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- October 17, 2022
- Article
When Climate Collaboration Is Treated as an Antitrust Violation
By: Matteo Gasparini, Knut Haanaes and Peter Tufano
Carbon emissions transcend firms and borders—they are a massive, unpriced externality. Companies across industries are increasingly waking up to the need to cooperate in the fight against climate change but the law might get in the way. Across Europe and the U.S.,...
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- September 2022
- Case
EnergyNow: Powering a New Market
By: Alexander MacKay and James Barnett
In August 2022, EnergyNow co-founder and CEO Stuart MacWilliam (MBA 2015) considers the company strategy for building solar panels to provide power in South Africa’s recently deregulated energy market.
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Keywords:
Business Ventures;
Development Economics;
Energy;
Alternative Energy;
Energy Generation;
Energy Sources;
Renewable Energy;
Entrepreneurship;
Environmental Management;
Ethics;
Geography;
Government and Politics;
Energy Policy;
Law;
Management;
Markets;
Market Timing;
Operations;
Energy Industry;
Utilities Industry;
Africa;
South Africa
- June 2022 (Revised January 2023)
- Case
South Africa – a 'Just Energy Transition'
By: Richard Vietor
South Africa, like most other countries, is in the process of reducing its carbon emissions to comply with COP26 and, hopefully, reach net zero emissions by 2050. However, because South Africa relies almost wholly on coal (93%) for electricity, and on coal for...
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- April 2022
- Supplement
PG&E and the First Climate Change Bankruptcy
By: Stuart C. Gilson
- 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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- 2021
- Other Unpublished Work
Obsolescence of the Obsolescing Bargain: Why Governments Must Get Investor-State Contracts Right
By: Louis T. Wells and Karl P. Sauvant
Gone are the days when governments could easily renegotiate natural resource and other investment contracts if foreign investors, e.g., reaped bonanzas from rising resource prices, surprisingly rich discoveries, or terms that were too favorable. Today, international...
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- December 2020 (Revised September 2021)
- Case
PG&E and the First Climate Change Bankruptcy
By: Stuart C. Gilson and Sarah L. Abbott
In early 2020, the California-based utility PG&E filed a second amended plan of reorganization. PG&E had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the face of more than $30 billion of legal claims brought against it for its alleged role in causing California wildfires. The...
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- March 2018
- Article
Polluted Morality: Air Pollution Predicts Criminal Activity and Unethical Behavior
By: Jackson G. Lu, Julia J. Lee, F. Gino and Adam D. Galinsky
Air pollution is a serious problem that influences billions of people globally. Although the health and environmental costs of air pollution are well known, the present research investigates its ethical costs. We propose that air pollution can increase criminal and...
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- March 2017 (Revised June 2019)
- Case
CEO Activism (A)
By: Michael W. Toffel, Aaron K. Chatterji and Julia Kelley
This case introduces CEO activism, a phenomenon in which business leaders engage in political or social issues that do not relate directly to their companies. The case uses several examples to describe why business leaders are engaging in CEO activism and the potential...
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Keywords:
Leadership & Corporate Accountability;
Environmental And Social Sustainability;
Environment;
Climate Change;
Gender Equality;
Communication Strategy;
Moral Sensibility;
Values and Beliefs;
Leadership;
Law;
Rights;
Risk Management;
Media;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Religion;
Expansion;
Strategy;
Social Issues;
Consumer Products Industry;
Electronics Industry;
Technology Industry;
United States;
Indiana;
North Carolina
- February 2015
- Case
CLP: Powering Asia
By: George Serafeim, Rebecca Henderson and Dawn Lau
Richard Lancaster, taking over from Andrew Brandler, was the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of CLP Holdings Ltd., one of the leading power companies in Asia, with operations in China, Southeast Asia, Taiwan, Australia, and India, and an energy portfolio spanning coal,...
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- October 2013 (Revised November 2016)
- Case
Carbon Engineering
By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and Sid Misra
Dr. David Keith, President of Carbon Engineering, a company based in Calgary, Alberta, is commercializing a technology to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. The company plans to market the captured CO2 to produce low carbon transportation fuels in...
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Keywords:
Entrepreneurship;
Government Legislation;
Technological Innovation;
Climate Change;
Environmental Sustainability;
Risk and Uncertainty;
Research and Development;
Transportation;
Information Infrastructure;
Energy;
Forecasting and Prediction;
Energy Industry;
Green Technology Industry;
Industrial Products Industry;
Transportation Industry;
Utilities Industry;
Technology Industry;
Canada;
United States;
China;
India
- January 2013
- Case
Luotang Power: Variances Explained
By: Robert Simons and Craig Chapman
The general manager of Luotang Power, a coal-fired power plant located in central China, reviews annual results before a meeting with the board of directors. He thought the company performed well during the year and both plant availability and fuel economy had improved...
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- December 2012 (Revised November 2014)
- Case
W.R. Grace & Co.: Dealing with Asbestos Torts
By: Stuart C. Gilson and Sarah L. Abbott
A manufacturer of building products and specialty chemicals, W. R. Grace & Co. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2001 in response to a flood of lawsuits alleging that its products contained asbestos, and had caused hundreds of thousands of people to contract...
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Keywords:
Bankruptcy Reorganization;
Business Failures;
Environmental Regulations;
Class Action Lawsuits;
Natural Environment;
Valuation;
Health Disorders;
Capital Structure;
Restructuring;
Lawsuits and Litigation;
Chemicals;
Crisis Management;
Insolvency and Bankruptcy;
Legal Liability;
Construction Industry;
Chemical Industry;
United States
- August 2012 (Revised September 2013)
- Case
EnerNOC: DemandSMART
By: 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...
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Keywords:
Production Planning;
Productivity;
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
- Article
Exclusivity, Contingent Control Rights, and the Design of Internet Portal Alliances
By: Josh Lerner and Dan Elfenbein
We explore the relationship between exclusivity and state-contingent control rights using a sample of over 100 Internet portal alliance contracts. We find that stronger exclusivity arrangements are associated with more frequent usage of contingent control rights. For...
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- August 2011
- Article
Coming Clean and Cleaning Up: Does Voluntary Self-Reporting Indicate Effective Self-Policing
By: 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...
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- September 2010
- Article
Making Self-Regulation More Than Merely Symbolic: The Critical Role of the Legal Environment
By: Jodi L. Short and Michael W. Toffel
Using data from a sample of U.S. industrial facilities subject to the federal Clean Air Act from 1993 to 2003, this article theorizes and tests the conditions under which organizations' symbolic commitments to self-regulate are particularly likely to result in improved...
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- 2010
- Chapter
The Paranoid Style in the Study of American Politics
By: David Moss and Mary Oey
What drives policy making in a democracy? The conventional view is that political actors, like economic actors, pursue their self interest, and that special interest groups dominate the policy making process by satisfying policy makers' need for money and other forms...
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Keywords:
Policy;
Government Legislation;
Media;
Interests;
Power and Influence;
Public Opinion;
United States
- January 2009 (Revised October 2009)
- Case
GLOBALGAP: Food Safety and Private Standards
By: David E. Bell and Mary Louise Shelman
In response to new laws governing liability and several food safety scares in the 1990s, European retailers drove the creation of a universal production standard based on Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) for fresh fruit and vegetables and a third-party certification...
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- Article
The Causes and Consequences of Industry Self-Policing
By: 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...
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