Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(165)
- Faculty Publications (53)
- May 2021 (Revised May 2022)
- Supplement
Odebrecht's 'Transformation Journey' (B)
By: Lynn S. Paine, Ruth Costas and Pedro Levindo
The case describes the changes in Odebrecht’s board of directors while the company had to file for court-supervised reorganization and cope with an ongoing feud within its founding family, and the new challenges that the Group’s leadership has to face. The changes in... View Details
- November 2020
- Article
When the Boss Comes to Town: The Effects of Headquarters' Visits on Facility-Level Misconduct
By: Jonas Heese and Gerardo Pérez Cavazos
We study the effects of headquarters’ visits on facility-level misconduct. We use the staggered introduction of airline routes to identify exogenous travel-time reductions between headquarters and facilities and test whether such reductions affect facility-level... View Details
- August 2020
- Supplement
Luckin Coffee (B): Revelations of Fraud
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Karen Elterman
This case describes revelations of fraud at Luckin Coffee, beginning with an anonymous report in January 2020 and continuing with the company’s admission in April 2020 that it had inflated its revenues by 2.2 billion RMB ($310 million), almost half its reported... View Details
- June 18, 2020
- Article
What CEOs Still Haven't Said about Race and Policing
By: Aaron K. Chatterji and Michael W. Toffel
While many CEOs have spoken out to share their thoughts on race and police misconduct in America, they have yet to advocate for policy solutions for police reform, focusing instead on their own corporate and personal values. But lasting change must also involve ... View Details
- July 2020
- Article
Does Corporate Misconduct Affect the Future Compensation of Alumni Managers?
By: Boris Groysberg, Eric Lin and George Serafeim
Using data from a top-five global executive placement firm, the authors explore how an organization's financial misconduct may affect pay for former employees not implicated in wrongdoing. Drawing on stigma theory, they hypothesize that although such alumni did not... View Details
- June 2020
- Case
Recovering Trust After Corporate Misconduct at Wells Fargo
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Jonah S. Goldberg
The case describes widespread misconduct at Wells Fargo Community Bank in the period leading up to 2017 and the company’s subsequent attempts to improve internal controls, company culture, and corporate governance. The case examines the potential causes of large scale... View Details
- Article
Paper Versus Practice: A Field Investigation of Integrity Hotlines
By: Eugene Soltes
In an effort to motivate firms to more rapidly detect potential misconduct, legislators, regulators, and enforcement agencies incentivize firms to have integrity or “whistleblowing” hotlines. These hotlines provide individuals an opportunity to report alleged... View Details
- March 2020 (Revised April 2021)
- Case
Odebrecht's 'Transformation Journey' (A)
By: Suraj Srinivasan, Lynn S. Paine, Ruth Costas and Mariana Cal
At the center of one of the largest corruption scandals in Latin America, Brazilian conglomerate Odebrecht signed a leniency agreement with American, Swiss and Brazilian prosecutors in 2016 admitting to paying bribes in 12 countries. In an effort to regain financial... View Details
Keywords: Board Of Directors; Organizational Transformations; Business Ethics; Corruption; Internal Controls; Business And Government; International Business; Engineering And Construction; Family Businesses; Corporate Misconduct; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Transformation; Organizational Culture; Crisis Management; Ethics; Engineering; Family Business; Crime and Corruption; Emerging Markets; Construction Industry; Brazil; Latin America
- March 2020 (Revised August 2020)
- Case
Culture at Google
By: Nien-hê Hsieh, Amy Klopfenstein and Sarah Mehta
Beginning in 2017, technology (tech) company Google faced a series of employee-relations issues that threatened its unique culture of innovation and open communication. Issues included protests surrounding Google’s contracts with the U.S. government, restrictions of... View Details
Keywords: Human Resources; Employee Relationship Management; Recruitment; Retention; Resignation and Termination; Labor; Working Conditions; Employment; Labor Unions; Wages; Law; Lawsuits and Litigation; Rights; Ethics; Values and Beliefs; Fairness; Organizations; Organizational Culture; Mission and Purpose; Social Psychology; Attitudes; Behavior; Conflict Management; Trust; Motivation and Incentives; Prejudice and Bias; Power and Influence; Information Technology; Internet and the Web; Information Infrastructure; Society; Social Issues; Culture; Civil Society or Community; Demographics; Diversity; Ethnicity; Gender; Race; Technology Industry; North and Central America; United States; California
- Winter 2020
- Article
Unsubstantiated Allegations and Organizational Culture
By: Eugene F. Soltes
When organizations investigate allegations of misconduct, they routinely determine that some allegations are unsubstantiated. A variety of factors may contribute to the conclusion that an allegation does not warrant substantiation, including a lack of supporting... View Details
- December 2019
- Article
The Ethical Perils of Personal, Communal Relations: A Language Perspective
By: Maryam Kouchaki, Francesca Gino and Yuval Feldman
The current paper focuses on how the type of relationship that exists between a group and its members influences misconduct by fostering certain perceptions of the group. Using multiple methods, lab- and field-based experiments (N = 1,679), and a large dataset of S&P... View Details
- 2019
- Article
The Frequency of Corporate Misconduct: Public Enforcement versus Private Reality
By: Eugene F. Soltes
Perceptions about the frequency of misconduct—among the public, academics and even
regulators—have largely been formed by examining enforcement statistics, which rely on the detection and sanctioning of the misconduct. This study aims to illuminate the real occurrence... View Details
- March 2019 (Revised June 2019)
- Supplement
Gender and Free Speech at Google (C)
By: Nien-hê Hsieh and Sarah Mehta
This case reveals Google’s response to a list of employee demands aiming to combat sexual misconduct in the workplace. This case should accompany the (A) and (B) cases, “Gender and Free Speech at Google” (318-085) and (319-085). View Details
- February 2019
- Article
The Market for Financial Adviser Misconduct
By: Mark Egan, Gregor Matvos and Amit Seru
We construct a novel database containing the universe of financial advisers in the United States from 2005 to 2015, representing approximately 10% of employment of the finance and insurance sector. We provide the first large-scale study that documents the economy-wide... View Details
- December 2018
- Case
The Swedish Academy #MeToo Scandal and the Reputation of the Nobel Prize
By: Stephen A. Greyser and Mats Urde
This case focuses on the potential for “reputational contagion” to the Nobel Prize from a scandal affecting one of its independent network member entities, the Swedish Academy. The latter is responsible for selecting the Nobel Prize in Literature, by appointment of... View Details
- 2020
- Working Paper
Arbitration with Uninformed Consumers
By: Mark Egan, Gregor Matvos and Amit Seru
This paper studies the impact of the arbitrator selection process on consumer outcomes by examining roughly 9,000 consumer arbitration cases in the securities industry. Securities disputes present a good laboratory: arbitration is mandatory for all disputes,... View Details
- March 2018
- Teaching Note
Sales Misconduct at Wells Fargo Community Bank
Teaching Note for HBS No. 118-009. View Details
- Article
Does Financial Misconduct Affect the Future Compensation of Alumni Managers?
By: Boris Groysberg, Eric Lin and George Serafeim
We explore how an organization’s financial misconduct may affect pay for former employees not implicated in wrongdoing. Drawing on stigma theory we hypothesize that although such alumni did not participate in the financial misconduct, and they had left the organization... View Details
- June 2017 (Revised September 2021)
- Case
Sales Misconduct at Wells Fargo Community Bank
Set in early 2017, this case examines widespread sales misconduct at Wells Fargo Community Bank. Wells Fargo's governance and controls are described in the lead up to the September 2016 announcement that Wells Fargo had settled with regulators for $185 million in... View Details
Keywords: Corporate Governance; Governance Controls; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Governing and Advisory Boards; Executive Compensation; Lawsuits and Litigation; Crisis Management; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Design; Business and Community Relations; Business and Government Relations; Crime and Corruption; Business Organization; Business Model; Ethics; Corporate Accountability; Governance Compliance; Policy; Compensation and Benefits; Resignation and Termination; Laws and Statutes; Legal Liability; Business or Company Management; Risk Management; Business Processes; Organizational Culture; Organizational Structure; Failure; Agency Theory; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Risk and Uncertainty; Salesforce Management; Public Opinion; Banking Industry; North and Central America