Publications
Publications
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(3,533)
- Faculty Publications (767)
- March 2022
- Supplement
Winning Business at Russell Reynolds (B)
By: Ethan Bernstein and Cara Mazzucco
In an effort to make compensation drive collaboration, Russell Reynolds Associates’ (RRA) CEO Clarke Murphy sought to re-engineer the bonus system for his executive search consultants in 2016. As his HR analytics guru, Kelly Smith, points out, that risks upsetting–and... View Details
Keywords: Compensation; Collaboration; Executive Search Firms; Consulting Firms; Compensation and Benefits; Restructuring; Human Resources; Human Capital; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Culture; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Social and Collaborative Networks; Recruitment; Selection and Staffing; Talent and Talent Management; Consulting Industry; Employment Industry; Asia; Europe; Latin America; Middle East; North and Central America; South America; Oceania
- February 2022 (Revised January 2024)
- Supplement
Winning Business at Russell Reynolds (C)
By: Ethan Bernstein and Cara Mazzucco
In an effort to make compensation drive collaboration, Russell Reynolds Associates’ (RRA) CEO Clarke Murphy sought to re-engineer the bonus system for his executive search consultants in 2016. As his HR analytics guru, Kelly Smith, points out, that risks upsetting—and... View Details
- 2022
- Book
Deep Purpose: The Heart and Soul of High-Performance Companies
By: Ranjay Gulati
This book offers a compelling reassessment and defense of purpose as a management ethos, documenting the vast performance gains and social benefits that become possible when firms manage to get purpose right. Few business topics have aroused more skepticism in recent... View Details
- Article
Democratizing Work: Redistributing Power in Organizations for a Democratic and Sustainable Future
By: Julie Battilana, Julie Yen, Isabelle Ferreras and Lakshmi Ramarajan
Environmental destruction and social inequalities are increasingly urgent challenges. How can corporations, which have played a key role in creating and reproducing these problems, be part of the solution? In this paper, we advance that a shift to more democratic forms... View Details
- January 2022
- Article
Why Is Corporate Virtue in the Eye of the Beholder? The Case of ESG Ratings
By: Dane Christensen, George Serafeim and Anywhere Sikochi
Despite the rising use of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) ratings, there is substantial disagreement across rating agencies regarding what rating to give to individual firms. As what drives this disagreement is unclear, we examine whether a firm’s ESG... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
The Green Bonding Hypothesis: How Do Green Bonds Enhance the Credibility of Environmental Commitments?
By: Shirley Lu
This paper proposes and provides evidence on a green bonding hypothesis, where green bonds act as a commitment device that subjects firms to institutions holding them accountable to their environmental promises. I find that green-bond issuers face higher climate change... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
Omnia Juncta in Uno: Foreign Powers and Trademark Protection in Shanghai's Concession Era
By: Laura Alfaro, Cathy Bao, Maggie X. Chen, Junjie Hong and Claudia Steinwender
We investigate how firms and markets adapt to trademark protection, an extensively utilized but under-examined form of IP protection to address asymmetric information, by exploring a historical precedent: China’s 1923 trademark law. Exploiting unique, newly digitized... View Details
- November 2021 (Revised November 2023)
- Case
Hitting Home: Amazon and Mary's Place
By: Paul M. Healy, Debora L. Spar and Amy Klopfenstein
In 2020, Amazon, the $386 billion online retail behemoth, built an eight-story shelter for women and families experiencing homelessness on its expanding headquarters in Seattle, Washington. The shelter, operated in partnership with a non-profit organization known as... View Details
- November 2021 (Revised December 2022)
- Case
Babban Gona: Great Farm
By: Kristin Fabbe, Tarun Khanna, Caroline M. Elkins, Zeke Gillman, Eleni Kyrkopoulou and Thomaz Teodorovicz
In 2020, Babban Gona was one of the world’s largest farming operations with over 140,000 acres of maize farms, an area over ten times as large as Manhattan, and over 80,000 member-farmers in Nigeria. According to the company, the average Nigerian farmer’s net income... View Details
- Article
Drive Innovation with Better Decision-Making
By: Linda A. Hill, Emily Tedards and Taran Swan
Despite their embrace of agile methods, many firms striving to innovate are struggling to produce breakthrough ideas. A key culprit, according to the authors, is an outdated, inefficient approach to decision-making. Today’s discovery-driven innovation processes involve... View Details
- October 2021
- Case
Sparking Growth at Consumer Reports
Consumer Reports (CR) is a nonprofit organization that traditionally provided independent testing and research on consumer goods. With the need to diversify its audience and revenue streams CR partnered with market research firm Spark No. 9 to identify potential... View Details
- September 2021
- Case
Vignettes on Professional Service Firm Governance
By: David G. Fubini, Suraj Srinivasan and Li-Kuan Ni
The two vignettes within “Vignettes on Professional Service Firm Governance” (HBS No. 122-024) present various issues relating to governance in professional service firms (“PSFs”). In the first, the Managing Director of a U.S. consulting firm contemplates whether to... View Details
Keywords: Consulting Firms; Professional Services; Board Of Directors; Professional Service; Global Firm; Executive Leadership; Globalized Firms and Management; Private Equity; Governing and Advisory Boards; Global Strategy; Corporate Governance; Governance Controls; Leadership Development; Leading Change; Emerging Markets; Strategic Planning; Partners and Partnerships; Service Industry; United States; India
- September 2021 (Revised March 2024)
- Case
Bühler: Mobilizing Industry around a Common Purpose
By: Ranjay Gulati, Franz Wohlgezogen and Malini Sen
Bühler Group, a Swiss multinational processing technology provider, started by selling machines for processing grains and later transitioned into selling food processing solutions. A family-owned business in the fifth generation, Bühler’s high-end milling, grinding,... View Details
- Article
Business Investment in Education in Emerging Markets Since the 1960s
By: Valeria Giacomin, Geoffrey Jones and Erica Salvaj
This article examines non-profit investments by business in education in emerging markets between the 1960s and the present day. Using a sample of 110 interviews with business leaders from an oral history database, the study shows that more than three-quarters of such... View Details
- 2021
- Book
Lead and Disrupt: How to Solve the Innovator's Dilemma
By: Charles A. O'Reilly III and Michael Tushman
Why do successful firms find it so difficult to adapt in the face of change—to innovate? In the past ten years, the importance of this question has increased as more industries and firms confront disruptive change. The pandemic has accelerated this crisis, collapsing... View Details
- August 2021 (Revised March 2024)
- Case
Danaher Corporation (Abridged)
By: Bharat Anand, David J. Collis and Sophie Hood
Between 1985 and 2007, Danaher has been one of the best-performing industrial conglomerates in the U.S. This case examines the corporate strategy of this diversified, global corporation. It describes the firm's portfolio strategy and the Danaher Business System—a... View Details
- August 2021
- Case
Andreessen Horowitz’s Cultural Leadership Fund (A)
By: Anita Elberse, Briana Richardson and Cydni Williams
In May 2020, Chris Lyons, a partner at leading venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz receives the news that his company has reached a verbal agreement with one of Silicon Valley’s hottest social-media startups to lead its ‘Series A’ funding round, in a deal that... View Details
- August 2021
- Supplement
Andreessen Horowitz’s Cultural Leadership Fund (B): Kevin Hart and Clubhouse
By: Anita Elberse, Briana Richardson and Cydni Williams
In May 2020, Andreessen Horowitz secures an agreement with Clubhouse, one of Silicon Valley’s hottest startups, to lead its ‘Series A’ funding round. One of the factors that insiders saw as pivotal in the race to be Clubhouse’s VC firm of choice was Andreessen... View Details
- July 2021 (Revised August 2021)
- Supplement
Airbnb Emerges from the Pandemic: Lessons for Stakeholder Governance (B)
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Allison M. Ciechanover
As the COVID pandemic spread in early 2020, global travel ground to a halt. For Airbnb, the San Francisco-based platform for renting accommodations, the impact was both swift and severe as revenues plummeted more than 70% over the prior year. Responding to the sudden... View Details
Keywords: Business and Stakeholder Relations; Corporate Governance; Crisis Management; Leadership; Two-Sided Platforms; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Value Creation; Decision Making; Goals and Objectives; Travel Industry; Tourism Industry; Service Industry; United States
- July 2021
- Article
Material Sustainability Information and Stock Price Informativeness
By: Jody Grewal, Clarissa Hauptmann and George Serafeim
As part of the SEC’s revision of Regulation S-K, many investors proposed the mandatory disclosure of sustainability information in the form of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data. However, progress is contingent on collecting evidence regarding which... View Details
Keywords: Voluntary Disclosure; Accounting Standards; Sustainability; Nonfinancial Information; Corporate Social Responsibility; Stock Price Informativeness; Synchronicity; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Disclosure; Corporate Accountability; Stocks; Price; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Accounting; Standards