Publications
Publications
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(2,365)
- Faculty Publications (656)
- November 2016
- Case
But, It's For a Good Cause
By: Elizabeth Keenan and John Gourville
Companies have long tried to enhance consumers’ perceptions of their firms and the products they sell in a variety of ways. Such efforts include the development of a brand image that the public views favorably, as in the case of Apple. It extends to the development of... View Details
- 2016
- Working Paper
Alternative Paths of Green Entrepreneurship: The Environmental Legacies of The North Face's Doug Tompkins and Patagonia's Yvon Chouinard
By: Geoffrey Jones and Ben Gettinger
This working paper examines the impact of two entrepreneurs who offered alternative paths to reach their shared goal of a more sustainable world. Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tompkins were respective founders of the prominent outdoor apparel brands Patagonia and The North... View Details
- September 2016 (Revised December 2018)
- Case
Joan Bavaria and Multi-Dimensional Capitalism
By: Geoffrey Jones and Seema Amble
The case examines the career of Joan Bavaria, a pioneer of socially responsible investing and founder of Trillium Asset Management and Ceres, the nonprofit organization advocating for sustainability leadership. It describes her personal journey from art student and... View Details
- Article
ESG Integration in Investment Management: Myths and Realities
By: Sakis Kotsantonis, Christopher Pinney and George Serafeim
The authors’ aim in this article is to set the record straight on the financial performance of sustainable investing while also correcting a number of other widespread misconceptions about this rapidly growing set of principles and methods.
Myth Number 1:... View Details
- 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
- 2016
- Chapter
Unpacking the Dynamics of Successful Change: Ten Insights from the Private Sector
Book Abstract: The aim of this book is to catalyze global interest in the pursuit of transformational changes in natural resource and environmental management. It is shown that transformational policy reforms involve fundamental shifts in strategy with far-reaching... View Details
- 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
- June 2016 (Revised January 2018)
- Case
World Wildlife Fund (WWF)
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Jordan Mitchell
Nearly all environmental organizations have a similar aim: to stop the degradation of the natural environment. However, the strategies that environmental organizations choose to employ are sometimes starkly different. This case compares the models of two dissimilar... View Details
- 21 Jun 2016
- Other Presentation
Defining Innovative Approaches to Inclusive and Sustainable Economic Growth
Nestle's CSV global forum entitled 'Investing in Sustainable Development in Africa,' brought together business, civil society and government leaders from Africa and beyond to discuss a range of key topics affecting the African continent. This video clip highlights some... View Details
- 2016
- Working Paper
Entrepreneurs and the Co-Creation of Ecotourism in Costa Rica
By: Geoffrey Jones and Andrew Spadafora
Between the 1970s and the 2000s, Costa Rica became established as the world’s leading ecotourism destination. This working paper suggests that although Costa Rica benefited from biodiversity and a pleasant climate, the country’s preeminence in ecotourism requires more... View Details
- May 2016 (Revised April 2019)
- Case
Olivia Lum: Wanting to Save the World
By: Geoffrey Jones and Essie Alamsyah
This case considers the entrepreneurial career of Olivia Lum, who founded the Singaporean water company Hyflux in 1989. An orphan born in Malaysia, Lum provides a rare case of an entrepreneurial success in a country whose economic success has primarily rested on... View Details
Keywords: Industrial Organization; Chinitz; Agglomeration; Clusters; Cities; Mine; Environmental Management; Operations Management; Sustainable Operations; Environmental Regulation; Entrepreneurship; Globalization; History; Operations; Management; Environmental Sustainability; Green Technology Industry; Utilities Industry; China; Singapore
- 2016
- Book
Strategy Beyond Markets
By: John de Figueiredo, Michael Lenox, Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Rick Vanden Bergh
Strategy beyond markets has been an active area of research inquiry since the early 1990s. Since its inception, the scholarship emanating from this research stream has grown substantially in quantity, quality, and breadth. Likewise, firms across the world have... View Details
Keywords: Strategy
- March 22, 2016
- Article
The Globalization of Corporate Environmental Disclosure: Accountability or Greenwashing?
By: Christopher Marquis, Michael W. Toffel and Yanhua Zhou
This article is a layman summary of "Scrutiny, Norms, and Selective Disclosure: A Global Study of Greenwashing," published in Organization Science 27, no. 2 (March–April 2016): 483–504. View Details
- March 2016 (Revised April 2019)
- Technical Note
ESG Metrics: Reshaping Capitalism?
By: George Serafeim
In the past twenty-five years, the world had seen an exponential growth in the number of companies reporting environmental, social and governance (ESG) data. Investor interest in ESG data also grew rapidly. A growing belief that increasing levels of social inequality... View Details
Keywords: Capitalism; Sustainability; Accountability; Corporate Social Responsibility; Responsibilities To Society; Environment; Social Impact Investment; ESG; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Measurement and Metrics; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Corporate Accountability; Accounting; Economic Systems
- March 2016 (Revised June 2016)
- Case
Gotong Royong: Toward Sustainable Palm Oil
By: Rebecca Henderson, Hann-Shuin Yew and Monica Baraldi
In late 2015, Jeff Seabright, chief sustainability officer at Unilever, had to report to Unilever CEO Paul Polman on the effort to transform palm oil cultivation. Historically, palm oil was produced using unsustainable methods that included burning large tracts of... View Details
- March 2016
- Article
Environmental Demands and the Emergence of Social Structure: Technological Dynamism and Interorganizational Network Forms
By: Adam Tatarynowicz, Maxim Sytch and Ranjay Gulati
This study investigates the origins of variation in the structures of interorganizational networks across industries. We combine empirical analyses of existing interorganizational networks in six industries with an agent-based simulation model of network emergence.... View Details
- February 2016 (Revised October 2017)
- Case
Nuclear Energy: An Answer to Climate Change?
By: Michael W. Toffel, Glen W. S. Dowell and James Weber
Environmental activist groups have traditionally opposed nuclear energy. However, the growing environmental problems associated with global climate change require major changes to reduce the carbon intensity of electricity generation. Should environmental groups... View Details
- February 2016 (Revised May 2016)
- Case
Environmental Health
By: John A. Quelch and Emily C. Boudreau
- February 2016 (Revised February 2017)
- Case
Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy
By: Rebecca Henderson and James Weber
In 2005, Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, launched a sustainability initiative aimed at reducing waste and making the company more environmentally and socially conscious. By 2015, the company had made progress on multiple dimensions: energy efficiency in its... View Details
- July 2016
- Article
Kicking Off Social Entrepreneurship: How A Sustainability Orientation Influences Crowdfunding Success
By: Goran Calic and Elaine Mosakowski
Research generally suggests that, relative to commercial entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs stand at a disadvantage at acquiring resources through traditional financial institutions. Yet interest in social entrepreneurship appears to be at an all-time high. The... View Details