Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,652)
- Faculty Publications (234)
- March 2022
- Teaching Note
Supreme: Remaining Cool While Pursuing Growth
By: Jill Avery and Sandrine Crener
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 522-006. Following VF Corporation’s acquisition of cult streetwear brand Supreme, consumers and industry pundits were nervous that becoming part of a large, public corporation would put an end to Supreme’s slow and careful growth... View Details
- December 2021
- Case
Whistleblowing at Veolia: A Technology Solution
By: Aiyesha Dey, Jonas Heese, Christian Godwin and James Weber
In 2019, Bruno Masson, the vice chairman of Veolia’s Ethics Committee, was preparing for a meeting on a rollout plan for a new whistleblowing system to more countries. Veolia, a global supplier of water, waste, and energy services, had recently gone through several... View Details
- 2022
- Working Paper
ESG: Hyperboles and Reality
By: George Serafeim
ESG has rapidly become a household name leading to both confusion about what it means and creating unrealistic expectations about its effects. In this paper, I draw on more than a decade of research to dispel several myths about ESG and provide answers to important... View Details
- Article
Accounting for Climate Change
By: Robert S. Kaplan and Karthik Ramanna
Corporations are facing growing pressure—from investors, advocacy groups, politicians, and even business leaders themselves—to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from their operations and their supply and distribution chains. About 90% of the companies in the S&P... View Details
- Article
Complementarity between Audited Financial Reporting and Voluntary Disclosure: The Case of Former Andersen Clients
By: Richard Frankel, Alon Kalay, Gil Sadka and Yuan Zou
Prior literature presents various perspectives on the role of financial reporting. One view is that mandatory periodic reporting disciplines managers and encourages timely voluntary disclosure. We examine this "confirmation hypothesis" using the shock to financial... View Details
- November 2021
- Article
Venture Capitalists and COVID-19
By: Paul A. Gompers, Will Gornall, Steven N. Kaplan and Ilya A. Strebulaev
We survey over 1,000 institutional and corporate venture capitalists (VCs) at more than 900 different firms to learn how their decisions and investments have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. We compare their survey answers to those provided by a large sample of... View Details
- October 2021
- Case
Financial Reporting at Mattel
By: Aiyesha Dey, Trung Nguyen, Marshal Herrmann and Julia Kelley
In September 2020, Diana Ferguson was nearing her first Audit Committee meeting as the newly appointed Audit Committee chair of Mattel, Inc. Mattel was just recovering from an accounting scandal which had revealed the company’s poor internal controls and weak board... View Details
Keywords: Accounting; Accounting Audits; Financial Reporting; Financial Statements; Governance; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Disclosure; Corporate Governance; Governance Compliance; Governance Controls; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Governing and Advisory Boards; Lawsuits and Litigation; Business and Shareholder Relations; Consumer Products Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Financial Services Industry; North and Central America; United States; California
- 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
- 2021
- Article
How Top Managers Use the Entrepreneurial Gap to Drive Strategic Change
By: Robert L. Simons and Antonio Davila
Prior research provides strong evidence for the association between business strategy and the design and use of management control systems. We complement this research by examining the role of management control systems in situations of strategic change. We report the... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
How to Fix ESG Reporting
By: Robert S. Kaplan and Karthik Ramanna
Investors, advocacy groups, academics, and the 200 CEOs of the US Business Roundtable have asked corporations to take on an added purpose beyond a narrow pursuit of shareholder value. In response, many companies now issue ESG (Environmental, Societal, and Governance)... View Details
Keywords: ESG Reporting; Sustainability; Corporate Purpose; Greenhouse Gas; Activity-Based Costing; Environmental Sustainability; Environmental Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Measurement and Metrics; Goals and Objectives; Agreements and Arrangements; Corporate Accountability
- July 2021 (Revised September 2024)
- Case
Supreme: Remaining Cool While Pursuing Growth
By: Jill Avery, Sandrine Crener, Marie-Cecile Cervellon and Ranjit Thind
Following VF Corporation’s acquisition of cult streetwear brand Supreme, consumers and industry pundits were nervous that becoming part of a large, public corporation would put an end to Supreme’s slow and careful growth trajectory as pressure for quarterly results... View Details
- July 2021
- Case
'Why I Blew the Whistle': Mauro Botta v. PwC
By: Aiyesha Dey, Jonas Heese and Sarah Mehta
Set in April 2021, this case tells the story of Mauro Botta, a senior manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). In 2016, Botta filed a whistleblower claim with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, alleging that PwC had failed to fulfill its obligations to remain... View Details
- Article
Cash-for-Information Whistleblower Programs: Effects on Whistleblowing and Consequences for Whistleblowers
By: Aiyesha Dey, Jonas Heese and Gerardo Pérez Cavazos
Cash-for-information whistleblower programs have gained momentum as a regulatory tool to enforce corporate misconduct. Yet, little is known about how financial incentives affect whistleblowers’ decisions to report potential misconduct to authorities. Similarly, there... View Details
- 2021
- White Paper
Report on Racial Inclusion in the Boardroom: A Workshop Convened by Harvard Business School's Leadership Initiative and Board Leadership Project
- April 22, 2021
- Article
Shareholders Are Pressing for Climate Risk Disclosures. That's Good for Everyone
By: Caroline Flammer, Michael W. Toffel and Kala Viswanathan
Does shareholder activism induce firms to voluntarily disclose climate change risks? And how do markets respond to these disclosures? New research finds that the extent of climate-risk disclosure increases by approximately 4.6% for each environment-related proposal... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
MLS as a Sports Product—The Prominence of the World's Game in the U.S.
By: Stephen A. Greyser and Kenneth Cortsen
The purpose of this Working Paper is to analyze how soccer at the professional level in the U.S., with Major League Soccer as a focal point, has developed over the span of a quarter of a century. It is worthwhile to examine the growth of Major League Soccer (MLS) from... View Details
- March 2021 (Revised April 2021)
- Case
Wirecard: The Downfall of a German Fintech Star
By: Jonas Heese, Charles C.Y. Wang and Tonia Labruyere
Wirecard was a German fintech company, member of the DAX30, that provided payment processing and related services. Wirecard had enjoyed large growth rates over the years and most investors and analysts were enthusiastic about the company's prospects. Wirecard's... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
How Much Should We Trust Staggered Difference-In-Differences Estimates?
By: Andrew C. Baker, David F. Larcker and Charles C.Y. Wang
Difference-in-differences analysis with staggered treatment timing is frequently used to assess the impact of policy changes on corporate outcomes in academic research. However, recent advances in econometric theory show that such designs are likely to be biased in the... View Details
- 2021
- Article
The Sustainable Corporate Governance Initiative in Europe
By: Mark Roe, Holger Spamann, Jesse M. Fried and Charles C.Y. Wang
In July 2020, the European Commission published the “Study on directors’ duties and sustainable corporate governance” by EY. The Report purports to find evidence of debilitating short-termism in EU corporate governance and recommends many changes to support sustainable... View Details
- December 2020 (Revised April 2021)
- Case
Arcos Dorados: A QSR Recovery Plan
By: Forest Reinhardt, José B. Alvarez, Jenyfeer Martinez Buitrago and Mariana Cal
Arcos Dorados—McDonald’s largest independent franchisee, covering Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC)—faced a pandemic that was disrupting the entire consumer foodservice business in 2020. With the exclusive right to own, operate, and sub-franchise McDonald’s... View Details
Keywords: Agribusiness; Animal-Based Agribusiness; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Customer Value and Value Chain; Income; Macroeconomics; Environmental Management; Environmental Sustainability; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Food; Health Pandemics; Crisis Management; Logistics; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Strategic Planning; Food and Beverage Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Retail Industry; Latin America; Aruba; Guadeloupe; Martinique; Mexico; Panama; Costa Rica; Argentina; Brazil; Chile; Colombia; Ecuador; French Guiana; Peru; Uruguay; Venezuela; Puerto Rico; Trinidad and Tobago