Aharon Cohen Mohliver

Professor Mohliver is a Strategy scholar studying business ethics and corporate social responsibility (CSR). His research helps organizations understand why misconduct emerges, and thus help them pre-empt behaviours that harm the organization or its broader stakeholder environment. In a related stream Aharon studies the implications of social polarization for firms wanting to engage in CSR.

Aharon’s research asks what drives firms or their employees to engage in behaviours that are viewed unfavourably by the broader stakeholder environment; for example, the information network in which the firm is embedded, competitive pressures, regulation, the firm’s own history and internal processes of hiring and promotion. Aharon studies these social antecedents of misconduct in a variety of settings; option backdating in financial markets, plagiarism in universities, neglect and abuse in elderly care-homes and over-prescribing of the drugs that fuel the prescription crisis.

In a related research stream, Aharon examines the implications of social polarization on the effectiveness of CSR.

Aharon’s research is published in leading academic journals such as Management Science, Organization Science and Administrative Science Quarterly, he serves on the editorial board of the Strategic Management Journal and his dissertation was cited in primary legislation separating financial and non-financial holdings in Business Groups in Israel (2013).

Before joining London Business School, Aharon served with Israeli PM Naftaly Bennett in the office of MP Benjamin Netanyahu (2005-2007) as his senior domestic policy advisor. Aharon advised the Israeli Securities Authority and the Committee on Competitiveness in the Israeli Prime Minister's Office (2010-2012).

Aharon holds a PhD in Management from Columbia Business School, and Masters degrees from Columbia University (MA) and the Hebrew University (MA, Finance and Strategy). He was a Visiting Scholar at Yale School of Business in 2020.

Aharon is currently an Assistant Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at London Business School where he taught courses on Strategic Management, Strategic Analysis, Sociological Foundations of Strategy and Behavioral Strategy to EMBAs, MBAs, Masters in Management, Executive Programs and PhD students. Aharon is the academic co-director of the LGBTQ+ ExecEd programme

Research interests

• Ethics
  
• Corporate governance and economic sociology
  
• Corporate Social Responsibility

Publications

• How misconduct spreads : auditors’ role in the diffusion of stock-option backdating
  Mohliver A
  Administrative Science Quarterly 2019 Vol 64:2 p 310-336

• Shine a light: how firm responses to announcing earnings restatements changed after Sarbanes-Oxley
  Pozner J E; Mohliver A; Moore C
  Journal of Business Ethics 2019 Vol 160:2 p 427-443

• To stop misconduct, you’ve got to know where to look
  Mohliver A; Johnston A
  London Business School Review 2018

• Are recessions good for morality? : evidence that ethics improve when the economy falters
  Bianchi E; Mohliver A
  Academy of Management Proceedings 2017:1

• CEOs who began their career during booms tend to be less ethical
  Bianchi E C; Mohliver A
  Harvard Business Review Digital Articles 2017

• Do good times breed cheats? : prosperous times have immediate and lasting implications for CEO misconduct
  Bianchi E C; Mohliver A
  Organization Science 2016 Vol 27:6 p 1488-1503

• Paying attention to misconduct : how firm misconduct is interpreted differently in post-Sarbanes-Oxley era
  Pozner J-E; Mohliver A; Moore C
  Academy of Management Proceedings 2015:1

• IPO pricing and ownership structure around the world: the business group effect
  Mohliver A; Gur-Gershgorn G; Chatopadhyay S
  in Levis, M & Vismara, S (eds) Handbook of research on IPOs, Edgar Publishing 2012 p 327-344

Working papers

2017

• The distributional properties of firm response to social and environmental issues
  Mohliver A; Crilly D; Chang S

• The usual suspect: post-misconduct CEO replacement as a substitute for legal certification
  Mohliver A; Pozner JE; Moore C

2016

• Recidivism: how consequences of misconduct abate across incidents
  Moore C; Mohliver A; Pozner J-E; Stuart C
  

2015

• Booms, busts and unethical behavior: How the state of the economy makes us cheat, lie, hit and steal
  Mohliver A; Bianchi E
  

2012

• The entitled many: entitlement, greed and unethical practices in financial markets
  Mohliver A; Kogut B
  

2011

• Channeling funds into the group: IPO pricing in business
  Mohliver A; Gur-Gershgorn G
  

Books and cases

2020

• Sofar Sounds: Charting the next stage of growth
  Birkinshaw J; Mather D; Stroube B; Mohliver A C
  

Awards and Honours

• Israel Securities Authority research grant for the study of Israeli Business Groups, 2011. (8,000 USD)
  
• Donald C. Hambrick award for Excellence in the Ph.D. Program, Columbia Business School, 2009.
  
• Corson Scholarship, Hebrew University, 2007-2008. (16,000 USD)
  
• The Levi Eshkol Institute for Social, Economic and Political Research in Israel, Hebrew University, Research grant for project titled: "Family ownership and performance of Israeli largest firms" 2004- 2006. (3,000 USD)
  
• Dean List of Excelence, Hebrew University Economics Department, 2004.