Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Working Knowledge
Business Research for Business Leaders
  • Browse All Articles
  • Popular Articles
  • Cold Call Podcasts
  • About Us
  • Leadership
  • Marketing
  • Finance
  • Management
  • Entrepreneurship
  • All Topics...
  • Topics
    • COVID-19
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Finance
    • Gender
    • Globalization
    • Leadership
    • Management
    • Negotiation
    • Social Enterprise
    • Strategy
  • Sections
    • Book
    • Cold Call Podcast
    • HBS Case
    • In Practice
    • Lessons from the Classroom
    • Op-Ed
    • Research & Ideas
    • Research Event
    • Sharpening Your Skills
    • What Do You Think?
    • Working Paper Summaries
  • Browse All
    • COVID-19 Business Impact Center
      COVID-19 Business Impact Center
      Cold Call
      A podcast featuring faculty discussing cases they've written and the lessons they impart.
      Subscribe on iTunes
      • 23 Feb 2021
      • Cold Call Podcast

      Examining Race and Mass Incarceration in the United States

      The late 20th century saw dramatic growth in incarceration rates in the United States. Of the more than 2.3 million people in US prisons, jails, and detention centers in 2020, 60 percent were Black or Latinx. Harvard Business School assistant professor Reshmaan Hussam probes the assumptions underlying the current prison system, with its huge racial disparities, and considers what could be done to address the crisis of the American criminal justice system in her case, “Race and Mass Incarceration in the United States.”  Open for comment; 0 Comment(s) posted.

      Read the Transcript

      Filter Results: (4) Arrow Down
      Filter Results: (4) Arrow Down Arrow Up
      • Popular
      • Browse All Articles
      • About Us
      • Newsletter Sign-Up
      • RSS
      • Popular
      • Browse All Articles
      • About Us
      • Newsletter Sign-Up
      • RSS

      Business and Stakeholder RelationsRemove Business and Stakeholder Relations →

      New research on business and stakeholder relations from Harvard Business School faculty on issues including how high-sustainability firms pay attention to stakeholders through active processes engagement, stakeholders' interest in integrated reporting, and the demands of "stakeholder theory."
      Page 1 of 4 Results
      • 11 Apr 2012
      • Research & Ideas

      The High Risks of Short-Term Management

      by Sean Silverthorne

      A new study looks at the risks for companies and investors who are attracted to short-term results. Research by Harvard Business School's Francois Brochet, Maria Loumioti, and George Serafeim. Closed for comment; 4 Comment(s) posted.

      • 14 Nov 2011
      • Working Paper Summaries

      The Impact of Corporate Sustainability on Organizational Process and Performance

      by Robert G. Eccles, Ioannis Ioannou & George Serafeim

      Robert G. Eccles, Ioannis Ioannou, and George Serafeim compared a matched sample of 180 companies, 90 of which they classify as High Sustainability firms and 90 as Low Sustainability firms, in order to examine issues of governance, culture, and performance. Findings for an 18-year period show that High Sustainability firms dramatically outperformed the Low Sustainability ones in terms of both stock market and accounting measures. However, the results suggest that this outperformance occurs only in the long term. Managers and investors who are hoping to gain a competitive advantage in the short term are unlikely to succeed by embedding sustainability in their organization's strategy. Overall, the authors argue that High Sustainability company policies reflect the underlying culture of the organization, where environmental and social performance, in addition to financial performance, are important, but these policies also forge a strong culture by making explicit the values and beliefs that underlie the mission of the organization. Key concepts include: Organizations voluntarily adopting environmental and social policies represent a fundamentally distinct type of modern corporation, characterized by a governance structure that takes into account the environmental and social performance of the company, in addition to financial performance, a long-term approach towards maximizing inter-temporal profits, and an active stakeholder management process. Societal concern about sustainability, at both the level of the firm and society as a whole, has been growing from almost nothing in the early 1990s to rapidly increasing awareness in the early 2000s, to being a dominant theme today. The High Sustainability firms in this study pay attention to their relationships with stakeholders—such as employees, customers, and NGOs representing civil society—through active processes of engagement. The Low Sustainability firms, by contrast, correspond to the traditional model of corporate profit maximization in which social and environmental issues are predominantly regarded as externalities created by firm actions which only need to be addressed if required to do so by law and regulation. The group of firms with a strong sustainability culture is significantly more likely to assign responsibility to its board of directors for sustainability and to form a separate board committee for sustainability. Moreover, High Sustainability companies are more likely to make executive compensation a function of environmental, social, and external perception (e.g., customer satisfaction) metrics. Closed for comment; 0 Comment(s) posted.

      • 12 Apr 2010
      • Research & Ideas

      One Report: Better Strategy through Integrated Reporting

      by Martha Lagace

      Stakeholders expect it. And smart companies are doing it: integrating their reporting of financial and nonfinancial performance in order to improve sustainable strategy. HBS senior lecturer Robert G. Eccles and coauthor Michael P. Krzus explain the benefits and value of the One Report method. Plus: book excerpt from One Report: Integrated Reporting for a Sustainable Strategy. Key concepts include: Integrating reporting in One Report means to describe, simply and clearly, management's view of the relationships between financial and nonfinancial metrics. Companies like Philips, Novo Nordisk, Natura, and United Technologies are leaders in conducting and communicating integrated reporting. The four key benefits of integrated reporting are: greater clarity about the relationship between financial and nonfinancial key performance indicators; better management decisions; deeper engagement with the broad stakeholder community; and lower reputational risk. Closed for comment; 0 Comment(s) posted.

      • 24 Jul 2000
      • Research & Ideas

      Value Maximization and Stakeholder Theory

      by Michael C. Jensen

      Many managers, says HBS Professor Michael C. Jensen, are caught in a dilemma: between a desire to maximize the value of their companies and the demands of "stakeholder theory" to take into account the interests of all the stakeholders in a firm. The way out of the conflict, says Jensen, lies in a new way of measuring value. Closed for comment; 0 Comment(s) posted.

      • 1
      ǁ
      Campus Map
      Harvard Business School Working Knowledge
      Baker Library | Bloomberg Center
      Soldiers Field
      Boston, MA 02163
      Email: Editor-in-Chief
      →Map & Directions
      →More Contact Information
      • Make a Gift
      • Site Map
      • Jobs
      • Harvard University
      • Trademarks
      • Policies
      • Digital Accessibility
      Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College