Firms serving base-of-the-pyramid markets often employ community-mediated exchange strategies that build and maintain exchange relationships with customers collectively, through community interactions. Prior research suggests that such strategies may engender positive peer influence that leads...

There continues to be substantial debate on whether and how providing inclusive access to finance through microcredit promotes entrepreneurship-led development at the base of the pyramid. We contribute to this literature by examining differences in household-level outcomes associated with...

Free market advocates consider consumer choice unambiguously welfare-enhancing but consumers are often unable to make choices aligned with their well-being, and being disempowered might sometimes drive preference for products with questionable impact. We contribute to this debate on corporate...

Many corporate ESG disclosure regulations rely on private activist pressure to enforce compliance, but relatively little is known about its effectiveness. We present results from a field experiment testing the effect of various types of pressure from a leading human rights NGO on subsequent...

Research suggests that organizational viability may depend on the extent to which a sector is viewed as socio-politically legitimate. However, for what kind of organizations does the loss of sector legitimacy most affect financial sustainability? Econometric analyses using the Indian...

This paper examines the relationship between exogenous demand shock and market structure in India’s influenza vaccine markets. Using a novel dataset of detailed purchasing information for vaccines in India, and exploiting the 2009-10 global H1N1 pandemic as an exogenous demand shock, we...

Research summary: Companies often justify their corporate social initiatives by citing talent management benefits. We examine the extent of, and the reasons for, employee interest in such an initiative in a global management consulting firm. We find a large fraction of employees to be interested...

Geographic localization of knowledge spillovers is a central tenet in multiple streams of literature. However, empirical studies have examined this phenomenon for only one geographic unit - country, state or metropolitan area - at a time, and have also rarely accounted for spatial distance. We...

Research on corporate social responsibility often assumes that the agency for social engagement lies with top management. We extend this perspective by showing how a corporate social initiative can emerge from the bottom up when an employee – even without formal authority – takes on the role...

Firms commonly undertake philanthropic campaigns as a means of attracting and retaining customers. Such campaigns often take the form of charity-linked promotions, whereby a firm donates a specific amount to a charitable cause when a customer takes up the promotion through a related purchase. We...