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- October 2021
- Article
Board Design and Governance Failures at Peer Firms
By: Shelby Gai, J. Yo-Jud Cheng and Andy Wu
Our study introduces board committees as a crucial determinant of board actions. We examine how directors who structurally link different board committees—referred to as multi-committee directors (MCDs)—explain why some board actions are merely symbolic while others...
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- October 2021
- Article
Shareholder Activism and Firms' Voluntary Disclosure of Climate Change Risks
By: Caroline Flammer, Michael W. Toffel and Kala Viswanathan
This paper examines whether—in the absence of mandated disclosure requirements—shareholder activism can elicit greater disclosure of firms’ exposure to climate change risks. We find that environmental shareholder activism increases the voluntary disclosure of climate...
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Keywords:
Transparency;
Reporting;
Shareholder Engagement;
Shareholder Activism;
Climate Change;
Risk and Uncertainty;
Environmental Management;
Investment Activism;
Corporate Disclosure;
Communication Strategy;
Information Publishing;
Measurement and Metrics;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Problems and Challenges;
United States
- 2021
- Working Paper
Simplifying Business Group Structures: Value and Governance Implications for Korean Chaebols
By: Akash Chattopadhyay, Sa-Pyung Sean Shin and Charles C.Y. Wang
We examine Korean business groups' transitions from circular-shareholding to (relatively simple) pyramidal-shareholding structures during 2011-2018. The transition did not impact chaebol families' degrees of control or incentive conflicts in firms belonging to...
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- 2021
- Article
How Top Managers Use the Entrepreneurial Gap to Drive Strategic Change
By: Robert L. Simons and Antonio Davila
Prior research provides strong evidence for the association between business strategy and the design and use of management control systems. We complement this research by examining the role of management control systems in situations of strategic change. We report the...
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- August 2021
- Case
Danone S.A.: Becoming a Mission-Driven Company (A)
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Emilie Billaud
Emmanuel Faber became CEO of Danone SA, the French food and beverage company, in 2014. Right from the start, he ran the company with a dual commitment to both profit and purpose (i.e., ESG objectives). In fact, in 2018, he said, “It’s time to make sustainable business...
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- August 2021
- Supplement
Danone S.A.: Becoming a Mission-Driven Company (B)
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Emilie Billaud
Describes the events that took place in the first six months after Danone became France’s first “entreprise à mission” (mission-driven company).
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- August 2021
- Supplement
Danone S.A.: Becoming a Mission-Driven Company (C)
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Emilie Billaud
Describes the events that took place in the first year after Danone became France’s first “entreprise à mission” (mission-driven company).
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- 2021
- Working Paper
How to Fix ESG Reporting
By: Robert S. Kaplan and Karthik Ramanna
Investors, advocacy groups, academics, and the 200 CEOs of the US Business Roundtable have asked corporations to take on an added purpose beyond a narrow pursuit of shareholder value. In response, many companies now issue ESG (Environmental, Societal, and Governance)...
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Keywords:
ESG Reporting;
Sustainability;
Corporate Purpose;
Greenhouse Gas;
Activity-Based Costing;
Environmental Sustainability;
Environmental Management;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Measurement and Metrics;
Goals and Objectives;
Agreements and Arrangements;
Corporate Accountability
- July 2021
- Case
'Why I Blew the Whistle': Mauro Botta v. PwC
By: Aiyesha Dey, Jonas Heese and Sarah Mehta
Set in April 2021, this case tells the story of Mauro Botta, a senior manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). In 2016, Botta filed a whistleblower claim with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, alleging that PwC had failed to fulfill its obligations to remain...
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- July 2021
- Supplement
CIAM: Home-Grown Shareholder Activism in France (B)
By: Charles C.Y. Wang, Tonia Labruyere and Vincent Dessain
This case is a complement to CIAM: Home-Grown Shareholder Activism in France (A) and describes the events after CIAM learned about a potential misuse of corporate assets at Altice/SFR.
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- 2021
- Working Paper
The Changing Role of Business in Society
Business interaction with the U.S. government, historically based on securing industry or company special interests at the expense of the public good, has enabled and furthered government dysfunction. Gridlock within the American political system has precluded the...
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Keywords:
Politics;
Shared Value;
Social Progress Index;
Competitiveness;
Walmart;
BlackRock;
ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance;
ESG;
Transparency;
Campaign Contributions;
Campaign Finance;
Lobbying;
Revolving Door;
Political Ideology;
Political Parties;
Political Partisanship;
Government And Business;
Government Innovation;
Elections;
Democracy;
Capitalism;
Stakeholder Capitalism;
Shareholder Engagement;
Competition;
Strategy;
Government and Politics;
Society;
Social Issues;
Human Needs;
Wealth and Poverty;
Business and Community Relations;
Business and Government Relations;
Corporate Accountability;
Financial Services Industry;
Banking Industry;
United States
- July 2021 (Revised August 2021)
- Supplement
Airbnb Emerges from the Pandemic: Lessons for Stakeholder Governance (B)
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Allison M. Ciechanover
As the COVID pandemic spread in early 2020, global travel ground to a halt. For Airbnb, the San Francisco-based platform for renting accommodations, the impact was both swift and severe as revenues plummeted more than 70% over the prior year. Responding to the sudden...
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Keywords:
Business and Stakeholder Relations;
Corporate Governance;
Crisis Management;
Leadership;
Two-Sided Platforms;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Mission and Purpose;
Value Creation;
Decision Making;
Goals and Objectives;
Travel Industry;
Tourism Industry;
Service Industry;
United States
- 2021
- Book
The Power of Trust: How Companies Build It, Lose It, Regain It
By: Sandra J. Sucher and Shalene Gupta
Trust is the most powerful force underlying the success of every business. Yet it can be shattered in an instant, with a devastating impact on a company’s market cap and reputation. How to build and sustain trust requires fresh insight into why customers, employees,...
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Keywords:
Power;
Corporate Culture;
Future Of Work;
Innovation;
Technology Strategy;
Automation;
Stakeholder Engagement;
Employee Attitude;
Customer Behavior;
Shareholder Value;
Government And Business;
Impact Investing;
Corporate Change And Sustainability;
Trust;
Power and Influence;
Globalization;
Leadership;
Organizational Culture;
Innovation and Invention;
Human Resources;
Technology;
Strategy;
Corporate Accountability;
Asia;
Europe;
South America;
Middle East;
North and Central America
- July 2021
- Article
Material Sustainability Information and Stock Price Informativeness
By: Jody Grewal, Clarissa Hauptmann and George Serafeim
As part of the SEC’s revision of Regulation S-K, many investors proposed the mandatory disclosure of sustainability information in the form of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data. However, progress is contingent on collecting evidence regarding which...
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Keywords:
Voluntary Disclosure;
Accounting Standards;
Sustainability;
Nonfinancial Information;
Corporate Social Responsibility;
Stock Price Informativeness;
Synchronicity;
Environmental Sustainability;
Corporate Disclosure;
Corporate Accountability;
Stocks;
Price;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Accounting;
Standards
- July 2021
- Article
Multinationality and Capital Structure Dynamics: A Corporate Governance Explanation
By: Daniel Gyimah, Nana Abena Kwansa, Anthony K. Kyiu and Anywhere Sikochi
This paper examines the impact of corporate governance on capital structure dynamics. Using ordinary least squares regressions on 17,496 firm-year observations for 2,294 U.S. multinational companies (MNCs) over the period 1990–2018, we find that MNCs with strong...
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- Summer 2021
- Article
The Cost and Evolution of Quality at Cipla Ltd, 1935–2016
By: Muhammad H. Zaman and Tarun Khanna
This article examines the evolution of Indian pharmaceutical manufacturer Cipla towards producing drugs that met the quality standards of European and U.S. regulators. It employs new research in Cipla’s corporate archives, the Creating Emerging Markets database, and...
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- 2021
- Working Paper
Proxy Advisory Firms and Corporate Shareholder Engagement
By: Aiyesha Dey, Joshua White and Austin Starkweather
We examine the influence of proxy advisors on firms’ shareholder engagement behavior. Our analyses exploit a quasi-natural experiment using Say-On-Pay voting outcomes near a threshold that triggers a review of engagement activities by Institutional Shareholder Services...
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- June 2021
- Case
Building the Governance to Take Capital SAFI to the Next Level
By: V.G. Narayanan, Asis Martinez Jerez and Mariana Cal
Asset management firm Capital SAFI wanted to attract new strategic investors and expand to other countries. Having the right corporate governance in place was critical to achieve this goal.
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Keywords:
Board Of Directors;
Transparency;
Sustainable Finance;
South America;
Latin America;
Corporate Governance;
Governance Controls;
Governing and Advisory Boards;
Business Organization;
Corporate Strategy;
Transformation;
Investment Funds;
Financial Services Industry;
Bolivia;
South America;
Latin America
- 2021
- Working Paper
Once Bitten, Twice Shy: Learning from Corporate Fraud and Corporate Governance Spillovers
By: Trung Nguyen
This paper finds that investors learn from their experience with corporate fraud and financial misconduct and modify their investment behavior to avoid suspicious firms and increase corporate governance efforts. More specially, mutual funds that experienced corporate...
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- Article
Cash-for-Information Whistleblower Programs: Effects on Whistleblowing and Consequences for Whistleblowers
By: Aiyesha Dey, Jonas Heese and Gerardo Pérez Cavazos
Cash-for-information whistleblower programs have gained momentum as a regulatory tool to enforce corporate misconduct. Yet, little is known about how financial incentives affect whistleblowers’ decisions to report potential misconduct to authorities. Similarly, there...
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