Publications

May–June 2013
Article

Can Global Brands Create Just Supply Chains? Response: Promoting Political Mobilization

By: Jodi L. Short and Michael W. Toffel

Codes of conduct indicate that working conditions are improving overall at the factories being monitored by multinational corporations, and that these codes of conduct also create possibilities for political mobilization that can improve labor conditions more broadly. View Details

18 Jun 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Evaluating the Impact of SA 8000 Certification

Keywords: by Michael J. Hiscox, Claire Schwartz & Michael W. Toffel

September 1997
Case

Siam Cement Group, The: Corporate Philosophy (B)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Prompilai Khunaphante

In 1996, senior executives of Thailand's Siam Cement Group must decide whether to apply its management philosophy and code of ethics when doing business outside of Thailand. The status of the code in joint ventures and contractual relationships is of particular... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Decision Making; Joint Ventures; Corporate Strategy; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Policy; Construction Industry; Thailand

2009
Chapter

Evaluating the Impact of SA8000 Certification

By: Michael J. Hiscox, Claire Schwartz and Michael W. Toffel

SA 8000, along with other types of certification standards and corporate codes of conduct, represents a new form of private governance of working conditions, initiated and implemented by companies, labor unions, and non-governmental activist groups. Whether these codes... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Working Conditions; Standards; Performance Evaluation

December 2005
Article

Up to Code: Does Your Company's Conduct Meet World-Class Standards?

By: Lynn Paine, Rohit Deshpandé, Joshua D. Margolis and Kim Eric Bettcher

Codes of conduct have long been a feature of corporate life. Today, they are arguably a legal necessity—at least for public companies with a presence in the United States. But the issue goes beyond U.S. legal and regulatory requirements. Sparked by corruption and... View Details

Keywords: Business Ethics; Standards Of Conduct; Globalized Firms and Management; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Values and Beliefs; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance

19 Aug 2015
Research & Ideas

Codeacademy’s Delicate Work of Adding Monetization Without Crushing Mission

It seems to suggest a real unmet need in educational systems. How integral will coding skills be going forward, and what role should government play in attending to those needs? A: Analytical skills and comfort with technology are... View Details

Keywords: Re: Jeffrey J. Bussgang; Technology

16 May 2000
Research & Ideas

The Simple Economics of Open Source

different in some regards, both have been shown to be stronger when the work is visible to people the programmer wants to impress (colleagues, venture capitalists, the overall job market). With immediate rewards, commercial projects have an edge as far as money... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Technology

November 2004
Case

The Electronic Product Code: Future Impact on the Global Food System

By: Ray A. Goldberg and James Weber

The Electronic Product Code (EPC) is a successor to the Uniform Product Code and will improve the efficiency and traceability of the global food system. This case focuses on how best to implement this new system and respect the privacy of the ultimate consumer, and the... View Details

Keywords: Information; Rights; Ethics; Consumer Behavior; Management Systems; Technology Adoption; Innovation and Invention; Food and Beverage Industry

Educators

May 2018
Supplement

Transformation at ING (C): Culture

By: William R. Kerr and Alexis Brownell

In 2016, ING Group began an overhaul of its company culture, culminating in a code of conduct dubbed "The Orange Code." View Details

Keywords: ING; Company Culture; Cultural Change; Change; Organizational Culture; Change Management; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; Netherlands

January 1991 (Revised March 1991)
Case

Responsible Care

By: George C. Lodge and Jeffrey F. Rayport

Describes a 1989 initiative of the Chemical Manufacturer's Association (CMA) to secure chemical industry support for and implementation of a series of codes of conduct in the field of environmental health and safety. Called "Responsible Care", the program makes... View Details

Keywords: Business and Government Relations; Fairness; Ethics; Environmental Sustainability; Safety; Chemical Industry

05 Mar 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, March 5, 2019

future research on the joint pursuit of financial and social goals in organizations. Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=55763 forthcoming Organization Science Coupling Labor Codes of Conduct and Supplier... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

September 1997
Case

Siam Cement Group, The: Corporate Philosophy (C)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Prompilai Khunaphante

In November 1996, the board of directors of Thailand's Siam Cement Group approves a policy spelling out the extent to which code of ethics shall be applied in joint venture and contractor relationships. View Details

Keywords: Joint Ventures; Policy; Ethics; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Governing and Advisory Boards; Construction Industry; Thailand

October 2008
Article

It's Time to Make Management a True Profession

By: Nitin Nohria and Rakesh Khurana

In the face of the recent institutional breakdown of trust in business, managers are losing legitimacy. To regain public trust, management needs to become a true profession in much the way medicine and law have, argue Khurana and Nohria of Harvard Business School. True... View Details

Keywords: Competency and Skills; Education; Ethics; Corporate Accountability; Management; Trust; Value Creation

November 2023
Case

Copilot(s): Generative AI at Microsoft and GitHub

By: Frank Nagle, Shane Greenstein, Maria P. Roche, Nataliya Langburd Wright and Sarah Mehta

This case tells the story of Microsoft’s 2018 acquisition of GitHub and the subsequent launch of GitHub Copilot, a tool that uses generative artificial intelligence to suggest snippets of code to software developers in real time. Set in late 2021, when Copilot was... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Strategy; AI and Machine Learning; Applications and Software; Product Launch; Information Technology Industry; Technology Industry; Web Services Industry; United States; California

Educators

May 16, 2019
Article

To Improve Food Inspections, Change the Way They're Scheduled

By: Maria Ibanez and Michael W. Toffel

Health inspections are an important tool to increase food safety, but there are still 48 million cases of food-borne illnesses and 128,000 hospitalizations every year in the United States. Our research finds that inspectors reported fewer health code violations as they... View Details

Keywords: Inspection; Scheduling; Food; Safety; Health; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Performance Improvement

2021
Other Unpublished Work

Computer-Implemented Methods and Systems for Measuring, Estimating, and Managing Economic Outcomes and Technical Debt in Software Systems and Projects: US Patent 11,126,427 B2

By: Daniel J. Sturtevant, Carliss Baldwin, Alan MacCormack, Sunny Ahn and Sean Gilliland

An interrelated set of tools and methods is disclosed for: (1) measuring the relationship between software source code attributes (such as code quality, design quality, test quality, and complexity metrics) and software economics outcome metrics (such as... View Details

Keywords: Technical Debt; Applications and Software; Economics; Measurement and Metrics; Patents

February 1994 (Revised July 2005)
Case

Competitive Information Policy at Pratt & Whitney

By: Lynn S. Paine

Officials at United Technologies Corp. (UTC) must decide on an ethics policy to govern competitive intelligence gathering. The flow of competitor information into the Pratt & Whitney division has declined sharply since adoption of UTC's code of ethics. A rewritten... View Details

Keywords: Policy; Corporate Governance; Ethics; Competition; Information Management; Business or Company Management; Law

Educators

March 2024 (Revised March 2024)
Teaching Note

CoPilot(s): Generative AI at Microsoft and GitHub

By: Frank Nagle and Maria P. Roche

This teaching note is the companion to case N9-624-010 CoPilot(s): Generative AI at Microsoft and GitHub, which takes place in late 2021. The case briefly describes the history of both GitHub and Microsoft with a particular focus on open source software (OSS)—software... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; AI and Machine Learning; Applications and Software; Technological Innovation; Product Launch; Open Source Distribution; Product Development; Commercialization; Competition; Resource Allocation; Technology Industry

Article

The Deception Spiral: Corporate Obfuscation Leads to Perceptions of Immorality and Cheating Behavior

By: D.M. Markowitz, M. Kouchaki, J.T. Hancock and F. Gino

In four studies, we evaluated how corporate misconduct relates to language patterns, perceptions of immorality, and unethical behavior. First, we analyzed nearly 190 codes of conduct from S&P 500 manufacturing companies and observed that corporations with ethics... View Details

Keywords: Obfuscation; Corporate Unethicality; Deception; Deception Spiral; Organizations; Values and Beliefs; Ethics; Perception; Behavior