Publications

March 2015 (Revised August 2020)
Case

Putting the Guiding Principles into Action: Human Rights at Barrick Gold (A)

By: Rebecca Henderson and Nien-he Hsieh

In 2010, Human Rights Watch, a well-regarded international NGO, approached Barrick Gold asserting that members of the company’s security force at the Porgera Gold Mine in Papua New Guinea had on multiple occasions raped women who were trespassing onto the mine’s waste... View Details

Keywords: Human Rights; Business And Society; Rights; Policy; Leading Change; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Government Relations

January 2013 (Revised September 2013)
Case

Royal DSM: Fighting Hidden Hunger

By: Rebecca Henderson, Noah Fisher and Mary Shelman

In 2007 Royal DSM, a leading life science and materials company, entered a partnership with the World Food Programme (WFP) to combat hidden hunger around the world by providing micronutrient solutions. The case investigates the unexpectedly large impact the partnership... View Details

Keywords: Conflict of Interests; Human Needs; Partners and Partnerships; Global Range; Nutrition; Science-Based Business; Non-Governmental Organizations; Service Industry; Health Industry

January 2015 (Revised September 2017)
Case

Omar Selim: Building a Values-Based Asset Management Firm (A)

By: George Serafeim, Rebecca Henderson and Shannon Gombos

The sustainable investing market was a recent phenomenon in the first decade of the 21st century. However, an increasing number of investors began to integrated Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues in investment decisions. At Barclays Capital, Omar Selim... View Details

March 2015 (Revised March 2016)
Background Note

Note: Industry Self-Regulation: Sustaining the Commons in the 21st Century?

By: Rebecca Henderson, Amram Migdal and Tony He

Industry self-regulation has, in general, a lousy track record. Many studies have shown that it is often ineffective unless backed by the power of the state, and that in some cases it serves rather to forestall government intervention or to reduce competition than as... View Details

December 2019 (Revised January 2021)
Supplement

The Leveraged Buyout of TXU: (B) Energy Future Holdings

By: Trevor Fetter, Erik Snowberg and Rebecca M. Henderson

This case is designed to support a lively discussion about the relative merits of shareholder vs. stakeholder perspectives in the context of a company that provides a vital public service that has important environmental implications. The 2007 purchase of TXU, the... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Transformation; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Environmental Sustainability; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Energy Generation; Utilities Industry; Energy Industry; Texas

2012
Working Paper

Relational Contracts and Organizational Capabilities

By: R. Gibbons and R. Henderson

A large literature identifies unique organizational capabilities as a potent source of competitive advantage, yet our knowledge of why capabilities fail to diffuse more rapidly-particularly in situations in which competitors apparently have strong incentives to adopt... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Advantage; Motivation and Incentives; Management Practices and Processes; Contracts; Competency and Skills; Relationships; Complexity

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Winter 2023
Article

Moral Firms?

Building a new political economy requires transforming our markets, our institutions, and our policy and regulatory regimes. In this essay, I argue that it also requires transforming the purpose of the firm: from a singular focus on maximizing financial returns to the... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Mission and Purpose; Economy

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September 2021
Article

Innovation in the 21st Century: Architectural Change, Purpose, and the Challenges of Our Time

Understanding the process of innovation has been a central concern of management researchers, but despite this progress, there remains much that we do not understand. Deepening our knowledge is critically important given the enormous environmental and social challenges... View Details

Keywords: Architectural Innovation; Systemic Innovation; Innovation and Invention; Mission and Purpose; Environmental Sustainability

Fall 2020
Article

Climate in the Boardroom: Struggling to Reconcile Business as Usual and the End of the World as We Know It

How does one witness to businesspeople about climate change? Climate change is a problem for the collective and the long term, whereas business often requires a ruthless focus on the individual and the quarter. Climate change is an ethical catastrophe whose solution... View Details

Keywords: Sustainable Business; Climate Change; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability

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January 2012
Teaching Plan

Sustainable Tea at Unilever

2016
Chapter

Unpacking the Dynamics of Successful Change: Ten Insights from the Private Sector

Book Abstract: The aim of this book is to catalyze global interest in the pursuit of transformational changes in natural resource and environmental management. It is shown that transformational policy reforms involve fundamental shifts in strategy with far-reaching... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Environmental Sustainability; Policy; Transformation; Australia; New Zealand; China; United States; Europe; Southeast Asia

2012
Chapter

Schumpeterian Competition and Diseconomies of Scope: Illustrations from the Histories of Microsoft and IBM

By: Timothy F. Bresnahan, Shane Greenstein and Rebecca M. Henderson

We address a longstanding question about the causes of creative destruction. Dominant incumbent firms, long successful in an existing technology, are often much less successful in new technological eras. This is puzzling, since a cursory analysis would suggest that... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Opportunities; Competition; Information Technology; Innovation and Management; Organizations; Relationships; Information Technology Industry