Publications

Research Summary

Corporate transparency and information disclosure strategies

By: Michael W. Toffel

This research focuses on transparency and information disclosure strategies, a topic of growing importance in environmental sustainability, corporate strategy, stakeholder relations, and public policy. My prior research in this area explored why... View Details

Keywords: Transparency; Disclosure Strategy; Disclosure; Environment; Environmental Performance; Regulation; Supply Chain; Environmental Sustainability; United States

March 2020
Article

Voluntary, Self-Regulatory, and Mandatory Disclosure of Oil and Gas Company Payments to Foreign Governments

By: Paul M. Healy and George Serafeim

Concerns about high rates of government corruption in resource-rich countries have led transparency advocates to urge oil and gas firms to disclose payments to host governments for natural resources. Transparency, they argue, can increase government accountability and... View Details

Keywords: Oil ＆ Gas; Corruption; Transparency; Self-regulation; Industry Self-regulation; Regulation; Disclosure; Disclosure Regulation; Energy Sources; Crime and Corruption; Corporate Disclosure; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Energy Industry

October 2013
Article

How Firms Respond to Mandatory Information Disclosure

By: Anil R. Doshi, Glen W.S. Dowell and Michael W. Toffel

Mandatory information disclosure regulations seek to create institutional pressure to spur performance improvement. By examining how organizational characteristics moderate establishments' responses to a prominent environmental information disclosure program, we... View Details

Keywords: Information Disclosure; Institutional Theory; Environmental Strategy; Mandatory Disclosure; Environmental Performance; Information; Corporate Disclosure; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Performance Improvement; Environmental Sustainability; Manufacturing Industry; United States

October 22, 2012
Column

Toxics Release Inventory: A Case Study in Information Disclosure Regulation

By: Glen W. S. Dowell and Michael W. Toffel

06 Jun 2018
Working Paper Summaries

Complex Disclosure

Keywords: by Ginger Zhe Jin, Michael Luca, and Daniel Martin

2018
Article

What Can Managers Privately Disclose to Investors?

By: Eugene F. Soltes

Regulators have long been aware that differential access to information can undermine the efficiency and fairness of financial markets. In an effort to place investors on equal footing, the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2000 created Regulation Fair Disclosure... View Details

Keywords: Disclosure Regulation; Information; Communication; Business and Shareholder Relations; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms

October 2002 (Revised March 2004)
Case

Management Earnings Disclosure and Pro Forma Reporting

Introduces a discussion of management earnings disclosure and the growing use of pro forma reporting by corporations. Highlights the background of pro forma reporting, how it has been used in the past couple of years, and what the regulators at the capital markets... View Details

Keywords: Business Earnings; Corporate Disclosure; Financial Reporting; Management Teams

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9 May 2011 - 11 May 2011
Conference Presentation

How Firms Respond to Mandatory Information Disclosure

By: Anil Doshi, Michael Toffel and Glen W. S. Dowell

When new institutional pressures arise, which organizations are particularly likely to resist or acquiesce? When subjected to new information disclosure mandates, an increasingly popular form of market-based government regulation, which types of organizations are... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Disclosure; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Environmental Regulation; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Organizational Change and Adaptation

01 May 2006
Research & Ideas

What Companies Lose from Forced Disclosure

argue that this compensation information should be treated as a trade secret. Q: How can regulated public disclosure of performance measures generate inefficiencies in firms' employment contracts? A: An... View Details

Keywords: by Ann Cullen; Financial Services

24 May 2004
Research & Ideas

When Reputation Trumps Regulation

the most serious governance cases filed in U.S. courts by private shareholders against foreign cross-listed firms. Second, even if the SEC had the resources required to fully investigate the potentially false disclosures and statements by... View Details

Keywords: by Ann Cullen

2017
Working Paper

Private and Public Disclosures in Countries with Weak Institutional Environments: Evidence from Shanghai-Hong Kong Connect

By: Aaron Yoon

I study firms’ use of disclosure to build investor confidence when they operate in a market where the institutions that support the supply of credible information are weak. Using the announcement of a regulation that allowed foreigners to invest in select Shanghai... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Disclosure; Reputation; Institutional Investing; Trust

13 Oct 2006
Working Paper Summaries

Coerced Confessions: Self-Policing in the Shadow of the Regulator

Keywords: by Jodi L. Short & Michael W. Toffel

17 Sep 2024
HBS Case

The Climate Targets Leaders Need to Know as Regulations Loom

regulations raise the stakes for companies’ climate mitigation efforts by increasing company stakeholders’ ability to track their emissions trends and see who’s meeting and who’s missing their reduction targets. “A growing number of... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

May 2008
Article

Coerced Confessions: Self-Policing in the Shadow of the Regulator

By: Jodi L. Short and Michael W. Toffel

As part of a recent trend toward more cooperative relations between regulators and industry, novel government programs are encouraging firms to monitor their own regulatory compliance and voluntarily report their own violations. In this study, we examine how regulatory... View Details

Keywords: Governance Compliance; Law Enforcement; Corporate Disclosure; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Environmental Sustainability; Programs; Power and Influence; Organizations; Decisions; Business and Government Relations; United States

30 Nov 2016
Op-Ed

Where Could More Regulation Help Small Businesses? Online Lending.

borrower protections for small businesses. If offering a national regulation option to fintech players is the proverbial carrot, compliance with commonsense borrower protections could be the stick. This is important as the lack of rules... View Details

Keywords: by Karen Mills and Brayden McCarthy; Financial Services

2020
Working Paper

How ESG Issues Become Financially Material to Corporations and Their Investors

By: George Serafeim

Management and disclosure of environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues have received substantial interest over the last decade. In this paper, we outline a framework of how ESG issues become financially material, affecting corporate profitability and valuation.... View Details

November 2018 (Revised January 2020)
Case

Tesla, Inc. in 2018

By: Siko Sikochi, Suraj Srinivasan and Quinn Pitcher

On August 7, 2018 Elon Musk, Chairman and CEO of Tesla tweeted that he was considering taking Tesla private and had secured funding. Weeks went by without details about a deal and speculation grew that Musk had misled investors. He soon abandoned the idea, but the... View Details

Keywords: Disclosure Regulation; Board Independence; Corporate Governance; Business and Shareholder Relations; Governing and Advisory Boards

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2019
Chapter

The Consequences of Mandatory Corporate Sustainability Reporting

By: Ioannis Ioannou and George Serafeim

A key aspect of the governance process inside organizations and markets is the measurement and disclosure of important metrics and information. In this chapter, we examine the effect of sustainability disclosure regulations on firms’ disclosure practices and... View Details

January 2015
Article

Competing with Privacy

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Andres Hervas-Drane

We analyze the implications of consumer privacy for competition in the marketplace. We consider a market where firms set prices and disclosure levels for consumer information, and consumers observe both before deciding which firm to patronize and how much information... View Details

Keywords: Information Acquisition; Information Disclosure; Online Privacy; Privacy Regulation; Information; Rights; Internet and the Web; Competition; Internet and the Web; Corporate Disclosure; Ethics; Knowledge Acquisition