Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,653)
- Faculty Publications (234)
- Article
ESG Integration in Investment Management: Myths and Realities
By: Sakis Kotsantonis, Christopher Pinney and George Serafeim
The authors’ aim in this article is to set the record straight on the financial performance of sustainable investing while also correcting a number of other widespread misconceptions about this rapidly growing set of principles and methods.
Myth Number 1:... 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
- July 2016 (Revised March 2024)
- Case
Alphabet Eyes New Frontiers (A)
By: Juan Alcacer, Raffaella Sadun, Olivia Hull and Kerry Herman
In October 2015, Google restructured into Alphabet, a holding company, which analysts said would facilitate innovation among its diverse subsidiaries. But when news reports surfaced revealing struggles within Alphabet companies including Nest, the smart thermostat... View Details
Keywords: Innovation; Conglomerates; Corporate Restructuring; Google; Corporate Strategy; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Innovation Strategy; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Research and Development; Diversification; Financial Reporting; Talent and Talent Management; Technology Industry; Computer Industry; California; United States
- June 2016
- Supplement
Supply Chain Finance at Procter & Gamble Spreadsheet Supplement
By: Benjamin C. Esty, Scott Mayfield and David Lane
In April 2013, Procter & Gamble (P&G), the world’s largest consumer packaged goods (CPG) company, announced that it would extend its payment terms to suppliers by 30 days. At the same time, P&G announced a new supply chain financing (SCF) program giving suppliers the... View Details
Keywords: Working Capital; Supply Chain Finance; Corporate Treasury; Consumer Packaged Goods; Value Creation; Supply Chain; Supplier Relationships; Banking; Liquidity; Accounts Payable; Accrual Accounting; Financial Reporting; Cash Flow; Cost Management; Banks and Banking; Financial Strategy; Multinational Firms and Management; Supply Chain Management; United States; Brazil
- 2016
- Working Paper
Who Pays for White-Collar Crime?
By: Paul Healy and George Serafeim
Using a proprietary dataset of 667 companies around the world that experienced white-collar crime, we investigate what drives punishment of perpetrators of crime. We find a significantly lower propensity to punish crime in our sample, where most crimes are not reported... View Details
- May 2016 (Revised May 2017)
- Case
Supply Chain Finance at Procter & Gamble
By: Benjamin C. Esty, E. Scott Mayfield and David Lane
In April 2013, Procter & Gamble (P&G), the world’s largest consumer packaged goods (CPG) company, announced that it would extend its payment terms to suppliers by 30 days. At the same time, P&G announced a new supply chain financing (SCF) program giving suppliers the... View Details
Keywords: Working Capital; Supply Chain Finance; Corporate Treasury; Consumer Packaged Goods; Supply Chain; Supplier Relationships; Banking; Liquidity; Accounts Payable; Financial Reporting; Cash Flow; Cost Management; Banks and Banking; Financial Strategy; Multinational Firms and Management; Supply Chain Management; Accrual Accounting; Value Creation; Consumer Products Industry; Forest Products Industry; United States; Brazil
- May 16, 2016
- Article
Food Safety Economics: The Cost of a Sick Customer
By: Dina Gerdeman and John A. Quelch
Chipotle Mexican Grill’s ongoing struggle to win customers back months after a contaminated food crisis highlights the challenges companies face with keeping food safe.
Chipotle has seen its shares tumble and recently reported its first-ever quarterly loss... View Details
Chipotle has seen its shares tumble and recently reported its first-ever quarterly loss... View Details
Keywords: Food Safety; Organic Food; Supply Chain Management; Globalization Of Food Business; Mérieux NutriSciences: Marketing Food Safety Testing; Food Safety Modernization Act 2011; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Transition; Economic Systems; Food; Health; Supply and Industry; Logistics; Practice; Problems and Challenges; Quality; Safety; Business Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Customization and Personalization; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Insurance Industry; Public Administration Industry; Public Relations Industry; Retail Industry; Service Industry; Mexico; North America; United States; Canada
- April 2016 (Revised July 2019)
- Case
"Doctor My Eyes"--The Acquisition of Bausch & Lomb by Warburg Pincus (A)
In early 2010, senior partners at Warburg Pincus met to review a report on Bausch & Lomb Incorporated, the firm's largest investment at the time. Warburg Pincus had led a group of investors in acquiring Bauch & Lomb on October 26, 2007, taking the company private and... View Details
- March 22, 2016
- Article
The Globalization of Corporate Environmental Disclosure: Accountability or Greenwashing?
By: Christopher Marquis, Michael W. Toffel and Yanhua Zhou
This article is a layman summary of "Scrutiny, Norms, and Selective Disclosure: A Global Study of Greenwashing," published in Organization Science 27, no. 2 (March–April 2016): 483–504. View Details
- March 2016 (Revised April 2019)
- Technical Note
ESG Metrics: Reshaping Capitalism?
By: George Serafeim
In the past twenty-five years, the world had seen an exponential growth in the number of companies reporting environmental, social and governance (ESG) data. Investor interest in ESG data also grew rapidly. A growing belief that increasing levels of social inequality... View Details
Keywords: Capitalism; Sustainability; Accountability; Corporate Social Responsibility; Responsibilities To Society; Environment; Social Impact Investment; ESG; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Measurement and Metrics; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Corporate Accountability; Accounting; Economic Systems
- March 2016 (Revised June 2016)
- Case
Gotong Royong: Toward Sustainable Palm Oil
By: Rebecca Henderson, Hann-Shuin Yew and Monica Baraldi
In late 2015, Jeff Seabright, chief sustainability officer at Unilever, had to report to Unilever CEO Paul Polman on the effort to transform palm oil cultivation. Historically, palm oil was produced using unsustainable methods that included burning large tracts of... View Details
- March 2016
- Article
An Analysis of Firms' Self-reported Anticorruption Efforts
By: Paul M. Healy and George Serafeim
We use Transparency International's ratings of self-reported anticorruption efforts for 480 corporations to analyze factors underlying the ratings. Our tests examine whether these forms of disclosure reflect firms' real efforts to combat corruption or are cheap talk.... View Details
- March–April 2016
- Article
Scrutiny, Norms, and Selective Disclosure: A Global Study of Greenwashing
By: Christopher Marquis, Michael W. Toffel and Yanhua Zhou
Under increased pressure to report environmental impacts, some firms selectively disclose relatively benign impacts, creating an impression of transparency while masking their true performance. We identify key company- and country-level factors that limit firms' use of... View Details
- 2015
- Case
Advanced Leadership Pathways: Mike Critelli and Dossia Service Corporation
By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Patricia Bissett Higgins
In 2010, Mark Critelli was a well-seasoned corporate executive who had recently transitioned from being the CEO of a Fortune 500 company to that of a startup called Dossia. As an AL Fellow, he knew that despite believing in Dossia’s mission to empower individuals with... View Details
Keywords: Health And Wellness; Health Care; Health Care Education; Health Care Entrepreneurship; Health Care Industry; Health Care Investment; Health Care Outcomes; Health Care Quality; Health Care Reform; Health Care Services; Health Costs; Preventive Care; Insurance Companies; Insurance Industry; Employee Compensation; Empoylee Wellness Programs; Patient Reported Outcome Measures; Patient Satisfaction; Data; Data Analytics; Entrepreneurs; Entrepreneurial Organizations; Entrepreneurial Ventures; Start-up; Leadership Skills; Disruptive Change; Health; Insurance; Employees; Leadership; Disruptive Innovation; Health Care and Treatment; Employment; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Information Technology; Analytics and Data Science; Health Industry; United States
- 2015
- Chapter
Corporate and Integrated Reporting: A Functional Perspective
By: Robert G. Eccles and George Serafeim
In this chapter, we present the two primary functions of corporate reporting (information and transformation) and why currently isolated financial and sustainability reporting are not likely to effectively perform these functions. We describe the concept of integrated... 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
- 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
- March 2015
- Case
Statoil: Transparency on Payments to Governments
By: George Serafeim
The Statoil case describes the challenge of increasing transparency, in extractive industries, around host county government payments. The case describes Statoil's reasoning behind voluntarily disclosing host country government payments, and the events that led to this... View Details
Keywords: Corruption; Disclosure; Disclosure Strategy; Regulation; Industry Self-regulation; Corporate Governance; Corporate Accountability; Bribery; Sustainability; Corporate Social Responsibility; Government Legislation; Cost vs Benefits; Corporate Disclosure; Mining; Mining Industry; United States
- 2015
- Working Paper
Client Service, Compensation, and the Sell-Side Analyst Objective Function: An Empirical Analysis of Relational Incentives in the Investment-Research Industry
By: David A. Maber, Boris Groysberg and Paul M. Healy
This paper investigates how sell-side analysts build and sustain their client networks; the economic gains to successfully managing this challenge; and the metrics through which these incentives are delivered. In a typical semiannual period, the average analyst... View Details
- January–February 2015
- Article
Heroic Villains: Are Foreign Investors Problems or Solutions in the Ebola Crisis?
By: Debora L. Spar
For months, the news out of West Africa has been unrelentingly grim. As of early December, the devastating Ebola epidemic had infected a reported 17,942 people and killed 6,388, according to the World Health Organization (WHO); the actual toll, which would also account... View Details