Publications

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2015
Working Paper

The Value of Corporate Citizenship: Protection

By: Dylan Minor

We explore the notion that corporate citizenship, as obtained through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), is used by managers to protect firm value, helping their firm better withstand negative business shocks. We formally explore two parallel mechanisms for such... View Details

Keywords: Value; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Finance

SSRN

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The finance industry is widely thought of as being morally suspect. Even those who work in finance tend to compartmentalize between their personal lives and how they get ahead professionally. Mihir Desai argues that not only is this preconception completely false... View Details

October 2005 (Revised October 2008)
Case

Virginia Mason Medical Center

By: Richard M.J. Bohmer and Erika Ferlins

In 2000, Dr. Gary Kaplan became CEO of the Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle, Washington. The hospital was facing significant challenges: It was losing money for the first time in its history, staff morale had plummeted, and area hospitals presented ardent... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Production; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Problems and Challenges; Quality; Competition; Seattle

March 2017
Article

Creativity in Unethical Behavior Attenuates Condemnation and Breeds Social Contagion: When Transgressions Seem to Create Little Harm

By: Scott S. Wiltermuth, Lynne C. Vincent and F. Gino

Across six studies, people judged creative forms of unethical behavior to be less unethical than less creative forms of unethical behavior, particularly when the unethical behaviors imposed relatively little direct harm on victims. As a result of perceiving behaviors... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Perception; Creativity

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14 Apr 2022
News

As Companies Vow to Sever Ties in Russia, a Clean Break Proves Complicated

March 1994
Case

Fremont Financial Corporation (B)

Fremont has a third option to finance its loan portfolio, which involves securitizing and selling the small-business loans into the capital markets. Emphasizes asymmetric information and moral hazard problems involved in designing an asset securitization. When used in... View Details

Keywords: Capital Markets; Financial Markets; Corporate Finance; Financial Services Industry

08 Mar 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Memory Lane and Morality: How Childhood Memories Promote Prosocial Behavior

Keywords: by Francesca Gino & Sreedhari D. Desai

Article

Behavioral Hazard in Health Insurance

By: Katherine Baicker, Sendhil Mullainathan and Joshua Schwartzstein

A fundamental implication of standard moral hazard models is overuse of low-value medical care because copays are lower than costs. In these models, the demand curve alone can be used to make welfare statements, a fact relied on by much empirical work. There is ample... View Details

Keywords: Insurance; Consumer Behavior; Health Care and Treatment; Insurance Industry

December 1980 (Revised March 1991)
Case

Sof-Optics, Inc. (A)

The marketing director of a fast-growing firm must make some decisions about the customer service department. The volume in the department has been rising steadily, eye doctors are waiting longer for orders to be filled, and morale in the department is slipping. With... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Customer Focus and Relationships; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

2007
Book

From Higher Aims to Hired Hands: The Social Transformation of American Business Schools and the Unfulfilled Promise of Management as a Profession

By: Rakesh Khurana

Is management a profession? Should it be? Can it be? This major work of social and intellectual history reveals how such questions have driven business education and shaped American management and society for more than a century. The book is also a call for reform.... View Details

Keywords: Social History; Business Education; Moral Sensibility; Profit; Leadership; Managerial Roles; United States

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May 13, 2021
Article

Why Today's Startups Pursue Both Ideas and Ideals

By: Ranjay Gulati

Startups typically operate with the mentality that growth and profit come first, higher calling comes second. This strategy, however, is misguided. Increasingly, entrepreneurs are imbuing their ventures with a grand ideal in addition to a great idea. This ideal not... View Details

Keywords: Mission and Purpose; Moral Sensibility; Business Startups

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Research Summary

Performance Management Systems in Healthcare

By: Susanna Gallani

Performance management in healthcare provider organizations presents particular challehges, motivate by historical industry practices, market structures and dynamics, and cultural peculiarities. Through her research studies and case studies, Prof. Gallani explores... View Details

Keywords: Performance Management; Compensation; Incentive Systems; Burnout; Health Industry

Research Summary

Workplace Ethics and Global Business Standards

By: Rohit Deshpande

This research grows out of initial collaborative research with Joshua Margolis and Lynn Paine on the relationship between codes of conduct and corporate performance. This work was reported in Harvard Business Review articles in 2005 and 2011. More recent research... View Details

17 Sep 2021
News

If Networking Makes You Feel Dirty, You’re Doing It Wrong

29 Aug 2016
News

Why They Did It: Madoff and Enron’s Fastow Explain the Biggest Frauds in U.S. History

April 2008
Case

Engstrom Auto Mirror Plant: Motivating in Good Times and Bad

By: Michael Beer and Elizabeth Collins

In May 2007, the Engstrom Auto Mirrors plant, a relatively small supplier based in Indiana, faces a crisis. The business was in the second year of a downturn. Sales had started to decline in 2005; a year later, plant manager Ron Bent had been forced to lay off more... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Behavior; Human Resource Management; Incentives; Motivation; Manufacturing; Leadership; Change Management; Employees; Motivation and Incentives; Goals and Objectives; Manufacturing Industry; Indiana

Research Summary

Areas of Interest

By: Michael A. Wheeler

Primary Topics: complexity, dispute resolution, ethics, improvisation, moral leadership, negotiation, psychodynamics

Additional Topics: alliances, cognition, conflict, creativity, crisis management, decision-making, electronic... View Details

January 2014 (Revised February 2016)
Case

U.S. Government Debt and the Debate over a Balanced Budget Amendment

By: Matthew Weinzierl, Katrina Flanagan and Alastair Su

In the first decade of the 21st century, national debt as a share of GDP rose dramatically in the United States and across the developed world. This case consists of excerpts from leading commentators explaining and commenting on this trend and the economic and moral... View Details

Keywords: National Debt; Social Discount Rate; Ricardian Equivalence; Government and Politics; Macroeconomics; United States

July 1991 (Revised June 1993)
Background Note

Conflicting Responsibilities

By: Joseph L. Badaracco

Presents a framework for resolving issues in which managers' responsibilities--to shareholders, employees, other stakeholder groups, and to their own values and commitments in life--conflict with each other. The framework analyzes these issues in terms of duties,... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Employees; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Structure; Personal Development and Career; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations