Faculty Fellow, Harvard Environmental Economics Program
Faculty Affiliate, Harvard University Center for the Environment
Faculty Affiliate, Kennedy School of Government Center for Business and Government Regulatory Policy Program
Mike Toffel's research focuses on operational discipline by examining companies' environmental, occupational safety, and quality programs and performance. His work seeks to identify which types of programs distinguish participating companies as having superior environmental, safety, or quality management or performance, and which of these programs help companies improve their performance in these domains. His work ranges from academic articles based on econometric analyses of large datasets to case studies of individual companies. His work on quality management systems and environmental management systems has been profiled by LRQA Business Assurance, Quality Progress, and the ANSI-ASQ National Accreditation Board. His research on occupational health and safety has been profiled by the head of U.S. OSHA and featured in the national press including US News & World Report, BusinessWeek, and Scientific American. His work on industry self-regulation has been profiled in HBS Working Knowledge.
Professor Toffel's research also examines information disclosure, and seeks to understand why some companies are more transparent than others. He is a co-founder of MapEcos, a mapping website that provided government pollution data about thousands of facilities across the US, and provides these facilities the opportunity to disclose information about their environmental management activities. MapEcos has been profiled in The Economist, CNN, the World Bank, and HBS Working Knowledge.
His scholarly work has been published in Administrative Science Quarterly (ASQ), Management Science, Organization Science, Strategic Management Journal (SMJ), Journal of Law, Economics and Organization (JLEO), , and Environmental Science & Technology (ES&T). Toffel has also published managerial articles in Sloan Management Review, California Management Review, and The Atlantic Monthly.
Prof. Toffel serves on the Editorial Boards of the Strategic Management Journal (SMJ) and Organization Science. He is involved in several initiatives to foster high-quality research on corporate environmental sustainability. At Harvard, he is engaged in the HBS Business and Environment initiative and is a faculty affiliate of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program, the Harvard University Center for the Environment, and the Regulatory Policy Program at the Kennedy School of Government's Center for Business and Government. He also serves as a founding board member and is on the board of theAlliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability (ARCS) that spans several leading universities, has served as a faculty mentor for Academy of Management's Operations Management doctoral student research symposium, and helped establish the Harvard-MIT Private Governance Working Group.
His co-authors include Julia Adler-Milstein, Ronnie Chatterji, Magali Delmas, Anil Doshi, Glen Dowell, Kira Fabrizio, Chonnikarn (Fern) Jira, Matthew Johnson, Andrew King, David Levine, Mike Lenox, Julian Marshall, Chris Marquis, Melissa Ouellet, Lamar Pierce, Erin Reid, Tim Simcoe, Sara Singer, Jodi Short, and David Vogel.
He recommends Environmental Leader, Grist, Ethical Corporation, and SustainableBusiness.com to keep up on corporate environmental news.
Toffel has organized several conferences related to his research, includig conferences on corporate sustainability at HBS (2010), the role of information disclosure in corporate transparency and accountability at the National Press Club in Washington DC (2009), business and human rights in operations and supply chains at HBS (2008), and industry self-regulation at Dartmouth (2007) .
Professor Toffel received a Ph.D. from the Haas School of Business' Business and Public Policy department at the University of California at Berkeley, an MBA from the Yale School of Management, a Master’s in Environmental Management (Industrial Environmental Management) from the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, and a BA in Government from Lehigh University. He has worked as the Director of Environment, Health and Safety at the Jebsen & Jessen (South East Asia) Group of Companies, based in Singapore. He has also worked as an environmental management consultant for Arthur Andersen, Arthur D. Little, and Xerox Corporation. He started his career as an operations management analyst at J.P. Morgan.
Prof. Toffel serves on the Advisory Panel of the Newsweek Green Rankings and on the School Site Council of the Edward Devotion School, a public school in Brookline, MA.
Featured Work
-
What Green Rankings Don’t Tell You
In our article “What Green Rankings Don’t Tell You” published in Newsweek/Daily Beast to accompany the Newsweek Green Rankings, Professor Toffel and Duke Professor Ronnie Chatterji argue that green rankings’ exclusive focus on operations and supply chain data – while imperative – risks creating misleading impressions about which companies are true environmental leaders. All major green rankings neglects corporate political tactics related to environmental laws and regulations? Why does this matter? First, corporate lobbying and campaigns contributions can have far greater environmental consequences than what companies are doing to clean up their own act. Second, there is a critical disconnect between corporate environmental transparency and corporate political transparency. Our analysis shows them to be very weakly correlated, and reveals that some of the companies that are most environmentally transparent are, ironically, among the least transparent about their political tactics. Only once green rankings incorporate corporate environmental political strategies will we be very confident that green rankings enable us to celebrate—or shame—the right companies for their environmental efforts and performance.
-
When Business Competition Harms Society
In highly competitive markets, many firms are likely to bend the rules if doing so will keep their customers from leaving for a rival, according to new research by professor Michael W. Toffel and colleagues. Case in point: service stations that cheat on auto emissions testing. Key concepts include:
- Vehicle owners are less likely to return to a service facility that has failed their vehicle in an auto emissions test.
- Vehicles were much more likely to pass the test if they were tested at a facility that was located near a competitor.
- Managers should be aware that fostering a culture of intense competition may instead induce unethical behavior.
-
OSHA Inspections: Protecting Employees or Killing Jobs?
As the federal agency responsible for enforcing workplace safety, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is often at the center of controversy. Associate Professor Michael W. Toffel and colleague David I. Levine report surprising findings about randomized government inspections. Key concepts include:
- In a natural field experiment, researchers found that companies subject to random OSHA inspections showed a 9.4 percent decrease in injury rates compared with uninspected firms.
- The researchers found no evidence of any cost to inspected companies complying with regulations. Rather, the decrease in injuries led to a 26 percent reduction in costs from medical expenses and lost wages—translating to an average of $350,000 per company.
- The findings strongly indicate that OSHA regulations actually save businesses money.
Publications
-
Article
| Manufacturing & Service Operations Management
| Forthcoming
Engaging Supply Chains in Climate Change
Chonnikarn Fern Jira and Michael W. Toffel
Suppliers are increasingly being asked to share information about their vulnerability to climate change and their strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Their responses vary widely. We theorize and empirically identify several factors associated with suppliers being especially willing to share this information with buyers, focusing on attributes of the buyers seeking this information and of the suppliers being asked to provide it. We test our hypotheses using data from the Carbon Disclosure Project's Supply Chain Program, a collaboration of multinational corporations requesting such information from thousands of suppliers in 49 countries. We find evidence that suppliers are more likely to share this information when requests from buyers are more prevalent, when buyers appear committed to using the information, when suppliers belong to more profitable industries, and when suppliers are located in countries with greenhouse gas regulations. We find evidence that these factors also influence the comprehensiveness of the information suppliers share and their willingness to share the information publicly.
-
Article
| Management Science
| Forthcoming
Customer-Driven Misconduct: How Competition Corrupts Business Practices
Victor Manuel Bennett, Lamar Pierce, Jason A. Snyder and Michael W. Toffel
Competition among firms yields many benefits but can also encourage firms to engage in corrupt or unethical activities. We argue that competition can lead organizations to provide services that customers demand but that violate government regulations, especially when price competition is restricted. Using 28 million vehicle emissions tests from more than 11,000 facilities, we show that increased competition is associated with greater inspection leniency, a service quality attribute that customers value but is illegal and socially costly. Firms with more competitors pass customer vehicles at higher rates and are more likely to lose customers whom they fail, suggesting that competition intensifies pressure on facilities to provide illegal leniency. We also show that, at least in markets in which pricing is restricted, firms use corrupt and unethical practices as an entry strategy.
-
Article
| Organization Science
| Forthcoming
The Role of Organizational Scope and Governance in Strengthening Private Monitoring
Lamar Pierce and Michael W. Toffel
Governments and other organizations often outsource activities to achieve cost savings from market competition. Yet such benefits are often accompanied by poor quality resulting from moral hazard, which can be particularly onerous when outsourcing the monitoring and enforcement of government regulation. In this paper, we argue that the considerable moral hazard associated with private regulatory monitoring can be mitigated by understanding conflicts of interest in the monitoring organizations' product/service portfolios and by the effects of their private governance mechanisms. These organizational characteristics affect the stringency of monitoring through reputation, customer loyalty, differential impacts of government sanctions, and the standardization and internal monitoring of operations. We test our theory in the context of vehicle emissions testing in a state in which the government has outsourced these inspections to the private sector. Analyzing millions of emissions tests, we find empirical support for our hypotheses that particular product portfolios and forms of governance can mitigate moral hazard. Our results have broad implications for regulation, financial auditing, and private credit- and quality-rating agencies in financial markets.
Keywords: Crime and Corruption;
Decision Choices and Conditions;
Corporate Accountability;
Governance Compliance;
Policy;
Management Practices and Processes;
Demand and Consumers;
Market Design;
Market Entry and Exit;
Market Transactions;
Service Delivery;
Service Operations;
Business Processes;
Organizational Structure;
Performance Effectiveness;
Performance Expectations;
Practice;
Transportation;
Transportation Industry;
Service Industry;
United States;
New York (state, US);
-
Article
| Strategic Management Journal
| Forthcoming
How Firms Respond to Mandatory Information Disclosure
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 provide among the first empirical evidence characterizing heterogeneous responses by those mandated to disclose information. We find particularly rapid improvement among establishments located close to their headquarters and among establishments with proximate siblings, especially when the proximate siblings are in the same industry. Large establishments improve more slowly than small establishments in sparse regions, but both groups improve similarly in dense regions, suggesting that density mitigates the power of large establishments to resist institutional pressures. Finally, privately held firms' establishments outperform those owned by public firms. We highlight implications for institutional theory, managers, and policymakers.
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;
-
Article
| Science (Weekly)
|
Randomized Government Safety Inspections Reduce Worker Injuries with No Detectable Job Loss
David I Levine, Michael W. Toffel and Matthew S. Johnson
Controversy surrounds occupational health and safety regulators, with some observers claiming that workplace regulations damage firms' competitiveness and destroy jobs and others arguing that they make workplaces safer at little cost to employers and employees. We analyzed a natural field experiment to examine how workplace safety inspections affected injury rates and other outcomes. We compared 409 randomly inspected establishments in California with 409 matched-control establishments that were eligible, but not chosen, for inspection. Compared with controls, randomly inspected employers experienced a 9.4% decline in injury rates (95% confidence interval = -0.177 to -0.021) and a 26% reduction in injury cost (95% confidence interval = -0.513 to -0.083). We find no evidence that these improvements came at the expense of employment, sales, credit ratings, or firm survival.
Keywords: regulation;
safety;
occupational safety;
evaluation;
regression;
matching;
difference in differences;
Safety;
Health;
Working Conditions;
Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Competitive Advantage;
Performance;
Manufacturing Industry;
California;
-
Article
| Journal of Law & Economics
|
Coming Clean and Cleaning Up: Does Voluntary Self-Reporting Indicate Effective Self-Policing
Michael W. Toffel and Jodi L. Short
Regulatory agencies are increasingly establishing voluntary self-reporting programs both as an investigative tool and to encourage regulated firms to commit to policing themselves. We investigate whether voluntary self-reporting can reliably indicate effective self-policing efforts that might provide opportunities for enforcement efficiencies. We find that regulators used self-reports of legal violations as a heuristic for identifying firms that are effectively policing their own operations, shifting enforcement resources away from those that voluntarily disclose. We also find that these firms that voluntarily disclosed regulatory violations and committed to self-policing improved their regulatory compliance and environmental performance, which suggests that the enforcement relief they received was warranted. Collectively, our results suggest that self-reporting can be a useful tool for reliably identifying and leveraging the voluntary self-policing efforts of regulated companies.
Keywords: Environmental Sustainability;
Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Programs;
Governance Compliance;
Corporate Disclosure;
Law Enforcement;
-
Article
| Management Science
|
Quality Management and Job Quality: How the ISO 9001 Standard for Quality Management Systems Affects Employees and Employers
David I. Levine and Michael W. Toffel
Several studies have examined how the ISO 9001 Quality Management System standard predicts changes in organizational outcomes such as profits. This is the first large-scale study to explore how employee outcomes such as employment, earnings, and health and safety change when employers adopt ISO 9001. We analyzed a matched sample of nearly 1,000 companies in California. ISO 9001 adopters subsequently had far lower organizational death rates than a matched control group of non-adopters. Among surviving employers, ISO adopters had higher growth rates for sales, employment, payroll, and average annual earnings. Injury rates declined slightly for ISO 9001 adopters, although total injury costs did not. These results have implications for organizational theory, managers, and public policy.
Keywords: Quality;
Management;
Jobs and Positions;
Employees;
Forecasting and Prediction;
Organizations;
Sales;
Profit;
Business Earnings;
Safety;
Health Care and Treatment;
Policy;
-
Article
| Strategic Management Journal
|
How Firms Respond to Being Rated
Aaron K. Chatterji and Michael W. Toffel
While many rating systems seek to help buyers overcome information asymmetries when making purchasing decisions, we investigate how these ratings also influence the companies being rated. We hypothesize that ratings are particularly likely to spur responses from firms that receive poor ratings, and especially those that face lower-cost opportunities to improve or that anticipate greater benefits from doing do. We test our hypotheses in the context of corporate environmental ratings that guide investors to select "socially responsible," and avoid "socially irresponsible," companies. We examine how several hundred firms respond to corporate environmental ratings issued by a prominent independent social rating agency and take advantage of an exogenous shock that occurred when the agency expanded the scope of its ratings. Our study is among the first to theorize about the impact of ratings on subsequent performance, and we introduce important contingencies that influence firm response. These theoretical advances inform stakeholder theory, institutional theory, and economic theory.
Keywords: System;
Information;
Decisions;
Cost;
Opportunities;
Performance;
Business and Stakeholder Relations;
Economics;
Theory;
System Shocks;
Rank and Position;
Citation: Chatterji, Aaron K., and Michael W. Toffel. " How Firms Respond to Being Rated." Strategic Management Journal 31, no. 9 (September 2010): 917–945. (Lead article.)
-
Article
| Administrative Science Quarterly
|
Making Self-Regulation More Than Merely Symbolic: The Critical Role of the Legal Environment
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 compliance practices and outcomes. We argue that the legal environment, particularly as it is constructed by the enforcement activities of regulators, significantly influences the likelihood that organizations will effectively implement the self-regulatory commitments they symbolically adopt. We investigate how different enforcement tools can foster or undermine organizations' normative motivations to self-regulate. We find that organizations are more likely to follow through on their commitments to self-regulate when they (and their competitors) are subject to heavy regulatory surveillance and when they adopt self-regulation in the absence of an explicit threat of sanctions. We also find that historically poor compliers are significantly less likely to follow through on their commitments to self-regulate, suggesting a substantial limitation on the use of self-regulation as a strategy for reforming struggling organizations. Taken together, these findings suggest that self-regulation can be a useful tool for leveraging the normative motivations of regulated organizations but that it cannot replace traditional deterrence-based enforcement.
Keywords: Adoption;
Code Law;
Environmental Sustainability;
Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Organizations;
Governance Compliance;
Strategy;
Motivation and Incentives;
United States;
-
Article
| Strategic Management Journal
|
Responding to Public and Private Politics: Corporate Disclosure of Climate Change Strategies
Erin Marie Reid and Michael W. Toffel
The challenges associated with climate change will require governments, citizens, and firms to work collaboratively to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a task that requires information on companies' emissions levels, risks, and reduction opportunities. This paper explores the conditions under which firms participate in this endeavor. Building on theories of how social activists inspire changes in organizational norms, beliefs, and practices, we hypothesize that shareholder actions and regulatory threats are likely to prime firms to adopt practices consistent with the aims of a broader social movement. We find empirical evidence of direct and spillover effects. In the domain of private politics, shareholder resolutions filed against it and others in its industry increase a firm's propensity to engage in practices consistent with the aims of the related social movement. Similarly, in the realm of public politics, threats of state regulations targeted at a firm's industry as well as regulations targeted at other industries increase the likelihood that the firm will engage in such practices. These findings extend existing theory by showing that both activist groups and government actors can spur changes in organizational practices, and that challenges mounted against a single firm and an industry can inspire both firm and field-level changes.
Keywords: Weather and Climate Change;
Problems and Challenges;
Pollution and Pollutants;
Risk and Uncertainty;
Business and Shareholder Relations;
Management Practices and Processes;
Social Issues;
Corporate Disclosure;
Values and Beliefs;
Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Government and Politics;
-
Journal Article
| Journal of Economics & Management Strategy
|
How Well Do Social Ratings Actually Measure Corporate Social Responsibility?
Aaron K. Chatterji, David I. Levine and Michael W. Toffel
Ratings of corporations' environmental activities and capabilities influence billions of dollars of "socially responsible" investments as well as some consumers, activists, and potential employees. In one of the first studies to assess these ratings, we examine how well the most widely used ratings--those of Kinder, Lydenberg, Domini Research & Analytics (KLD)--provide transparency about past and likely future environmental performance. We find KLD "concern" ratings to be fairly good summaries of past environmental performance. In addition, firms with more KLD concerns have slightly, but statistically significantly, more pollution and regulatory compliance violations in later years. KLD environmental strengths, in contrast, do not accurately predict pollution levels or compliance violations. Moreover, we find evidence that KLD's ratings are not optimally using publicly available data. We discuss the implications of our findings for advocates and skeptics of corp= orate social responsibility as well as for studies that relate social responsibility ratings to financial performance.
Keywords: Governance Compliance;
Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Measurement and Metrics;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Performance Effectiveness;
Natural Environment;
Pollution and Pollutants;
-
Article
| Strategic Management Journal
|
Organizational Responses to Environmental Demands: Opening the Black Box
Magali Delmas and Michael W. Toffel
This paper combines new and old institutionalism to explain differences in organizational strategies. We propose that differences in the influence of corporate departments lead their facilities to prioritize different external pressures and thus adopt different management practices. Specifically, we argue that external constituents—including customers, regulators, legislators, local communities, and environmental activist organizations—who interact with influential corporate departments are more likely to affect facility managers’ decisions. As a result, managers of facilities that are subjected to comparable institutional pressures adopt distinct sets of management practices that appease different external constituents. We test our framework in the context of the adoption of environmental management practices using an original survey and archival data obtained for nearly 500 facilities. We find support for these hypotheses.
Keywords: Environmental Sustainability;
Management Practices and Processes;
Decisions;
Adoption;
-
Article
| Journal of Law, Economics & Organization
|
Coerced Confessions: Self-Policing in the Shadow of the Regulator
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 enforcement activities influence organizations' decisions to self-police. We created a comprehensive data set for the "Audit Policy," a United States Environmental Protection Agency program that encourages companies to self-disclose violations of environmental laws and regulations in exchange for reduced sanctions. We find that facilities are more likely to self-disclose if they were recently subjected to one of several different enforcement measures and if they were provided with immunity from prosecution for self-disclosed violations.
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;
-
Article
| Environmental Science & Technology
|
Framing the Elusive Concept of Sustainability: A Sustainability Hierarchy
Julian D. Marshall and Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Framework;
-
Article
| Business Strategy and the Environment
|
Stakeholders and Environmental Management Practices: An Institutional Framework
Magali Delmas and Michael W. Toffel
Despite burgeoning research on companies' environmental strategies and environmental management practices, it remains unclear why some firms adopt environmental management practices beyond regulatory compliance. This paper leverages institutional theory by proposing that stakeholders - including governments, regulators, customers, competitors, community and environmental interest groups, and industry associations - impose coercive and normative pressures on firms. However, the way in which managers perceive and act upon these pressures at the plant level depends upon plant- and parent-company-specific factors, including their track record of environmental performance, the competitive position of the parent company and the organizational structure of the plant. Beyond providing a framework of how institutional pressures influence plants' environmental management practices, various measures are proposed to quantify institutional pressures, key plant-level and parent-company-level characteristics and plant-level environmental management practices
Keywords: Strategy;
Management Practices and Processes;
Environmental Sustainability;
Adoption;
Business and Stakeholder Relations;
Organizational Structure;
Factories, Labs, and Plants;
Competition;
Framework;
Governance Compliance;
Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
-
Journal Article
| Environmental Science & Technology
|
Environmental Implications of Wireless Technologies: News Delivery and Business Meetings
Michael W. Toffel and Arpad Horvath
Keywords: Technology;
Communication;
Information;
Environmental Sustainability;
Business Ventures;
Technology Industry;
-
Article
| Journal of Industrial Ecology
|
Improving Environmental Performance Assessment: Comparative Analysis of Weighting Methods used to Evaluate Chemical Release Inventories
Michael W. Toffel and Julian D. Marshall
Keywords: Performance;
Theory;
Measurement and Metrics;
-
Article
| Applied Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
|
Estimating and Controlling Workplace Risk: An Approach for Occupational Hygiene and Safety Professionals
Michael W. Toffel and Lawrence Birkner
Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty;
Labor;
Safety;
-
Article
| Boston Review
|
Can Global Brands Create Just Supply Chains? Promoting Political Mobilization
Jodi L. Short and Michael W. Toffel
Codes of conduct indicate that working conditions are improving overall at the factories being monitored by multinational corporations, and that these the codes of conduct also create possibilities for political mobilization that can improve labor conditions more broadly.
Keywords: regulation;
auditing;
Labor relations;
occupational safety;
Environmental Operations;
environmental regulation;
Employees;
Labor;
Labor and Management Relations;
Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Manufacturing Industry;
China;
Bangladesh;
India;
Honduras;
Nicaragua;
Pakistan;
Guatemala;
Malaysia;
Viet Nam;
-
Article
| Daily Beast
|
What Green Rankings Don’t Tell You
Aaron K. Chatterji and Michael W. Toffel
-
Column
| RegBlog: A Source of Regulatory News, Analysis, and Opinion in Affiliation with the Penn Program on Regulation
|
Toxics Release Inventory: A Case Study in Information Disclosure Regulation
Glen W. S. Dowell and Michael W. Toffel
-
Article
| Georgetown University Economic Policy Vignette
|
Robust Enforcement Should Complement Voluntary Regulation
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. “Beyond compliance” programs recognize and reward firms for practices that go above and beyond the requirements of the law. “Self-policing” programs adopted by several agencies shift the burden of monitoring regulatory compliance and reporting noncompliance from the government to the private sector. Policymakers often refer to these programs as a win-win-win scenario: compliance improves, regulators conserve enforcement resources, and firms save money. But this outcome can only be achieved if the self-regulatory activities of corporations can effectively substitute for government enforcement, a largely untested assumption that our research examines. We find that, to the contrary, the success of voluntary regulation is contingent on a robust regime of government inspection and enforcement. Within such a regime, we find that voluntary compliance efforts by regulated firms can actually lead to improved environmental performance. In summary, the polarized claims that corporate voluntary regulation represents a win-win opportunity—or constitutes a smokescreen that allows firms to operate with less regulatory oversight—are misguided. Instead, the key to efficient and effective regulatory design is finding the right mix of public and private regulatory activities.
-
Article
| European CEO
|
ISO Standards Stamp Approval
Michael James and Michael W. Toffel
-
Article
| Harvard Business Review Blogs
|
Government Regulation That Actually Works
David I. Levine and Michael W. Toffel
-
Journal Article
| ChinaDialogue
|
The Problem with Green Rankings
Auden Schendler and Michael W. Toffel
-
Article
| Atlantic Monthly
|
What's the Greenest Building? The Problem With Ranking Systems
Auden Schendler and Mike Toffel
Keywords: Environmental Sustainability;
Buildings and Facilities;
Problems and Challenges;
System;
-
Journal Article
| MIT Sloan Management Review
|
The Factor Environmental Ratings Miss
Auden Schendler and Michael W. Toffel
There's a problem with most major environmental rankings of businesses: too often, the ratings fail to incorporate advocacy activities that influence environmental regulation.
Keywords: Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Problems and Challenges;
Rank and Position;
Environmental Sustainability;
Power and Influence;
-
Article
| Yale Economic Review
|
The Causes and Consequences of Industry Self-Policing
Jodi L. Short and Michael W. Toffel
Innovative regulatory programs are encouraging firms to police their own regulatory compliance and voluntarily disclose, or "confess," the violations they find. Despite the "win-win" rhetoric surrounding these government voluntary programs, it is not clear why companies would participate and whether the programs themselves do anything to enhance regulatory effectiveness. Tasked with monitoring the legality of its own operations, why would a firm that identifies violations turn itself in to regulators rather than quietly fix the problem? And why would regulators entrust regulated entities to monitor their own compliance and enforce the law against themselves? This paper addresses these questions by investigating the factors that lead organizations to self-disclose violations, the effects of self-policing on regulatory compliance, and the effects of self-disclosing on the relationship between regulators and regulated firms. We investigate these research questions in the context of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Audit Policy.
Keywords: Innovation and Management;
Programs;
Performance Effectiveness;
Relationships;
Government and Politics;
Policy;
Governance Compliance;
Corporate Disclosure;
Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Legal Liability;
Environmental Sustainability;
Accounting Audits;
United States;
-
Comment
| Berkeley Daily Planet
|
Transparency Needed in Berkeley Lab Nanotechnology
Michael W. Toffel
Argues that the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory should be significantly more transparent about the health and environmental issues associated with its new nanotechnology facility.
Keywords: disclosure;
transparency;
nanotechnology;
Precautionary Principle;
Corporate Disclosure;
-
Article
| Greener Management International: The Journal of Corporate Environmental Strategy and Practice
|
Designing Sustainability at BMW Group: The Designworks/USA Experience
Kellie McElhaney, Michael W. Toffel and Natalie Hill
This case study describes how an industrial design company developed a sustainability management system (SMS) standard, designed and implemented an SMS throughout its business, and then became the first company in the world to achieve third-party SMS certification by a third-party certification organisation.
Keywords: Design;
Governance Compliance;
Management Practices and Processes;
Standards;
Environmental Sustainability;
Auto Industry;
United States;
-
Article
| California Management Review
|
Strategic Management of Product Recovery
Michael W. Toffel
Manufacturers of an expanding range of durable products are facing regulatory and market pressures to manage the products they manufactured upon their end of life (EOL). In part, this attention is motivated by a growing number of countries—especially across Europe and East Asia—that are enacting legislation that imposes greater responsibilities on manufacturers for managing their EOL products. Even in non-regulated markets, however, some manufacturers are engaging in EOL product recovery to reduce production costs, promote an image of environmental responsibility, meet changing customer expectations, protect aftermarkets, and preempt pending legislation or regulations. This article leverages transaction cost economics, capabilities, and resource dependence theories to describe when manufacturers should directly engage in product recovery efforts versus when they should leave this task to independent firms. Technologies that enhance the productivity of product recovery, the level of uncertainty associated with reverse logistics, various manufacturing-related capabilities, the uniqueness of recovered assets, and the desire to avoid dependence on other organizations are key determinants that shape the industrial organization of EOL product recovery.
Keywords: Managerial Roles;
Markets;
Government Legislation;
Customers;
Cost Management;
Economy;
Assets;
Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Product;
Performance Productivity;
Logistics;
Risk and Uncertainty;
Europe;
Asia;
-
Article
| California Management Review
|
The Growing Strategic Importance of End-of-Life Product Management
Michael W. Toffel
Requiring manufacturers to manage the their products when they become waste is an innovative form of regulation, one that has been adopted by countries in Asia, Europe, and North America on a variety of products that range from vehicles to appliances to batteries. However, even in many unregulated industries, some manufacturers are voluntarily assuming more responsibility for their end-of-life products, driven by customer demand and cost efficiencies. This article explores various forms of take-back regulation and highlights some of the key features of the institutions that emerge in response. In addition, six strategic product recovery alternatives are presented, followed by a discussion of some factors managers should consider in developing a take-back strategy.
Keywords: Managerial Roles;
Product;
Innovation and Invention;
Cost Management;
Demand and Consumers;
Strategy;
Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Environmental Sustainability;
Manufacturing Industry;
Asia;
Europe;
North and Central America;
-
Article
| Corporate Environmental Strategy
|
Closing the Loop: Product Take-back Requirements and their Strategic Implications
Michael W. Toffel
In Asia, Europe, and North America, regulators are seeking to reduce waste disposal and develop recycling markets by requiring manufacturers to manage the end-of-life disposition of products they produce. Such policies attempt to "close the loop" for products ranging from electronics to vehicles by creating incentives for manufacturers to increase the usage intensity of materials embodied in their products to reduce the demand for virgin raw materials and energy. This article describes take-back regulations and highlights some of their key features. In addition, several product take-back strategies are presented along with a few key questions managers should consider in selecting an appropriate strategy for their company.
Keywords: Wastes and Waste Processing;
Energy Conservation;
Product Development;
Strategy;
Policy;
Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Manufacturing Industry;
Asia;
Europe;
North and Central America;
-
Article
| Corporate Environmental Strategy
|
BMW Group's Sustainability Management System: Preliminary Results, Ongoing Challenges, and the UN Global Compact
Michael W. Toffel, Natalie Hill and Kellie McElhaney
This article describes preliminary results and ongoing challenges faced by Designworks/USA, an industrial design subsidiary of BMW Group, in its sustainability management efforts since it implemented the world's first certified Sustainability Management System (SMS). In addition, the extent to which the SMS promotes BMW Group's commitment to implement the United Nations Global Compact's human rights, labor, and environmental principles is analyzed. A detailed description of the development of a SMS standard and its deployment throughout the business operations of Designworks/USA was provided in the previous issue of CES Journal.
Keywords: Environmental Sustainability;
Management Systems;
Standards;
Social Issues;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Outcome or Result;
Auto Industry;
-
Article
| Corporate Environmental Strategy
|
Developing a Management Systems Approach to Sustainability at BMW Group
Michael W. Toffel, Natalie Hill and Kellie McElhaney
This article describes how Designworks/USA, a subsidiary of BMW Group, developed a Sustainability Management System (SMS) by integrating the management of environmental, social, and traditional business issues. After several months of deploying the SMS throughout its business operations, this industrial design company became the first organization in the world to achieve third-party certification of a SMS. An article in the next issue of CES Journal will describe the preliminary outcomes of the SMS and challenges Designworks/USA faces in its ongoing SMS development efforts. In addition, that article will describe how the SMS is facilitating BMW Group's commitment to implement the United Nations Global Compact's human rights, labor, and environmental principles.
Keywords: Environmental Sustainability;
Management Systems;
Standards;
Operations;
Auto Industry;
-
Chapter
| The Oxford Handbook of Business and the Environment
| 2012
Institutional Pressures and Organizational Characteristics: Implications for Environmental Strategy
Magali A. Delmas and Michael W. Toffel
A broad literature has emerged over the past decades demonstrating that firms' environmental strategies and practices are influenced by stakeholders and institutional pressures. Such findings are consistent with institutional sociology, which emphasizes the importance of regulatory, normative, and cognitive factors in shaping firms' decisions to adopt specific organizational practices, above and beyond their technical efficiency. Similarly, institutional theory emphasizes legitimation processes and the tendency for institutionalized organizational structures and procedures to be taken for granted, regardless of their efficiency implications. However, the institutional perspective does not address the fundamental issue of business strategy necessary to explain the persistence of substantially different strategies among firms that are subjected to comparable levels of institutional pressures. In this chapter, we present current research arguing that such firms adopt heterogeneous sets of environmental management practices despite facing common institutional pressures because organizational characteristics lead managers to interpret these pressures differently.
Keywords: Management Practices and Processes;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Business and Stakeholder Relations;
Natural Environment;
Business Strategy;
-
Chapter
| A Handbook of Globalisation and Environmental Policy
| 2012
Environmental Federalism in the European Union and the United States
David Vogel, Michael W. Toffel, Diahanna Post and Nazli Z. Uludere Aragon
The United States (US) and the European Union (EU) are federal systems in which the responsibility for environmental policy-making is divided or shared between the central government and the (member) states. The attribution of decision-making power has important policy implications. This chapter compares the role of central and local authorities in the US and the EU in formulating environmental regulations in three areas: automotive emissions for health-related (criteria) pollutants, packaging waste, and global climate change. Automotive emissions are relatively centralised in both political systems. In the cases of packaging waste and global climate change, regulatory policy-making is shared in the EU, but is primarily the responsibility of local governments in the US. Thus, in some important areas, regulatory policy-making is more centralised in the EU. The most important role local governments play in the regulatory process is to help diffuse stringent local standards through more centralised regulations, a dynamic which has recently become more important in the EU than in the US.
Keywords: Natural Environment;
Policy;
Government and Politics;
Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
European Union;
United States;
Citation: Vogel, David, Michael W. Toffel, Diahanna Post, and Nazli Z. Uludere Aragon. " Environmental Federalism in the European Union and the United States." Chap. 11 in A Handbook of Globalisation and Environmental Policy. 2nd ed. Edited by Frank Wijen, Kees Zoeteman, Jan Pieters, and Paul van Seters, 321–361. Cheltenham, UK, 2012.
-
Chapter
| Governance for the Environment: New Perspectives
| 2009
Self-regulatory Institutions for Solving Environmental Problems: Perspectives and Contributions from the Management Literature
Andrew A. King and Michael W. Toffel
Scholars of management have long considered how institutions can help resolve market imperfections and thereby improve human welfare. Most previous research has emphasized the use of for-profit firms. Such institutions cannot effectively address many environmental problems, however, because environmental problems often transcend firm boundaries. As a result, management scholars have begun to explore the use of more distributed institutional forms. In this article, we review the emerging scholarship on the formation and function of self-regulatory institutions.
Keywords: For-Profit Firms;
Investment;
Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Environmental Sustainability;
Competitive Advantage;
-
Chapter
| Social Accountability 8000: The First Decade -- Implementation, Influence, and Impact
| 2009
Evaluating the Impact of SA8000 Certification
Michael J. Hiscox, Claire Schwartz and Michael W. Toffel
SA 8000, along with other types of certification standards and corporate codes of conduct, represents a new form of private governance of working conditions, initiated and implemented by companies, labor unions, and non-governmental activist groups. Whether these codes represents a substantive or merely symbolic approach to governing working conditions is the subject of an ongoing debate, which to date has been dominated by philosophical and political discourse due to a lack of systematic evaluation. Very little empirical evidence is available to indicate whether these codes legitimately distinguish adopting companies and factories as providing better working environments (e.g., health and safety, freedom of association, fair pay practices) and whether these codes have affected their business outcomes (e.g., staff turnover and absenteeism, product defect rates, sales growth). In this book chapter, we review the existing evaluations of other private codes governing workplace conditions, including the Ethical Trading Initiative’s Base Code, Nike’s code of conduct, and Fair Trade. We then describe several key elements of program evaluation that are becoming standard practice in other domains, which we believe should be incorporated in future evaluation studies of these codes. We emphasize the importance of examining performance over time, comparing adopters to non-adopters, and incorporating strategies to overcome selection bias. Evaluations that meet the highest methodological standards are critical to inform the debates about this new form of private governance, and to highlight opportunities for improvement in their standards and monitoring procedures.
Keywords: Corporate Governance;
Working Conditions;
Standards;
Performance Evaluation;
-
Chapter
| Strategic Sustainability: The State of the Art in Corporate Environmental Management Systems
| 2006
Designing Sustainability at BMW Group: The Designworks/USA Experience
Kellie McElhaney, Michael W. Toffel and Natalie Hill
Keywords: Organizational Design;
Organizational Change and Adaptation;
Auto Industry;
Germany;
United States;
Citation: McElhaney, Kellie, Michael W. Toffel, and Natalie Hill. "Designing Sustainability at BMW Group: The Designworks/USA Experience." In Strategic Sustainability: The State of the Art in Corporate Environmental Management Systems, edited by J. Sarkis, and R. Sroufe. Sheffield, U.K.: Greenleaf Publishing, 2006.
-
Chapter
| Best Paper Proceedings of the Sixty-fifth Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management
| 2006
Coerced Confessions: How Regulatory Deterrence Drives Self-Policing
Jodi L. Short and Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Governance Compliance;
Corporate Governance;
Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Citation: Short, Jodi L., and Michael W. Toffel. "Coerced Confessions: How Regulatory Deterrence Drives Self-Policing." In Best Paper Proceedings of the Sixty-fifth Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, edited by K. Mark Weaver. Academy of Management, 2006. (Winner of Charles H. Levine Award for Best Conference Paper presented by Academy of Management. Previously titled "Turning Themselves In: Why Some Firms Self-disclose Regulatory Violations.")
-
Chapter
| A Handbook of Globalisation and Environmental Policy: National Government Interventions in a Global Arena
| 2005
Environmental Federalism in the European Union and the United States
David Vogel, Michael W. Toffel and Diahanna Post
The United States (US) and the European Union (EU) are federal systems in which the responsibility for environmental policy-making is divided or shared between the central government and the (member) states. The attribution of decision-making power has important policy implications. This chapter compares the role of central and local authorities in the US and the EU in formulating environmental regulations in three areas: automotive emissions, packaging waste, and global climate change. Automotive emissions are relatively centralised in both political systems. In the cases of packaging waste and global climate change, regulatory policy-making is shared in the EU but is primarily the responsibility of local governments in the US. Thus, in some important areas, regulatory policy-making is relatively centralised in the EU. The most important role local governments play in the regulatory process is to help diffuse stringent local standards through centralised regulation, a dynamic which has become more common in the EU than in the US.
Keywords: Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Policy;
Government Legislation;
Natural Environment;
Pollution and Pollutants;
Weather and Climate Change;
European Union;
United States;
Citation: Vogel, David, Michael W. Toffel, and Diahanna Post. " Environmental Federalism in the European Union and the United States." Chap. 9 in A Handbook of Globalisation and Environmental Policy: National Government Interventions in a Global Arena, edited by F. Wijen, K. Zoeteman, and J. Pieters, 247–276. Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2005.
-
Chapter
| Stakeholders, the Environment, & Society
| 2004
Institutional Pressure and Environmental Management Practices
Magali Delmas and Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Management Practices and Processes;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Environmental Sustainability;
Citation: Delmas, Magali, and Michael W. Toffel. "Institutional Pressure and Environmental Management Practices." In Stakeholders, the Environment, & Society, edited by Sanjay Sharma, and Mark Starik. Sheffield, U.K.: Greenleaf Publishing, 2004.
-
Chapter
| Raising the Bar: Creating Value with the UN Global Compact
| 2004
The Leverage of a Small Designer Group: Designworks
Michael W. Toffel
-
Chapter
| From Principles to Practice
| 2003
Designing Sustainability at BMW Group: The Designworks/USA Experience
Michael W. Toffel, Natalie Hill and Kellie McElhaney
This case study describes how an industrial design company developed a Sustainability Management System (SMS) standard, designed and implemented an SMS throughout its business, and then became the first company in the world to achieve third-party SMS certification. The case also describes ongoing development and challenges and examines how the SMS has facilitated the implementation of the United Nations Global Compact.
Keywords: Design;
Governance Compliance;
Management Practices and Processes;
Standards;
Environmental Sustainability;
United States;
-
Chapter
| ISO 14001 Case Studies and Practical Experiences
| 2000
Anticipating Greener Supply Chain Demands: One Singapore Company's Journey to ISO 14001
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Supply Chain Management;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Standards;
Environmental Sustainability;
Singapore;
-
Working Paper
| HBS Working Paper Series
| 2012
Reinforcing Regulatory Regimes: How States, Civil Society, and Codes of Conduct Promote Adherence to Global Labor Standards
Michael W. Toffel, Jodi L. Short and Melissa Ouellet
In response to pressure from various stakeholders, many transnational businesses have developed codes of conduct and monitoring systems to ensure that working conditions in their supply chain factories meet global labor standards. Many observers have questioned whether these codes of conduct have any impact on working conditions or are merely a marketing tool to deflect criticism of valuable global brands. Using a proprietary dataset from one of the world's largest social auditors, containing audit-level data for 31,915 audits of 14,922 establishments in 43 countries on behalf of 689 clients in 33 countries, we conduct one of the first large-scale comparative studies of adherence to labor codes of conduct to determine what combination of institutional conditions promotes compliance with the global labor standards embodied in codes. We find that these private transnational governance tools are most effective when they are embedded in states that have made binding domestic and international legal commitments to protect workers' rights and that have high levels of press freedom and nongovernmental organization activity. Taken together, these findings suggest the importance of multiple, robust, overlapping, and reinforcing governance regimes to meaningful transnational regulation.
Keywords: supply chain management;
governance;
Government and Politics;
legal aspects of business;
Operational Control;
quality;
operations strategy;
outsourcing;
social responsibility;
labor management;
Accounting Audits;
Corporate Accountability;
Governance Compliance;
Governance Controls;
Working Conditions;
Law Enforcement;
Production;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Performance Evaluation;
Safety;
Quality;
Nonprofit Organizations;
Non-Governmental Organizations;
Supply Chain;
Supply Chain Management;
Apparel and Accessories Industry;
Electronics Industry;
Manufacturing Industry;
Asia;
Europe;
China;
United States;
-
Working Paper
| HBS Working Paper Series
| 2012
Public Procurement and the Private Supply of Green Buildings
Timothy Simcoe and Michael W. Toffel
We measure the impact of municipal policies requiring governments to construct green buildings on private-sector adoption of the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standard. Using matching methods, panel data, and instrumental variables, we find that government procurement rules produce spillover effects that stimulate both private-sector adoption of the LEED standard and supplier investments in green building expertise. Our findings suggest that government procurement policies can accelerate the diffusion of new environmental standards that require coordinated complementary investments by various types of private adopters.
Keywords: environmental protection;
environment;
environmental regulation;
regulation;
procurement;
supply chain;
sustainability;
Buildings and Facilities;
Law;
Markets;
Supply Chain;
Risk and Uncertainty;
Business and Government Relations;
Real Estate Industry;
Construction Industry;
Public Administration Industry;
California;
-
Working Paper
| HBS Working Paper Series
| 2012
When Do Firms Greenwash? Corporate Visibility, Civil Society Scrutiny, and Environmental Disclosure
Christopher Marquis and Michael W. Toffel
Under increased pressure to report environmental impacts, some firms selectively disclose relatively benign impacts, creating an impression of transparency while masking their true performance. What deters selective disclosure and leads firms to instead make disclosures more representative of their environmental performance? We hypothesize that selective disclosure, a novel symbolic strategy firms use to manage stakeholder perceptions, is mitigated by two forms of organizational visibility. Firms with greater domain-specific visibility have specific characteristics that make them especially vulnerable to stakeholder criticism and as a result are less prone to selective disclosure. In contrast, more generically visible firms are deterred from selectively disclosing only when they are subjected to civil society scrutiny. We test our hypotheses using a novel panel dataset of 4,484 public companies in many industries, headquartered in 38 countries, during 2005–2008, when environmental disclosure increased among global corporations. We find that domain-specific visibility mitigates selective disclosure, that it mitigates selective disclosure more so than generic visibility, and that generic visibility mitigates selective disclosure only in the presence of civil society scrutiny. This research contributes to understanding how corporations manage the symbolic use of information and how corporate behavior is influenced by civil society scrutiny embedded in institutional processes.
Keywords: disclosure strategy;
disclosure;
environmental performance;
environmental strategy;
environment;
symbolic;
reporting;
Integrated Corporate Reporting;
Globalization;
Corporate Accountability;
Corporate Disclosure;
Governance Compliance;
Management Practices and Processes;
Organizational Change and Adaptation;
Business and Government Relations;
Environmental Sustainability;
-
Working Paper
| HBS Working Paper Series
| 2011
Managerial Practices That Promote Voice and Taking Charge among Frontline Workers
Julia Adler-Milstein, Sara J. Singer and Michael W. Toffel
Process-improvement ideas often come from frontline workers who speak up by voicing concerns about problems and by taking charge to resolve them. We hypothesize that organization-wide process-improvement campaigns encourage both forms of speaking up, especially voicing concern. We also hypothesize that the effectiveness of such campaigns depends on the prior responsiveness of line managers. We test our hypotheses in the healthcare setting, in which problems are frequent. We use data on nearly 7,500 reported incidents extracted from an incident-reporting system that is similar to those used by many organizations to encourage employees to communicate about operational problems. We find that process-improvement campaigns prompt employees to speak up and that campaigns increase the frequency of voicing concern to a greater extent than they increase taking charge. We also find that campaigns are particularly effective in eliciting taking charge among employees whose managers have been relatively unresponsive to previous instances of speaking up. Our results therefore indicate that organization-wide campaigns can encourage voicing concerns and taking charge, two important forms of speaking up. These results can enable managers to solicit ideas from frontline workers that lead to performance improvement.
Keywords: Communication;
Employees;
Knowledge Sharing;
Knowledge Use and Leverage;
Management Practices and Processes;
Operations;
Business Processes;
Performance Improvement;
Citation: Adler-Milstein, Julia, Sara J. Singer, and Michael W. Toffel. " Managerial Practices That Promote Voice and Taking Charge among Frontline Workers." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 11–005, July 2010. (Revised Sept. 2011. Best Theory-to-Practice Paper Award by Academy of Management's Health Care Management Division. Selected for Best Paper Proceedings of the 2011 Academy of Management Meeting.)
-
Working Paper
| HBS Working Paper Series
| 2008
Resolving Information Asymmetries in Markets: The Role of Certified Management Programs
Michael W. Toffel
Firms and regulators are increasingly relying on voluntary mechanisms to signal and infer quality of difficult-to-observe management practices. Prior evaluations of voluntary management programs have focused on those that lack verification mechanisms and have found little evidence that they legitimately distinguish adopters as having superior management practices or performance. In this paper, I conduct one of the first evaluations to determine whether a voluntary management program that features an independent verification mechanism is achieving its ultimate objectives. Using a sample of thousands of manufacturing facilities across the United States, I find evidence that the ISO 14001 Environmental Management System Standard has attracted companies with superior environmental performance. After developing quasi-control groups using propensity score matching, I also find that adopters subsequently improve their environmental performance. These results suggest that robust verification mechanisms such as independent certification may be necessary for voluntary management programs to mitigate information asymmetries surrounding management practices. Implications are discussed for the industry-associations, government agencies, and the non-governmental organizations that design these programs, the companies that are investing resources to adopt them, and those that are relying on them to infer the quality of management practices.
Keywords: Management Practices and Processes;
Standards;
Performance Improvement;
Programs;
Environmental Sustainability;
Manufacturing Industry;
United States;
-
Working Paper
| HBS Working Paper Series
| 2008
Diffusing Management Practices within the Firm: The Role of Information Provision
Michael J. Lenox and Michael W. Toffel
A key role of corporate managers is to encourage subsidiaries to adopt innovative practices. This paper examines the conditions under which corporate managers use information provision to encourage subsidiaries' adoption of advanced management practices. Focusing on the distribution of expertise across subsidiaries, we propose that corporate managers elect an information provision strategy when (i) subsidiaries, on average, possess moderate levels of related expertise, (ii) subsidiaries exhibit significant heterogeneity in this expertise, and (iii) the subsidiaries are more diversified and less concentrated. We examine the efforts to diffuse pollution prevention practices exhibited by manufacturing firms in the information and communication technology sector in the United States, and find empirical support for the four hypotheses developed here. The research presented in this paper has implications for our understanding not only of who adopts advanced environmental management practices, but more broadly, of when firms adopt information provision strategies to encourage knowledge transfer within the organization.
Keywords: Business Subsidiaries;
Knowledge Sharing;
Knowledge Use and Leverage;
Management Practices and Processes;
Corporate Strategy;
Information Technology Industry;
United States;
-
Working Paper
| HBS Working Paper Series
| 2008
Extending Producer Responsibility: An Evaluation Framework for Product Take-Back Policies
Michael W. Toffel, Antoinette Stein and Katharine Lee
Manufacturers are increasingly being required to adhere to product take-back regulations that require them to manage their products at the end of life. Such regulations seek to internalize products' entire life cycle costs into market prices, with the ultimate objective of reducing their environmental burden. This article provides a framework to evaluate the potential for take-back regulations to actually lead to reduced environmental impacts and to stimulate product design changes. It describes trade-offs associated with several major policy decisions, including whether to hold firms physically or financially responsible for the recovery of their products, when to impose recycling fees, whether to include disposal and hazardous substance bans, and whether to mandate product design features to foster reuse and recycling of components and materials. The framework also addresses policy elements that can significantly affect the cost efficiency and occupational safety hazards of end-of-life product recovery operations. The evaluation framework is illustrated with examples drawn from take-back regulations promulgated in Europe, Japan, and the United States governing waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE).
Keywords: Product;
Cost;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Environmental Sustainability;
-
Working Paper
| HBS Working Paper Series
| 2008
Contracting for Servicizing
Michael W. Toffel
Servicizing, a novel business practice that sells product functionality rather than products, has been touted as an environmentally beneficial business practice. This paper describes how servicizing transactions mitigate some problems associated with sales transactions, but creates several others. The success of servicizing-or product service systems-requires manufacturers to develop contracts that attract customers while protecting their interests. Several propositions are offered to facilitate empirical testing of the concepts discussed.
Keywords: Customer Focus and Relationships;
Contracts;
Market Transactions;
Service Delivery;
Service Operations;
Sales;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. " Contracting for Servicizing." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 08–063, February 2008. (February 2008.)
-
Case
| HBS Case Collection
|
2013
Groom Energy Solutions: Selling Efficiency
Michael W. Toffel, Kira R. Fabrizio and Stephanie van Sice
Groom Energy Solutions helps organizations reduce their energy use and costs through the implementation of energy efficiency measures, which create long-term financial and environmental benefits. With early success serving customers in the cold storage and industrial manufacturing sectors, the seven-year-old company must now decide whether to continue expanding within these segments or transition into commercial retail and office buildings, which offer growth potential and unique challenges. Groom Energy must also decide which geographic regions provide the best opportunity.
This case study provides background on the history of the energy efficiency industry, the energy efficiency paradox, and the benefits and challenges of a business focused on implementing efficiency measures. The case is particularly relevant to courses focused on energy management, environmental sustainability, and entrepreneurship within the energy and sustainability areas.
Keywords: Groom Energy Solutions;
Jon Guerster;
Salem, MA;
Energy Management;
Energy Efficiency Paradox;
Sustainability Management;
manufacturing;
Cold Storage;
Commercial Real Estate;
Enterprise Smart Grid;
Carbon Accounting;
LED Lighting;
Sustainability Research;
entrepreneurship;
Environmental Entrepreneurship;
Energy Entrepreneurship;
Energy Services;
Electricity;
Startup;
Expansion;
Growth;
sustainability;
Business Startups;
Forecasting and Prediction;
Energy Conservation;
Revenue;
Geographic Location;
Human Resources;
Management;
Growth and Development Strategy;
Market Entry and Exit;
Operations;
Service Delivery;
Strategic Planning;
Science;
Environmental Sustainability;
Weather and Climate Change;
Society;
Social Issues;
Technology Adoption;
Energy Industry;
Green Technology Industry;
Technology Industry;
Utilities Industry;
United States;
Boston;
-
Case
| HBS Case Collection
|
2013
(Revised from original 2012 version)
EnerNOC: DemandSMART
Michael W. Toffel, Kira Fabrizio and Stephanie van Sice
EnerNOC is an energy company with an innovative business model: it serves as an intermediary between electric utilities and electricity users. It contracts with electricity users willing to reduce demand during periods of peak energy demand, and sells this as excess capacity to electric utilities. The company is facing an upheaval in the energy markets due to the dramatic growth in natural gas fracking and the resulting increase in natural gas supply. The case enables students to evaluate the EnerNOC's business model--including its environmental implications--and the potential impact of fracking on its business. The case is accessible to non-specialists, as it provides background on the electric utility industry and the debate about fracking for natural gas. Given the substantial environmental impact of the energy and electricity industries, the case is particularly relevant for courses that focus on energy, the natural environment, and environmental sustainability.
Keywords: Production Planning;
productivity;
supply chain management;
environmental protection;
energy;
environment;
business government relations;
laws and regulation;
Business Model;
Environmental Sustainability;
Innovation and Invention;
Opportunities;
Risk and Uncertainty;
Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Supply Chain Management;
Production;
Energy Conservation;
Energy Industry;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W., Kira Fabrizio, and Stephanie van Sice. " EnerNOC: DemandSMART." Harvard Business School Case 613-036, February 2013. (Revised from original August 2012 version.)
-
Case
| HBS Case Collection
|
2012
(Revised from original 2012 version)
Fiji versus FIJI: Negotiating Over Water
Francesca Gino, Michael W. Toffel and Stephanie van Sice
This case examines negotiations between a company and government over natural resources. The Fijian government proposed a substantial increase in its water extraction tax that would only apply to large extractors, and thus to FIJI Water and not to its competitors. FIJI Water responded by calling the increase "discriminatory" and threatening to shut down its operations, but in the end its negotiations resulted in its agreeing to pay the tax increase.
Keywords: Negotiation;
Business and Government Relations;
Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues;
Distribution Industry;
Fiji;
Citation: Gino, Francesca, Michael W. Toffel, and Stephanie van Sice. " Fiji versus FIJI: Negotiating Over Water." Harvard Business School Case 912-030, October 2012. (Revised from original March 2012 version.)
-
Teaching Note
| HBS Case Collection
|
2012
(Revised from original 2012 version)
Fiji versus FIJI: Negotiating Over Water (TN)
Francesca Gino, Michael W. Toffel and Stephanie van Sice
Keywords: Negotiation;
Fiji;
-
Case
| HBS Case Collection
|
2012
(Revised from original 2011 version)
InterfaceRAISE: Sustainability Consulting
Michael W. Toffel, Robert G. Eccles and Casey Taylor
InterfaceRAISE is a sustainability management consulting firm created to leverage the capabilities of its parent company Interface Inc., a carpet manufacturer recognized as a global leader in corporate environmental sustainability. This case illustrates the challenges of turning an internal capability into a client‐facing revenue stream. This is made especially difficult by the fact that the parent company is a manufacturing firm and InterfaceRAISE is a professional service firm (consulting). InterfaceRAISE is not being staffed by a traditional consulting firm model, relying instead on the part‐time availability of employees in the parent company. At the time of the case, InterfaceRAISE was grappling to identify the appropriate business model for the type of consulting firm it wants to be, to determine what its client portfolio should look like, and to set its pricing structure. InterfaceRAISE needed to decide how to accelerate its growth while better achieving its three objectives: improving its clients' sustainability performance, enhancing its parent company's brand image and sales, and increasing operating profits.
Keywords: Problems and Challenges;
Integrated Corporate Reporting;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Entrepreneurship;
Performance;
Environmental Accounting;
Profit;
Marketing Strategy;
Human Resources;
Business Model;
Leveraged Buyouts;
Salesforce Management;
Consulting Industry;
Manufacturing Industry;
-
Teaching Note
| HBS Case Collection
|
2011
InterfaceRAISE: Sustainability Consulting (TN)
Robert G. Eccles and Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Consulting Industry;
-
Teaching Note
| HBS Case Collection
|
2012
(Revised from original 2011 version)
FIJI Water: Carbon Negative? (TN)
Michael W. Toffel and Francesca Gino
Keywords: Energy;
Pollution and Pollutants;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W., and Francesca Gino. " FIJI Water: Carbon Negative? (TN)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 612-051, March 2012. (Revised from original November 2011 version.)
-
Case
| HBS Case Collection
|
2013
(Revised from original 2011 version)
Trucost: Valuing Corporate Environmental Impacts
Michael W. Toffel and Stephanie van Sice
Trucost provided corporate environmental performance data and analysis to institutional investors and corporate managers, but after operating for a decade had yet to achieve profitability. Trucost was struggling to effectively differentiate its high quality products from its lower-cost competitors, and needed to develop a strategy to educate the marketplace and pursue new distribution channels. Increased investor interest in environmental issues—and an ever growing number of corporate environmental rankings—led to a proliferation of competitors to Trucost, and an industry shakeout was predicted. How should Trucost compete?
Keywords: Competitive Strategy;
Knowledge Use and Leverage;
Distribution Channels;
Investment;
Measurement and Metrics;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Information;
Value;
Environmental Sustainability;
Financial Services Industry;
-
Background Note
| HBS Case Collection
|
2013
(Revised from original 2012 version)
The Hybrid Vehicle Market
Michael W. Toffel and Nazli Z. Uludere Aragon
This note describes the hybrid electic vehicle market, the results of different automaker strategies, and the environmental regulatory issues that can promote or inhibit market growth in the United States. Introduces students to the technologies and regulatory aspects of vehicles using alternative powertrains and fuels including hybrid electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids, electic vehicles, and deisel engines. Enable students to evaluate the success of the Toyota Prius, especially when used as an updated supplement to a case discussion of Toyota Motor Corp.: Launching Prius (HBS Case 706458).
Keywords: Competitive Strategy;
Environmental Sustainability;
Product Development;
Technology;
Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Auto Industry;
Manufacturing Industry;
Japan;
United States;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W., and Nazli Z. Uludere Aragon. " The Hybrid Vehicle Market." Harvard Business School Background Note 612-084, February 2013. (Revised from original March 2012 version.)
-
Background Note
| HBS Case Collection
|
2013
(Revised from original 2011 version)
Carbon Footprints: Methods and Calculations
Michael W. Toffel and Stephanie van Sice
Describes methods to calculate the carbon footprint (greenhouse gas emissions) of an organization's operations and supply chain, and a product or service. Illustrates concepts with examples of calculating the carbon footprint of an organization (Harvard Business School) and a product (a newspaper). Provides data necessary for carbon footprint calculations.
Keywords: Operations;
Supply Chain;
Pollution and Pollutants;
Measurement and Metrics;
Environmental Sustainability;
-
Background Note
| HBS Case Collection
|
2013
(Revised from original 2010 version)
The Cage-Free Egg Movement
Michael W. Toffel and Stephanie van Sice
Describes the social movement confronting conventional egg production techniques (battery cages) based on animal welfare concerns, and some merits and drawbacks of cage-free alternatives. Highlights animal rights activist campaigns, political and regulatory responses, and announcements by some companies to shift egg purchases or sales from conventional to alternative production methods.
Keywords: Animal-Based Agribusiness;
Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Rights;
Supply Chain Management;
Natural Environment;
Social Issues;
Competitive Strategy;
Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W., and Stephanie van Sice. " The Cage-Free Egg Movement." Harvard Business School Background Note 611-021, February 2013. (Revised from original September 2010 version.)
-
Background Note
| HBS Case Collection
|
2013
(Revised from original 2010 version)
The Precautionary Principle
Michael W. Toffel and Nazli Z. Uludere Aragon
This note describes the precautionary principle and its key tenets, highlights challenges associated with its use, and includes many examples of its application, primarily within the realm of regulating activities based on the risk of harm to human health and the environment. Appendices provide detailed examples of how the precautionary principle has been applied to regulations in three key industries: agriculture, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals. Describes various forms of the precautionary principle, its widespread adoption in international agreements, its distinction from cost-benefit analysis, its shift of the burden of proving that activities are safe from regulators to industry, and the importance of considering Type I and Type II errors and status quo bias when contemplating whether to evoke the precautionary principle.
Keywords: Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Policy;
Health Disorders;
Business and Government Relations;
Safety;
Natural Environment;
Pollution and Pollutants;
Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry;
Chemical Industry;
Pharmaceutical Industry;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W., and Nazli Z. Uludere Aragon. " The Precautionary Principle." Harvard Business School Background Note 610-043, February 2013. (Revised from original June 2010 version.)
-
Case
| HBS Case Collection
|
2011
(Revised from original 2010 version)
Aspen Skiing Company (A)
Michael W. Toffel and Stephanie van Sice
Having begun improving the environmental performance of its own operations, Aspen Skiing Company is considering "greening" its supply chain and lobbying for greenhouse gas regulations. A world renowned ski resort vulnerable to global climate change, Aspen's activities often garner media attention, which can promote its causes. But these initiatives, which attempt to compel other firms to improve their environmental performance, risk a public relations backlash and charges of "greenwashing" given that Aspen's ski resorts are themselves environmentally intensive operations.
Keywords: Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Supply Chain Management;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Business and Government Relations;
Business and Stakeholder Relations;
Environmental Sustainability;
Weather and Climate Change;
Entertainment and Recreation Industry;
Aspen;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W., and Stephanie van Sice. " Aspen Skiing Company (A)." Harvard Business School Case 611-002, March 2011. (Revised from original September 2010 version.)
-
Supplement
| HBS Case Collection
|
2011
(Revised from original 2010 version)
Aspen Skiing Company (B)
Michael W. Toffel and Stephanie van Sice
Having begun improving the environmental performance of its own operations, Aspen Skiing Company is considering "greening" its supply chain and lobbying for greenhouse gas regulations. A world renowned ski resort vulnerable to global climate change, Aspen's activities often garner media attention, which can promote its causes. But these initiatives, which attempt to compel other firms to improve their environmental performance, risk a public relations backlash and charges of "greenwashing" given that Aspen's ski resorts are themselves environmentally intensive operations.
Keywords: Environmental Sustainability;
Supply Chain;
Entertainment and Recreation Industry;
Sports Industry;
Aspen;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W., and Stephanie van Sice. " Aspen Skiing Company (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 611-003, March 2011. (Revised from original September 2010 version.)
-
Supplement
| HBS Case Collection
|
2011
(Revised from original 2010 version)
Aspen Skiing Company (C)
Michael W. Toffel and Stephanie van Sice
Having begun improving the environmental performance of its own operations, Aspen Skiing Company is considering "greening" its supply chain and lobbying for greenhouse gas regulations. A world renowned ski resort vulnerable to global climate change, Aspen's activities often garner media attention, which can promote its causes. But these initiatives, which attempt to compel other firms to improve their environmental performance, risk a public relations backlash and charges of "greenwashing" given that Aspen's ski resorts are themselves environmentally intensive operations.
Keywords: Environmental Sustainability;
Supply Chain;
Entertainment and Recreation Industry;
Sports Industry;
Aspen;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W., and Stephanie van Sice. " Aspen Skiing Company (C)." Harvard Business School Supplement 611-018, March 2011. (Revised from original September 2010 version.)
-
Supplement
| HBS Case Collection
|
2011
(Revised from original 2010 version)
Aspen Skiing Company (D)
Michael W. Toffel and Stephanie van Sice
Having begun improving the environmental performance of its own operations, Aspen Skiing Company is considering "greening" its supply chain and lobbying for greenhouse gas regulations. A world renowned ski resort vulnerable to global climate change, Aspen's activities often garner media attention, which can promote its causes. But these initiatives, which attempt to compel other firms to improve their environmental performance, risk a public relations backlash and charges of "greenwashing" given that Aspen's ski resorts are themselves environmentally intensive operations.
Keywords: Environmental Sustainability;
Supply Chain;
Entertainment and Recreation Industry;
Sports Industry;
Aspen;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W., and Stephanie van Sice. " Aspen Skiing Company (D)." Harvard Business School Supplement 611-019, March 2011. (Revised from original September 2010 version.)
-
Teaching Note
| HBS Case Collection
|
2011
Aspen Skiing Company (TN) (A), (B), (C), and (D)
Michael W. Toffel and Stephanie van Sice
Teaching Note for 611002, 611003, 611018, and 611019.
Keywords: Entertainment and Recreation Industry;
Tourism Industry;
-
Case
| HBS Case Collection
|
2010
(Revised from original 2009 version)
Genzyme Center (A)
Michael W. Toffel and Aldo Sesia
Genzyme Corporation is in the midst of planning its new corporate headquarters, which incorporates many innovative green building features. After learning that the building as planned would likely earn a LEED Silver rating, an intermediate score in the LEED green building rating scheme, the CEO charged the building team with exploring opportunities that would enable the building to earn the highest rating, LEED Platinum. Five additional green building features are described, and students are asked to analyze and recommend which, if any, of these features to pursue based on their cost, likelihood of earning LEED credits, and their influence on the building's environmental performance.
Keywords: Buildings and Facilities;
Business Headquarters;
Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Standards;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Performance Improvement;
Environmental Sustainability;
Pollution and Pollutants;
Green Technology Industry;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W., and Aldo Sesia. " Genzyme Center (A)." Harvard Business School Case 610-008, September 2010. (Revised from original September 2009 version.) (green building, LEED rating system, economic and environmental performance, program evaluation and assessment, tradeoffs between process- and performance standards.)
-
Supplement
| HBS Case Collection
|
2009
(Revised from original 2009 version)
Genzyme Center (B)
Michael W. Toffel and Aldo Sesia
Genzyme Corporation is in the midst of planning its new corporate headquarters, which incorporates many innovative green building features. After learning that the building as planned would likely earn a LEED Silver rating, an intermediate score in the LEED green building rating scheme, the CEO charged the building team with exploring opportunities that would enable the building to earn the highest rating, LEED Platinum. Five additional green building features are described, and students are asked to analyze and recommend which, if any, of these features to pursue based on their cost, likelihood of earning LEED credits, and their influence on the building's environmental performance.
Keywords: Environmental Sustainability;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Standards;
Cost vs Benefits;
Biotechnology Industry;
Construction Industry;
Real Estate Industry;
Green Technology Industry;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W., and Aldo Sesia. " Genzyme Center (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 610-009, December 2009. (Revised from original September 2009 version.)
-
Supplement
| HBS Case Collection
|
2009
(Revised from original 2009 version)
Genzyme Center (C)
Michael W. Toffel and Aldo Sesia
Genzyme Corporation is in the midst of planning its new corporate headquarters, which incorporates many innovative green building features. After learning that the building as planned would likely earn a LEED Silver rating, an intermediate score in the LEED green building rating scheme, the CEO charged the building team with exploring opportunities that would enable the building to earn the highest rating, LEED Platinum. Five additional green building features are described, and students are asked to analyze and recommend which, if any, of these features to pursue based on their cost, likelihood of earning LEED credits, and their influence on the building's environmental performance.
Keywords: Environmental Sustainability;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Standards;
Cost vs Benefits;
Biotechnology Industry;
Construction Industry;
Real Estate Industry;
Green Technology Industry;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W., and Aldo Sesia. " Genzyme Center (C)." Harvard Business School Supplement 610-010, December 2009. (Revised from original September 2009 version.)
-
Teaching Note
| HBS Case Collection
|
2012
(Revised from original 2009 version)
Genzyme Center (TN) (A), (B) & (C)
Michael W. Toffel
Teaching Note for [610008], [610009]. and [610010]..
-
Case
| HBS Case Collection
|
2009
(Revised from original 2009 version)
Sustainability at Millipore
Michael W. Toffel and Katharine Lee
This case describes Millipore Corporation's approach to becoming a more environmentally sustainable company. As he prepared for his quarterly meeting with the CEO, the Director of Sustainability needed to develop positions on several issues. Tactically, he needed to recommend whether the company should purchase carbon offsets to help meet its aggressive greenhouse gas reduction targets, and whether to continue publicly reporting its greenhouse gas emissions and strategies despite recent problems. On a more strategic level, he needed to recommend how to take the company's Sustainability Initiative to the next level and consider whether changes were needed to its organizational structure. Finally, he needed to develop a more systematic approach to prioritizing investments in various projects being proposed to improve environmental performance.
Keywords: Investment;
Corporate Disclosure;
Operations;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Organizational Structure;
Natural Environment;
Environmental Sustainability;
Pollution and Pollutants;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W., and Katharine Lee. " Sustainability at Millipore." Harvard Business School Case 610-012, December 2009. (Revised from original July 2009 version.) (defining sustainability in a corporate context, managing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions including inventories, targets, disclosure, reduction strategies.)
-
Teaching Note
| HBS Case Collection
|
2009
Sustainability at Millipore (TN)
Michael W. Toffel
Teaching Note for [610012].
Keywords: Environmental Sustainability;
Organizational Structure;
Investment;
Projects;
Performance Improvement;
Framework;
Measurement and Metrics;
Corporate Disclosure;
Biotechnology Industry;
-
Case
| HBS Case Collection
|
2011
(Revised from original 2008 version)
Cook Composites and Polymers Co.
Deishin Lee, Michael W. Toffel and Rachel Gordon
This case describes how a company improves resource efficiency and process quality in its manufacturing process by developing a waste by-product into a new product. The case describes how CCP cleans production equipment between batches using styrene, which becomes a costly hazardous waste. Having worked on minimizing waste for the past 20 years, CCP believed it could not reduce the use of styrene without risking product quality. Instead, CCP was exploring the development of a by-product from its "rinse styrene," but faces uncertainty regarding the operational, financial, and environmental implications of doing so. This case contains data to support quantitative analyses of financial, operational, and environmental issues including some basic life-cycle analysis (LCA) calculations that focus on greenhouse gas emissions.
Keywords: Innovation and Invention;
Product Development;
Business Processes;
Performance Efficiency;
Natural Environment;
Wastes and Waste Processing;
Pollution and Pollutants;
Environmental Sustainability;
Chemical Industry;
Manufacturing Industry;
Citation: Lee, Deishin, Michael W. Toffel, and Rachel Gordon. " Cook Composites and Polymers Co." Harvard Business School Case 608-055, March 2011. (Revised from original June 2008 version.)
-
Teaching Note
| HBS Case Collection
|
2009
(Revised from original 2008 version)
Cook Composites and Polymers Co. (TN)
Deishin Lee and Michael W. Toffel
Teaching Note for [608055].
Keywords: Chemical Industry;
Citation: Lee, Deishin, and Michael W. Toffel. " Cook Composites and Polymers Co. (TN)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 608-079, January 2009. (Revised from original June 2008 version.)
-
Teaching Note
| HBS Case Collection
|
2009
(Revised from original 2008 version)
"Shad" Process Flow Design Exercise (TN)
Michael W. Toffel and Stephanie van Sice
This is a Teaching Note for 608-072.
Keywords: Design;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W., and Stephanie van Sice. "Shad" Process Flow Design Exercise (TN). Harvard Business School Teaching Note 608-086, September 2009. (Revised from original May 2008 version.)
-
Teaching Note
| HBS Case Collection
|
2011
Clearwater Seafoods (TN)
Forest L. Reinhardt, Michael W. Toffel and Frederik Peter Nellemann
Keywords: Food and Beverage Industry;
Citation: Reinhardt, Forest L., Michael W. Toffel, and Frederik Peter Nellemann. "Clearwater Seafoods (TN)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 712-020, October 2011.
-
Teaching Note
| HBS Case Collection
|
2011
Colbun - Powering Chile (TN)
Forest L. Reinhardt, Michael W. Toffel, Noel Maurer and Frederik Nellemann
Keywords: Utilities Industry;
Chile;
Citation: Reinhardt, Forest L., Michael W. Toffel, Noel Maurer, and Frederik Nellemann. " Colbun - Powering Chile (TN)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 712-021, December 2011.
-
Talk
|
10
Apr
2013
Which Suppliers Adhere to Global Labor Standards? Evidence from Codes of Conduct Audits
Michael W. Toffel
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "Which Suppliers Adhere to Global Labor Standards? Evidence from Codes of Conduct Audits." Operations Seminar Series (Kellogg School of Management), April 10, 2013.
-
Talk
|
25
Feb
2013
OSHA Inspections: Saving Workers or Killing Jobs? Evidence from Randomized Inspections in California
Michael W. Toffel
-
Talk
|
14
Feb
2013
Reinforcing Regulatory Regimes: How States, Civil Society, and Codes of Conduct Promote Adherence to Global Labor Standards
Michael W. Toffel
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "Reinforcing Regulatory Regimes: How States, Civil Society, and Codes of Conduct Promote Adherence to Global Labor Standards." New Directions in Regulation Seminar Series, Harvard Kennedy School Regulatory Policy Program, Cambridge, MA, United States, February 14, 2013.
-
Conference Presentation
|
25
Apr
2012
-
2012
The Role of Organizational Scope and Governance in Strengthening Private Monitoring
Michael W. Toffel
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "The Role of Organizational Scope and Governance in Strengthening Private Monitoring." Paper presented at the Business, Policy and Sustainability Seminar, George Washington University School of Business, April 2012.
-
Conference Presentation
|
Apr
2011
-
15
Apr
2011
The Globalization of Corporate Environmental Disclosure: Accountability or Greenwashing?
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Globalization;
Corporate Disclosure;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "The Globalization of Corporate Environmental Disclosure: Accountability or Greenwashing?" Paper presented at the Duquesne University Donahue School of Business, Sustainable MBA Seminar, April 2011.
-
Conference Presentation
|
18
Feb
2011
The Role of Organizational Scope and Governance in Strengthening Private Monitoring
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Organizations;
Governance;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "The Role of Organizational Scope and Governance in Strengthening Private Monitoring." Paper presented at the Emory University Goizueta Business School, Organization & Management Department Seminar, February 18, 2011.
-
Conference Presentation
|
Oct
2010
How Stringent Is Private Regulatory Monitoring? The Role of Organizational Scope and Governance
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Organizations;
Governance;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "How Stringent Is Private Regulatory Monitoring? The Role of Organizational Scope and Governance." Paper presented at the Wharton Operations and Information Management Department Seminar, October 2010.
-
Conference Presentation
|
Oct
2010
How Stringent Is Private Regulatory Monitoring? The Role of Organizational Scope and Governance
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Organizations;
Governance;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "How Stringent Is Private Regulatory Monitoring? The Role of Organizational Scope and Governance." Paper presented at the Georgia Institute of Technology Distinguished Operations Management Lecture, October 2010.
-
Conference Presentation
|
Apr
2010
The Globalization of Corporate Environmental Transparency
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Globalization;
Business Ventures;
Natural Environment;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "The Globalization of Corporate Environmental Transparency." Paper presented at the UCLA Anderson School of Management Strategy and Policy Seminar, April 2010.
-
Conference Presentation
|
Apr
2010
Organizational Scope and Governance in Private Regulatory Enforcement
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Organizations;
Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "Organizational Scope and Governance in Private Regulatory Enforcement." Paper presented at the Cornell University Johnson School Operations Management Workshop, April 2010.
-
Conference Presentation
|
Apr
2010
The Globalization of Corporate Environmental Transparency
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Globalization;
Business Ventures;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "The Globalization of Corporate Environmental Transparency." Paper presented at the Harvard Business School Accounting & Management Unit Seminar, April 2010.
-
Conference Presentation
|
Dec
2009
Coming Clean...and Cleaning Up? Examining the Effects of Self-Policing
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Governance Compliance;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "Coming Clean...and Cleaning Up? Examining the Effects of Self-Policing." Paper presented at the Duke Fuqua School of Business Strategy Seminar, Durham, NC, December 2009.
-
Conference Presentation
|
May
2009
Coming Clean...and Cleaning Up? Examining the Effects of Self-Policing
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Governance Compliance;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "Coming Clean...and Cleaning Up? Examining the Effects of Self-Policing." Paper presented at the Stanford Operations, Information & Technology Seminars, May 2009.
-
Conference Presentation
|
Apr
2009
-
28
Apr
2009
Responding to Public and Private Politics: Corporate Disclosure of Climate Change Strategies
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Strategy;
Weather and Climate Change;
Corporate Disclosure;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "Responding to Public and Private Politics: Corporate Disclosure of Climate Change Strategies." Paper presented at the Institute for Work and Employment Research Seminar, MIT Sloan School of Management, April 2009.
-
Conference Presentation
|
Feb
2009
Coming Clean...and Cleaning Up? Examining the Effects of Self-Policing
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Governance Compliance;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "Coming Clean...and Cleaning Up? Examining the Effects of Self-Policing." University of Western Ontario, Richard Ivey School of Business, February 2009.
-
Conference Presentation
|
Mar
2008
Shamed and Able: How Firms Respond to Information Disclosure
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Corporate Disclosure;
Information;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "Shamed and Able: How Firms Respond to Information Disclosure." Paper presented at the Erb Institute Colloquium, March 2008.
-
Conference Presentation
|
Mar
2007
-
8
Mar
2007
Coming Clean...and Cleaning Up? Examining the Effects of Self-Policing
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Outcome or Result;
Governance Compliance;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "Coming Clean...and Cleaning Up? Examining the Effects of Self-Policing." Paper presented at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government Business & Government Seminar Series, John F. Kennedy School of Government, March 2007.
-
Conference Presentation
|
Feb
2007
-
1
Feb
2007
Coming Clean...and Cleaning Up? Examining the Effects of Self-Policing
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Outcome or Result;
Governance Compliance;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "Coming Clean...and Cleaning Up? Examining the Effects of Self-Policing." Paper presented at the Harvard Kennedy School Seminar on Environmental Economics and Policy, February 2007.
-
Conference Presentation
|
May
2013
Which Suppliers Better Adhere to International Labor Standards? Evidence from Codes of Conduct Audits
Michael W. Toffel
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "Which Suppliers Better Adhere to International Labor Standards? Evidence from Codes of Conduct Audits." Paper presented at the Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability Annual Research Conference, Berkeley, CA, May 2013.
-
Conference Presentation
|
28
Jun
2012
When Do Firms Greenwash?
Michael W. Toffel
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "When Do Firms Greenwash?" Paper presented at the 24th Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics Annual Meeting, June 28, 2012.
-
Conference Presentation
|
27
Jun
2012
Engaging Supply Chains in Climate Change
Michael W. Toffel
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "Engaging Supply Chains in Climate Change." Paper presented at the GRONEN Research Conference, Group on Organizations and the Natural Environment (GRONEN), Saint Maximin la Sainte Baume, France, June 27, 2012.
-
Conference Presentation
|
27
Jun
2012
Private Enforcement of Labor and Environmental Standards in Global Supply Chains
Michael W. Toffel
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "Private Enforcement of Labor and Environmental Standards in Global Supply Chains." Paper presented at the GRONEN Research Conference, Group on Organizations and the Natural Environment (GRONEN), Saint Maximin la Sainte Baume, France, June 27, 2012.
-
Conference Presentation
|
25
Jun
2012
-
2012
The Role of Organizational Scope and Governance in Strengthening Private Monitoring
Michael W. Toffel
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "The Role of Organizational Scope and Governance in Strengthening Private Monitoring." Paper presented at the New Insight into Quality and Environmental Practices, Université Paris-Dauphine, Paris, France, June 2012.
-
Conference Presentation
|
May
2012
When do Firms Greenwash?
Michael W. Toffel
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "When do Firms Greenwash?" Paper presented at the Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability Annual Research Conference, New Haven, Connecticut, May 2012.
-
Conference Presentation
|
11
Jun
2011
Engaging Suppliers to Mitigate Climate Change
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Weather and Climate Change;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "Engaging Suppliers to Mitigate Climate Change." Paper presented at the Innovation in Operations Conference, June 11, 2011.
-
Conference Presentation
|
07
Nov
2010
How Stringent Is Private Regulatory Monitoring? The Role of Organizational Scope and Governance
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Organizations;
Governance;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "How Stringent Is Private Regulatory Monitoring? The Role of Organizational Scope and Governance." Paper presented at the INFORMS Annual Meeting, Issues in New Product Development Series, Austin, TX, November 07, 2010.
-
Conference Presentation
|
07
Nov
2010
Speaking Up Constructively: Managerial Practices That Elicit Solutions from Front-line Employees
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Management Practices and Processes;
Employees;
Conflict and Resolution;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "Speaking Up Constructively: Managerial Practices That Elicit Solutions from Front-line Employees." Paper presented at the INFORMS Annual Meeting, Issues in New Product Development Series, Austin, TX, November 07, 2010.
-
Conference Presentation
|
14
Oct
2010
Coming Clean and Cleaning Up: Does Voluntary Self-Reporting Indicate Effective Self-Policing?
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Governance Compliance;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "Coming Clean and Cleaning Up: Does Voluntary Self-Reporting Indicate Effective Self-Policing?" Paper presented at the Workshop for Empirical Research in Operations Management, Wharton Empirical Operations Management Conference Series, October 14, 2010.
-
Conference Presentation
|
1
May
2010
How Stringent is Private Regulatory Enforcement? The Role of Organizational Scope and Governance
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Organizations;
Governance;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "How Stringent is Private Regulatory Enforcement? The Role of Organizational Scope and Governance." Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Production and Operations Management Society, Vancouver, May 1, 2010.
-
Conference Presentation
|
06
Mar
2009
-
07
Mar
2009
Responding to Public and Private Politics: Corporate Disclosure of Climate Change Strategies
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Strategy;
Weather and Climate Change;
Corporate Disclosure;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "Responding to Public and Private Politics: Corporate Disclosure of Climate Change Strategies." Paper presented at the Strategy and the Business Environment Conference, March 06–07, 2009.
-
Conference Presentation
|
29
Feb
2008
Shamed and Able: How Firms Respond to Information Disclosure
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Corporate Disclosure;
Information;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "Shamed and Able: How Firms Respond to Information Disclosure." Paper presented at the Institutional Foundations for Industry Self-Regulation Conference, February 29, 2008.
-
Conference Presentation
|
11
Jan
2008
Are Management Standards Effective?
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Management;
Standards;
Performance Effectiveness;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "Are Management Standards Effective?" Paper presented at the Just Supply Chains Conference, January 11, 2008.
-
Conference Presentation
|
06
Nov
2008
Quality Management & Job Quality: How ISO 9001 Affects Employees & Employers
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Management;
Employees;
Quality;
Standards;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "Quality Management & Job Quality: How ISO 9001 Affects Employees & Employers." Paper presented at the Workshop on Empirical Research in Operations Management, November 06, 2008.
-
Conference Presentation
|
27
Sep
2007
Shamed and Able: How Firms Respond to Information Disclosure
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Information;
Corporate Disclosure;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "Shamed and Able: How Firms Respond to Information Disclosure." Paper presented at the Workshop on Empirical Research in Operations Management, September 27, 2007.
-
Conference Presentation
|
3
Aug
2007
-
8
Aug
2007
How Well Do Social Ratings Actually Measure Corporate Social Responsibility?
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Measurement and Metrics;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "How Well Do Social Ratings Actually Measure Corporate Social Responsibility?" Paper presented at the Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PA, August 03–08, 2007.
-
Conference Presentation
|
5
Aug
2007
Coming Clean...and Cleaning Up? Examining the Effects of Self-Policing
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Outcome or Result;
Governance Compliance;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "Coming Clean...and Cleaning Up? Examining the Effects of Self-Policing." Paper presented at the Academy of Management Annual Meeting, August 05, 2007.
-
Conference Presentation
|
30
Mar
2007
Inspection Holidays and Compliance Outcomes: Examining the Outcomes of Self-Policing
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Outcome or Result;
Governance Compliance;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "Inspection Holidays and Compliance Outcomes: Examining the Outcomes of Self-Policing." Paper presented at the Strategy and the Business Environment Conference, March 30, 2007.
-
Conference Presentation
|
16
Feb
2007
Coming Clean...and Cleaning Up? Examining the Effects of Self-Policing
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Outcome or Result;
Governance Compliance;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "Coming Clean...and Cleaning Up? Examining the Effects of Self-Policing." Paper presented at the Conference on Institutional Foundations for Industry Self-Regulation, February 16, 2007.
-
Conference Presentation
|
24
Mar
2006
Turning Themselves in: Why Some Firms Self-disclose Regulatory Violations
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Governance Compliance;
Corporate Governance;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "Turning Themselves in: Why Some Firms Self-disclose Regulatory Violations." Paper presented at the Strategy and the Business Environment Conference, March 24, 2006.
-
Conference Presentation
|
24
Feb
2006
Turning Themselves In: Why Some Firms Self-disclose Regulatory Violations
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Governance Compliance;
Corporate Governance;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "Turning Themselves In: Why Some Firms Self-disclose Regulatory Violations." Paper presented at the Conference on Institutional Mechanisms for Industry Self-Regulation, February 24, 2006.
-
Conference Presentation
|
4
Apr
2013
Greening Supply Chains
Michael W. Toffel
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. " Greening Supply Chains." Paper presented at the Green Growth Knowledge Platform Annual Conference, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Paris, France, April 4, 2013.
-
Conference Presentation
|
Dec
2012
The Regulator's Role in Encouraging Self-policing: Evidence from the EPA's Audit Policy
Michael W. Toffel
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "The Regulator's Role in Encouraging Self-policing: Evidence from the EPA's Audit Policy." Paper presented at the Next Generation Environmental Compliance Workshop, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Enforcement and Compliance, Washington, DC, December 2012.
-
Panel Discussion
|
12
Oct
2012
Environmental Disclosures: Lessons Learned from Empirical Research
Michael W. Toffel
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "Environmental Disclosures: Lessons Learned from Empirical Research." Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program: Opportunities for Research and Policy Analysis , Resources for the Future, Washington, DC, October 12, 2012. (Cosponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.)
-
Talk
|
Aug
2012
Evaluating OSHA Inspections for Intended and Unintended Outcomes
Michael W. Toffel
-
Conference Presentation
|
12
Apr
2012
How Firms Respond to Mandatory Information Disclosure
Michael W. Toffel
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "How Firms Respond to Mandatory Information Disclosure." Paper presented at the National Training Conference on the Toxics Release Inventory and Environmental Conditions in Communities, Washington, DC, April 12, 2012.
-
Conference Presentation
|
01
Mar
2011
Servicizing: Are There Win-Wins? In Search of Economic and Environmental Benefits
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Economics;
Natural Environment;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "Servicizing: Are There Win-Wins? In Search of Economic and Environmental Benefits." Paper presented at the Wharton Service Supply Chain Thought Leaders Forum, San Francisco, March 01, 2011.
-
Conference Presentation
|
21
Oct
2010
How the ISO 9001 Standard for Quality Management Systems Improves Employee Morale and Increases Profitability and Competitiveness
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Management Systems;
Employees;
Quality;
Happiness;
Profit;
-
Conference Presentation
|
7
Jul
2010
Research Perspectives on Operational Auditing and Certification
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Research;
Accounting Audits;
-
Conference Presentation
|
27
May
2010
Corporate Environmental Disclosure: A Research Overview
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Corporate Disclosure;
Natural Environment;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "Corporate Environmental Disclosure: A Research Overview." Paper presented at the Amsterdam Global Conference on Sustainability and Transparency, Global Reporting Initiative, Amsterdam, May 27, 2010.
-
Conference Presentation
|
27
Feb
2009
Sustainability Indexes
Michael W. Toffel
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "Sustainability Indexes." Paper presented at the Conference Board's Research Working Group on Governance and Sustainability, February 27, 2009.
-
Conference Presentation
|
25
Feb
2009
New Research on Corporate Environmental Disclosure and Environmental Ratings
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Research;
Corporate Disclosure;
Natural Environment;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "New Research on Corporate Environmental Disclosure and Environmental Ratings." Paper presented at the Enterprise Carbon Accounting, February 25, 2009.
-
Conference Presentation
|
06
Feb
2009
Coming Clean...and Cleaning Up? Examining the Effects of Self-Policing
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Governance Compliance;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "Coming Clean...and Cleaning Up? Examining the Effects of Self-Policing." Paper presented at the Conference on Corporate Transparency and Accountability, Washington, DC, February 06, 2009.
-
Conference Presentation
|
22
Feb
2008
MapEcos: Introduction and Facility Information Disclosure
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Corporate Disclosure;
Information;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "MapEcos: Introduction and Facility Information Disclosure." Paper presented at the Small Business Environmental Roundtable, February 22, 2008.
-
Conference Presentation
|
12
Feb
2008
MapEcos: Facility Disclosure and Stakeholder Attention (preliminary analysis)
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Business and Stakeholder Relations;
Corporate Disclosure;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "MapEcos: Facility Disclosure and Stakeholder Attention (preliminary analysis)." Paper presented at the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) National Training Conference, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, February 12, 2008.
-
Conference Presentation
|
25
Aug
2005
The Health and Safety of Quality Programs: An Empirical Evaluation
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Quality;
Programs;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "The Health and Safety of Quality Programs: An Empirical Evaluation." Paper presented at the California Commission on Health and Safety and Workers' Compensation Meeting, Oakland, CA, August 25, 2005.
-
Conference Presentation
|
11
Apr
2005
Resolving Information Asymmetries in Supply Chains: The Role of Certified Voluntary Programs
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Information;
Supply Chain;
Programs;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. "Resolving Information Asymmetries in Supply Chains: The Role of Certified Voluntary Programs." Paper presented at the National Environmental Partnership Summit, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Chicago, IL, April 11, 2005.
-
Dissertation
| 2005
Voluntary Environmental Management Initiatives: Smoke Signals or Smoke Screens?
Michael W. Toffel
Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Environmental Sustainability;
Management;
Citation: Toffel, Michael W. " Voluntary Environmental Management Initiatives: Smoke Signals or Smoke Screens?" Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, December 2005. (Winner of Academy of Management. Social Issues in Management Division. Best Dissertation Award presented by Academy of Management. Nominated for Academy of Management. Organizations and Natural Environment Division. Best Dissertation Award presented by Academy of Management. 2005.)
-
Report
| 2008
Survey Questionnaire on Environmental Management Practices: Summary of Results by Industry and Practices
Magali Delmas and Michael W. Toffel
This document provides a summary of the results of a survey on Environmental Management Practices (EMP) conducted by the University of California at Santa Barbara during October and November 2003. The survey was sent to 3255 facilities in 8 industrial sectors: pulp, paper and paperboard mills, chemical and allied products, refining, primary metals, machinery, electronics/electrical, automotive, and utilities. The survey yielded 562 responses, which constitutes a 17.2% response rate. This summary includes a general description of the sample, a profile of the respondents, and summary statistics of facilities' environmental management practices, relations with stakeholders, and environmental performance measures. In addition, we report the factors that respondents noted were influencing them to improve their environmental performance and adopt particular environmental management practices. In many cases, these results are categorized by industry to facilitate comparisons. The environmental management practices we inquired about include the adoption of an environmental policy and its communication, the number of internal and external audits performed at the facility, the proportion of employees in various departments receiving environmental training, "green purchasing" policies, the adoption of the ISO 14001 international standard, participation in industry and governments voluntary programs, and solicitation of opinions from environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Overall, we identified important differences between industrial sectors in terms of the level of adoption of these environmental management practices. Companies can employ these survey results to benchmark their practices to facilities in their own industry as well as to other industries. In addition, government, NGOs, and local communities can employ this information to learn the prevalence of different environmental management practices across various industries, and to better understand how firms are motivated—and influenced—to adopt environmental management practices.
Keywords: Economic Sectors;
Surveys;
Management Practices and Processes;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Business and Government Relations;
Environmental Sustainability;
Non-Governmental Organizations;
Research Summary
-
Research Summary
Overview
by
Michael W. Toffel
My research examines how companies strive to increase operational discipline, primarily in terms of environmental management and performance, but also with respect to occupational safety and process quality.
Most of my research papers have addressed two related questions: (1) Why do some companies adopt a more proactive environmental strategy than others?, and (2) Which environmental management approaches are particularly effective in improving environmental performance, and why?
Keywords: environmental performance;
environmental regulation;
environmental strategy;
labor management;
safety;
transparency;
institutional theory;
economic analysis;
quality improvement;
operations management;
supply chain;
supply chain management;
regulation;
Environmental Sustainability;
Safety;
Quality;
Manufacturing Industry;
Construction Industry;
United States;
California;
-
Research Summary
Managing sustainability in supply chains
by
Michael W. Toffel
I am examining codes of conduct, management process standards, and government voluntary programs that address environmental and labor issues, seeking to understand what enables some of these programs to actually deliver on their promise of distinguishing organizations as possessing superior management practices and operational performance.Current research projects in this domain include investigations of the following questions:
- Under what circumstances do social audits of factories lead to sustained improvements in working conditions? How do social audit team characteristics affect operational improvements?
- Why are some suppliers more willing than others to disclose to their buyers their carbon footprint and vulnerability to climate change? (working paper)
- To what extent can private-sector governance mechanisms mitigate corruption, and thus excess pollution, in vehicle emissions testing? (working paper)
- To what extent does adopting the ISO 14001 Environmental Management System Standard affect an organization’s environmental performance? (working paper)
- To what extent are government policies that mandate green building practices in public construction projects stimulating the private sector green building market? (related: Genzyme Center case on LEED and green building practices)
Keywords: environment;
environmental performance;
environmental regulation;
environmental strategy;
regulation;
supply chain;
supply chain management;
Manufacturing Industry;
Auto Industry;
Service Industry;
Construction Industry;
United States;
California;
-
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 some facilities were voluntarily disclosing compliance violations to the US EPA that their internal environmental compliance auditing programs had uncovered. Another article examined why some companies were voluntarily disclosing greenhouse gas emissions and the opportunities and risks they perceived global climate change was posing to their businesses. I have also looked at how managers respond to environmental ratings. My current research projects in this domain address the following questions:
- What factors lead particular quality problems documented within organizations to garner follow-up problem solving activities? (working paper)
- Why are some corporations much more transparent in disclosing their environmental performance than others? (working paper)
- Why are some suppliers more willing than others to disclose to their buyers their carbon footprint and vulnerability to climate change? (working paper)
Keywords: transparency;
disclosure strategy;
disclosure;
environment;
environmental performance;
regulation;
supply chain;
Environmental Sustainability;
United States;
-
Research Summary
Conceptualizing and measuring environmental sustainability
by
Michael W. Toffel
Teaching
-
Teaching Interest
Overview
by
Michael W. Toffel
Professor Toffel teaches Environmentally Sustainable Strategy & Operations, an MBA elective based on the award-winning Business and the Environment course he co-developed with Forest Reinhardt.
Toffel also helped create the required Business Education for Scholars and Teachers (BEST): Foundations course to all HBS doctoral students, and has taught the Technology and Operations Management portion of this course.
Each Spring, Toffel teaches the Doctoral Seminar in Technology and Operations Management, a work-in-progress seminar he created to help doctoral students develop research ideas, design studies, conduct robust analysis, and clearly present insights.
Toffel has also taught the required first-year MBA course Technology and Operations Management (TOM). Keywords: Environmental Sustainability;
Operations;
Supply Chain Management;
Government Legislation;
Non-Governmental Organizations;
Multinational Firms and Management;
Awards & Honors
-
Michael W. Toffel: Winner of the 2013 Paul Kleindorfer Award in Sustainability from the Production and Operations Management Society (POMS). The award recognizes “young scholars who have already distinguished themselves through the breadth and innovativeness of their scholarly work on questions related to sustainable operations and the social and environmental impact of business."
-
Michael W. Toffel: Won the 2012 Doctoral Award for Excellence in Mentoring. Established by doctoral students, the awards recognize HBS faculty "who exemplify a deep commitment to fostering the personal and professional development" of HBS doctoral students.
-
Michael W. Toffel: Nominated in 2012 by the Strategic Management Society (SMS) for Best Conference Paper for Practice Implications at the SMS 32nd Annual International Conference for "Competition and Illicit Quality" (Bennett, Pierce, Snyder, Toffel, HBS Working Paper No. 12–071, February 2012).
-
Michael W. Toffel: Nominated in 2012 by the Strategic Management Society (SMS) for Best Conference Paper at the SMS 32nd Annual International Conference for "Competition and Illicit Quality" (Bennett, Pierce, Snyder, Toffel, HBS Working Paper No. 12–071, February 2012).
-
Michael W. Toffel: Awarded the Marvin Bower Fellowship in 2011 by Harvard Business School.
-
Michael W. Toffel: Won the 2011 Best Health Care Management Theory-to-Practice Paper Award in the Health Care Management Division of the Academy of Management for his paper with Julia Adler-Milstein and Sara J. Singer, “Managerial Practices that Promote Voice and Taking Charge among Frontline Workers.”
-
Michael W. Toffel: Selected for the 2011 Best Paper Proceedings of the Academy of Management for his paper with Julia Adler-Milstein and Sara J. Singer, "Managerial Practices that Promote Voice and Taking Charge among Frontline Workers."
-
Michael W. Toffel: Runner up for the 2010 Doctoral Award for Excellence in Mentoring. Established by doctoral students, the awards recognize HBS faculty "who exemplify a deep commitment to fostering the personal and professional development" of HBS doctoral students.
-
Michael W. Toffel: Won the 2010 Emerging Scholar Award from the Academy of Management's Organizations and the Natural Environment (ONE) Division. The award recognizes "a stream of research that has substantial ONE content and that has been published in premier scholarly outlets."
-
Michael W. Toffel: Won the 2009 D. Alfred N. and Lynn Manos Page Grand Prize for Sustainability Issues in Business Curricula for the HBS Elected Curriculum course, "Business and the Environment" with Forest Reinhardt.
-
Michael W. Toffel: Winner of the 2006 Charles H. Levine Award for Best Conference Paper from the Public and NonProfit Division of the Academy of Management for "Coerced Confessions: How Regulatory Deterrence Drives Self-Policing" (with Jodi L. Short, Academy of Management Best Paper Proceedings, 2006).
-
Michael W. Toffel: Runner up for the 2006 Academy of Management Best Dissertation Award from the Organizations and Natural Environment Division for "Voluntary Environmental Management Initiatives: Smoke Signals or Smoke Screens?" (University of California at Berkeley, 2005).
-
Michael W. Toffel: Winner of the 2006 Academy of Management Best Dissertation Award from the Social Issues in Management Division for "Voluntary Environmental Management Initiatives: Smoke Signals or Smoke Screens?" (University of California at Berkeley, 2005).
|
|