Social entrepreneurship is characterized by a deep commitment to a social cause and the desire to develop new business models with economic, social, and ecological impacts. But can people be trained to become better at social entrepreneurship? HEC Paris Professors Thomas Åstebro and Florian Hoos found that social entrepreneurship training works, but only if carefully designed.
By Thomas Åstebro , Florian Hoos
Are the efforts of transparency by the pharmaceutical industry sufficient to regain the trust of the world population? The COVID-19 pandemic has taken the world hostage since March 2020, yet there is hope that this health crisis may be vanquished this year, thanks to the approved vaccines by Pfizer/BioNtech and Moderna. While there are ongoing campaigns encouraging vaccination, there are nonetheless doubts about these newly-developed vaccines. This reticence compromises the effectiveness of vaccination drives already underway. HEC Paris Professor Vedran Capkun tells us why transparency is critical in this current context. He explains what the outcome of the production of these vaccines represents for the pharmaceutical industry.
New research analyzes how activist short sellers’ “research reports” convince investors that the companies they target are overvalued. Professors Luc Paugam and Hervé Stolowy of HEC Paris and Yves Gendron of the Université Laval found that the share price of companies targeted by major activist short sellers drop by 11.2%, on average, over three days. Target firms are also more likely to be subsequently delisted, suspended from stock exchanges, or to go bankrupt. Who are activist short sellers and how do they police financial markets?
By Luc Paugam , Hervé Stolowy
Most international development agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have some experience planning and evaluating projects using the Logical Framework matrix. Professors of Accounting Daniel Martinez (HEC Paris) and David Cooper (University of Alberta) traced the managerial traditions that informed this visual instrument and the implications this has for international development.
HEC Paris Professor Hélène Löning shares insights on disruption in the way the four well-known auditing and consulting firms, or "Big 4", perform auditing, recruit and manage careers. In her view, the Big 4 and other consulting firms will have to take account of the new generations's expectations to find the skills and talents needed to add value and bring solutions to their clients.
Trust plays a key role both in investors’ and entrepreneurs’ performances. It is built among others on a shared vision of entrepreneurship, as well as shared networks. In this interview, HEC Paris Professor Hélène Löning shares her expertise based on research and several studies about entrepreneurial ecosystems conducted with her students. She introduces the different relationship stages between investors and entrepreneurs, explains the consequences of shared images of entrepreneurship, and the business schools’ key role in building this relationship and its ability to innovate. To conclude, she emphasizes the notion of trust by explaining how it applies to investors and entrepreneurs.
When it comes to life-saving – but also potentially risky – drugs, there is no such thing as too much information. Increasing transparency about clinical trials benefits public health, as a study of US regulation in the pharmaceutical sector shows. The three researchers behind this innovative study argue that transparency and public scrutiny also bring benefits to the investors of pharmaceutical companies.
Do credit rating agencies detect accounting fraud? Pepa Kraft of HEC Paris, with Allen Huang and Shiheng Wang of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology share their research findings to actually understand the role of credit rating agencies in detecting fraud.
Damaging cases of financial fraud often directly involve company CEOs. Are CEOs with a past in the military less likely to commit fraud? Or are they just better at not getting caught red-handed? New research by Georg Wernicke (HEC Paris) and Irmela Fritzi Koch-Bayram (University of Mannheim) sheds light on that question.
By Georg Wernicke
With shareholders and stakeholders becoming more and more concerned with firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR), audit firms now provide CSR assurance services for sustainability reports. As such, firms wonder whether it is more beneficial to use a financial audit firm that also provides CSR assurance, or to hire a different CSR assurance provider than the financial auditor. Researchers explain why the first option is the best option for firms.
By Luc Paugam
