Publications
Publications
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(11,141)
- Faculty Publications (2,191)
- October 19, 2021
- Article
The Facebook Trap
By: Andy Wu
Facebook has a clear mission: Connect everyone in the world. Clarity is good, but in Facebook’s case, it has also put the company in a bind because the mission—and the company’s vision for creating value through network effects—has also become the source of its biggest... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
The Business of K-12 Education in China
By: Geoffrey Jones and Yuhai Wu
This working paper examines the evolution of K-12 education in China, especially between 1985 and the present day, drawing extensive interviews with participants in the educational sector. China has been hugely successful in reaching almost 100 percent literacy,... View Details
- October 18, 2021
- Article
How to Reframe What Work Means to You
By: Hubert Joly
Our society often conceives of work as something we must endure so we can afford to do something else. The former CEO of Best Buy explains why this view has led to a crisis of engagement among leaders and employees alike, and offers a different model that he introduced... View Details
- October 2021 (Revised May 2023)
- Case
Engine No. 1: An Impact Investing Firm Engages with ExxonMobil
By: Mark Kramer, Shawn Cole, Vikram S. Gandhi and T. Robert Zochowski
ExxonMobil, the world's fifth largest source of carbon emissions, remained committed to aggressively expanding its oil & gas business despite global warming. During the COVID pandemic this strategy resulted in massive losses as the price and demand for oil declined. ... View Details
- October 2021 (Revised October 2022)
- Case
The Opioid Settlement and Controversy Over CEO Pay at AmerisourceBergen
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Li-Kuan Ni
In 2020, AmerisourceBergen Corporation, a Fortune 50 company in the drug distribution industry, agreed to settle thousands of lawsuits filed nationwide against the company for its opioid distribution practices that critics alleged had contributed to the nationwide... View Details
Keywords: Opioids; Drug; Investors; Shareholder Activism; Investment Activism; Executive Compensation; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance; Governance Compliance; Governance Controls; Risk Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Legal Liability; Distribution Industry; Health Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States; West Virginia; Tennessee; Ohio; Pennsylvania
- Article
Behavioral and Neural Representations en route to Intuitive Action Understanding
By: Leyla Tarhan, Julian De Freitas and Talia Konkle
When we observe another person’s actions, we process many kinds of information—from how their body moves to the intention behind their movements. What kinds of information underlie our intuitive understanding about how similar actions are to each other? To address this... View Details
- October 2021
- Article
Directors' Perceptions of Board Effectiveness and Internal Operations
By: J. Yo-Jud Cheng, Boris Groysberg, Paul M. Healy and Rajesh Vijayaraghavan
We contribute to the growing literature on the effectiveness of corporate boards by examining the effect of two insights that have been largely unexplored in prior studies that use public data. First, since boards’ responsibilities are wide-ranging, more holistic... View Details
- October 2021
- Article
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: Transparency; Reporting; Shareholder Engagement; Shareholder Activism; Climate Change; Risk and Uncertainty; Environmental Management; Investment Activism; Corporate Disclosure; Communication Strategy; Information Publishing; Measurement and Metrics; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Problems and Challenges; United States
- September 2021 (Revised March 2024)
- Case
Bühler: Mobilizing Industry around a Common Purpose
By: Ranjay Gulati, Franz Wohlgezogen and Malini Sen
Bühler Group, a Swiss multinational processing technology provider, started by selling machines for processing grains and later transitioned into selling food processing solutions. A family-owned business in the fifth generation, Bühler’s high-end milling, grinding,... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
Governance Transparency and Firm Value: Evidence from Korean Chaebols
By: Akash Chattopadhyay, Sa-Pyung Sean Shin and Charles C.Y. Wang
We examine Korean business groups' transition from circular-shareholding structures to (relatively simple) pyramidal-shareholding structures between 2011 and 2018. When firms were removed from ownership loops, chaebol families' control or incentive conflicts in them... View Details
- September 2021 (Revised November 2021)
- Case
Kwame Owusu-Kesse at the Harlem Children's Zone
Do you—as leader, an individual within an organization, or running your own business—know when to say yes and when to say no? How do you make decisions about your own career and life? How do you counsel others who ask you for career and life insights?... View Details
- September 2021
- Case
Ensuring Your Family’s Future: The Alagil Family Office
By: Lauren Cohen, Esel Çekin and Fares Khrais
Muhammad Alagil was a second-generation leader in the well-known Alagil Family Group of businesses in Saudi Arabia and co-founder and chairman of its family office, Jarir Company for Commercial Investments (Jarir Investments). The case opens in 2021 with Alagil... View Details
- Article
Business Investment in Education in Emerging Markets Since the 1960s
By: Valeria Giacomin, Geoffrey Jones and Erica Salvaj
This article examines non-profit investments by business 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, the study shows that more than three-quarters of such... View Details
- 2021
- Book
The Emergence of Charismatic Business Leadership
In The Emergence of Charismatic Business Leadership is an examination of how the role of the business leader in the U.S. has changed from World War II to the present. A small number of high-profile individuals have transformed the face of modern-day leadership,... View Details
- 2021
- Book
Power, for All: How It Really Works and Why It's Everyone's Business
By: Julie Battilana and Tiziana Casciaro
We want to change how people see power: not just as a blunt tool reserved for the privileged few, or as a dirty business that one should stay away from, but as energy for everyone to harness to make our life, work, and society better. We hope that our democratizing... View Details
- August 2021
- Case
Zoom Video Communications: Building a Culture of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion During COVID-19
By: Karen G. Mills, Scott Duke Kominers, Christopher Stanton, Andy Wu, George Gonzalez and Gabriella Elanbeck
Keywords: Diversity Management; Diversity Training; Cultural Change; Cultural Diversity; Inclusion; Inclusive Growth; Inclusive Hiring; Hiring; Hiring Of Employees; Recruiting; Performance Management; Change Leadership; Race And Ethnicity; Racial Bias; Racial Disparity; Racial Injustice; Racial Tensions; Racism; Organization; Organization Process; Organization Structure; Structural/institutional Racism; Leadership And Change Management; Leadership And Managing People; Leading; Gender Bias; Discrimination; Inequalities; Inequality; Social Change; Employee Attitude Development And Empowerment; Employee Bonding; Employee Empowerment; Employee Engagement; Employee Fairness; Employee Morale; Employee Performance Management; Employee Relations; Company Culture; Company Values; Values; COVID-19 Pandemic; Demographics; Diversity; Age; Ethnicity; Gender; Business Processes; Change Management; Change; Race; Human Capital; Human Resources; Compensation and Benefits; Employees; Employee Relationship Management; Recruitment; Retention; Selection and Staffing; Jobs and Positions; Job Interviews; Leadership; Leading Change; Management; Management Teams; Business or Company Management; Crisis Management; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Management Style; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Organizations; Mission and Purpose; Culture; Happiness; Prejudice and Bias; Satisfaction; Equity; Identity; Leadership Style; Values and Beliefs; Technology Industry; United States
- August 2021
- Case
Danone S.A.: Becoming a Mission-Driven Company (A)
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Emilie Billaud
Emmanuel Faber became CEO of Danone SA, the French food and beverage company, in 2014. Right from the start, he ran the company with a dual commitment to both profit and purpose (i.e., ESG objectives). In fact, in 2018, he said, “It’s time to make sustainable business... View Details
- August 2021
- Supplement
Danone S.A.: Becoming a Mission-Driven Company (B)
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Emilie Billaud
Describes the events that took place in the first six months after Danone became France’s first “entreprise à mission” (mission-driven company). View Details
- August 2021
- Supplement
Danone S.A.: Becoming a Mission-Driven Company (C)
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Emilie Billaud
Describes the events that took place in the first year after Danone became France’s first “entreprise à mission” (mission-driven company). View Details
- August 2021
- Supplement
Aligning Mission and Margin at Southern Bancorp
By: Brian Trelstad
Video Supplement for HBS Case No. 321-099. In October 2020, after spending almost a decade to turnaround Southern Bancorp, an Arkansan bank founded with the mission to provide financial services to rural, underserved communities, CEO Darrin Williams is wondering how... View Details