Publications
Publications
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(3,337)
- Faculty Publications (578)
- June 2023
- Case
The Business of Campaigns
By: Vincent Pons and Mel Martin
In 2022, the U.S. Congress examined the Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Elections (DISCLOSE) Act, the latest in a long series of campaign finance reforms. According to its authors, the law would be the “most consequential overhaul of federal... View Details
- June 2023
- Article
Can Purpose Foster Stakeholder Trust in Corporations
By: Ranjay Gulati and Franz Wohlgezogen
As part of institutional changes toward more responsible capitalism, firms increasingly articulate a purpose beyond simply profit as a central tenet of their governance. Management scholarship has noted the potential advantages of such purpose-focus for stakeholder... View Details
- 2023
- Working Paper
The Politics of Philanthropy in China
By: Geoffrey Jones and Yuhai Wu
This working paper looks historically at business philanthropy in China. In the West, the literature has distinguished between entrepreneurial and customary philanthropy, while the phenomenon of spiritual philanthropy has been identified in many emerging markets. This... View Details
- 2023
- Working Paper
Setting Gendered Expectations? Recruiter Outreach Bias in Online Tech Training Programs
By: Jacqueline N. Lane, Karim R. Lakhani and Roberto Fernandez
Competence development in digital technologies, analytics, and artificial intelligence is increasingly important to all types of organizations and their workforce. Universities and corporations are investing heavily in developing training programs, at all tenure... View Details
- May 2023
- Article
Political Ideology and International Capital Allocation
By: Elisabeth Kempf, Mancy Luo, Larissa Schäfer and Margarita Tsoutsoura
Does investors' political ideology shape international capital allocation? We provide evidence from two settings—syndicated corporate loans and equity mutual funds—to show ideological alignment with foreign governments affects the cross-border capital allocation by... View Details
- April 2023
- Case
Elliott Management: Capital Allocation in Biopharma
By: Amitabh Chandra, Paul Clancy and Lauren Gunasti
The case explores the intersection of capital allocation and shareholder activism in the biopharmaceutical industry. As many biopharma companies face looming patent expirations for key medicines, the case asks the question of whether investing in R&D and M&A is an... View Details
- April 2023 (Revised April 2025)
- Case
Eike Batista: Making or Breaking Brazil
By: Geoffrey Jones, Pedro Magalhães, Daniel Tong and Marcel Anduiza
This case explores the meteoric rise and fall of Eike Batista, once Brazil’s richest person and the world’s seventh wealthiest in 2012. Batista began his career by investing in gold mining in the Amazon, using the network his father had built after years serving as... View Details
- April 2023
- Case
Strive Asset Management
By: Suraj Srinivasan, Lynn S. Paine and Aldo Sesia
Strive Asset Management, which launched in 2022, was actively targeting several leading U.S. companies in the upcoming 2023 proxy voting season to stop acquiescing to those large asset managers and other institutional shareholders who were pressing those companies to... View Details
- 2023
- Working Paper
How Wicked Problems Drive Business Performance: A Review of the Academic Literature
By: Caroline Adelson, Charlotte Kuller, Cate Tompkins, Ellora Sarkar, Samantha Price and Marco Iansiti
Recent years have seen a rise in the number of businesses engaged in the pursuit of “purposeful” activities – that is, activities that engage with the broader community in ways that expand beyond the pursuit of shareholder value. Many of these activities involve... View Details
- March 2023 (Revised September 2023)
- Case
Patagonia: 'Earth Is Now Our Only Shareholder'
By: Brian Trelstad, Nien-hê Hsieh, Michael Norris and Susan Pinckney
In September 2022, Yvon Chouinard, the iconoclastic founder of outdoor apparel company Patagonia, announced a new ownership model for his company. Chouinard and his family had held complete control of the company's voting and non-voting stock since its founding 50... View Details
Keywords: Trusts; Business Ventures; Business Organization; Family Business; Restructuring; Change; Disruption; Transition; Decision Making; Ethics; Values and Beliefs; Finance; Financial Management; Governance; Corporate Governance; Investment Activism; Leadership; Labor; Law; Common Law; Management; Goals and Objectives; Organizations; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Ownership; Ownership Type; Family Ownership; Private Ownership; Social Enterprise; Nonprofit Organizations; Society; Social Issues; Wealth and Poverty; Value; Value Creation; Apparel and Accessories Industry; United States
- March 2023
- Teaching Note
Sustainability Reporting at Dollar Tree, Inc.
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Li-Kuan Ni
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 122-044. The case discusses the ESG strategy of Dollar Tree Inc., a U.S. Fortune 500 company in the deep discount retail industry and the shareholder pressure faced by the company. In 2022, the company faced a shareholder resolution from... View Details
Keywords: ESG; Sustainability; Shareholder Activism; Dollar Tree; Sustainability Reporting; ESG Reporting; Board Of Directors; Shareholder Engagement; GHG; Environmental Accounting; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Trends; Communication; Announcements; Voting; Environmental Management; Climate Change; Environmental Sustainability; Values and Beliefs; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Disclosure; Corporate Governance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Policy; Reports; Business or Company Management; Risk Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Outcome or Result; Strategic Planning; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Situation or Environment; Opportunities; Civil Society or Community; Social Issues; Public Opinion; Strategy; Adaptation; Alignment; Business Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Value Creation; Retail Industry; United States; Virginia
- February 2023 (Revised February 2024)
- Case
Doing Business in Helsinki, Finland
By: Martin A. Sinozich, Lena Duchene, Tonia Labruyere and Daniela Beyersdorfer
This case examines the challenges and opportunities of doing business in Finland. It highlights Finland's economic transformation in the decades leading up to 2024 in the context of its history, culture, and politics. The case gives an overview of some of the main... View Details
- February 2023 (Revised July 2023)
- Case
Moleskine Foundation: Can Creativity Change the World?
By: Ryan Raffaelli, Alexandra C. Feldberg and Sarah Gulick
The Italy-based Moleskine Foundation worked with young adults in Africa and Europe to inspire social change through art and creative projects. Adama Sanneh, the newly appointed CEO of the Moleskine Foundation, faced several challenges: First, he had to make his own... View Details
- February 2023
- Article
Disruption and Credit Markets
By: Bo Becker and Victoria Ivashina
We show that over the past half century innovative disruptions were central to understanding corporate defaults. In a given year, industries experiencing abnormally high VC or IPO activity subsequently see higher default rates, higher segment exits by conglomerates,... View Details
- February 2023
- Supplement
Peloton Interactive (B)
By: Suraj Srinivasan, Lynn S. Paine and David Lane
Supplements “Peloton Interactive (A)” (HBS No. 323-005), describing company restructuring and changes to management and the board of directors between February 8 and early October 2022. View Details
- January 2023 (Revised April 2025)
- Case
Peloton Interactive (A)
By: Suraj Srinivasan, Lynn S. Paine and David Lane
Early in February 2022, the board of Peloton Interactive faced some knotty challenges. Immense pandemic demand for its stationary exercise bicycles and treadmills had prompted the firm to scale up production rapidly. But as gyms reopened and the virulence of the virus... View Details
- January 2023
- Teaching Note
The Opioid Settlement and Executive Pay at AmerisourceBergen
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Li-Kuan Ni
Teaching Note for HBS Case No 122-014. In 2020, AmerisourceBergen Corporation, a Fortune 50 company in the drug distribution industry, agreed to settle thousands of lawsuits filed nationwide against the company for its opioid distribution practices that critics alleged... View Details
Keywords: Opioids; Shareholder Activism; Investment Activism; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance; Governance Compliance; Governance Controls; Executive Compensation; Risk Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Distribution Industry; Health Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States; West Virginia; Tennessee; Ohio; Pennsylvania
- January 2023
- Article
Racial Diversity and Racial Policy Preferences: The Great Migration and Civil Rights
By: Alvaro Calderon, Vasiliki Fouka and Marco Tabellini
Between 1940 and 1970, more than 4 million African Americans moved from the South to the North of the United States, during the Second Great Migration. This same period witnessed the struggle and eventual success of the civil rights movement in ending institutionalized... View Details
Keywords: Civil Rights; Great Migration; History; Race; Rights; Prejudice and Bias; Government Legislation
- December 2022 (Revised February 2023)
- Case
Daniel Defense: Responding to the Shooting at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, TX
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher
At 11:33am on May 24, 2022, an 18-year-old man from Uvalde, Texas walked into the Robb Elementary School carrying a semi-automatic "AR-15-style” rifle manufactured by Daniel Defense and killed 19 children and two adults. Three days later, Representative Carolyn Maloney... View Details
Keywords: Gun Violence; Gun Policy; Second Amendment; Legal Liability; Government Legislation; Marketing Strategy; Business or Company Management; Product Marketing; Ethics; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Moral Sensibility; Crime and Corruption; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Manufacturing Industry; Advertising Industry; United States
- 2022
- Article
Pills in a World of Activism and ESG
By: Guhan Subramanian and Caley Petrucci
Easterbrook and Fischel’s The Economic Structure of Corporate Law advances their now famous passivity thesis, which posits that managers should remain passive in the face of an unsolicited tender offer for the company’s shares. Consistent with the broader... View Details