Publications

April 2009 (Revised June 2010)
Case

Supply Chain Partners: Virginia Mason and Owens & Minor (A)

By: V.G. Narayanan and Lisa Brem

Virginia Mason Medical Center (VM) hired Owens & Minor (O&M) as its alpha vendor for medical/surgical supplies in 2004. By 2005, O&M was performing Just-in-Time and Low Unit of Measure services for VM, but they believed the pricing model in the industry was outdated.... View Details

Keywords: Activity Based Costing and Management; Price; Distribution; Supply Chain Management; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

April 2009 (Revised August 2009)
Case

Backchannelmedia: Making Television 'Clickable'

By: Sunil Gupta, Kavita Shukla and Zachary Scott Clayton

Backchannelmedia (BCM), a three-year-old start-up, intended to completely disrupt the world of advertising by transforming the way Americans watched television. BCM had developed a technology to make television "clickable," enabling viewers to interact with the content... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Investment; Disruptive Innovation; Technological Innovation; Marketing Strategy; Partners and Partnerships; Competition

April 2009 (Revised January 2015)
Case

Dr. Benjamin Hooks and Children's Health Forum

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Charles J. Ogletree Jr, Howard Koh, Abbye Atkinson, Carmel Salhi and Aldo Sesia

"Dr. Benjamin Hooks and Children's Health Forum" charts the many different career paths of Hooks, a civil rights activist and pioneer. Hooks' positions ranged from lawyer, judge, preacher, entrepreneur to the first African American commissioner of the Federal... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Health Care and Treatment; Leadership; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Personal Development and Career; Nonprofit Organizations; Social Issues

April 2009 (Revised September 2009)
Teaching Note

Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility (TN)

By: Christopher Marquis and V. Kasturi Rangan

Teaching Note for [509031]. View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact

2009
Working Paper

Broadening Focus: Spillovers, Complementarities and Specialization in the Hospital Industry

By: Jonathan R. Clark and Robert S. Huckman

The long-standing argument that focused operations outperform others stands in contrast to claims about the benefits of broader operational scope. The performance benefits of focus are typically attributed to reduced complexity, lower uncertainty, and the development... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Medical Specialties; Performance Capacity; Diversification; Health Industry

2009
Working Paper

Do Friends Influence Purchases in a Social Network?

By: Raghuram Iyengar, Sangman Han and Sunil Gupta

Social networks, such as Facebook and Myspace have witnessed a rapid growth in their membership. Some of these businesses have tried an advertising-based model with very limited success. However, these businesses have not fully explored the power of their members to... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Network Effects; Sales; Power and Influence; Social and Collaborative Networks; Web Sites; South Korea

March 2009 (Revised July 2010)
Case

IBM: The Corporate Service Corps

By: Christopher Marquis and Rosabeth M. Kanter

Describes the conception, development, and implementation of the Corporate Services Corps (CSC), an international community service assignment for high-potential IBM employees. The year 2008 was the pilot year of the CSC program, and 100 of IBM's best global employees... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Global Strategy; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Structure; Partners and Partnerships; Non-Governmental Organizations

March 2009
Teaching Note

Antegren: A Beacon of Hope (TN)

By: Joshua D. Margolis

Teaching Note for [408025], [408026], [408027], and [408028]. View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Decision Choices and Conditions; Crisis Management; Biotechnology Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry

March 2009 (Revised July 2014)
Case

PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (A)

By: Christopher Marquis, V. Kasturi Rangan and Alison Comings

In 2003, PNC Financial focused its corporate citizenship and philanthropic resources on a ten-year, $100 million investment in early childhood education called PNC Grow Up Great. The case tracks the origination of Grow Up Great, how it was developed and implemented... View Details

Keywords: Early Childhood Education; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Leadership; Brands and Branding; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Organizational Structure; Business and Community Relations

March 2009
Background Note

Evaluating M&A Deals: Floors, Caps, and Collars

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin

As equity consideration has become more popular in acquisitions, so has the use of the "pricing-protection" mechanisms, such as floors, caps, and collars. These contractual devices provide insurance to the shareholders of the target and may protect the buyer as well.... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Equity; Price; Contracts; Business and Shareholder Relations

March 2009 (Revised July 2009)
Case

KiOR: Catalyzing Clean Energy

By: Ramana Nanda and Toby E. Stuart

Biofuels start-up KiOR was developing a proprietary technology that had the potential to dramatically impact the emerging renewable energy landscape: a process that converted cellulosic biomass into "bio-crude," a hydrocarbon mixture with properties to those of crude... View Details

Keywords: Business Headquarters; Decision Choices and Conditions; Renewable Energy; Entrepreneurship; Geographic Location

2009
Working Paper

Corporate Social Entrepreneurship

By: James E. Austin and Ezequiel Reficco

Corporate Social Entrepreneurship (CSE) is a process aimed at enabling business to develop more advanced and powerful forms of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Social Entrepreneurship

Article

Households' Willingness to Pay for 'Green' Goods: Evidence from Patagonia's Introduction of Organic Cotton Sportswear

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Michael Crooke, Forest L. Reinhardt and Vishal Vasishth

To shed light on individuals' willingness to pay for "green" goods (i.e., goods that are supposed to have lower adverse environmental impacts either in production or in use), we study data from the introduction by Patagonia, Inc., of organic cotton sportswear in the... View Details

Keywords: Spending; Consumer Behavior; Environmental Sustainability; Consumer Products Industry

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Article

How Well Do Social Ratings Actually Measure Corporate Social Responsibility?

By: Aaron K. Chatterji, David I. Levine and Michael W. Toffel

Ratings of corporations' environmental activities and capabilities influence billions of dollars of "socially responsible" investments as well as some consumers, activists, and potential employees. In one of the first studies to assess these ratings, we examine how... View Details

Keywords: Governance Compliance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Measurement and Metrics; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Performance Effectiveness; Natural Environment; Pollutants

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March 2009
Article

The Impact of Shareholder Activism on Financial Reporting and Compensation: The Case of Employee Stock Options Expensing

By: F. Ferri and Tatiana Sandino

We examine the economic consequences of more than 150 shareholder proposals to expense employee stock options (ESO) submitted during the proxy seasons of 2003 and 2004, the first case in which the SEC allowed a shareholder vote on an accounting matter. Our results... View Details

Keywords: Shareholder Activism; Shareholder Votes; Stock Option Expensing; Executive Compensation; Financial Reporting; Employee Stock Ownership Plan; Corporate Governance; Business and Shareholder Relations; Investment Activism