Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(5,094)
- Faculty Publications (1,033)
- Article
Toward a Corporate Culture of Health: Results of a National Survey
By: Michael Anne Kyle, Lumumba Seegars, John M. Benson, Robert J. Blendon, Robert S. Huckman and Sara J. Singer
Context: The private sector has a large potential role in advancing health and well-being, but attention to corporate practices around health tends to focus on a narrow range of issues and on large businesses. Systematically describing private sector engagement in... View Details
- November 2019
- Case
Apple, Einhorn, and iPrefs (Abridged)
By: Carliss Y. Baldwin and W. Carl Kester
In March 2013, Apple Computer has a very large cash balance, and is under pressure to return cash to shareholders. Hedge fund manager David Einhorn thinks Apple can "unlock value" by issuing perpetual preferred stock, dubbed iPrefs. Henry Blodget, CEO of Business... View Details
- 2020
- Working Paper
How ESG Issues Become Financially Material to Corporations and Their Investors
By: George Serafeim
Management and disclosure of environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues have received substantial interest over the last decade. In this paper, we outline a framework of how ESG issues become financially material, affecting corporate profitability and valuation.... View Details
Keywords: Materiality; ESG; Pharmaceutical Companies; Business Ethics; Sustainability; Environment; Disclosure; Disclosure And Access; Regulation; Social Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Social Issues; Corporate Governance; Ethics; Corporate Disclosure; Corporate Accountability; Resource Allocation; Finance; Accounting; Valuation
- 2019
- Working Paper
Intelligent Design of Inclusive Growth Strategies
By: Robert S. Kaplan, George Serafeim and Eduardo Tugendhat
Improving corporate engagement with society, as advocated in the Business Roundtable’s 2019 statement, should not be viewed as a zero-sum proposition where attention to new stakeholders detracts from delivering shareholder value. Corporate programs for sustainable and... View Details
- October 2019 (Revised February 2020)
- Case
Brightview Senior Living
By: Lynda M. Applegate and James Weber
Marilynn Duker, CEO, was exploring how to grow the company while maintaining the culture that made it a leader in the field of senior housing. Brightview constructed and operated senior living apartment communities that offered independent living, assisted living, and... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
Shareholder Activism and Firms' Voluntary Disclosure of Climate Change Risks
By: Caroline Flammer, Michael W. Toffel and Kala Viswanathan
This paper examines whether—in the absence of mandated disclosure requirements—shareholder activism can elicit greater disclosure of firms’ exposure to climate change risks. We find that environmental shareholder activism increases the voluntary disclosure of climate... View Details
Keywords: Shareholder Activism; Climate Risk; Corporate Accountability; Climate Change; Corporate Disclosure; Corporate Governance; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Shareholder Relations; Risk and Uncertainty; Natural Environment; Environmental Sustainability; Financial Services Industry; United States
- October 2019
- Case
Engaging the Nationwide Workforce
By: Ethan S. Bernstein, Jessica Gover and Sarah Mehta
Nationwide is “on your side,” but did employees feel that way? CAO Gale King and CEO Steve Rasmussen, starting in 2008, invested heavily in a human capital strategy centered around “engagement” at the Ohio-based Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company. Set in 2014, this... View Details
Keywords: Talent and Talent Management; Change; Change Management; Transformation; Insurance; Human Resources; Employees; Employee Relationship Management; Retention; Selection and Staffing; Employment; Human Capital; Leadership; Leadership Development; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Social Psychology; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; United States; Ohio
- October 2019 (Revised February 2023)
- Case
Gupta Media: Performance Marketing in the Digital Age
By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Courtney Han
Gupta Media is a Digital Marketing firm started in 2005 that places advertisements and marketing promotions for its clients in digital media, mainly social media such as Facebook and Google. Over the years it had built its expertise in promoting music labels, artists... View Details
- 2019
- Working Paper
Why Does Business Invest in Education in Emerging Markets? Why Does It Matter?
By: Valeria Giacomin, G. Jones and Erica Salvaj
This working paper examines why a significant number of businesses have made non-profit investments in education in emerging markets between the 1960s and the present day. Using a sample of 110 interviews with business leaders from an oral history database at the... View Details
- September 2019
- Case
Dementia Discovery Fund
By: Richard G. Hamermesh, Kathy Giusti and Sarah Gulick
The case is set in March 2019, and tells the story of the founding of the Dementia Discovery Fund (DDF). The idea for the fund began in 2015, when then-Prime Minister David Cameron spoke about the importance of making breakthroughs in dementia research, and pledged... View Details
- 2019
- White Paper
Impact-Weighted Financial Accounts: The Missing Piece for an Impact Economy
By: George Serafeim, T. Robert Zochowski and Jennifer Downing
Reimagining capitalism is an imperative. We need to create a more inclusive and sustainable form of capitalism that works for every person and the planet. Massive environmental damage, growing income and wealth disparity, stress, and depression within developed... View Details
- 2019
- Working Paper
On Her Own Account: How Strengthening Women's Financial Control Affects Labor Supply and Gender Norms
By: Natalia Rigol, Erica Field, Rohini Pande, Simone Schaner and Charity Troyer-Moore
Can greater control over earned income incentivize women to work and influence gender norms? In collaboration with Indian government partners, we provided rural women with individual bank accounts and randomly varied whether their wages from a public workfare program... View Details
- August 2019 (Revised November 2019)
- Case
Sustainable Investing at J.P. Morgan Private Bank
By: Sara Fleiss and Luis Viceira
This case features Monica Issar, then Global Head of J.P. Morgan Endowments & Foundations Group in the Private Bank. In just five years, she and J.P. Morgan have grown the Outsourced Chief Investment Officer (OCIO) business from $5 billion in AUM from primarily family... View Details
- Article
Effect of Different Financial Incentive Structures on Promoting Physical Activity Among Adults: A Randomized Clinical Trial
By: Chethan Bachireddy, Andrew Joung, Leslie K. John, Francesca Gino, Bradford Tuckfield, Luca Foschini and Katherine L. Milkman
Importance: Few adults engage in recommended levels of physical activity. Financial incentives can promote physical activity, but little is known about how their structure influences their effectiveness; for example, whether incentives are more effective if they are... View Details
- July 2019
- Supplement
Omidyar Network's Impact Investment Framework
By: Vikram S Gandhi
A team of investors at Omidyar Network explore two different investment possibilities in the budding financial inclusion space using their investment framework to consider capital alternatives available for both investments, each of which carries highly divergent... View Details
- July 2019
- Supplement
Omidyar Network's Investment Decisions: MicroEnsure and Lenddo
By: Vikram S Gandhi
A team of investors at Omidyar Network explore two different investment possibilities in the budding financial inclusion space using their investment framework to consider capital alternatives available for both investments, each of which carries highly divergent... View Details
- June 2019 (Revised April 2020)
- Teaching Note
Vox Capital: Pioneering Impact Investing in Brazil
By: Julie Battilana, Marissa Kimsey and Falko Paetzold
Teaching Note for HBS No. 417-051. This Teaching Note provides conceptual foundations and teaching plan recommendations for the case on Vox Capital, a firm that launched one of the first impact investing funds in Brazil. The learning objectives are to understand how an... View Details
- June 2019
- Article
Brokers vs. Retail Investors: Conflicting Interests and Dominated Products
By: Mark Egan
I study how brokers distort household investment decisions. Using a novel convertible bond dataset, I find that consumers often purchase dominated bonds—cheap and expensive versions of otherwise identical bonds coexist in the market. The empirical evidence suggests... View Details
- June 2019
- Article
Debt Traps? Market Vendors and Moneylender Debt in India and the Philippines
By: Dean Karlan, Sendhil Mullainathan and Benjamin Roth
A debt trap occurs when someone takes on a high-interest rate loan and is barely able to pay back the interest, and thus perpetually finds themselves in debt (often by refinancing). Studying such practices is important for understanding financial decision-making of... View Details
Keywords: Borrowing and Debt; Household; Personal Finance; Decision Making; Behavior; India; Philippines
- September 2019
- Article
Household Matters: Revisiting the Returns to Capital Among Female Microentrepreneurs
By: Arielle Bernhardt, Erica Field, Rohini Pande and Natalia Rigol
Multiple field experiments report positive financial returns to capital shocks for male and not female microentrepreneurs. But these analyses overlook the fact that female entrepreneurs often reside with male entrepreneurs. Using data from experiments in India, Sri... View Details