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Ethics
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- October 2022
- Article
When Does Moral Engagement Risk Triggering a Hypocrite Penalty?
By: Jillian J. Jordan and Roseanna Sommers
Society suffers when people stay silent on moral issues. Yet people who engage morally may appear hypocritical if they behave imperfectly themselves. Research reveals that hypocrites can—but do not always—trigger a “hypocrisy penalty,” whereby they are evaluated...
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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
- September 2022
- Case
The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act: Forced Labor and Genocide in U.S.-China Relations
By: Jeremy Friedman and David Lane
On June 21, 2022, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) went into effect, requiring companies to prove that goods imported from the People’s Republic of China were not made with forced labor. The bill was a reaction to reports of products being made with...
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Keywords:
Ethics;
Multinational Firms and Management;
Globalized Markets and Industries;
Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Policy;
Government Legislation;
International Relations;
Labor;
Wages;
Law Enforcement;
Law;
Rights;
Operations;
Supply Chain Management;
Business and Government Relations;
Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry;
Manufacturing Industry;
Mining Industry;
China;
United States
- September 2022
- Case
Deciding When to Engage on Societal Issues
By: Hubert Joly and Amram Migdal
This case provides brief descriptions of 18 examples of corporate leaders confronting questions of whether and how to engage with societal issues, including social, political, and environmental issues. Social issues include COVID-19; social and racial justice;...
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- 2022
- Chapter
Marketing Through the Machine’s Eyes: Image Analytics and Interpretability
By: Flora Feng, Shunyuan Zhang and Kannan Srinivasan
he growth of social media and the sharing economy is generating abundant unstructured image and video data. Computer vision techniques can derive rich insights from unstructured data and can inform recommendations for increasing profits and consumer utility—if only the...
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- August 2022
- Case
Atlanta Ransomware Attack (A)
By: Amit Goldenberg and Julian Zlatev
This case describes the March 2018 Ransomware attack on the information technology (IT) systems of the city of Atlanta and the response by Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and her administration. The case includes a brief background on Bottoms and her young administration at...
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Keywords:
Crime and Corruption;
Decision Making;
Cost vs Benefits;
Decision Choices and Conditions;
Decisions;
Ethics;
Values and Beliefs;
Government and Politics;
Government Administration;
Information Technology;
Cybersecurity;
Information Management;
Leadership;
Management;
Crisis Management;
Management Teams;
Negotiation;
Risk and Uncertainty;
Social Psychology;
Perception;
Personal Characteristics;
Perspective;
Power and Influence;
Society;
Public Administration Industry;
United States;
Georgia (state, US);
Atlanta
- August 2022
- Supplement
Atlanta Ransomware Attack (B)
By: Amit Goldenberg and Julian Zlatev
This case describes the March 2018 Ransomware attack on the information technology (IT) systems of the city of Atlanta and the response by Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and her administration. The case includes a brief background on Bottoms and her young administration at...
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Keywords:
Crime and Corruption;
Decision Making;
Cost vs Benefits;
Decision Choices and Conditions;
Decisions;
Ethics;
Values and Beliefs;
Government and Politics;
Government Administration;
Information Technology;
Cybersecurity;
Information Management;
Leadership;
Management;
Crisis Management;
Management Teams;
Negotiation;
Risk and Uncertainty;
Social Psychology;
Perception;
Personal Characteristics;
Perspective;
Power and Influence;
Society;
Public Administration Industry;
United States;
Atlanta;
Georgia (state, US)
- August 2022
- Case
Rocket Learning: Evidence in Action
By: Brian Trelstad, Tomas Rosales and Malini Sen
Founders of Rocket Learning, an India-based nonprofit which focused on early childhood education (ECE), received an invitation from MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (JPAL), a development research organization, to test its intervention for ECE with a...
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- 2022
- Working Paper
Ethical Risks of Autonomous Products: The Case of Mental Health Crises on AI Companion Applications
By: Julian De Freitas, Ahmet Kaan Uğuralp and Zeliha Uğuralp
Increasingly, some products do not merely automate some piece of our lives but act as
autonomous agents. When these technologies are not yet perfected, what are their risks? Here
we explore the case of AI companion apps. Although these apps are designed...
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- 2022
- Working Paper
Imagining the Future: Memory, Simulation and Beliefs about COVID
By: Pedro Bordalo, Giovanni Burro, Katherine B. Coffman, Nicola Gennaioli and Andrei Shleifer
How do people form beliefs about novel risks, with which they have little or no experience? A 2020 U.S. survey of beliefs about the lethality of COVID reveals that the elderly underestimate, and the young overestimate, their own risks, and that people with more health...
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- Article
When Hiring CEOs, Focus on Character
By: Aiyesha Dey
The author, an associate professor at Harvard Business School, has studied the ways in which the lifestyle behaviors of CEOs—in particular, materialism and a propensity for rule breaking—may spell trouble for a company. Her research, which includes looking at...
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- July 2022 (Revised September 2022)
- Case
Birla Carbon Egypt: Building Soft Power in a Foreign Country
By: Jeremy Friedman and Malini Sen
Birla Carbon, a flagship business of the nearly $60-billion global conglomerate and India-headquartered Aditya Birla Group (ABG), is one of the world's top manufacturers and suppliers of high-quality carbon black. The largest among its 16 manufacturing plants is Birla...
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Keywords:
Acquisition;
Family Business;
Disruption;
Transformation;
Diversity;
Trade;
Energy;
Values and Beliefs;
Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues;
Global Strategy;
Government and Politics;
Private Ownership;
Civil Society or Community;
Risk and Uncertainty;
Value Creation;
Industrial Products Industry;
Rubber Industry;
Egypt;
Africa;
India;
Asia;
Atlanta;
United States
- July 2022
- Case
Sixty Years of Sylvia’s
By: Christina R. Wing, Carlton Burrell Jr., Chika-Dike Nwokike and Abby Patrick
Sylvia’s Restaurant, approaching its sixtieth anniversary this August, is a testament to the values instilled by the matriarch herself, Sylvia Woods. Despite living through an era of racial oppression and poverty, Sylvia accessed financing and established her financial...
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- 2022
- Working Paper
Moral Thin-Slicing: How Snap Judgments Affect Online Sharing of Moral Content
By: Julian De Freitas and Alon Hafri
Consumers are exposed to a range of provocative moral transgressions online, as when consuming viral videos on social media or morally charged advertisements. Given limits on time and attention, consumers increasingly make moral evaluations in a few seconds or less,...
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Keywords:
Moral Judgement;
Thin Slices;
Social Media;
Fake News;
Misinformation;
Moral Sensibility;
Behavior;
News
- July 2022
- Case
Call of Fiduciary Duty: Microsoft Acquires Activision Blizzard
By: Joseph Pacelli, Jonas Heese and James Barnett
In January 2022, Microsoft announces its acquisition of the video game company Activision Blizzard, in a deal valued at $68.7 billion, which would make Microsoft the world’s third largest video game company. The deal came as Activision Blizzard faced gender pay...
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- July 2022
- Case
Nestlé, Shared Value and KitKat Diplomacy
By: Geoffrey G. Jones and Sabine Pitteloud
The case revolves around the decision on March 23, 2022 by Mark Schneider, the chief executive of Swiss-based Nestlé, to withdraw the emblematic Kit Kat chocolate bar from sales in Russia in response to the invasion of Ukraine in the previous month, although not its...
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- July 2022
- Article
When Alterations Are Violations: Moral Outrage and Punishment in Response to (Even Minor) Alterations to Rituals
By: Daniel H. Stein, Juliana Schroeder, Nicholas M. Hobson, Francesca Gino and Michael I. Norton
From Catholics performing the sign of the cross since the 4th century to Americans reciting the Pledge of Allegiance since the 1890s, group rituals (i.e., predefined sequences of symbolic actions) have strikingly consistent features over time. Seven studies (N = 4,213)...
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Keywords:
Ritual;
Morality;
Groups;
Norms;
Commitment;
Groups and Teams;
Values and Beliefs;
Change;
Moral Sensibility;
Behavior
- 2022
- Working Paper
Moral Deteriorations Sever Firm Identity
By: Julian De Freitas, Zarema Khon, Pechthida Kim and Samuel G.B. Johnson
Firms change over time. Which changes are so damaging that consumers believe the firm’s very
identity ceases to exist? We explored this question using Twitter data and eight experiments
involving nearly 3,000 subjects. Consumers judged that moral deteriorations were...
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- June 2022 (Revised August 2022)
- Case
Sustainability Reporting at Dollar Tree, Inc.
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Li-Kuan Ni
The cases discusses the ESG strategy of Dollar Tree Inc., a U.S. Fortune 500 company in the deep discount retail industry and the and shareholder pressure faced by the company. In 2022, the company faced a shareholder resolution from a renowned shareholder advocacy...
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Keywords:
ESG;
Sustainability;
Shareholder Activism;
Dollar Tree;
Sustainability Reporting;
ESG Reporting;
Board Of Directors;
Shareholder Engagement;
GHG;
Environmental Accounting;
Integrated Corporate Reporting;
Trends;
Communication;
Announcements;
Voting;
Environmental Management;
Climate Change;
Environmental Sustainability;
Values and Beliefs;
Corporate Accountability;
Corporate Disclosure;
Corporate Governance;
Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Policy;
Reports;
Business or Company Management;
Risk Management;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Outcome or Result;
Strategic Planning;
Business and Stakeholder Relations;
Situation or Environment;
Opportunities;
Civil Society or Community;
Social Issues;
Public Opinion;
Strategy;
Adaptation;
Alignment;
Business Strategy;
Corporate Strategy;
Value Creation;
Retail Industry;
United States;
Virginia
- June 2022
- Case
Larry Miller
Under the leadership of Larry Miller, chairman and former president of Nike’s Air Jordan brand, annual revenues for the Jordan brand soared from $150 million to over $4 billion. But for over 40 years, Miller guarded a secret. When he was 16 years old and part of a West...
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