Publications

April 1986 (Revised April 1987)
Case

Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility and the Debate Over South African Disinvestment (A)

and environmental and social sustainability in a global context. I was able to meet scholars involved in a broad spectrum of research domains; from emerging markets to corporate sustainability, which made it possible to synthesize my... View Details

January–March 2025
Article

Transitioning from Responsible and Reactive to Deeply Responsible and Proactive International Business

By: Geoffrey G. Jones, Teresa da Silva Lopes, Pavida Pananond, Rob van Tulder, Noemi Sinkovics and Rudolf R. Sinkovics

This article aims to explore the role of multinational enterprises in addressing grand societal challenges, emphasizing the need for integrating environmental and social aspects into business models. It offers an analysis of how principles and values can guide engaged... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business Model; Multinational Firms and Management

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

Keywords: ESG Ratings; Rating Agency Disagreement; ESG Disclosure; Corporate Social Responsibility; Sustainability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Disclosure

March 2018
Module Note

Module Note for Instructors: Responsibilities to Society

By: Nien-hê Hsieh

This note outlines a framework to help managers discern and deliver on their responsibilities to society that has been taught in the “Responsibilities to Society” module in Leadership and Corporate Accountability (LCA), a semester-long, first-year required course for... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Leadership; Society

Web

Adding Corporate Social Responsibility to the Mix | Social Enterprise | Harvard Business School

Adding Corporate Social Responsibility to the Mix Tanya Levy-Odom has always been involved in her community. As a teen, she taught first aid to children as a Red Cross volunteer. A native New Yorker, she now... View Details

09 May 2017
What Do You Think?

Should Management Be Primarily Responsible to Shareholders?

But the ascendancy of agency theory—the idea that shareholders are owners of the corporation and managers their agents in a quest to maximize shareholder value—need not be one of them. Agency theory will not be a problem if we bend it to... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

Research Summary

Corporate Social Entrepreneurship

By: James E. Austin

This research is examining the process by which companies engage in strategic corporate social responsibility as an integral part of their enterprise strategy and operations. The research has conceptualized this process as entreprenurial in nature and defined it as... View Details

12 Aug 2019
Research & Ideas

How Scale Changes a Manager's Responsibilities

I've experienced first-hand the excitement and pain that come as companies with a few founders scale to hundreds or thousands of employees. At somewhere around 75 to 100 employees, running a business becomes more complicated, demanding more of leadership, teams, and... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Austin

Article

B Corps: Can It Remake Capitalism in Japan?

By: Geoffrey Jones

This article examines the B Corporation movement that originated in the United States in 2006. The founders sought to create a new type of company whose governance structure mandated them to consider financial, social and environmental performance. A certification... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Responsibility; Sustainability; B Corporations; Stakeholder Capitalism; Governance; Organizational Structure; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Japan

01 Apr 2015
News

Sustainability Reporting: The Lawyer’s Response

2016
Article

Scandal and Stigma: Does Corporate Misconduct Affect the Future Compensation of Bystander Managers?

By: Boris Groysberg, Eric Lin and George Serafeim

This paper explores whether a firm’s misconduct can affect the compensation of former managers who were neither at the firm at the time of misdeeds nor involved in the scandal. Results suggest that stigma may influence compensation of former managers, even in cases... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Misconduct; Stigma; Executive Compensation

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TeachingInterests

Leadership and Corporate Accountability

By: Christina R. Wing

In this course, students learn about the complex responsibilities facing business leaders today. Through cases about difficult managerial decisions, the course examines the legal, ethical, and economic responsibilities of corporate leaders. It also teaches students... View Details

2020
Article

Research on Corporate Sustainability: Review and Directions for Future Research

By: Jody Grewal and George Serafeim

We review the literature on corporate sustainability and provide directions for future research. Our review focuses on three actions: measuring, managing and communicating corporate sustainability performance. Measurement is the least developed of the three and... View Details

2017
Article

Natural Environmental Responsibility in Indian Corporations: A Mixed Method Study

By: Shashank Shah

The world is going through unprecedented environmental crisis. The type of destruction and dissolution of natural resources and elements by individuals and institutions that has been witnessed in the last century is much more than that witnessed in the previous... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Natural Environment; Management Practices and Processes; Research; Framework; India

24 Apr 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Corporate Social Entrepreneurship

Keywords: by James E. Austin & Ezequiel Reficco

July 2023
Article

Deep Responsibility and Irresponsibility in the Beauty Industry

By: Geoffrey Jones

This article employs the concept of deep responsibility to assess the social responsibility of the beauty industry over time. It shows that many of today’s problems with the industry have deep historical roots. Products have too many ingredients that are potential... View Details

Keywords: Business History; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry

December 1993 (Revised April 1994)
Case

Polaroid: Managing Environmental Responsibilities and Their Costs

Costs relating to companies' impact on the environment are increasing at a dramatic rate. Thus, managing, measuring, and reporting of these costs has become an important issue for managers. Accounting for environmental responsibilities is one of the largest and most... View Details

Keywords: Cost; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Accounting; Environmental Sustainability

Educators

2021
Working Paper

Corporate Environmental Impact: Measurement, Data and Information

By: David Freiberg, DG Park, George Serafeim and T. Robert Zochowski

As an organization’s environmental impact has become a central societal consideration, thereby affecting industry and organizational competitiveness, interest in measuring and analyzing environmental impact has increased. We develop a methodology to derive comparable... View Details

Keywords: Environment; Impact; Measurement; Environmental Ratings; Corporate Valuation; Financial Materiality; Sustainability; Environmental Impact; Environmental Strategy; Impact-Weighted Accounts; IWAI; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Measurement and Metrics; Valuation

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