Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(403)
- Faculty Publications (76)
- April–May 2017
- Article
Career Concerns of Banking Analysts
By: Joanne Horton, George Serafeim and Shan Wu
We study how career concerns influence banking analysts' forecasts and how their forecasting behavior benefits both them and bank managers. We show that banking analysts issue early in the year relatively more optimistic and later in the year more pessimistic forecasts... View Details
- November 2016
- Article
Corporate Sustainability: First Evidence on Materiality
By: Mozaffar Khan, George Serafeim and Aaron Yoon
Using newly available materiality classifications of sustainability topics, we develop a novel dataset by hand-mapping sustainability investments classified as material for each industry into firm-specific sustainability ratings. This allows us to present new evidence... View Details
- Article
ESG Integration in Investment Management: Myths and Realities
By: Sakis Kotsantonis, Christopher Pinney and George Serafeim
The authors’ aim in this article is to set the record straight on the financial performance of sustainable investing while also correcting a number of other widespread misconceptions about this rapidly growing set of principles and methods.
Myth Number 1:... View Details
- September 2016
- Article
The Effect of Target Difficulty on Target Completion: The Case of Reducing Carbon Emissions
By: Ioannis Ioannou, Shelley Xin Li and George Serafeim
Targets are an integral component of management control systems and play a significant role in achieving desirable performance outcomes. We focus on a key environmental performance objective—reduction of carbon emissions—as a setting in which to examine how target... View Details
- 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
- 2016
- Working Paper
Who Pays for White-Collar Crime?
By: Paul Healy and George Serafeim
Using a proprietary dataset of 667 companies around the world that experienced white-collar crime, we investigate what drives punishment of perpetrators of crime. We find a significantly lower propensity to punish crime in our sample, where most crimes are not reported... View Details
- 2015
- Chapter
Reliable Sustainability Ratings: The Influence of Business Models on Information Intermediaries
By: Robert G. Eccles, Jock Herron and George Serafeim
A new generation of corporate reporting—integrated reporting—is emerging that will help investors and other key stakeholders such as employees, customers, suppliers, and NGOs develop a deeper and more comprehensive appreciation of corporate performance than what is... View Details
- June 2015 (Revised January 2017)
- Case
Greece's Debt: Sustainable?
By: George Serafeim
The case "Greece's Debt: Sustainable?" describes the Greek economic crisis, bailout from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the debt restructuring that followed. Because of a lack of trust in Greece's ability to repay its debt, two... View Details
- Article
Integrated Reporting and Investor Clientele
By: George Serafeim
In this paper, I examine the relation between Integrated Reporting (IR) and the composition of a firm's investor base. I hypothesize and find that firms that practice IR have a more long-term oriented investor base with more dedicated and fewer transient investors.... View Details
- April 2015
- Case
Accor: Designing an Asset-Right Business and Disclosure Strategy
By: Mozaffar Khan and George Serafeim
Sebastien Bazin was now in charge of Accor, the world's largest French hotelier, a CAC 40 company with 3,600 hotels in 92 countries and a market cap of €10 billion. Previously as the European head of Colony Capital, one of the largest private equity groups and the... View Details
- March 2015
- Case
Statoil: Transparency on Payments to Governments
By: George Serafeim
The Statoil case describes the challenge of increasing transparency, in extractive industries, around host county government payments. The case describes Statoil's reasoning behind voluntarily disclosing host country government payments, and the events that led to this... View Details
Keywords: Corruption; Disclosure; Disclosure Strategy; Regulation; Industry Self-regulation; Corporate Governance; Corporate Accountability; Bribery; Sustainability; Corporate Social Responsibility; Government Legislation; Cost vs Benefits; Corporate Disclosure; Mining; Mining Industry; United States
- November 2014
- Article
The Impact of Corporate Sustainability on Organizational Processes and Performance
By: Robert G. Eccles, Ioannis Ioannou and George Serafeim
We investigate the effect of corporate sustainability on organizational processes and performance. Using a matched sample of 180 U.S. companies, we find that corporations that voluntarily adopted sustainability policies by 1993—termed as High Sustainability... View Details
Keywords: Sustainability; Sustainability Management; Sustainability Research; Sustainability Reporting; Sustainability Targets; Corporate Social Responsibility; Corporate Accountability; Reporting; Corporate Governance; Investor Clientele; Investor Communication; Stock Market; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Performance; United States
- April 29, 2014
- Column
Corporate Reporting in the Big Data Era
By: George Serafeim
Advancements in information technology can improve corporate communication with shareholders, but not through incessant data dumps. Instead, companies will more likely be poised for continued success if they use digital platforms for long-term oriented engagement and... View Details
Keywords: Integrated Reporting; Big Data; Corporate Reporting; Sustainability; Corporate Social Responsibility; Corporate Governance; Accounting; Reporting; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Corporate Accountability; Analytics and Data Science; Information Technology; Communication; Financial Reporting; Business and Shareholder Relations
- Spring 2014
- Article
Attracting Long-Term Investors Through Integrated Thinking and Reporting: A Clinical Study of a Biopharmaceutical Company
By: Andrew Knauer and George Serafeim
Faced with a large percentage of investors that chase short-term returns, companies could benefit by attracting investors with longer-term horizons and incentives that are more consistent with the long-term strategy of the company. The managers of most companies take... View Details
Keywords: Investing; Asset Management; Long-term Investing; Short-termism; Sustainability; Integrated Reporting; Leadership & Corporate Accountability; Pharmaceuticals; Leadership; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Investment; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Corporate Finance; Biotechnology Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry
- Article
Corporate Social Responsibility and Access to Finance
By: Beiting Cheng, Ioannis Ioannou and George Serafeim
In this paper, we investigate whether superior performance on corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies leads to better access to finance. We hypothesize that better access to finance can be attributed to a) reduced agency costs due to enhanced stakeholder... View Details
- 2013
- Book
The Art of Negotiation: How to Improvise Agreement in a Chaotic World
By: Michael Wheeler
A member of the world-renowned Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School introduces the powerful next-generation approach to negotiation. For many years, two approaches to negotiation have prevailed: the "win-win" method exemplified in Getting to Yes by Roger... View Details
Keywords: Negotiation
- 2014
- Working Paper
Firm Competitiveness and Detection of Bribery
By: George Serafeim
Using survey data from firms around the world I analyze how detection of bribery has impacted a firm's competitiveness over the past year. Managers report that the most significant impact was on employee morale, followed by business relations, and then reputation and... View Details
- Summer 2013
- Article
A Tale of Two Stories: Sustainability and the Quarterly Earnings Call
By: Robert G. Eccles and George Serafeim
One of the challenges companies claim to face in making sustainability a core part of their strategy and operations is that the market does not care about sustainability, either in general or because the time frames in which it matters are too long. The response of... View Details
- May 2013
- Article
The Performance Frontier: Innovating for a Sustainable Strategy
By: Robert G. Eccles and George Serafeim
By now most companies have sustainability programs. They're cutting carbon emissions, reducing waste, and otherwise enhancing operational efficiency. But a mishmash of sustainability tactics does not add up to a sustainable strategy. To endure, a strategy must address... View Details
- May 2013
- Article
The Stock Selection and Performance of Buy-Side Analysts
Prior research on equity analysts focuses almost exclusively on those employed by sell-side investment banks and brokerage houses. Yet investment firms undertake their own buy-side research and their analysts face different stock selection and recommendation incentives... View Details