Publications

31 Jan 2023
Research & Ideas

It’s Not All About Pay: College Grads Want Jobs That ‘Change the World’

make a difference to the business itself. “Investing in prosocial missions actually will help you attract candidates,” Zhang says. “You can get quality candidates even when lowering your wage if you're a prosocial employer." Policymakers... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

20 Dec 2023
News

New School

In the early days of the pandemic in 2020, Curriculum Associates, a Massachusetts-based company that creates research-based print and online instructional and assessment tools, made the decision to make its products free to teachers and students who suddenly found... View Details

October 1991 (Revised December 1993)
Case

Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: Keeping the Mission(s) Alive

Ben & Jerry's is an anti-establishment, values-driven company that has become a successful venture. The dominant founder, Ben Cohen, is not an effective manager, but he brings creative marketing and product skills that have been important to the company's success. He... View Details

Keywords: Mission and Purpose; Organizational Culture; Entrepreneurship; Compensation and Benefits; Manufacturing Industry; Food and Beverage Industry

July 2023 (Revised April 2025)
Case

'Bugs' Burger Bug Killers

By: Ryan W. Buell and William Fulmer

In the height of its success, Bugs Burger Bug Killers (BBBK; Burger has a soft 'g' - it rhymes with merger) was the largest independent extermination company in America, growing at more than 20% per year. BBBK built its business on the promise of pest eradication,... View Details

Keywords: Mission and Purpose; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; Service Industry

Web

Climate Impact - Business & Environment

sustainable future for fashion.” Rahul Shendure MBA 2001 | CEO, Director, CarbonBuilt “CarbonBuilt is on a mission to help decarbonize the built environment through the production of ultralow-carbon concrete. We use waste materials to... View Details

Web

Nonprofit Strategy & Governance | Social Enterprise | Harvard Business School

Chertavian & Alexis Lefort Aug 2024 | HBS Publishing An overview of the various roles a non-profit board of directors plays, including the board's principal responsibilities and how those evolve as organizations grow and scale. Looks closely at the overall role in... View Details

Article

Mission-Driven Governance

By: Raymond Fisman, Rakesh Khurana and Edward Martenson

The purpose of this paper is to provide a useful, easily applied theory of governance performance. The existing model is fundamentally adversarial, rooted in the paradigm of principal-agent conflict. At its base is an image of governance as a never-ending struggle... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Knowledge Management; Standards; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Performance Effectiveness; Performance Evaluation

Find at Harvard

19 Jan 2024
News

The Values and Virtues of a Quick Fix

room to contribute to the mission of Microsoft is excited to, willing to contribute what they can uniquely contribute. If you look at the research on inclusion, what's really extraordinary is that when we get this right as... View Details

March 2020 (Revised August 2020)
Case

Culture at Google

By: Nien-hê Hsieh, Amy Klopfenstein and Sarah Mehta

Beginning in 2017, technology (tech) company Google faced a series of employee-relations issues that threatened its unique culture of innovation and open communication. Issues included protests surrounding Google’s contracts with the U.S. government, restrictions of... View Details

13 Mar 2005
Research & Ideas

The Tricky Business of Nonprofit Brands

authors John A. Quelch and Nathalie Laidler-Kylander see branding issues that are shared by many international entities, but also recognize that NGOs have missions and constituencies that add to the complexity of brand management. They... View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls

28 Jan 2020
Book

Advanced Leadership Requires More Than Outside-The-Box Thinking

he was crazy to risk his reputation on something so novel. But he told himself, “It’s not about me.” It’s about the mission and the people and communities to be served. So he took the risk and is now getting ready to scale his model,... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

15 Jun 2021
News

Zone Defense

missions in which Shield AI’s technology has been deployed, he says that it is being used in “indoor-clearance” situations, which are some of the most harrowing missions that troops can face. According to... View Details

Keywords: April White; drone technology; military; security; entrepreneurship; leadership; Air Transportation; Transportation

November 2023
Case

Tata Group in 2021: Pursuing Profits through Purpose

By: Tarun Khanna, Krishna G. Palepu and Vidhya Muthuram

October 8, 2021: Tata Sons won a bid to acquire India’s national carrier Air India, marking the airline's return to its original owners after 68 long years. The winning bid of $2.4 billion gave Tata Sons full ownership of the airline and its coveted network of 6,200... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Strategy; Mission and Purpose; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Emerging Markets; Mergers and Acquisitions; Ownership; Air Transportation; Air Transportation Industry; India

27 May 2022
Blog Post

Q&A with the HBS Armed Forces Alumni Association, MBA Class of 2023

The Armed Forces Alumni Association (AFAA) is a student-led club on campus for service members and veterans from all military branches and nations. The AFAA mission is to help talented veterans transition out of the military to Harvard... View Details

April 2021
Case

Etsy: Crafting a Turnaround to Save the Business and Its Soul

By: Ranjay Gulati, Luciana Silvestri and Monte Burke

Etsy, the online seller of handmade goods, was founded in 2005 on an almost utopian ideal—a responsible, caring company that offered individual crafters a place to sell their wares, a wholesome alternative to companies that sold mass-manufactured products. The company... View Details

Keywords: Turnaround; Organizational Culture; Financial Condition; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Mission and Purpose; Transformation; Leadership