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 Podcast
  • Managing the Future of Work Podcast
  • About Us
  • Book
  • Leadership
  • Marketing
  • Finance
  • Management
  • Entrepreneurship
  • All Topics...
  • Topics
    • COVID-19
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Finance
    • Gender
    • Globalization
    • Leadership
    • Management
    • Negotiation
    • Social Enterprise
    • Strategy
  • Sections
    • Book
    • Podcasts
    • 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
    Filter Results: (131) Arrow Down
    Filter Results: (131) Arrow Down Arrow Up
    • Popular
    • Browse All Articles
    • About Us
    • Newsletter Sign-Up
    • RSS
    • Popular
    • Browse All Articles
    • About Us
    • Newsletter Sign-Up
    • RSS

    Social EnterpriseRemove Social Enterprise →

    New research on social enterprise and other nonprofit organizations from Harvard Business School faculty on issues including management strategies, demonstrating effectiveness, and employee motivation.
    ← Page 2 of 131 Results →
    • 20 May 2016
    • Op-Ed

    World Health Organization Lacks Leadership to Combat Pandemics

    by John Quelch

    When it comes to emergency preparedness for pandemics, the World Health Organization is falling short, argues John A. Quelch. A better solution: The World Bank. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

    • 18 May 2016
    • Cold Call Podcast

    A Better World Through Brewing

    Re: Forest L. Reinhardt

    Since brewing is a marketing-driven business, finding ways to differentiate a beverage from its competition is crucial. Heineken’s chief marketing officer took a novel approach: take the complicated processes of production and distribution and make them interesting and important to the consumer. Professor Forest Reinhardt explains how a big, sophisticated company used small details, from trucking routes to the color of refrigerators, to put its commitment to the environment to work on its behalf. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

    • 23 Mar 2016
    • Working Paper Summaries

    Finding Excuses to Decline the Ask

    by Christine Exley & Ragan Petrie

    An online experiment by Christine L. Exley and Ragan Petrie involving 6,000 potential donors to animal-rescue charities finds a 22 percent drop in interest in donating when individuals know “the ask” is coming and have time to develop excuses for not contributing. Results imply that nonprofits have a variety of options for better adapting how they solicit funds.

    • 15 Jan 2016
    • Working Paper Summaries

    Incentives for Prosocial Behavior: The Role of Reputations

    by Christine L. Exley

    This study documents how small monetary incentives discourage volunteering when they are public and thus introduce a “greedy” signal. The discouragement from this greedy signal, however, is less pronounced among volunteers with public reputations, or those who are likely known not to be too greedy.

    • 06 Jan 2016
    • Cold Call Podcast

    A Microchip in Your Medicine

    Re: Richard G. Hamermesh

    Digitally-enabled prescription medication may sound futuristic. Thanks to Proteus, the future is now. The company has developed the technology to place microchips inside prescription pills, allowing doctors to retrieve real-time updates on everything from dosing, to vital signs, to the efficacy of different medications. However, regulating and marketing such ground-breaking technology is almost as complicated as the medical conditions it can help cure. Professor Richard Hamermesh unpacks the challenges of changing the world of medicine. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

    • 21 Dec 2015
    • Working Paper Summaries

    Wage Elasticities in Working and Volunteering: The Role of Reference Points in a Laboratory Study

    by Christine Exley & Stephen Terry

    Nonprofit organizations often rely on reference points—explicit or implicit targets and goals—to encourage more effort from volunteers. This study finds that effort does tend to cluster around reference levels, so this may be perceived as a very effective strategy. Yet reference levels can potentially backfire: in response to higher volunteer wages or productivity, volunteers may reduce their effort so as to meet the reference level.

    • 01 Dec 2015
    • Research & Ideas

    What to Do When Your Organization Has Dueling Missions

    by Carmen Nobel

    It’s no easy feat to manage hybrid organizations, which combine the social mission of a nonprofit with the revenue model of a for-profit business. Julie Battilana and colleagues explain how hybrids can find success with a business model dubbed “spaces of negotiation.” Open for comment; 0 Comments.

    • 30 Nov 2015
    • Research & Ideas

    Donors Are Turned Off by Overhead Costs. Here’s What Charities Can Do

    by Carmen Nobel

    Elizabeth A. Keenan and colleagues find that charitable donors are willing to stomach the idea of overhead costs—as long as they know someone else’s donation is covering them. A field study helped one organization nearly triple its solicited donations. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

    • 04 Nov 2015
    • Working Paper Summaries

    Do People Who Care About Others Cooperate More? Experimental Evidence from Relative Incentive Pay

    by Dylan Minor, Pablo Hernandez & Dana Sisak

    This paper explores how the degree to which individuals care about other workers affects their own performance when faced with relative performance pay.

    • 09 Mar 2015
    • Research & Ideas

    Why Entrepreneurs Should Go Work for Government

    by Michael Blanding

    In a new Harvard Business School course on public entrepreneurship, Mitchell B. Weiss explores how fresh thinkers can work with—and within—the halls of government. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

    • 17 Feb 2015
    • HBS Case

    HBS Cases: The Battle for San Francisco

    by Michael Blanding

    In San Francisco, tech companies are hoping to make the world a better place—but the fabric of the city is changing in the process. A new case by Clayton Rose explores this clash of cultures, and the role of business in promoting the right balance. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

    • 20 Aug 2014
    • Research & Ideas

    Why the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge is a Social Media Blockbuster

    by John Deighton

    Most companies should envy the financial and brand awareness brought about by the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. The campaign's key ingredient, says John Deighton, is that participants enhance their personal capital in performance of a good deed. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

    • 16 Jun 2014
    • Research & Ideas

    The Unfulfilled Promise of Educational Technology

    by Michael Blanding

    With 50 million public school students in America, technology holds much potential to transform schools, says John Jong-Hyun Kim. So why isn't it happening? Open for comment; 0 Comments.

    • 29 May 2014
    • Research & Ideas

    Research Symposium 2014

    by Carmen Nobel

    Harvard Business School professors presented their research to colleagues, with topics including speaking up at work, a manager's responsibility to capitalism, and a strategy to fix the health care system. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

    • 21 May 2014
    • Working Paper Summaries

    The Role of the Corporation in Society: An Alternative View and Opportunities for Future Research

    by George Serafeim

    Neoclassical economics and several management theories assert that the corporation's sole objective is maximizing shareholder wealth. Despite these theoretical approaches, however, actual corporate conduct in some cases is inconsistent with shareholder value maximization as the sole objective of the corporation. In fact, corporations are now engaging in environmental and social causes with multiple stakeholders in mind and this is especially true for the world's largest corporations. Overall, the author presents an alternative view of the role of the corporation in society where the objective of the corporation is a function of its size. Specifically, the largest corporations are forced to balance different stakeholders' interests instead of simply maximizing shareholder wealth. The author attributes this change in the role of the corporation to the increasing concentration of economic activity and power in a few corporations which has resulted in 1) a few companies having a very large impact on society, 2) corporations and influential actors which are easier to locate, and 3) increasing separation of ownership and control. These events have led to what scholars Berle and Means (1932) predicted more than 80 years ago: both owners and "the control" accepting public interest as the objective of the corporation. Further research on the topics outlined in this paper may increase our understanding of corporate behavior and the role of these corporations in society. Key concepts include: The role of the corporation in society can be a function of the broader economic, social, and political context and as a result evolves over time. Corporations are not a homogeneous group as it is assumed by profit maximization theories. Not all corporations have the same role in society. Increasing corporate engagement on environmental and social goals has redefined the relation between business and society. It remains to be seen whether this trend will continue. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

    • 24 Mar 2014
    • Research & Ideas

    The Surprising Link Between Language and Corporate Responsibility

    by Michael Blanding

    Research by Christopher Marquis shows that a company's degree of social responsibility is affected by a surprising factor—the language it uses to communicate. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

    • 21 Mar 2014
    • Working Paper Summaries

    Speaking of Corporate Social Responsibility

    by Hao Liang, Christopher Marquis, Luc Renneboog & Sunny Li Sun

    While many scholars have observed that corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a deeply cultural process, there are inconsistent findings on the specific cultural mechanisms by which culture affects CSR. This paper suggests that the way in which corporations use language is a strong predictor of their CSR and sustainability practices. It addresses two questions: 1) Why do CSR practices vary significantly across countries? And 2) How does the future-time orientation of companies' working languages affect their adoption of, compliance to, and engagement in corporate social responsibility programs? Building on the future-time criterion of scholars Dahl (2000) and Chen (2013), which separates languages into two broad categories-those languages that require future events to be grammatically marked when making predictions, and those that do not-the authors examine thousands of global companies across 59 countries from 1999 to 2011. The empirical results support the hypothesis that languages that grammatically separate the current tense from the future tense can significantly affect how corporations perceive future-oriented strategies, and so make corporate behavior less future-oriented. Overall, the authors introduce a new way to think about underlying variation in global CSR practices. As they show in this paper, it is crucial to examine language as an important underlying feature that shapes cultural values and the norms in a society. The study also builds on research into the ways in which perceptual category systems focus the attention, and subsequently, the behaviors, of corporate leaders. Key concepts include: Research in linguistics and economics has shown that one of the most important factors that shapes culture and creates variation across countries is spoken language. This study contributes to understanding international variation of CSR. Differences in cross-national commitment to CSR arise from characteristics of the languages spoken across the globe. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

    • 12 Feb 2014
    • Research & Ideas

    Private Sector, Public Good

    by Dina Gerdeman

    What role, if any, does business have in creating social good? A new seminar series at Harvard Business School tackles this complex question. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

    • 03 Sep 2013
    • Working Paper Summaries

    How the Zebra Got Its Stripes: Imprinting of Individuals and Hybrid Social Ventures

    by Matthew Lee & Julie Battilana

    Creating hybrid organizations that combine existing organizational forms is a complex process. Given the legitimacy challenges facing hybrid organizations, why are they created in the first place? The authors focus on the role of "environmental imprinting" on individuals: this means the persistent effects that individuals' environments during sensitive periods have on their subsequent behaviors. After constructing and analyzing a novel dataset of over 700 founders of social ventures, all guided by a social welfare logic, the authors suggest that individual imprinting helps to explain why an entrepreneur founding a social venture might create a hybrid by incorporating a secondary, commercial logic. Overall, the paper contributes to the understanding of hybrid organizations by providing the first large-scale, empirical examination of the antecedents of the widely-discussed type of hybrids that combine social welfare and commercial logics. Key concepts include: Environmental imprinting refers to the effects that characteristics of individuals' environments during sensitive periods have on their subsequent behaviors. Entrepreneurs' direct exposure to various work environments through their own experience influences their likelihood to create a new hybrid venture. The findings contribute to institutional theory more generally by showing how environmental imprints on individuals may enable divergence from current, institutionalized structures, as well as how the contours of such imprints may vary with characteristics such as tenure and type of exposure. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

    • 12 Aug 2013
    • Research & Ideas

    ‘Hybrid’ Organizations a Difficult Bet for Entrepreneurs

    by Michael Blanding

    Hybrid organizations combine the social logic of a nonprofit with the commercial logic of a for-profit business, but are very difficult to finance. So why would anyone want to form one? Julie Battilana and Matthew Lee investigate. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

    • ←
    • 2
    • 3
    • …
    • 6
    • 7
    • →
    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
    • Accessibility
    • Digital Accessibility
    Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College