Publications

2018
Working Paper

Corporate Sustainability: A Strategy?

By: George Serafeim

We explore the conditions under which firms maintain their competitive advantage through sustainability-based differentiation when faced with imitation pressures by industry peers. We document growing intraindustry convergence on sustainability actions over time for... View Details

Keywords: Sustainability; Corporate Performance; Industry Analysis; CSR; ESG; ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance; Environment; Social Responsibility; Strategy And Execution; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Strategy; Performance; Corporate Strategy

SSRN

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01 Jun 2012
News

Straight to the Heart

emphasizes the power of fate and serendipity in finding love. How do you respond to those who find your proactive approach too contrived? If there’s one pet peeve I have after 10 years in the love business, it’s people’s complete faith in fate. Hollywood films View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; marriage; social media; matchmaking; Personal Services

September 2023 (Revised September 2023)
Teaching Note

Roche: Innovation and Access to Healthcare

By: George Serafeim

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 123-075. In May 2022, Roche Group, one of the largest healthcare companies in the world, hosted its first investor event focused exclusively on its efforts to impact access to healthcare. While Roche had recently set an ambitious goal to... View Details

Keywords: ESG; Access To Care; Healthcare; Healthcare Access; Innovation; Social Impact; Affordable; Health Care and Treatment; Innovation and Invention; Product Development; Resource Allocation; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Health Industry

22 Apr 2024
Research & Ideas

When Does Impact Investing Make the Biggest Impact?

The idea of supporting social change has propelled impact investing assets to more than $1 trillion. But what if those funds aren’t as impactful as investors expect? Recent Harvard Business School research indicates that while impact... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

2015
Article

Beliefs About the True Self Explain Asymmetries Based on Moral Judgment

By: George E. Newman, Julian De Freitas and Joshua Knobe

Past research has identified a number of asymmetries based on moral judgments. Beliefs about (a) what a person values, (b) whether a person is happy, (c) whether a person has shown weakness of will, and (d) whether a person deserves praise or blame seem to depend... View Details

Keywords: Concepts; Social Cognition; Moral Reasoning; True Self; Values; Weakness Of Will; Blame; Values and Beliefs; Identity; Moral Sensibility; Happiness

Read Now

March–April 2012
Article

The Genesis and Dynamics of Organizational Networks

By: Gautam Ahuja, Guiseppe Soda and Akbar Zaheer

An extensive body of knowledge exists on network outcomes and on how network structures may contribute to the creation of outcomes at different levels of analysis, but less attention has been paid to understanding how and why organizational networks emerge, evolve, and... View Details

Keywords: Economic Sociology; Economics And Organization; Social Networks; Organization And Management Theory; Interorganizatonal Relationships; Networks; Strategy; Change

The literature on the private provision of public goods suggests an inverse relationship between incentives to contribute and group size. We find, however, that after an exogenous reduction of group size at Chinese Wikipedia, the nonblocked contributors decrease... View Details

12 Nov 2020
News

All in the Neighborhood

joined up with Scott Brenton (MBA 1999) to launch the Bob Orr Entrepreneurial Fellowship Program for college graduates. “I look at the different leaders around the city that came up through the program and they’ve gone from being the 20-somethings to the 40-somethings... View Details

Keywords: community; volunteer work; corporate social responsibility; entrepreneurship; leadership; Personal Services

02 Nov 2016
Blog Post

The Benefits of a Residential Campus

residential campus, with the idea that living, studying, and socializing together only increases the opportunities for learning. About 80% of the student body chooses to live on campus, and it really View Details

01 Jun 2023
News

Action Plan: Net Proceeds

from used vegetable oil and sugars. The polymer can be used to replace plastic, is fully home compostable, and doesn’t create microplastics when it breaks down. Goodwin is proud of OceanCycle’s contribution but knows the issue is too big... View Details

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

2011
Article

Group Size and Incentives to Contribute: A Natural Experiment at Chinese Wikipedia

By: Michael Zhang and Feng Zhu

In this paper, we examine the causal relationship between group size and incentives to contribute in the setting of Chinese Wikipedia, the Chinese language version of an online encyclopedia that relies entirely on voluntary contributions. The group at Chinese Wikipedia... View Details

Keywords: Rights; Motivation and Incentives; Internet and the Web; Valuation; Groups and Teams; Knowledge Sharing; Behavior; Satisfaction; Size; Government and Politics; Economics; Information Technology Industry; Hong Kong; Taiwan; Singapore

02 Aug 2020
Working Paper Summaries

Discrimination, Disenfranchisement and African American WWII Military Enlistment

Keywords: by Nancy Qian and Marco Tabellini

20 May 2020
News

The Psychic Burden of Working During Lockdown

23 May 2011
Research & Ideas

Corporate Sustainability Reporting: It’s Effective

Editor's note: Please see related story, Leading and Lagging Countries in Contributing to a Sustainable Society. Although companies are increasingly reporting on their corporate sustainability responsibility (CSR) performance, there has... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

Teaching Interest

Governing for Nonprofit Excellence (Executive Education, Faculty Chair)

This Executive Education course, an HBS Social Enterprise Initiative program, is designed to maximize the contributions of individual nonprofit board members. Participants are challenged to examine their role and the role of their boards in improving organizational... View Details

April 2005 (Revised October 2007)
Case

Candy Land: The Utopian Vision of Milton Hershey

By: Nancy F. Koehn and Erica Helms

Explores the life, work, and achievements of Milton S. Hershey. Analyzes his entrepreneurial achievements, including the creation of the Hershey bar, the founding of the business, and the development of the mass market for chocolate. Also investigates the broader... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Leadership; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Creativity; Business and Community Relations

Educators

January 2016
Case

Haiti Hope: Innovating the Mango Value Chain

By: Amy C. Edmondson and Jean-François Harvey

This case study examines a market-based approach to economic development through the eyes of NGO TechnoServe's project manager, implementing a US$9.5 million five-year public-private partnership between Coca-Cola, IDB, and USAID. The case ends at the beginning of the... View Details

Educators