Publications
Publications
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(5,151)
- Faculty Publications (1,112)
- September 2023
- Teaching Note
Patagonia: 'Earth Is Now Our Only Shareholder'
By: Brian Trelstad, Nien-hê Hsieh, Michael Norris and Susan Pinckney
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 323-057. Patagonia’s change of ownership from a privately held company to a perpetual purpose trust and 501(c)(4) nonprofit in order to use the company’s profit to fight the environmental crisis and be a model for future businesses. View Details
Keywords: Trusts; Business Ventures; Business Organization; Family Business; Restructuring; Change; Disruption; Transition; Decision Making; Ethics; Values and Beliefs; Finance; Financial Management; Governance; Corporate Governance; Investment Activism; Innovation Leadership; Labor; Law; Common Law; Management; Goals and Objectives; Organizations; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Ownership; Ownership Type; Family Ownership; Private Ownership; Social Enterprise; Nonprofit Organizations; Society; Social Issues; Wealth and Poverty; Value; Value Creation; Apparel and Accessories Industry; United States
- September 2023
- Case
FoodCloud: Tackling Food Insecurity and Climate Change in One Bite
By: Brian Trelstad and Emer Moloney
In 2013, Aoibheann O’Brien and Iseult Ward founded FoodCloud, a non-profit social enterprise that aimed to address food waste and food insecurity issues. Through its technology platform, Foodiverse, FoodCloud connected surplus food from retailers with community groups... View Details
- September 2023
- Article
Addressing Vaccine Hesitancy: Experimental Evidence from Nine Countries during the COVID-19 Pandemic
By: Vincenzo Galasso, Vincent Pons, Paola Profeta, Martin McKee, David Stuckler, Michael Becher, Sylvain Brouard and Martial Foucault
We study the impact of public health messages on intentions to vaccinate and vaccination uptakes, especially among hesitant groups. We performed an experiment comparing the effects of egoistic and altruistic messages on COVID-19 vaccine intentions and behaviour. We... View Details
- 2025
- Working Paper
Better Keep the Twenty Dollars: Incentivizing Innovation in Open Source
By: Annamaria Conti, Vansh Gupta, Jorge Guzman and Maria P. Roche
Open source is key to innovation yet is assumed to be done largely through intrinsic motivation. How can we incentivize it? In this paper, we examine the impact of a program providing monetary incentives to motivate innovators to contribute to open source. The Sponsors... View Details
- 2023
- Article
On the Impact of Actionable Explanations on Social Segregation
By: Ruijiang Gao and Himabindu Lakkaraju
As predictive models seep into several real-world applications, it has become critical to ensure that individuals who are negatively impacted by the outcomes of these models are provided with a means for recourse. To this end, there has been a growing body of research... View Details
- September 2023
- Article
Stock Price Reactions to ESG News: The Role of ESG Ratings and Disagreement
By: George Serafeim and Aaron Yoon
We investigate whether ESG ratings predict future ESG news and the associated market reactions. We find that the consensus rating predicts future news, but its predictive ability diminishes for firms with large disagreement between raters. Relation between news and... View Details
Keywords: ESG; ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance; ESG Disclosure; ESG Ratings; ESG Reporting; ESG Disclosure Metrics; Sustainability; Investments; Disagreement; Rating Disagreement; Ratings; Environmental Sustainability; Social Issues; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Performance; News; Investment; Financial Markets; Stocks; Price
- September 2023
- Case
The Meteoric Rise of Skims
Since its founding in 2019 by Kim Kardashian and Jens Grede, Skims, a solutions-oriented brand creating the next generation of underwear, loungewear, and shapewear with an eye toward body-type and skin-tone inclusivity, has experienced a meteoric rise. Kardashian, who... View Details
Keywords: Brand; Branding; Direct-to-consumer; DTC; Influencers; Influencer Marketing; Fashion; Growth; Direct Marketing; Influence; Reputation; Social Inference; Consumer Goods; Consumer Products; Female Entrepreneur; Female Protagonist; Entrepreneurship And Strategy; Brand ＆ Product Management; Competitive Advantage; Online Followers; Retail; Retail Formats; Retailing; Online Retail; Celebrities; Celebrity; Celebrity Endorsement; Go To Market Strategy; Apparel; Startup Marketing; Startups; Social Influencers; Brands and Branding; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Distribution Channels; Digital Marketing; Advertising; Power and Influence; Social Media; Fashion Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States
- August 2023
- Supplement
Apple: Privacy vs. Safety (C)
By: Henry McGee, Nien-hê Hsieh and Kerry Herman
In September 2021, Apple decided to delay updates to iOS and iPadOS that included features to fight child sexual abuse. While many—including prominent privacy and security experts—praised Apple, others were opposed. They saw Apple introducing features that risked... View Details
- 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
- July 2023
- Article
So, Who Likes You? Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment
By: Ravi Bapna, Edward McFowland III, Probal Mojumder, Jui Ramaprasad and Akhmed Umyarov
With one-third of marriages in the United States beginning online, online dating platforms have become important curators of the modern social fabric. Prior work on online dating has elicited two critical frictions in the heterosexual dating market. Women, governed by... View Details
- June 2023 (Revised November 2024)
- Case
Albert Einstein: Changing the World
By: Robert Simons and Shirley Sun
This case traces the rise of Albert Einstein from a small town in Germany to a towering intellectual leader who revolutionized the field of physics. The case describes his early education and his penchant for individual thinking and non-conformity. A committed... View Details
- June 2023
- Supplement
Roche: ESG and Access to Healthcare
By: George Serafeim
In May 2022, Roche Group, one of the largest healthcare companies in the world, hosted its first ESG investor event focused exclusively on its efforts to impact access to healthcare. While Roche had recently set an ambitious goal to double the number of patients that... View Details
Keywords: ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance; Sustainable Finance; Growth Strategy And Execution; Sustainability Targets; Impact Evaluation; Healthcare Access; Healthcare Innovation; Healthcare Systems; Healthcare Operations; Finance; Strategy; Health Testing and Trials; Health Care and Treatment; Growth Management; Measurement and Metrics; Innovation Strategy; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Health Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; Switzerland; North America; Europe; Asia; Latin America; Africa
- 2024
- Working Paper
Second- versus Third-party Audit Quality: Evidence from Global Supply Chain Monitoring
By: Maria R. Ibanez, Ashley Palmarozzo, Jodi L. Short and Michael W. Toffel
Capitalizing on the superior credibility and flexibility and potential lower cost of external assessments, many global buyers are relying less on their own employee (“second-party”) auditors and more on third-party auditors to monitor and prevent environmental and... View Details
- May–June 2023
- Article
Should Your Start-up Be For-profit or Nonprofit?: A Guide for Social Entrepreneurs
By: Cait Brumme and Brian Trelstad
Years ago the line between nonprofit and for-profit enterprises was clear, but that has changed. Nonprofits now offer products that compete with those of the best for-profits, and for-profits can deliver as much social value as charities. Despite the blurred... View Details
- 2023
- Working Paper
Teams in the Digital Workplace: Technology's Role for Communication, Collaboration, and Performance
By: Jacqueline N. Lane, Paul Leonardi, Noshir Contractor and Leslie DeChurch
This paper addresses the need for theoretical advancements in understanding team processes and the impact of technology on teams. Specifically, it examines the use of digital collaboration technologies by organizational teams and their effect on team communication and... View Details
- January 2023
- Article
The Dark Side of Machiavellian Rhetoric: Signaling in Reward-Based Crowdfunding Performance
By: Goran Calic, Rene Arseneault and Maryam Ghasemaghaei
In this study, we explore the impact of Machiavellian rhetoric on fundraising within the increasingly important context of online crowdfunding. The “all-or-nothing” funding model used by the world’s largest crowdfunding platform, Kickstarter, may be an attractive... View Details
- June 2023
- Article
The Effect of Firms' Information Exposure on Safeguarding Employee Health: Evidence from COVID-19
By: Lisa Yao Liu and Shirley Lu
We show that information exposure through international business networks enables firms to take proactive measures that benefit employees and potentially the local community. Specifically, in the early days of COVID-19, firms that have business networks with China and... View Details
- 2023
- Working Paper
ESG: From Process to Product
By: George Serafeim
ESG measurement, analysis, management, and communication is a process that the financial industry has turned into a product, resulting in many investment funds using the ESG label. This has caused confusion, generating demand for a framework that defines... View Details
- May 2023 (Revised November 2023)
- Case
Arcos Dorados: Decarbonizing McDonald's in Latin America
By: George Serafeim, Michael W. Toffel, Jenyfeer Martinez Buitrago and Mariana Cal
This case describes the decarbonization strategy of Arcos Dorados—McDonald’s largest independent franchisee, operating in 20 countries and territories in Latin America and the Caribbean—and how the company measured its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, including those... View Details
Keywords: Environmental Accounting; Animal-Based Agribusiness; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Change Management; Forecasting and Prediction; Environmental Sustainability; Food; Growth Management; Supply Chain; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Strategy; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Green Technology Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Latin America; North and Central America; South America
- May 2023 (Revised July 2023)
- Case
Ferrari: Shifting to Carbon Neutrality
By: Raffaella Sadun, Elena Corsi and Leila Doumi
A sports car manufacturer commits to carbon neutrality and to electrifying a large part of its car fleet. View Details