Publications

September 2019 (Revised January 2020)
Case

Gun Safety in America: Three Leaders Propose Innovative Solutions

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Joseph Paul

Gun violence was a significant problem in America. Three Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative Fellows Christy Wood, Russell Sternlicht, and Gareth Glaser each decided to do something about gun safety. They each used their professional and leadership experience to... View Details

June 2021
Case

Akira Fukabori and Kevin Kajitani at avatarin (A)

By: Linda A. Hill and Emily Tedards

In 2016, Akira Fukabori and Kevin Kajitani, aeronautical engineers at All Nippon Airways Co., Ltd., began to wonder why, in a world of accelerating globalization and digital connectivity, those who lived in far-remote villages or impoverished urban areas could not... View Details

Keywords: Agility; Ecosystem; Innovation Ecosystems; Crowdsourcing; Open Innovation; Partnership; Government; Collaboration; Co-creation; Purpose; Impact; Social Impact; Movement; Organizational Behavior; Organizational Ambidexterity; Ambidexterity; Culture; Culture Change; Global Teams; Experimentation; Space; Airline Industry; Start-up; Platform Business; Platform Strategy; Platform; Digital; Robotics; Robots; Mobility; Strategy; COVID-19; Intrapreneurship; Public-private Partnership; XPRIZE; Space Industry; Avatar; Telepresence; Innovation Lab; Innovation and Invention; Technological Innovation; Partners and Partnerships; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Alignment; Leadership; Leading Change; Diversity; Organizational Culture; Change Management; Entrepreneurship; Digital Platforms; Transportation Industry; Aerospace Industry; Japan

September 20, 2004
Comment

How Consumers Value Global Brands

By: Douglas Holt, John A. Quelch and Earl L. Taylor

In 2002, we carried out a two-stage research project in partnership with the market research company Research International/USA to find out how consumers in different countries value global brands. First, we conducted a qualitative study in forty-one countries to... View Details

Keywords: Global Brands; Brand Value; Multi-national Brands; Social Responsibility; Global Range; Multinational Firms and Management; Globalized Markets and Industries; Brands and Branding; Social Marketing; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact

August 2015 (Revised March 2016)
Supplement

Rana Plaza (C): Primark and Victim Compensation

By: John A. Quelch and Margaret L. Rodriguez

Keywords: Labor Relations; Corporate Social Responsibility; Sustainability; International Marketing; Supply Chain Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Marketing; Labor Unions; Environmental Sustainability; Globalized Markets and Industries

01 Jun 2023
News

Action Plan: Net Proceeds

cholera was a waterborne disease, so he went looking for the root cause and found a canal system gridlocked with plastic garbage. Much of the plastic he found in the canals and on the beaches was recyclable, so he spent the next four years View Details

Keywords: April White; recycling; corporate social responsibility; waste management; water; Waste Management and Remediation Services; Corporate Services

02 Mar 2016
News

Entrepreneurship to improve the world for everyone

February 2020 (Revised September 2021)
Supplement

Mission Related Investments at the Ford Foundation (B)

By: Shawn Cole, Michael Norris and T. Robert Zochowski

Supplements the (A) case. View Details

Keywords: Mission-Related Investing; Philanthropy; Foundation; Endowments; Socially Responsible Investing; Investment; Institutional Investing; Investment Activism; Governance; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Social Enterprise; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; United States

June 2020
Teaching Note

Generation Investment Management

By: Vikram S. Gandhi and Sarah Mehta

This teaching note provides guidance for teaching the case “Generation Investment Management” (820-033), which looks at the challenges facing a sustainable investment firm. View Details

July 2024 (Revised January 2025)
Case

Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors: Bringing Systematic Investment to Philanthropy

By: Lauren Cohen, Hao Gao, Alexander Bischoff and Sophia Pan

Melissa Berman, CEO of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors (RPA), evaluated her client’s philanthropy project and its mediocre performance. RPA was a segment of the Rockefeller Family Office’s Philanthropy Department, becoming an independent charity in 2002. Consistently... View Details

September 2016
Article

Monitoring Global Supply Chains

By: Jodi L. Short, Michael W. Toffel and Andrea R. Hugill

Firms seeking to avoid reputational spillovers that can arise from dangerous, illegal, and unethical behavior at supply chain factories are increasingly relying on private social auditors to provide strategic information about suppliers' conduct. But little is known... View Details

Keywords: Monitoring; Transaction Cost Economics; Industry Self-regulation; Auditing; Codes Of Conduct; Supply Chains; Corporate Social Responsibility; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Supply Chain; Globalization

January 2019 (Revised October 2019)
Case

Rural Taobao: Alibaba's Expansion into Rural E-Commerce

By: Tarun Khanna, Ryan Allen, Adam Frost and Wesley Koo

Alibaba's Rural Taobao initiative had been launched in 2014 as a public service initiative to increase e-commerce adoption in China’s remote rural areas. In the first two iterations of the initiative, dubbed “1.0” and “2.0,” Alibaba had partnered with local businesses... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Business Growth; Ecommerce; Corporate Social Responsibility; Business And Government; Emerging Market; Digital Platforms; Internet and the Web; Emerging Markets; Rural Scope; Growth and Development Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Government Relations; Decision Making; E-commerce; China

July 2022
Article

Mental Health During the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Review and Recommendations for Moving Forward

By: Lara Aknin, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Elizabeth Dunn, Daisy Fancourt, Elkhonon Goldberg, John Helliwell, Sarah P. Jones, Elie Karam, Richard Layard, Sonja Lyubomirsky, Andrew Rzepa, Shekhar Saxena, Emily Thornton, Tyler VanderWeele, Ashley V. Whillans, Jamil Zaki, Ozge Karadag Caman and Yanis Ben Amour

COVID-19 has infected millions of people and upended the lives of most humans on the planet. Researchers from across the psychological sciences have sought to document and investigate the impact of COVID-19 in myriad ways, causing an explosion of research that is broad... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Mental Health; Psychological Distress; Subjective Well-being; Lonelines; Social Connection; Self-harm; Suicide; Health Pandemics; Well-being

Find at Harvard

May 2012 (Revised February 2015)
Case

Maersk Line and the Future of Container Shipping

By: Forest Reinhardt, Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Frederik Nellemann

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility; Supply And Demand; Environment; Commodity; Natural Environment; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Competitive Advantage; Shipping Industry

Brian Trelstad is a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School in the General Management Unit and the Faculty Chair of the Advanced Leadership Initiative. He teaches elective courses on Social Entrepreneurship and Systems... View Details

Keywords: education industry; health care; service industry; emerging market private equity; private equity (other); venture capital industry

16 Mar 2021
Blog Post

2+2 Where Are They Now Spotlight: Smitha Das (MBA 2018)

inspiring/exciting project or opportunity you’ve worked on? I’ve been very excited to work on a new strategy at Social Finance – the Career Impact Bond (CIB). This represents a new, student-friendly way to... View Details

Article

Sustainability, Business, and Health

By: George Serafeim, Amanda M. Rischbieth and Howard K. Koh

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has demonstrated that response demands involvement from every sector of society. As a major example, some businesses have stepped up in ways previously unimaginable. Garment companies have repurposed production to face... View Details

Keywords: COVID; COVID-19; Sustainability; Health And Wellness; Corporate Social Responsibility; Health Pandemics; Health; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Corporate Accountability; Health Care and Treatment

Find at Harvard

December 2012 (Revised October 2013)
Case

Developing the Materiality Matrix at Telefónica

By: Robert G. Eccles, George Serafeim and Asun Cano-Escoriaza

Telefónica, one of the largest telecommunication companies in the world and headquartered in Spain, has been issuing a corporate sustainability report since 2002. In its 2011 Sustainability report, the company included a "materiality matrix," and was one of only five... View Details

Keywords: Sustainability; Sustainability Reporting; Sustainable Strategy; CSR; Corporate Social Responsibility; Communication Technology; Environmental Accounting; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Telecommunications Industry; Spain