Publications

August 2018 (Revised June 2025)
Case

Facebook—Can Ethics Scale in the Digital Age?

By: George A. Riedel and Carin-Isabel Knoop

Since its founding in 2004, Facebook has built a phenomenally successful business at global scale to become the fifth most valuable public company in the world. The revelation of Cambridge Analytica events in March 2018, where 78 million users' information was leaked... View Details

Keywords: Facebook; Ethics; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Trust; Business Model; Corporate Accountability; Social Media

13 May 2022
Research & Ideas

Company Reviews on Glassdoor: Petty Complaints or Signs of Potential Misconduct?

identifying future scandals, he says—but in preventing them before they occur. Related reading from the Working Knowledge Archives Reviews, Reputation, and Revenue: The Case of Yelp.com Feedback or ideas to share? Email the Working... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Technology

06 Jul 2016
What Do You Think?

How Do We Pay for the Costs of Globalization?

government policies, short-term corporate management thinking, the World Trade Organization (Paul saying, “Personally, I’m a long-time supporter of globalization, but the WTO decision-making process needs to be more transparent and... View Details

Keywords: by James L. Heskett; Manufacturing

May 2021 (Revised August 2021)
Case

Airbnb During the Pandemic: Stakeholder Capitalism Faces a Critical Test

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Allison 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: COVID-19 Pandemic; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Corporate Governance; Crisis Management; Leadership; Digital Platforms; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Value Creation; Decision Making; Goals and Objectives; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Travel Industry; Tourism Industry; Service Industry; United States

September 2020
Case

An Introduction to Money Laundering: 'The Hunter'

By: Eugene Soltes, Guilhem Ros and Grace Liu

Money laundering schemes disguise the criminal origins of an estimated 2% to 5% of the world’s gross domestic product. Money laundering not only enables criminals to escape detection, but may also be used to finance further criminal operations including terrorism. This... View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Accounting Audits; Financial Reporting; Financial Institutions; Banks and Banking; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Governance Controls; International Relations; National Security; Ethics; Accounting Industry; Banking Industry; United States; Europe

24 Feb 2020
Research & Ideas

The Hidden Vulnerabilities of Open Source Software

open source software projects, raising millions of dollars for open source security in the last six years. Public interest in FOSS security has renewed in the past few years as government agencies in the United States push for deeper... View Details

Keywords: by Frank Nagle and Jenny Hoffman; Computer

04 Apr 2022
What Do You Think?

As Disney Board Chair, What Would You Advise CEO Bob Chapek Regarding 'Don’t Say Gay'?

to age discrimination. But I reserve the right to raise questions about sensitive topics. Related reading from the Working Knowledge Archives Encouraging Dissent in Decision-Making View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

2025
Working Paper

Exports in Disguise? Trade Rerouting During the U.S.-China Trade War

By: Ebehi Iyoha, Edmund Malesky, Jaya Wen and Sung-Ju Wu

This paper introduces a new measure of tariff evasion through rerouting and applies it to the 2018 U.S.–China trade war, focusing on Vietnam as a transit country. We use transaction-level trade data and define rerouting as the flow of a granular eight-digit Harmonized... View Details

Keywords: Trade; International Relations; Logistics; China; Viet Nam; United States

Read Now

2025
Working Paper

Residential Battery Storage - Reshaping The Way We Do Electricity

By: Christian Kaps and Serguei Netessine

In this paper, we aim to understand when private households invest in behind-the-meter battery storage next to rooftop solar and how those batteries impact households, the electricity market, and emissions. We answer three main research questions: 1) When do customers... View Details

Keywords: Solar Power; Energy Storage; Technology And Innovation Management; Energy; Energy Policy; Renewable Energy; Technological Innovation; Innovation and Management; Energy Industry

SSRN

22 Jun 2010
First Look

First Look: June 22

Chapman Wood, George Westerman, and Charles A. O'Reilly III Publication:Industrial and Corporate Change (forthcoming) Abstract This article empirically explores the relations between alternative organizational designs and a firm's ability... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

April 2012
Article

Bouncing Out of the Banking System: An Empirical Analysis of Involuntary Bank Account Closures

By: Dennis Campbell, F. Asis Martinez-Jerez and Peter Tufano

Using a new database, we document the factors that relate to the extent of involuntary consumer bank account closure resulting from excessive overdraft activity. Consumers who have accounts involuntarily closed for overdraft activity may have limited or no access to... View Details

Keywords: Mathematical Methods; Customers; Social Issues; Outcome or Result; Budgets and Budgeting; Forecasting and Prediction; Competition; Banks and Banking; Policy; Personal Characteristics; Credit; Employment; United States

Find at Harvard

Web

Finance & Investing - Business & Environment

the Era of Climate Change On March 4, 2020 the Business & Environment Initiative and Alumni Relations hosted Risks, Opportunities, and Investment in the Era of Climate Change, a groundbreaking and timely Harvard Business School alumni... View Details

19 Jun 2012
First Look

First Look: June 19

micro-interactions, the broad improvisations, and the resulting substantive and relational outcomes. Download the paper: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/12-107.pdf Leviathan in Business: Varieties of State Capitalism and Their... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2023
Book

Precarious Ties: Business and the State in Authoritarian Asia

By: Meg Rithmire

Developing Asia has been the site of some of the last century's fastest growing economies as well as some of the world's most durable authoritarian regimes. Many accounts of rapid growth alongside monopolies on political power have focused on crony relationships... View Details

Keywords: Business and Government Relations; Developing Countries and Economies; Economic Systems; Crime and Corruption; China; Indonesia; Malaysia

23 Oct 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, October 23, 2018

difficult tasks. Second, overestimation of ability by both men and women varies across categories. To understand these patterns, we develop a model that separates gender stereotypes from misestimation of ability related to the difficulty... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

04 Jan 2012
First Look

First Look: January 4

tribes and U.S. states often find themselves at the bargaining table, often negotiating "compacts" to govern gaming operations on tribal lands. The operational success of the Pequot gaming operation in Connecticut, Foxwoods, and... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

December 2018
Case

Good Energy Group PLC

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

Founded at the end of 1999 by Juliet Davenport and Martin Edwards, Good Energy was the number-two renewable-energy seller in the United Kingdom at the end of 2016, supplying over 71,000 of the country’s 27 million households and small businesses with 100% renewable... View Details

Keywords: Power/Energy; Green Energy; Renewables; Wind Power; Electricity; Power; Strategy Development; Electric Vehicles; Customer Service; Energy Policy; Barriers To Entry; Renewable Energy; Growth and Development Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Business and Government Relations; Problems and Challenges; Strategy; Energy Industry; United Kingdom