Since its founding in 1908, HBS has viewed business as a powerful means for improving society. More than a century later, says Dean Srikant Datar, “the role we can play in tackling systemic challenges has become more important, whether in shaping a more inclusive capitalism, or addressing complex challenges like climate change, health care, and wealth inequality.”

To integrate and amplify HBS’s efforts, Dean Datar has appointed Debora Spar, the Jaime and Josefina Chua Tiampo Professor of Business Administration, to serve as Senior Associate Dean for Business and Global Society. In this role, she will help launch a new Business in Global Society (BiGS) Institute. BiGS will serve as a hub and provide support for research in this arena, and ensure that the faculty’s work can have maximum impact and reach the widest possible audience.

Here are five examples of impactful research by HBS faculty members.

Finding “Hidden Workers”

Even before the pandemic upended the workforce, American companies complained about the “skills gap” that left essential jobs unfilled while millions of Americans remained unemployed. HBS’s Project on Managing the Future of Work, led by project co-chair and professor of management practice Joe Fuller and in partnership with Accenture, set out to understand why this mismatch occurs and how to solve it. A Harvard Business Review article summarizes their findings, which include focusing on “skills-based” hiring to help businesses access valuable pools of potential workers—such as veterans, caregivers, immigrants, and individuals with mental or physical health issues—who might otherwise be overlooked.

How AI Accelerated a COVID-19 Vaccine

Karim Lakhani, the Dorothy and Michael Hintze Professor of Business Administration, and Marco Iansiti, the David Sarnoff Professor of Business Administration, have long studied how artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the competitive landscape, but the example they explore in their “Moderna” case study is perhaps the most dramatic. The case takes students inside the biotech firm led by Stephen Bancel (MBA 2000) in the first days of 2020 to show how Moderna’s considerable investments in AI and other digital tools allowed them to design and deliver a COVID-19 vaccine in just 41 days.

Reimagining Capitalism

Over the last 15 years, Rebecca Henderson, the John and Natty McArthur University Professor, has asked herself—and her students—what business can and should do to address climate change, wealth inequality, and political dysfunction. Her most recent book, Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire, which builds on her popular Reimaging Capitalism course, offers a roadmap to an economy in which prosperity, environmental stewardship, social justice, and democracy are not at odds. Henderson and former HBS Dean Nitin Nohria talked about the book in an alumni webinar.

Inspiring Public Entrepreneurship

“A public official can be every bit as much of an entrepreneur as can a private one,” says Mitch Weiss, the Richard L. Menschel Professor of Management Practice. That’s the premise of his new book, We the Possibility, which encourages governments to think like startups. For Weiss, who served as chief of staff to Boston’s mayor and launched one of the first municipal innovation offices before coming to HBS, that means identifying problems and dreaming up new solutions—that may or may not work. Cities and towns can experiment with bold ideas, discard those that don’t accomplish their goals, and scale those that do. Weiss calls it “possibility government.”

Measuring Societal Impact

The traditional balance sheet does not account for a company’s cost to society. For instance, airlines don’t figure in the environmental costs of travel, which can amount to billions annually. HBS’s Impact-Weighted Accounts Project, led by George Serafeim, the Charles M. Williams Professor of Business Administration, and Assistant Professor Ethan Rouen, wants to change that. The project is developing tools to measure a company’s impact—negative and positive—on people and the planet. This more accurate and transparent accounting will allow for smarter decision-making on the part of corporations, governments, and consumers. Already, 1,800 businesses have begun to calculate the true costs of their products.

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