Publications

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27 Sep 2011
First Look

First Look: September 27

an honest, collective, and public conversation about their organization's alignment with espoused strategy and values. The research has identified a syndrome of six silent barriers to effectiveness and a dynamic theory of organizational... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

April 2018 (Revised May 2018)
Case

Goldman Sachs: Making an Imprint in Impact Investing

By: Shawn Cole, Vikram S. Gandhi, Caitlin Reimers Brumme and Lynn Schenk

Goldman Sachs acquired Imprint Capital Advisors, a small firm that specialized in advising clients on environmental/social/governance (ESG) and impact investments. The founders sold Imprint with the belief that joining a global financial firm would help to scale impact... View Details

Keywords: Impact Investing; ESG; Investment; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Growth and Development Strategy; Acquisition; Integration

08 Apr 2019
Sharpening Your Skills

The Life of Luxury and How to Sell It

Aesthetics to Budding Business LeadersPauline Brown, a former top executive with French luxury goods conglomerate LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, teaches a course called The Business of Aesthetics. Stella McCartney Combines High Fashion with View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Auto; Retail; Fashion

May 2009 (Revised October 2009)
Case

Verne Global: Building a Green Data Center in Iceland

Verne Global, a pioneering startup created to build the first large-scale data center in Iceland, faces critical challenges regarding its green strategy. Verne Co-Founder Isaac Kato is tasked with evaluating how the company can most successfully market and sell the... View Details

Keywords: Buildings and Facilities; Business Startups; Marketing Strategy; Product Marketing; Sales; Environmental Sustainability; Pollutants; Green Technology Industry; Service Industry; Iceland

2023
Working Paper

The Buy-In Effect: When Increasing Initial Effort Motivates Behavioral Follow-Through

By: Holly Dykstra, Shibeal O'Flaherty and A.V. Whillans

Behavioral interventions often focus on reducing friction to encourage behavior change. In contrast, we provide evidence that adding friction can promote long-term behavior change when behaviors involve repeated costly efforts over longer time horizons. In... View Details

Keywords: Friction; Behavior; Environmental Sustainability; Transportation; Outcome or Result

March 2023 (Revised September 2023)
Case

Patagonia: 'Earth Is Now Our Only Shareholder'

By: Brian Trelstad, Nien-hê Hsieh, Michael Norris and Susan Pinckney

In September 2022, Yvon Chouinard, the iconoclastic founder of outdoor apparel company Patagonia, announced a new ownership model for his company. Chouinard and his family had held complete control of the company's voting and non-voting stock since its founding 50... View Details

December 2018 (Revised May 2021)
Background Note

Making UK Energy Smarter

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

This case describes the history of the United Kingdom's domestic energy industry and the country's efforts to create a more competitive, greener, and distributed power sector. On July 24, 2017, the United Kingdom government and the industry regulator, the Office of Gas... View Details

September 2010
Article

Making Self-Regulation More Than Merely Symbolic: The Critical Role of the Legal Environment

By: Jodi L. Short and Michael W. Toffel

Using data from a sample of U.S. industrial facilities subject to the federal Clean Air Act from 1993 to 2003, this article theorizes and tests the conditions under which organizations' symbolic commitments to self-regulate are particularly likely to result in improved... View Details

Keywords: Adoption; Code Law; Environmental Sustainability; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Organizations; Governance Compliance; Strategy; Motivation and Incentives; United States

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2021
Working Paper

Impact Accounting for Product Use: A Framework and Industry-specific Models

By: George Serafeim and Katie Trinh

This handbook provides the first systematic attempt to generate a framework and industry-specific models for the measurement of impacts on customers and the environment from use of products and services, in monetary terms, that can then be reflected in financial... View Details

Keywords: Impact Measurement; Product Impact; Customer Welfare; Environment; ESG; Product; Customers; Well-being; Environmental Sustainability; Measurement and Metrics; Accounting; Financial Statements; Analysis; Framework

SSRN

16 Sep 2008
First Look

First Look: September 16, 2008

firms otherwise sheltered from entry by standalone rivals may be vulnerable to an adjacent platform provider's envelopment attack. We analyze conditions under which envelopment strategies are likely to succeed. Download the paper:... View Details

February 9, 2024
Article

Addressing Climate Change with Behavioral Science: A Global Intervention Tournament in 63 Countries

By: Madalina Vlasceanu, Kimberly C. Doell, Joseph B. Bak-Coleman, Boryana Todorova, Michael M. Berkebile-Weinberg, Amit Goldenberg, Eric Shuman and et al.

Effectively reducing climate change requires marked, global behavior change. However, it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate... View Details

Keywords: Climate Change; Motivation and Incentives; Behavior; Policy; Knowledge Sharing; Values and Beliefs

October 26, 2022
Article

Climate Risk Is Growing. Is Your Company Prepared?

By: John D. Macomber

Most people don’t have a strategy for how to handle the worsening perils of flooding, wildfires and extreme heat. They should adopt a four-step process for protecting their property, whether it be a home or a business. First, they should prioritize how important... View Details

Keywords: Climate Risk; Climate Change; Risk Management; Crisis Management; Insurance

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June 2024
Article

Economics of Enhanced Methane Oxidation Relative to Carbon Dioxide Removal

By: Conor Hickey and Myles Allen

Mitigating short-term global warming is imperative, and a key strategy involves reducing atmospheric methane (CH4) due to its high radiative forcing and short lifespan. This objective can be achieved through methods such as oxidising methane at its source or... View Details

Keywords: Greenhouse Gas Mitigation; Climate Change; Environmental Regulation; Pollutants; Research; Measurement and Metrics

15 Jun 2009
Research & Ideas

GM: What Went Wrong and What’s Next

strategy of the last decade has been to foster areas of specialization within its subsidiaries around the world—small cars in Europe, subcompacts in Asia, trucks and SUVs in North America—and this has started to yield great results. Now... View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Auto

January 2023
Case

Thomas Buberl: Refounding AXA

By: Hubert Joly, Mihir Desai and Amram Migdal

In 2022, AXA and its CEO Thomas Buberl faced new types of challenges, including systemic risks such as climate change, geopolitical instability, public health crises, and social tensions caused by economic risks. AXA was one of the world’s largest insurers. Since... View Details

23 Mar 2010
First Look

First Look: March 23

of multinationals from developed countries in developing countries. The central argument is that strategies were shaped by the trade-off between opportunity and risk. Three broad environmental factors... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

January 2022
Case

Fueling a Cleaner Future: ACWA Power and Green Hydrogen

By: Dennis Yao and Alpana Thapar

In January 2020, Paddy Padmanathan, president and CEO of ACWA Power, was reflecting on the company’s sixteen-year record of success and thinking about its future growth plans. Founded in 2004, ACWA Power was a Saudi Arabian developer, owner, and operator of power and... View Details

Keywords: Green Hydrogen; Energy; Climate Change; Supply Chain; Business Model; Growth and Development Strategy; Green Technology; Projects; Alliances; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Energy Industry; Saudi Arabia; Middle East; North Africa