Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(5,532)
- Faculty Publications (1,251)
- Article
The Payoff of Pay-for-Success
By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Lisa Chase
Pay-for-success contracts also known as social impact bonds, have been widely touted as a clever way to fill the funding gap plaguing social programs by attracting a tranche of the trillions of dollars in private return-seeking capital. This article takes an in-depth... View Details
- August 2015 (Revised October 2017)
- Case
Turnaround at Norsk Gjenvinning (A)
By: George Serafeim
Erik Osmundsen, CEO of Norsk Gjenvinning (NG), had initiated a program to strenghten corporate governance, eliminate corruption and improve compliance, and as a result the company had experienced a turnover of almost half of its top 70 line managers and strained... View Details
Keywords: Change Leadership; Governance; Compliance; Waste Management; Environmental Impact; Social Responsibility; Industry Regulation; Regulatory Enforcement; Turnaround; Turn Around Management; Corruption; Leading Change; Change Management; Crime and Corruption; Governance Compliance; Wastes and Waste Processing; Industrial Products Industry; Norway; Scandinavia; Europe
- August 2015
- Teaching Note
Rana Plaza (C): Primark and Victim Compensation
By: John A. Quelch
- August 2015 (Revised March 2016)
- Supplement
Rana Plaza (C): Primark and Victim Compensation
By: John A. Quelch and Margaret L. Rodriguez
- 2015
- Chapter
Leading Socially Responsible, Value-Creating Corporations
By: Daniel A Brown, Rakesh Khurana and James O'Toole
We explore the role of the corporate leader in creating value for stakeholders throughout three eras: one of naïve idealism, one of naïve cynicism, and an emerging era of rugged idealism. We explain how the role of the corporate leader and society's perceptions of this... View Details
- July 2015
- Article
The Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility on Investment Recommendations: Analysts' Perceptions and Shifting Institutional Logics
By: Ioannis Ioannou and George Serafeim
We explore the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) ratings on sell-side analysts' assessments of firms' future financial performance. We suggest that when analysts perceive CSR as an agency cost, due to the prevalence of an agency logic, they produce... 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
- May 2015 (Revised May 2017)
- Case
Colgate-Palmolive Company: Marketing Anti-Cavity Toothpaste
By: John A. Quelch and Margaret L. Rodriguez
In October 2013, Colgate-Palmolive Company, the world's leading oral care company, was about to launch its new Colgate® Maximum Cavity Protection™ plus Sugar Acid Neutralizer™ toothpaste in Brazil. Oral care category accounted for 46 percent of Colgate's $17.4 billion... View Details
Keywords: New Product Management; Consumer Segmentation; Global Marketing; Corporate Social Responsibility; Healthcare; Sustainability; Health Care and Treatment; Environmental Sustainability; Marketing; Segmentation; Product Development; Product Launch; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Product Positioning; Consumer Products Industry; Brazil; United States
- May 2015
- Teaching Note
Aviva Investors
By: George Serafeim
Keywords: Responsibility; Responsibilities To Society; Sustainability; Sustainability Reporting; Corporate Social Responsibility; Corporate Sustainability; Activist Investors; Investment Management; Investment Strategy; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Environmental Sustainability; Investment Activism
- May 2015
- Teaching Note
Walmart: Segmenting Social Impact
By: Michael E. Porter, Mark R. Kramer and Pamela Sud
This case provides a sample of Walmart's social engagement activities and asks students to categorize each as philanthropy, corporate social responsibility, or creating shared value. View Details
- Article
Why Do Firms Have 'Purpose'? The Firm's Role as a Carrier of Identity and Reputation
By: Rebecca Henderson and Eric Van den Steen
Why do so many firms publicly espouse a "purpose" beyond simple profit maximization? And why do so many managers and employees appear to care deeply about this purpose and to believe that it is critically important? In this paper we argue that the conventional answers... View Details
- 2015
- Working Paper
Incentives versus Reciprocity: Insights from a Field Experiment
By: Doug J. Chung and Das Narayandas
We conduct a field experiment in which we vary the sales force compensation scheme at an Asian enterprise that sells consumer durable goods. With variation generated by the experimental treatments, we model sales force performance to identify the effectiveness of... View Details
- April 14, 2015
- Article
The Type of Socially Responsible Investments That Make Firms More Profitable
By: George Serafeim
- Article
Should Business Have Human Rights Obligations?
By: Nien-he Hsieh
Businesses and their managers are increasingly called upon to take on human rights obligations. Focusing on the case of multinational enterprises (MNEs), the paper argues we have reason to reject assigning human rights obligations to business enterprises and their... View Details
- March 2015
- Case
The Sino-Russian Rapprochement: Energy Relations in a New Era
By: Rawi Abdelal, Morena Skalamera and Sogomon Tarontsi
The United States could enhance or threaten China's energy security but China was unsure of the U.S. intentions. China and the United States were both friends and potential foes. In the meantime, Russia's own ambivalent relationship with the United States and its... View Details
- March 24, 2015
- Article
Starbucks' 'Race Together' Campaign and the Upside of CEO Activism
By: Aaron Chatterji and Michael W. Toffel
When Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz asked his baristas to engage customers in a discussion about race in America, it was a clear case of the growing trend of "CEO activism." Despite the criticism of that particular initiative, CEO activism—from Shultz to Chick-Fil-A's... View Details
- March 2015 (Revised August 2020)
- Case
Putting the Guiding Principles into Action: Human Rights at Barrick Gold (A)
By: Rebecca Henderson and Nien-he Hsieh
In 2010, Human Rights Watch, a well-regarded international NGO, approached Barrick Gold asserting that members of the company’s security force at the Porgera Gold Mine in Papua New Guinea had on multiple occasions raped women who were trespassing onto the mine’s waste... View Details
- March 2015
- Module Note
Power and Influence in Society
By: Julie Battilana
This module aims to help students understand how power and influence are employed, both to reproduce the status quo and to effect change in society. It first helps them to understand why, more often than not, power is used to reproduce the existing way individuals and... View Details
- 2014
- Working Paper
Making the Business Case for Environmental Sustainability
Can a business case be made for acting sustainably? This is a difficult question to answer precisely, largely because there is no generally accepted definition of the term "sustainability". Is it acting sustainably to protect the human rights of the firm's workforce?... View Details
- February 2015 (Revised June 2016)
- Case
AltSchool: School Reimagined
By: John J-H Kim, Kyla Wilkes and Christine S. An
Max Ventilla and his team launches in 2013 AltSchool, a new network of tech-savvy independent K-8 "micro-schools." AltSchool is born out of Ventilla's frustration with the education options available for his young daughter. During his search, Ventilla comes to the... View Details
Keywords: Education Technology; School Models; Product Development; Entrepreneurship; Talent Development And Retention; Social Impact Investment; Information Technology; Business Model; Education; Business Startups; Customization and Personalization; Growth and Development Strategy; Education Industry; United States