’s government has revitalized efforts to improve corporate governance... View Details

Keywords: Activist Investing; Constructivist Investing; Japan; Valuation; Stock Screens; Return On Equity; Investment; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Corporate Governance; Financial Strategy; Business and Shareholder Relations; Japan

Educators

09 Aug 2016
Working Paper Summaries

Shareholder Activism on Sustainability Issues

Keywords: by Jody Grewal, George Serafeim, and Aaron Yoon

2025
Chapter

Sustainability and Green Business in Latin America

By: Geoffrey Jones

This chapter argues that since the nineteenth century capitalism has created much wealth, but at the cost of massive ecological destruction, which has been particularly severe in Latin America. During the first global economy before 1929, considerable wealth was... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Sustainability; Business History; Globalization; Economic Growth; Latin America

2016
Working Paper

Shareholder Activism on Sustainability Issues

By: Jody Grewal, George Serafeim and Aaron Yoon

Shareholder activism on sustainability issues has become increasingly prevalent over the years, with the number of proposals filed doubling from 1999 to 2013. We use recent innovations in accounting standard setting to classify 2,665 shareholder proposals that address... View Details

Keywords: Sustainability; Activism; Activist Investors; Activist Shareholder; Corporate Social Responsibility; Environment; Corporate Performance; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Performance; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Governance; Business and Shareholder Relations; Investment Activism

SSRN

Research Summary

Sustainability and Integrated Reporting

A sustainable strategy for a company is one that enables it to create value for shareholders over the long term while contributing to a sustainable society. In doing so, it must balance the needs of different types of providers of financial capital (e.g.,... View Details

Keywords: Sustainability; Sustainability Reporting

13 Dec 2018
Blog Post

Working at the Intersection of Business and Environment

The Business and Environment Initiative is the hub for environmentally-focused research, teaching, and discourse at HBS. We connect faculty, students, alumni, and practitioners to deepen the understanding of... View Details

2025
Working Paper

Impact Investing and Worker Outcomes

By: Josh Lerner, Markus Lithell and Gordon M. Phillips

Impact investors claim to distinguish themselves from traditional venture capital and growth equity investors by also pursuing environmental, social, and governance (ESG) objectives. Whether they successfully do so in practice is unclear. We use confidential Census... View Details

Keywords: ESG; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Private Equity; Venture Capital; Wages

SSRN

2019
Chapter

Teams and Team Effectiveness in Health Services Organizations

By: Bruce J. Fried and Amy C. Edmondson

Book Abstract: Completely updated to address the challenges faced by modern health care organizations, this edition of Shortell and Kaluzny's Health Care Management: Organization Design and Behavior offers a more global perspective on how the United States and... View Details

Keywords: Groups and Teams; Performance Effectiveness; Health; Health Industry

2007
Working Paper

Multi-Sided Platforms: From Microfoundations to Design and Expansion Strategies

By: Andrei Hagiu

Multi-sided platforms (MSPs), which bring together two or more interdependent groups of customers, have recently risen to economic and business prominence in many industries. This paper first lays out a simple micro-founded framework which aims to organize academic and... View Details

Keywords: Multi-Sided Platforms

April 2015
Article

Incentivizing Calculated Risk-Taking: Evidence from an Experiment with Commercial Bank Loan Officers

By: Shawn Cole, Martin Kanz and Leora Klapper

This paper uses a series of experiments with commercial bank loan officers to test the effect of performance incentives on risk assessment and lending decisions. We first show that while high-powered incentives lead to greater screening effort and more profitable... View Details

Keywords: Banking; Management Processes; Credit Products; Experimental Economics; Risk Management; Motivation and Incentives; Management Practices and Processes; Financing and Loans; Banking Industry

April 2011
Supplement

Felipe Calderón: Leading with Light and Power (B)

By: J. Bruce Harreld and David Lane

This sequence of cases explores how leaders get their team focused on framing, analyzing, and ultimately acting upon complex decisions. The A case provides an inside look as President of Mexico, Felipe Calderon, works with his cabinet ministers to decide how to... View Details

Keywords: Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Decision Choices and Conditions; Cases; Crime and Corruption; State Ownership; Business or Company Management; Economics; Risk and Uncertainty; Finance; Performance; Management Teams; Strategic Planning; Energy Industry; Mexico City

01 Mar 2024
News

Alumni and Faculty Books and Podcasts

Edited by Margie Kelley Alumni Books You Got This! A Straightforward, No-Nonsense Playbook for Crushing 130+ Workplace Challenges By Heidi Abelli (MBA 1993) Palmetto Publishing Stepping into the corporate world can feel like navigating a labyrinth, especially when... View Details

Keywords: Publishing Industries (except Internet); Information

29 Jan 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, January 29, 2019

forthcoming Journal of International Economics Corporate Debt, Firm Size and Financial Fragility in Emerging Markets By: Alfaro, Laura, Gonzalo Asis, Anusha Chari, and Ugo... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

21 Aug 2021
News

Farrell: How an Investor Can Try to Make Money and Stay Away from Polluting Companies

2019
Working Paper

Fiscal Rules and Sovereign Default

By: Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk

Recurrent concerns over debt sustainability in emerging and developed nations have prompted renewed debate on the role of fiscal rules. Their optimality, however, remains unclear. We provide a quantitative analysis of fiscal rules in a standard model of sovereign debt... View Details

Keywords: Sovereign Debt; Hyperbolic Discounting; Fiscal Rules; Sovereign Finance

September 2016
Article

The Effect of Target Difficulty on Target Completion: The Case of Reducing Carbon Emissions

By: Ioannis Ioannou, Shelley Xin Li and George Serafeim

Targets are an integral component of management control systems and play a significant role in achieving desirable performance outcomes. We focus on a key environmental performance objective—reduction of carbon emissions—as a setting in which to examine how target... View Details

Keywords: Sustainability; Target-setting; Management Accounting; Management Accounting And Control Systems; Control Systems; Sustainable Development; Environment; Goals and Objectives; Climate Change; Management Systems; Accounting; Environmental Sustainability

2018
Working Paper

When to Take the Leap: The Antecedents and Consequences of Leapfrog CEOs

By: J. Yo-Jud Cheng

Much of the prior research on CEO successions focuses on differences between CEOs appointed from within the firm and those appointed from outside; however, this dichotomy neglects significant heterogeneity in CEOs’ career trajectories. In this study, I examine the... View Details

Keywords: Management Succession; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Innovation and Management