Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(5,478)
- Faculty Publications (1,390)
- July 2017
- Article
Business Responsibilities for Human Rights: A Commentary on Arnold
By: Nien-hê Hsieh
Human rights have come to play a prominent role in debates about the responsibilities of business. In the business ethics literature, there are two approaches to the question of whether businesses have human rights obligations. The “moral” approach conceives of human... 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
- June 2017 (Revised August 2018)
- Supplement
Making Target the Target: Boycotts and Corporate Political Activity (B)
By: Nien-hê Hsieh and Victor Wu
Supplements the (A) Case. View Details
Keywords: Campaign Finance Reform; Corporate Political Activity; Lobbying; LGBTQ; Campaign Contributions; Campaign Finance; Retail; Shareholder Activism; Public Opinion; Social Issues; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Problems and Challenges; Laws and Statutes; Rights; Crisis Management; Risk Management; Media; Political Elections; Taxation; Corporate Accountability; Values and Beliefs; Fairness; Diversity; Customers; Communication; Business and Government Relations; Retail Industry; United States
- May 2017
- Supplement
Betfair (B), (C), and (D) Case Slides
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and John Heilbron
Contains slides related to the Betfair B, C, and D cases.
Abstracts:
B) Buoyed by success in the market for gambling contracts, Betfair attempts to enter the market for financial products using its exchange model.
C) Prompted by a takeover bid from... View Details
Abstracts:
B) Buoyed by success in the market for gambling contracts, Betfair attempts to enter the market for financial products using its exchange model.
C) Prompted by a takeover bid from... View Details
- May 2017
- Supplement
Betfair (D)
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, John Heilbron and Neil Campbell
Betfair reconsiders its approach to international gambling markets amid regulatory uncertainty. View Details
- Editorial
How Laws and Culture Hold Back Socially Minded Companies
By: George Serafeim, Daniela Saltzman and Bronagh Ward
- 2018
- Working Paper
How Scheduling Can Bias Quality Assessment: Evidence from Food Safety Inspections
By: Maria Ibanez and Michael W. Toffel
Many production processes are subject to inspection to ensure they meet quality, safety, and environmental standards imposed by companies and regulators. Inspection accuracy is critical to inspections being a useful input to assessing risks, allocating quality... View Details
- April 2017 (Revised March 2024)
- Case
Making Target the Target: Boycotts and Corporate Political Activity
By: Nien-hê Hsieh and Victor Wu
Through the challenges facing Target, the case examines ways in which corporations can become involved in political and legislative debates and processes, ranging from campaign contributions to lobbying to political activism. In 2016, Target CEO Brian Cornell must... View Details
Keywords: Boycott; Corporate Political Activity; Lobbying; LGBTQ; Campaign Contributions; Campaign Finance; Retail; Shareholder Activism; Public Opinion; Social Issues; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Problems and Challenges; Laws and Statutes; Rights; Crisis Management; Risk Management; Media; Political Elections; Taxation; Corporate Accountability; Values and Beliefs; Fairness; Diversity; Customers; Communication; Business and Government Relations; Retail Industry; United States
- April 2017
- Case
Planetary Resources Inc., Property Rights, and the Regulation of the Space Economy
By: Matthew Weinzierl and Angela Acocella
Planetary Resources, Inc. (PRI) had a bold, some said crazy, vision: to mine asteroids. One might have assumed that developing the right technology would be the greatest challenge facing PRI. But even if the fledgling company could develop and deploy the sophisticated... View Details
- Article
Attracting Early Stage Investors: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment
By: S. Bernstein, A. Korteweg and K. Laws
- Article
Market Reactions to Sovereign Litigation
By: Faisal Z. Ahmed and Laura Alfaro
Recent rulings in the ongoing litigation over the pari passu clause in Argentinian sovereign debt instruments have generated considerable controversy. Some official-sector participants and academic articles have suggested that the rulings will disrupt or impede... View Details
- Article
Ownership Dilemmas: The Case of Finders Versus Landowners
By: Peter DiScioli, Rachel Karpoff and Julian De Freitas
People sometimes disagree about who owns which objects, and these ownership dilemmas can
lead to costly disputes. We investigate the cognitive mechanisms underlying people’s judgments
about finder versus landowner cases, in which a person finds an object on someone... View Details
Keywords: Ownership Dilemma; Finders; Psychology And Law; Ownership; Property; Law; Social Psychology
- April 2017
- Article
Private Equity and Industry Performance
By: Shai Bernstein, Josh Lerner, Morten Sorensen and Per Stromberg
The growth of the private equity industry has spurred concerns about its potential impact on the economy more generally. This analysis looks across nations and industries to assess the impact of private equity on industry performance. Industries where PE funds have... View Details
- April 2017
- Article
The New Look of Deal Protection
By: Guhan Subramanian and Fernán Restrepo
Deal protection in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) evolves in response to Delaware case law and the business goals of acquirers and targets. We construct a new sample of M&A deals from 2003 to 2015 to identify four such areas of evolution in current transactional... View Details
- April 2017
- Article
The Responsibilities and Role of Business in Relation to Society: Back to Basics?
By: Nien-he Hsieh
In this address, I outline a back-to-basics approach to specifying the responsibilities and role of business in relation to society. Three “basics” comprise the approach. The first is arguing that basic principles of ordinary morality, such as a duty not to harm,... View Details
- March 2017 (Revised December 2017)
- Case
The Ready-Made Garment Industry: A Bangladeshi Perspective (A)
By: Nien-hê Hsieh and Saloni Chaturvedi
Responsibility for working conditions in contract factories within the supply chain presents an ongoing challenge for managers and an area of debate. Much of the debate approaches the challenge from the perspective of large global apparel brands. This case helps... View Details
- March 2017 (Revised June 2019)
- Case
Mubadala and EBX: To X or to X It?
By: Nori Gerardo Lietz, Ricardo Andrade and Sayiddah Fatima McCree
In April 2012, Mubadala, Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund invested $2 billion in Brazilian conglomerate EBX, believing the company to be undervalued by the public markets. Shortly thereafter, however, EBX and its multiple business lines began to spiral downward. Hani... View Details
- March 2017 (Revised June 2019)
- Case
CEO Activism (A)
By: Michael W. Toffel, Aaron K. Chatterji and Julia Kelley
This case introduces CEO activism, a phenomenon in which business leaders engage in political or social issues that do not relate directly to their companies. The case uses several examples to describe why business leaders are engaging in CEO activism and the potential... View Details
Keywords: Leadership & Corporate Accountability; Environmental And Social Sustainability; Environment; Climate Change; Gender Equality; Communication Strategy; Moral Sensibility; Values and Beliefs; Leadership; Law; Rights; Risk Management; Media; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Religion; Expansion; Strategy; Social Issues; Consumer Products Industry; Electronics Industry; Technology Industry; United States; Indiana; North Carolina
- March 2017 (Revised April 2021)
- Module Note
Responsibilities to Society
By: Nien-hê Hsieh
This module note for students outlines an approach to help managers deliver on their responsibilities in relation to society. The approach frames these responsibilities in terms of potential harms to third parties beyond investors, customers, and employees. The... View Details
- February 2017 (Revised January 2022)
- Supplement
Bankruptcy at Caesars Entertainment (B)
By: Kristin Mugford