Publications

September 2013 (Revised January 2015)
Case

Wal-Mart Lobbying in India?

By: Karthik Ramanna and Vidhya Muthuram

In 2012, as part of a routine disclosure under U.S. law, Wal-Mart revealed it had spent $25 million since 2008 on lobbying to "enhance market access for investment in India." This disclosure, which came weeks after the Indian government made a controversial decision to... View Details

Keywords: Lobbying; India; Multinational Corporations; Business and Government Relations; Crime and Corruption; Retail Industry; India

March 2016 (Revised May 2021)
Case

Michael Milken: The Junk Bond King

By: Tom Nicholas and Matthew G. Preble

Michael Milken, an investment banker who dominated the junk bond market in the 1980s, was sentenced to jail in 1990 after pleading guilty to a number of securities and tax-related felonies. In the preceding decade, Milken had helped usher in a new wave of leveraged buy... View Details

Keywords: Junk Bonds; High-yield Bonds; Financial Innovation; Shareholder Value; Bonds; Capital; Capital Structure; Cost of Capital; Crime and Corruption; Entrepreneurship; Ethics; Finance; Investment Banking; Leveraged Buyouts; Mergers and Acquisitions; Ownership; Private Equity; Restructuring; United States

December 2009 (Revised January 2024)
Case

A Letter from Prison

By: Eugene Soltes

Stephen Richards, the former global head of sales at Computer Associates, Inc. (CA), is serving a seven-year prison sentence for financial fraud. In the case, Richards responds to a number of questions about managerial responsibility and the manipulation of financial... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Crime and Corruption; Ethics; Corporate Accountability; Managerial Roles

01 Jun 2023
HBS Case

A Nike Executive Hid His Criminal Past to Turn His Life Around. What If He Didn't Have To?

At age 32—feeling far removed from the violent street crimes that had consumed his teens and 20s—Larry Miller just knew he was nailing a job interview with a senior partner at Arthur Andersen. That is, until... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Apparel & Accessories

September 2019 (Revised December 2023)
Case

Accounting Fraud at Tesco Stores (A)

By: Jonas Heese, Suraj Srinivasan and Julia Kelley

This case describes the accounting fraud at Tesco Stores Limited (TSL), which was discovered by a senior accountant in TSL’s finance department. The accountant was concerned about TSL’s handling of commercial income, which, according to the accountant, overstated... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Crime and Corruption; Organizational Culture; Corporate Accountability

April 2004 (Revised September 2007)
Case

Accounting Fraud at WorldCom

By: Robert S. Kaplan and David Kiron

The principal players in WorldCom's accounting fraud included CFO Scott Sullivan, the General Accounting and Internal Audit departments, external auditor Arthur Andersen, and the board of directors. The case provides sufficient detail to allow for a full discussion of... View Details

Keywords: Governance Controls; Governing and Advisory Boards; Crime and Corruption; Ethics; Financial Reporting; Organizational Culture; Corporate Governance; Accounting Audits

15 Nov 2022
Book

Stop Ignoring Bad Behavior: 6 Tips for Better Ethics at Work

In 1995, Purdue Pharma began selling a powerful and addictive opioid drug called OxyContin. The company was aware that the drug, which was marketed to doctors as a safe way to manage chronic pain, was a potent narcotic that could quickly... View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds

April 2007 (Revised March 2008)
Case

Dr. Iqbal Survé at Sekunjalo Investment Group (A)

By: Linda A. Hill and Emily Stecker

Dr. Iqbal Surve, a self-described "medical doctor, philanthropist, and social entrepreneur," was born in 1963 and grew up in poverty, like virtually all non-white South Africans during apartheid. During the 1970s and 1980s, he served in leadership positions in the ANC,... View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Social Entrepreneurship; Investment; Leadership; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Partners and Partnerships; South Africa

February 2019 (Revised February 2020)
Case

Theranos: Who Has Blood on Their Hands? (A)

By: Nien-hê Hsieh, Christina R. Wing, Emilie Fournier and Anna Resman

This case covers the rise and fall of Theranos, the company founded by Elizabeth Holmes in 2004 to revolutionize the blood testing industry by creating a device that could provide from a small finger prick the same results and accuracy as intravenous blood draws. As... View Details

Keywords: Health Testing and Trials; Corporate Accountability; Organizational Culture; Misleading and Fraudulent Advertising; Crime and Corruption; Ethics; Entrepreneurship; Lawsuits and Litigation

December 2016 (Revised April 2024)
Case

Rajat Gupta

By: Paul Healy and Eugene Soltes

Rajat Gupta, former managing director of McKinsey & Company; a director of Goldman Sachs, Procter & Gamble, and AMR; and a well-known philanthropist, was convicted of engaging in insider trading. The case explores Gupta’s rise and the later legal problems he faced. View Details

Keywords: Insider Trading; McKinsey; Ethics; Crime and Corruption; United States

14 Feb 2023
HBS Case

Is Sweden Still 'Sweden'? A Liberal Utopia Grapples with an Identity Crisis

to expand its political platform, linking the migrants to a rising crime rate and other ills. “It’s a problem that’s playing out not just in Europe, but in the US as well,” Spar says of rising immigration... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert

07 Jul 2008
Research & Ideas

Innovation Corrupted: How Managers Can Avoid Another Enron

of Enron's conduct and performance, is the missing link in a full understanding of Enron's collapse and its lessons for the leaders of 21st-century business enterprise. Innovation View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Energy; Utilities

2016
Book

Why They Do It: Inside the Mind of the White-Collar Criminal

By: Eugene F. Soltes

From the financial fraudsters of Enron, to the embezzlers at Tyco, to the Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff, the failings of corporate titans are regular fixtures in the news. But what drives wealthy and powerful people to white-collar crime? I draw from extensive personal... View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Corporate Finance

Find at Harvard

30 Apr 2024
Book

When Managers Set Unrealistic Expectations, Employees Cut Ethical Corners

in place by management – can corrupt the behaviour of both individuals and the organisation as a whole. At Sears, for example, management implemented a new goal-setting and... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

16 Jan 2024
Cold Call Podcast

How SolarWinds Responded to the 2020 SUNBURST Cyberattack

Keywords: Re: Frank Nagle; Information Technology

27 Apr 2016
Research & Ideas

How the FBI Reinvented Itself After 9/11

on the United States, killing nearly 3,000 people with four hijacked airliners—and throwing the FBI’s structure and identity into question. Since its founding in 1908, the organization had focused primarily on solving domestic View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

January 2020
Article

The Impact of Mass Shootings on Gun Policy

By: Michael Luca, Deepak Malhotra and Christopher Poliquin

There have been dozens of high-profile mass shootings in recent decades. This paper presents three main findings about the impact of mass shootings on gun policy. First, mass shootings evoke large policy responses. A single mass shooting leads to a 15% increase in the... View Details

Keywords: Gun Violence; Gun Policy; Crime and Corruption; Governance; Policy; United States