Publications

14 Jan 2022
Blog Post

Embracing Activism for Social Change

change. Before HBS, she spent two years at Teach for America, two years with an impact investment venture capital fund in India, and a year in Denmark as a Fulbright Research Fellow studying social return on... View Details

01 Mar 2015
News

What Is Harvard’s Impact in the World?

It’s safe to assume that Harvard University alumni collectively have a significant impact in the world, but just how significant is hard to know. That is why Harvard Business School is leading a University-wide effort to quantify the... View Details

Keywords: Business Schools & Computer & Management Training; Educational Services

Web

Evolution of the Social Enterprise Conference | Social Enterprise | Harvard Business School

enterprise community SEI: What do you see as the mission of the Social Enterprise Conference? What impact do you hope to achieve with SECON 2014? Adam: The aim of this year's View Details

2006
Chapter

Leadership Through Social Purpose Partnering

By: James E. Austin

Keywords: Leadership; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Partners and Partnerships

22 Jul 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Corporate Social Responsibility and Access to Finance

Keywords: by Beiting Cheng, Ioannis Ioannou & George Serafeim

October 2008 (Revised October 2009)
Case

Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility

By: Christopher Marquis, V. Kasturi Rangan and Alison Comings

Having bought Shaklee Corporation from Yamanouchi, Roger Barnett, its owner and CEO, wrestled with the question of how to grow the company and its reputation for environmental sustainability. In addition to preserving the "network marketing" nature of its sales channel... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing Channels; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Reputation

February 2018
Article

The Impact of a Surprise Donation Ask

By: Christine L. Exley and Ragan Petrie

Individuals frequently exploit "flexibility" built into decision environments to give less. They use uncertainty to justify options benefiting themselves over others, they avoid information that may encourage them to give, and they avoid the ask itself. In this paper,... View Details

Keywords: Charitable Giving; Prosocial Behavior; Self-serving Biases; Excuses; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Behavior

Find at Harvard

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November 2017 (Revised April 2019)
Case

Summa Equity: Building Purpose-Driven Organizations

By: George Serafeim

In 2015, Reynir Indahl left top Nordic private equity firm Altor Equity Partners to found Summa Equity (Summa). After long contemplation following the financial crisis, Indahl was convinced the financial system was producing negative externalities and that the current... View Details

03 Feb 2018
Op-Ed

How to Heed BlackRock's Call for Corporate Social Responsibility

Larry Fink recently created a shockwave. As cofounder, chairman, and CEO of BlackRock, one of the world’s largest global asset management firms, in an open letter to CEOs he caught the attention of financial markets and beyond by insisting on the importance of... View Details

Keywords: by Julie Battilana

Teaching Interest

Managing Global Health: Applying Behavioral Economics to Create Impact (MBA)

Health, and development more broadly, is not something we give to people: it is something they produce themselves, interacting with supply-side and institutional factors. This course trains students to see through the lens of the end-user and to use the levers of... View Details

16 Jul 2020
News

Q&A: Harvard impact investing expert on proposed ESG rule

02 Aug 2022
Research & Ideas

6 Strategies for Building Socially Responsible—and Profitable—Companies

A dozen years ago, Harvard Business School Professor George Serafeim wondered why some companies operated with an eye toward the greater good, while most did not. Back then, he always got the same response: Corporate leaders thought social and environmental practices... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert

01 Mar 2014
News

Social Enterprise Initiative Marks 20th Anniversary

notes SEI faculty cochair Herman B. (Dutch) Leonard. "In addition to helping us stay close to practice, alumni provide financial support for initiatives that sharpen the perspectives of social enterprise executives and open paths to View Details

Keywords: SEI

18 Sep 2017
Research & Ideas

'Likes' Lead to Nothing—and Other Hard-Learned Lessons of Social Media Marketing

effective. Graphic by Blair Storie-Johnson (Source: “The CMO Survey 2017”) Is this ever-increasing focus on social paying off? Forty-three percent of respondents said in the CMO Survey that they have not been able to show the View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Advertising; Technology

01 Mar 2014
News

Building Capacity in the Social Sector

"It's nice to seed growth like this. All I've really done is to start the plant." — Ferdinand Thun (MBA 1960) Looking back over the two-decade history of the HBS Social Enterprise Initiative (SEI), former director Laura Moon says "alumni... View Details

Keywords: SEI; Educational Services

February 2007 (Revised November 2011)
Case

Esquel Group: Integrating Business Strategy and Corporate Social Responsibility

By: F. Warren McFarlan, William C. Kirby and Tracy Manty

Focuses on the experience of China's largest shirt manufacturer in managing various aspects of government relations in China. Identifies a wide variety of social initiatives it has undertaken. View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Government Relations; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Manufacturing Industry; China