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Authors: Healy, Paul M.; Ramanna, Karthik; Shaffer, Matthew
Source: Harvard Business School
Year: 2012
Number of pages: 22

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Abstract:

What should business leaders do about corruption? In December 2011, four HBS alumni met to debate how to engage the unprecedented protests against Vladimir Putin's corrupt government, which had erupted in Russia in response to alleged fraud in the recent parliamentary elections. A notable figure in the protests was anti-corruption blogger Alexey Navalny. Navalny used publicly available requests for tender, "crowd-sourcing", and volunteer experts to discover, expose, and encourage prosecution of corrupt dealings by the Russian government. These efforts made Navalny a cause celebre in Western media, and a popular figure with Russia's tech-savvy population. But was Navalny the right figure for business leaders in Russia to organize around? What were the risks of getting involved with a politically volatile activist?