Sustainable Development

February 10th, 2023

How Can Communication Boost the Adoption of Renewable Energy?

Wide-scale adoption of renewable energy is essential to ensure Europe decarbonizes its energy systems and meets its ambitious net-zero targets. But what motivates interested individuals to make the decision to invest? A recent study by Operations Management Professors Andrea Masini and Sam Aflaki (HEC Paris), Shadi Goodarzi (California State University and the University of Texas), and Behnam Fahimnia (University of Sydney Business School), sheds light on the influence of different communication sources on this process, with implications for policymakers, technology providers, and other sustainability stakeholders.

By Andrea Masini , Sam Aflaki

photovoltaic panels on house roofs-thumbnail

Managing change and uncertainty

How to Build Business and Career Resilience

The world is constantly evolving and uncertain. However, if there is one certainty it is the need to remain humble. To better build the resilience needed to manage this change and uncertainty in a responsible way, find key findings and classic advice from HEC Paris researchers to decipher environments at all levels: from one’s own career to geopolitical business links. In this In-Depth issue, you will learn that family businesses focus more on resilience than on performance, that connecting private interests and sharing with the community is vital for sustainable objectives and that developing professional and personal resilience takes practice. You will also discover how hybrid governance and smart cities can overcome disrupted supply chains and fight social inequality. Find the PDF version of the Knowledge@HEC' In-Depth issue here.

June 27th, 2022

Sustainable Development

June 27th, 2022

Strategic Resilience in an Age of Uncertainty

How can private companies and public bodies reorganize their short- and long-term strategies in the current economic context? For years, Professor Bertrand Quélin has been researching the collaboration between private firms, public authorities and civil society to offer solutions aimed at building resilience in cities and designed to tackle the challenges of climate change.

Bouygues Chair Professor in "Smart City and the Common Good"

Strategy and Business Policy

Sustainable Development

March 26th, 2021

Activist Hedge Funds: Good for Some, Bad for Others?

Recent news cast some doubts about the effects of shareholder activism on firms’ strategic orientation. Hence, the question: Do activist hedge funds help or harm the companies they target? Mark DesJardine of Pennsylvania State University’s Smeal College of Business and Rodolphe Durand of HEC Paris (members of the HEC’s Society & Organizations Institute) investigated the long-term effects of hedge fund activism on companies that get targeted by these activists. In their extensive research, they found the value of targeted companies spikes the first year after targeting but drops in later years relative to similar non-targeted companies. In addition, the authors found that being targeted by activist hedge funds put a halt to the broader investment portfolios and socially responsible efforts of companies.

By Mark Desjardine , Rodolphe Durand

Sustainable Development

March 25th, 2021

Why Activist Hedge Funds Target Socially Responsible Firms, and How Executives and Investors Can Counteract Them

Danone’s CEO had to leave his position under the pressure of increasingly powerful and influential activist hedge funds. With their controversial tactics aimed at maximizing shareholder profit, they undermine sustainability practices, which they consider wasteful. Indeed, not only do they tend to suppress the corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities of the companies they target, they also target companies with stronger CSR records in the first place, as a new study reveals. But its authors Mark DesJardine, Rodolphe Durand, and Emilio Marti also show that these companies can divert the attention of activist hedge funds, and that policymakers and socially minded investors can intervene, too.

By Mark Desjardine , Rodolphe Durand

Sustainable Development

April 23rd, 2020

Supply Chain Management: A Critical Role in the New Normal that is too often Forgotten

While the Covid-19 reveals the criticality of the role of Supply Chain Management in an organization, HEC Paris Adjunct Professor Michel Fender provides a clear understanding of the major stakes related to Supply Chain Management, and shares his opinion about its critical role that is usually considered during a crisis only, when it is too late.

Adjunct Professor

Informations Systems and Operations Management

Sustainable Development

February 19th, 2020

The Taboos and Ambiguities of the Prevailing Narrative on Corporate Social Responsibility

In an article published this month in the journal Business & Society1, Aurélien Feix, research fellow at HEC, and Déborah Philippe, HEC alumna and professor at the University of Lausanne, analyze narratives that promote voluntary Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices as a privileged means to combat social inequality and environmental degradation. In view of the similarities that exist between these narratives, the authors argue that they must be conceived of as variants of one and the same “metanarrative of CSR”. They show that this metanarrative stays ambivalent about crucially important questions, including that of the results that can realistically be expected from activities performed voluntarily by business firms that are bound by profitability constraints, and subjected to the capitalist growth imperative. Therefore, they call for challenging the comforting, but largely inconsequential, rhetoric of the metanarrative of CSR.

Research fellow at HEC Paris's Society & Organizations Center (S&O)

Sustainable Development

October 14th, 2019

The Role of Marketing in Climate Change: Carbon Footprinting and Pricing

The potential impact of climate change raises concerns with consumers and governments throughout the world. Dealing with these climate concerns is key to the survival of businesses in the marketplace, and ultimately the survival of the planet. Daniel Halbheer, Associate Professor of Marketing at HEC Paris, shares his and his co-authors' research findings on the role of marketing decisions in addressing climate change when juggling the pressures of consumers and governments, through tools such as carbon footprinting and pricing.

By Daniel Halbheer

Sustainable Development

September 30th, 2019

Auditors Offering Both CSR Assurance and Financial Auditing Could be Best Option

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

Sustainable Development

July 18th, 2019

Walking the Talk: Why Companies Should be Politically Transparent

More and more companies flaunt their policies regarding social or environmental sustainability. However, these same companies may promote policies that contradict their stated CSR objectives through their political actions. Enough is enough, says a group of top researchers (including Rodolphe Durand and Magali Delmas) arguing for political transparency in a paper that won the California Management Review’s Best Article Award 2019.

By Rodolphe Durand

Dow Chemical plant in South Charleston, West Virginia. West Virginia Collection within the Carol M. Highsmith Archive—Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (LC-DIG-highsm-31713)