Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(53)
- Faculty Publications (16)
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- January 2022
- Article
Pushed into a Crowd: Repositioning Costs, Resources, and Competition in the RTE Cereal Industry
By: Young Hou and Dennis Yao
This paper exploits a natural experiment involving self-regulation in the ready-to-eat (RTE) breakfast cereal industry to evaluate the performance impact of product repositioning. It then examines how a product's brand equity value declines with repositioning distance... View Details
- October 2021
- Article
Can Self-Regulation Save Digital Platforms?
By: Michael A. Cusumano, Annabelle Gawer and David B. Yoffie
This article explores some of the critical challenges facing self-regulation and the regulatory environment for digital platforms. We examine several historical examples of firms and industries that attempted self-regulation before the Internet. All dealt with similar... View Details
- January 15, 2021
- Article
Social Media Companies Should Self-Regulate. Now
By: Michael A. Cusumano, Annabelle Gawer and David B. Yoffie
We argue that social media firms should ramp up self-regulation of content in 2021. This argument is based on research on numerous industries where firms and/or industry associations devised self-regulatory strategies that successfully limited or forestalled more... View Details
- 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
- Article
Four Things No One Will Tell You About ESG Data
By: Sakis Kotsantonis and George Serafeim
As the ESG finance field and the use of ESG data in investment decision-making continue to grow, the authors seek to shed light on several important aspects of ESG measurement and data. This article is intended to provide a useful guide for the rapidly rising number of... View Details
Keywords: ESG; ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance; ESG Reporting; Data Analytics; Sustainability; Sustainability Reporting; CSR; Transparency; Investment Management; Socially Responsible Investing; Sustainable Finance; Sustainable Development; Inclusion; Inclusive Growth; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Corporate Accountability; Investment; Management; Climate Change; Corporate Governance; Diversity; Integrated Corporate Reporting
- Article
Investors as Stewards of the Commons?
By: George Serafeim
Over the past few years, there has been a significant increase in the number of initiatives seeking to mobilize investor voice towards positive social impact. In this paper, I provide a framework outlining the role of investors as stewards of the commons. While... View Details
- September 2016
- Article
Monitoring Global Supply Chains
By: Jodi L. Short, Michael W. Toffel and Andrea R. Hugill
Firms seeking to avoid reputational spillovers that can arise from dangerous, illegal, and unethical behavior at supply chain factories are increasingly relying on private social auditors to provide strategic information about suppliers' conduct. But little is known... View Details
- March 2016 (Revised June 2016)
- Case
Gotong Royong: Toward Sustainable Palm Oil
By: Rebecca Henderson, Hann-Shuin Yew and Monica Baraldi
In late 2015, Jeff Seabright, chief sustainability officer at Unilever, had to report to Unilever CEO Paul Polman on the effort to transform palm oil cultivation. Historically, palm oil was produced using unsustainable methods that included burning large tracts of... View Details
- July 2015
- Article
Prosocial Norms in the Classroom: The Role of Self-regulation in Following Norms of Giving
By: P. R. Blake, M. Piovesan, N. Montinari, F. Werneken and F. Gino
Children who are prosocial in elementary school tend to have higher academic achievement and experience greater acceptance by their peers in adolescence. Despite this positive influence on educational outcomes, it is still unclear why some children are more prosocial... View Details
- March 2015
- Case
Statoil: Transparency on Payments to Governments
By: George Serafeim
The Statoil case describes the challenge of increasing transparency, in extractive industries, around host county government payments. The case describes Statoil's reasoning behind voluntarily disclosing host country government payments, and the events that led to this... View Details
Keywords: Corruption; Disclosure; Disclosure Strategy; Regulation; Industry Self-regulation; Corporate Governance; Corporate Accountability; Bribery; Sustainability; Corporate Social Responsibility; Government Legislation; Cost vs Benefits; Corporate Disclosure; Mining; Mining Industry; United States
- 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
- March 2015
- Case
Sustainable Palm Oil and Self-Regulation
By: Rebecca Henderson and Amram Migdal
This case is designed to be used with HBS Note: Industry Self-Regulation: Sustaining the Commons in the 21st Century, HBS No. 315-074. View Details
Keywords: Governance Compliance
- 2012
- White Paper
Robust Enforcement Should Complement Voluntary Regulation
By: Jodi L. Short and Michael W. Toffel
Spurred by the anti-regulation movement that started in the 1970s, voluntary self-regulation programs have emerged in many regulatory agencies, seeking to increase cooperation between government and industry to achieve greater and more cost-effective compliance.... View Details
- February 2012 (Revised March 2014)
- Case
Sweet Deal—Industry Self-Regulation of Breakfast Cereal Advertising to Children
By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee, Dennis Yao, Britta Kelley and Lizzie Gomez
In response to growing concern about childhood obesity, in February 2006 the Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB) announced an initiative to examine its self-regulatory program on children's advertising. The existing program was a voluntary cross-industry program... View Details
- September 2010
- Article
Making Self-Regulation More Than Merely Symbolic: The Critical Role of the Legal Environment
By: Jodi L. Short and Michael W. Toffel
Using data from a sample of U.S. industrial facilities subject to the federal Clean Air Act from 1993 to 2003, this article theorizes and tests the conditions under which organizations' symbolic commitments to self-regulate are particularly likely to result in improved... View Details
- May 1995
- Background Note
Note on Industry Self-Regulation and U.S. Antitrust Laws
By: Lynn S. Paine and Michael Santoro
Describes the purpose and nature of industry self-regulation and outlines the factors self-regulatory groups must consider to avoid infringing U.S. antitrust laws. Several examples of industry self-regulation are discussed. View Details