Publications

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March 20, 2023
Editorial

Can Twitter Be a Force for Good? Social Media Helps Curb Corporate Misconduct

By: Jonas Heese and Joseph Pacelli

Keywords: Social Media; Corporate Accountability

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

Keywords: Corporate Misconduct; Whistleblowers; Financial Incentives; Ethics; Governance Compliance; Lawsuits and Litigation

Web

2.4.1 Cases Involving Sexual Harassment or Other Sexual Misconduct and Cases involving Discrimination or Bullying - MBA

2.4 Disciplinary Process 2.4.1 Cases Involving Sexual Harassment or Other Sexual Misconduct and Cases involving Discrimination or Bullying Welcome to HBS Being a Student at HBS 1. Academic Information & Policies 2. Integrity & Standards... 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

Keywords: Whistleblowing; Corporate Misconduct; Corporate Governance; Ethics; Crime and Corruption; Values and Beliefs; Trust; Employee Relationship Management; Utilities Industry

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May 2021 (Revised May 2022)
Supplement

Odebrecht's 'Transformation Journey' (B)

By: Lynn S. Paine, Ruth Costas and Pedro Levindo

The case describes the changes in Odebrecht’s board of directors while the company had to file for court-supervised reorganization and cope with an ongoing feud within its founding family, and the new challenges that the Group’s leadership has to face. The changes in... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Misconduct; Corporate Governance; Crisis Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Reputation; Mission and Purpose; Business and Government Relations; Engineering; Family Business; Emerging Markets; Construction Industry; Brazil; Latin America

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August 2020
Supplement

Luckin Coffee (B): Revelations of Fraud

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Karen Elterman

This case describes revelations of fraud at Luckin Coffee, beginning with an anonymous report in January 2020 and continuing with the company’s admission in April 2020 that it had inflated its revenues by 2.2 billion RMB ($310 million), almost half its reported... View Details

Keywords: Fraud; Corporate Misconduct; Business Earnings; Financial Statements; Financial Condition; Stocks; Financial Management; Profit; Revenue; Price; Food; Lawfulness; Crime and Corruption; Food and Beverage Industry; Technology Industry; Asia; China

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Editorial

How to Survive a Company Scandal You Had Nothing to Do With

By: Boris Groysberg, Eric Lin, George Serafeim and Robin Abrahams

Keywords: Misconduct; Reputation; Human Capital

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December 2021
Article

Cash-for-Information Whistleblower Programs: Effects on Whistleblowing and Consequences for Whistleblowers

By: Aiyesha Dey, Jonas Heese and Gerardo Pérez Cavazos

We study the effect of financial incentives on whistleblowing and the consequences for whistleblowers under the cash-for-information program of the False Claims Act (FCA). Exploiting appeals-court decisions that increase financial incentives for whistleblowing, we find... View Details

Keywords: Whistleblowers; Cash-for-information Whistleblower Programs; False Claims Act; Corporate Misconduct; Consequences For Whistleblowers; Crime and Corruption; Information; Cost

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2016
Working Paper

Executive Compensation and Environmental Harm

By: Dylan Minor

We explore the relationship between managerial incentives and environmental harm. We find that high-powered executive compensation packages can increase the odds of environmental law breaking by 40%–60% and the magnitude of environmental harm by over 100%. We document... View Details

Keywords: Misconduct; Environmental Performance; Accounting Scandal; Sustainable Finance; Crime and Corruption; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Executive Compensation; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Governance

2015
Working Paper

Toxic Workers

By: Michael Housman and Dylan Minor

While there has been a strong focus in past research on discovering and developing top performers in the workplace, less attention has been paid to the question of how to manage those workers on the opposite side of the spectrum: those who are harmful to organizational... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Human Resource Management; Misconduct; Worker Productivity; Superstar; Ethics; Performance Productivity; Personal Characteristics; Employees

2018
Working Paper

It is Easy to be Brave From a Safe Distance: Proximity to the SEC and Insider Trading

By: Trung Nguyen and Quoc H. Nguyen

We use hand-collected data from SEC’s litigation releases for insider trading violations to examine the effect of geographic distance on its enforcement activities and insider trading activities. First, we find that the SEC is more likely to investigate companies that... View Details

Keywords: SEC; Enforcement; Financial Misconduct; Insider Trading; Geographic Proximity; Governance Compliance; Law Enforcement; Geographic Location; Finance; Crime and Corruption

Article

The Scandal Effect

By: Boris Groysberg, Eric Lin, George Serafeim and Robin Abrahams

Executives with scandal-tainted companies on their résumés pay a penalty on the job market, even if they clearly had nothing to do with the trouble. Because the scandal effect is lasting, a company you left long ago could have an impact on your current and future job... View Details

Keywords: Misconduct; Career; Career Management; Career Changes; Executive Leadership; Executive Development; Crime and Corruption; Executive Compensation; Personal Development and Career; Management Skills; Management Teams

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30 Apr 2024
Book

When Managers Set Unrealistic Expectations, Employees Cut Ethical Corners

designed to boost responsibility, yet corporate misconduct has persisted—and in many ways worsened, often to the tune of billions of dollars in losses. Perhaps that’s because organizations are still failing to recognize that View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

2020
Working Paper

Arbitration with Uninformed Consumers

By: Mark Egan, Gregor Matvos and Amit Seru

This paper studies the impact of the arbitrator selection process on consumer outcomes by examining roughly 9,000 consumer arbitration cases in the securities industry. Securities disputes present a good laboratory: arbitration is mandatory for all disputes,... View Details

Keywords: Arbitration; Financial Advisers; Financial Advisors; Brokers; Consumer Finance; Financial Misconduct; Fraud; Personal Finance; Conflict and Resolution; Information; Fairness