Publications

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August 2022 (Revised November 2024)
Case

Boston Impact Initiative: Investing in Local Change

By: Emily R. McComb, Amy Klopfenstein and Mel Martin

In fall 2021, Aliana Piñeiro, impact director at Boston Impact Initiative (BII) discovered that an entrepreneur the organization was considering for an investment had failed to disclose pre-existing debt with another lender. Although the business scored highly on BII’s... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Social Entrepreneurship; Finance; Investment; Investment Funds; Investment Portfolio; Relationships; Business and Community Relations; Society; Social Issues; Wealth and Poverty; Wealth; Poverty; Risk Management; Financial Services Industry; North and Central America; United States; Massachusetts; Boston

31 Jul 2014
News

A New Approach to Solving Society's Biggest Problems

Keywords: impact investing; social impact bonds; society

21 May 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Do Friends Influence Purchases in a Social Network?

Keywords: by Raghuram Iyengar, Sangman Han & Sunil Gupta; Technology

Research Summary

Dynamics of Network Structure and Content in Social Media

Organizations use social media to leverage knowledge contributions by individual employees, which also foster social interactions – activity in blogs, forums, wikis etc. is critical to ensuring a thriving online community. Prior studies have examined... View Details

05 Jul 2016
Working Paper Summaries

The Impact of Campus Scandals on College Applications

Keywords: by Michael Luca, Patrick Rooney, and Jonathan Smith; Education

13 Aug 2021
Blog Post

Exploring Racial Justice with the Scaling Minority Businesses Course

Nimisha Ganesh is a Class of 2021 MBA graduate from Harvard Business School and the Co-Founder & Chief Operating Officer of GenUnity, a civic leadership startup. Prior to HBS, she worked at Goldman Sachs and Kitamba, a U.S.-based View Details

September 2010 (Revised January 2016)
Case

Grameen Danone Foods Ltd., a Social Business

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Katharine Lee

Grameen Danone is a joint venture between the Grameen Group (a sister company of Grameen Bank) and Groupe Danone, a $2 billion (revenues) French food company. The company's goal was to provide nutritional yogurt (brand name Shoktidoi) for the nearly 50 million... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Social Entrepreneurship; Food; Distribution; Supply Chain Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Food and Beverage Industry; Bangladesh; France

18 Mar 2011
News

Social Networks Will Change Product Innovation

January 2009 (Revised February 2009)
Case

Grupo Bimbo: Growth and Social Responsibility

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Regina Garcia-Cuellar

Bimbo, headquartered in Mexico with 2008 sales of $7 billion, was one of the largest bakery companies in the world. Even as it had grown spectacularly in the last several decades, the company had earned a stellar reputation for its corporate social responsibility... View Details

Keywords: Global Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Reputation; Expansion; Food and Beverage Industry; Mexico

June 2019
Article

Social Risk, Fiscal Risk, and the Portfolio of Government Programs

By: Samuel G. Hanson, David S. Scharfstein and Adi Sunderam

We develop a model of government portfolio choice in which a benevolent government chooses the scale of risky projects in the presence of market failures and tax distortions. These two frictions generate motives to manage social risk and fiscal risk. Social risk... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Government and Politics; Programs

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There is growing interest in impact investing, the idea of deploying capital to obtain both financial and social or environmental returns. Examination of every equity investment made by the International Finance Corporation, one of the largest and... View Details

November 2005 (Revised August 2006)
Background Note

When Investing and Social Objectives Meet

By: Gregory S. Miller, Vincent Marie Dessain and Anders Sjoman

Introduces students to a group of investors and stakeholders who evaluate firms at least partially on factors other than eventual investment payoff. Focuses on investors who evaluate and attempt to impact firms' ethical, corporate governance, or other "societal"... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Behavior; Investment; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Business and Shareholder Relations

05 Jun 2020
Research & Ideas

How Anchor Investors Help Impact Funds Succeed

so-called impact funds, or funds that hope to create positive social or environmental impact. In Anchors Aweigh: Analysis of Anchor Limited Partner Investors in Impact... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Financial Services

27 Oct 2020
Cold Call Podcast

Growing a Manufacturing Company with a Social Mission

Keywords: Manufacturing

23 Aug 2010
Research & Ideas

The Drive to Acquire’s Impact on Globalization

are happier, more tolerant, and more willing to settle disputes peacefully and democratically. Stagnating or declining economic growth is associated with intolerance, ethnic strife, and dictatorship. But here Friedman adds an important conditional factor. The View Details

Keywords: by Paul R. Lawrence

2009
Working Paper

Do Friends Influence Purchases in a Social Network?

By: Raghuram Iyengar, Sangman Han and Sunil Gupta

Social networks, such as Facebook and Myspace have witnessed a rapid growth in their membership. Some of these businesses have tried an advertising-based model with very limited success. However, these businesses have not fully explored the power of their members to... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Network Effects; Sales; Power and Influence; Social and Collaborative Networks; Web Sites; South Korea