Companies are increasingly encouraged, or obliged, to report on their sustainability efforts. However, there is little harmonization across the many sustainability standard-setting organizations. In their latest study, Accounting Professors Hervé Stolowy and Luc Paugam of HEC Paris set out to create a picture of the status of sustainability reporting standards today, and what they really mean. Three key findings: Lack of standards harmonization: A significant lack of harmonization in sustainability reporting standards pose challenges for consistent communication of companies' sustainability efforts. Diverse objectives: Standard-setting organizations have diverse objectives, complicating efforts to establish a globally standardized approach to sustainability reporting. Carbon emissions disclosure: One exception may be carbon emissions disclosure, with convergence in the greenhouse gas emission protocol being adopted by most organizations.
By Hervé Stolowy , Luc Paugam
As many as 83% of clinical trial results do not reach the public domain within one year of their trial end date (Anderson et al, 2015). Many never even make it at all. Why do so many pharmaceutical companies hesitate to disclose their (valuable) results? Could the behavior of their peers and competitors have something to do with it? To address these questions, a study on firms sponsoring clinical trials was carried out by Professor Vedran Capkun of HEC Paris, and his co-authors Yun Lou, Clemens A. Otto, and Yin Wang, all from Singapore Management University.
By Vedran Capkun , Yin Wang
Since December 2022 and the arrest of Sam Bankman Fried in 2023, the FTX founder has been at the heart of a scandal rocking the world of cryptocurrencies and the on-chain features that underpins its entire existence. But it is also illustrating the impact of off-chain factors involved in blockchain operations. These off-chain characteristics are forms of communication and coordination that need to happen for the technical activities of the blockchain to function. Recent research by professors Dane Pflueger (Assistant Professor in the accounting department HEC Paris), Martin Kornberger (Vienna University) and Jan Mouritsen (Copenhagen Business School) helps to shed light on the complexities surrounding FTX’s accounting. The academics’ December 2022 publication in the European Accounting Review, explores the issues of governance, organizing, and trust that buttress the blockchain accounting systems. In a long interview from his HEC campus near Paris, Pflueger challenges the notion some have that blockchain technology does not need intermediaries like accountants to function.
By Dane Pflueger
When we think of startups, we think of fresh, ideas-led businesses that seek to break the mold in how they do things or in what they produce. But when it comes to their business practices and values, it seems that, rather than being pioneers of innovation, many startups adhere to very similar ways of doing things: following the Lean Startup philosophy. A recent study from researchers in management accounting and control Sebastian D. Becker of HEC Paris and Christoph Endenich of ESSEC Business School shows why this is the case.
By Sebastian Becker
Gender diversity in corporate boards of directors has long been on the agenda, but whether and when investors reward companies that make efforts towards such inclusion remains an open question. Researchers in Accounting Crystal Shi (HEC Paris), April Klein and Mary Brooke Billings (New York University) investigate whether the #MeToo movement had an impact on investors' perceptions of the benefits of having a diverse and inclusive corporate culture, as reflected by the gender makeup of corporate boards.
By Crystal (yanting) Shi
Global credit rating agencies (CRAs) play an important role in economic growth or decline. Generous credit ratings may allow businesses to take on too much debt, at risk of defaulting. Overcautious ratings can hinder their access to finance, stifle investment, slow growth. A study by award-winning HEC Paris researcher Professor Pepa Kraft and collaborators in the U.S. and Hong Kong suggest that CRAs ratings are influenced by their country-level market share.
By Pepa Kraft
As Europe faces postwar records in forced migration from the east and south, ad hoc citizen groups have been sprouting up to ease the hardships of their new homelands. To illustrate this, HEC Assistant Professor David Crevlin publishes a detailed study on the rapid and effective response of German citizens to the unprecedented wave of migrants in 2015. A lesson of integration for all Europe?
By David Twardowski Crvelin
The methods and aims of activist short sellers and financial analysts are often at odds. In a highly competitive environment, there is a battle for narrative authority, with short sellers often criticizing analysts. New research examines this struggle, and how — or if — analysts respond to challenges.
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
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
