Publications

January 1996 (Revised July 1996)
Case

Rabobank Nederland

By: Kenneth A. Merchant and Robert S. Kaplan

Describes the account manager's role and the history of one credit application. The purpose is to evaluate various methods the bank uses to influence account managers' behaviors. Also describes some alternatives being considered to improve the information systems used... View Details

Keywords: Financial Management; Managerial Roles; Accounting; Information Management; Banks and Banking; Power and Influence; Banking Industry; Netherlands

02 Feb 2007
What Do You Think?

Is There Too Little “Know Why” In Business?

Summing Up The central debate among respondents to this month's column was joined early when the first respondent, Aaron Tice, commented, "Without the execution of business objectives in the pursuit of that purpose, the purpose will... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

January – February 2011
Article

Creating Shared Value

By: Michael E. Porter and Mark R. Kramer

The capitalist system is under siege. In recent years business has been criticized as a major cause of social, environmental, and economic problems. Companies are widely thought to be prospering at the expense of their communities. Trust in business has fallen to new... View Details

Keywords: Customer Value and Value Chain; Economic Growth; Economic Systems; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Trust; Human Needs; Welfare; Competitive Advantage; Value Creation

August 6, 2020
Article

Companies Must Go Beyond Random Acts of Humanitarianism

By: Frank Cooper and Ranjay Gulati

Any organization can write a check or mobilize resources when confronted with a crisis such as the Covid-19 pandemic or a social movement such as Black Lives Matter. But corporate crisis response becomes much more meaningful when stakeholders know that the organization... View Details

Keywords: Mission and Purpose; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact

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September 2008 (Revised September 2010)
Exercise

Exercise on Estimation

By: Jason Riis and John T. Gourville

This exercise is meant to assess students' level of confidence around everyday business and general knowledge questions, for the purpose of identifying where they are overconfident and underconfident. View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Forecasting and Prediction; Personal Characteristics

Research Summary

Business Leadership Coalitions

By: James E. Austin

This multiyear research project has been studying the creation and functioning of the organizations business leaders have created in order to mobilize their collective capabilities to address significant issues and problems facing them and their communities. These... View Details

16 Feb 2023
HBS Case

ESG Activists Met the Moment at ExxonMobil, But Did They Succeed?

The impact-investment hedge fund Engine No. 1 made a big splash in May 2021 when it managed to get three nominees elected to the ExxonMobil board of directors. It was an open effort to prod the oil giant toward renewable energy and test whether activist investing could... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert; Financial Services

June 2005 (Revised August 2011)
Case

Narayana Hrudayalaya Heart Hospital: Cardiac Care for the Poor (A)

By: Tarun Khanna, V. Kasturi Rangan and Merlina Manocaran

Describes the mission, vision, and strategy of a team of entrepreneurs headed by a charismatic heart surgeon who founded a heart hospital in Bangalore, India. The purpose of the hospital was to offer health care for the masses. This tertiary care hospital performed... View Details

Keywords: Social Entrepreneurship; Health Care and Treatment; Goals and Objectives; Social Marketing; Mission and Purpose; Strategic Planning; Social Enterprise; Welfare; Health Industry; Service Industry; Bangalore

January 2023 (Revised August 2023)
Case

Veeva Systems and the Transformation to a Public Benefit Corporation

By: Ranjay Gulati and Allison M. Ciechanover

Peter Gassner, the co-founder and CEO of Veeva Systems, steered the company through rapid scaling from its launch in 2007 to 2022. Year after year, the company had exceeded expectations, with its market capitalization reaching $50 billion at its peak. By 2022, the... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Corporate Governance; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Culture; Information Technology Industry; Technology Industry; United States; California

January 1983 (Revised July 2007)
Case

Mat MacGregor (A)

Mat MacGregor took charge of a failing project but failed to turn it around because of a variety of personal, technical, cultural, and political reasons. The purpose of the case is to understand the underlying dynamics and their implications. View Details

Keywords: Management Skills; Management Style; Organizational Culture; Failure; Projects; Personal Characteristics

2014
Article

Framework for China's Novel Sustainable Evaluation System Strategy

By: Robert G. Eccles and Peijun Duan

China’s sustainable development faces three challenges: first, the follow-up momentum of sustainable economic growth and economic transformation is insufficient; second, some resources and environment loads have reached their limits; third, some products affecting the... View Details

Keywords: Sustainable Development; Integrated Report; New Evaluation System; China

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15 Nov 2022
Op-Ed

Why TikTok Is Beating YouTube for Eyeball Time (It’s Not Just the Dance Videos)

to create social media, whose audiences voluntarily gave up their privacy. Facebook, LinkedIn, and Snapchat require you to sign in, making your identity known to the platform. Users’ interests can be inferred from the interests of their... View Details

Keywords: by John Deighton and Leora Kornfeld

31 Jul 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Communication (and Coordination?) in a Modern, Complex Organization

Keywords: by Adam M. Kleinbaum, Toby E. Stuart & Michael L. Tushman

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

2023
Working Paper

How Wicked Problems Drive Business Performance: A Review of the Academic Literature

By: Caroline Adelson, Charlotte Kuller, Cate Tompkins, Ellora Sarkar, Samantha Price and Marco Iansiti

Recent years have seen a rise in the number of businesses engaged in the pursuit of “purposeful” activities – that is, activities that engage with the broader community in ways that expand beyond the pursuit of shareholder value. Many of these activities involve... View Details

Keywords: Wicked Problems; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Social Issues; Performance

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03 Jan 2019
Working Paper Summaries

Financing the Response to Climate Change: The Pricing and Ownership of US Green Bonds

Keywords: by Malcolm Baker, Daniel Bergstresser, George Serafeim, and Jeffrey Wurgler

August 2021
Article

Business Education as If People and the Planet Really Matter

By: Andrew J. Hoffman

Mounting concern over capitalism’s inability to address systemic challenges in our natural world (i.e. climate change) and social world (i.e. income inequality) is prompting reexamination of capitalism within business groups. This article argues that a concurrent... View Details

Keywords: Climate Change; Equality and Inequality; Corporate Governance; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Social Issues; Business Education; Transformation

April 2009 (Revised April 2009)
Background Note

Note on the Nonprofit Sector

By: Allen S. Grossman and Naomi Greckol-Herlich

This note introduces students to the current state of the nonprofit sector around the world. It also provides insight into the sector's origin and purpose as well as the identifying important current trends. The note draws on numerous sources to provide a single... View Details

Keywords: Trends; Globalization; Business History; Nonprofit Organizations

December 2011
Exercise

What We Carry: Success, Failure, and Happiness in Family Systems

By: Timothy Butler

The purpose of this exercise is to enable participants to identify essential career and life themes. The core task of the exercise is to extract themes, images, metaphors and "dynamic tensions" from a list of exciting careers that have been selected from a larger... View Details

Keywords: Family and Family Relationships; Success; Failure; Happiness