Publications

15 Aug 2007
Op-Ed

3 Steps to Reduce Financial System Risk

advances in what is called "credit risk transfer" technology have lowered the vulnerability of the international financial system to any individual bank crisis. There has been less discussion about where the transferred risk has... View Details

Keywords: by Mohamed El-Erian; Financial Services; Financial Services

April 1992 (Revised October 1996)
Case

Roosevelt Financial Group, Inc. (A)

By: Mary E. Barth and Krishna G. Palepu

Keywords: Financial Services Industry

June 2004
Teaching Note

First Commonwealth Financial Corporation (TN)

By: Robert S. Kaplan

Teaching Note to (9-104-042). View Details

Keywords: Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; Pennsylvania

April 1985 (Revised November 1987)
Case

American Express Travel Related Services Co.

Describes the company's new focus on entrepreneurship during the era of Lou Gerstner, chairman and CEO since 1982. View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry

April 1983 (Revised June 1993)
Case

Trade In Services and American Express

By: Joseph L. Badaracco Jr. and David B. Yoffie

Keywords: Financial Services Industry

1999
Chapter

The Global Financial System Project

By: Robert C. Merton and Peter Tufano

Keywords: International Finance; Globalized Markets and Industries; Projects; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry

May 2014
Case

Goldman Sachs: Anchoring Standards After the Financial Crisis

By: Rajiv Lal and Lisa Mazzanti

Goldman Sachs, a longtime venerable financial institution headquartered in New York City, had a partnership culture that was known to value its clients. But when the financial crisis hit in 2008 and Goldman Sachs emerged relatively unscathed, its public image took a... View Details

Keywords: Brand Management; Public Image; Corporate Accountability; Reputation; Standards; Financial Crisis; Brands and Branding; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry

Educators

2015
Working Paper

Misconduct in Financial Services: Differences across Organizations

By: Jennifer Brown and Dylan Minor

We examine misconduct in financial services. We propose a theory in which experts extract surplus based on the value of their firm's brand and their own skills. Using sales complaint data for insurance agents, we find that agents working exclusively for large branded... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Insurance; Sales; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry

SSRN

December 2009 (Revised June 2010)
Supplement

Goldman Sachs: A Bank for All Seasons (B)

By: Lena G. Goldberg and Tiffany Lynne Obenchain

Having taken steps to shore up investor confidence, during the turbulent fourth quarter of 2008, Goldman Sachs confronts the challenge of whether its business model will continue to be viable under radically altered market conditions and a new regulatory regime. View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Financial Crisis; Investment Banking; Financial Management; Financial Strategy; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Business Strategy; Banking Industry

2015
Working Paper

Financial Patent Quality: Finance Patents After State Street

By: Josh Lerner, Andrew Speen, Mark Baker and Ann Leamon

In the past two decades, patents of inventions related to financial services ("finance patents"), as well as litigation around these patents, have surged. One of the repeated concerns voiced by academics and practitioners alike has been about the quality of these... View Details

Keywords: Patents; Lawsuits and Litigation; Finance

February 2008 (Revised February 2008)
Supplement

Lincoln Financial Group (B): Making LFD a Reality

LFG reorganizes its business in order to improve customer intimacy. However, to implement the strategy, they need to effect significant changes in the skills of their salespeople. This case series straddles human resource management, corporate strategy, and sales... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Customer Focus and Relationships; Financial Services Industry

May 2012 (Revised July 2012)
Case

Credit Unions: The Future of the Cooperative Financial Institution

By: Robert C. Pozen and Grace Hou

Credit unions are a specialized type of depository institution with a cooperative, non-profit structure and a federal tax exemption. They originated as small, cooperative institutions with an emphasis on uncollateralized consumer lending to the unbanked... View Details

Keywords: Banking; Credit Unions; Banks and Banking

Educators

15 Feb 2018
Working Paper Summaries

Can Financial Innovation Solve Household Reluctance to Take Risk?

Keywords: by Laurent Calvet, Claire Celerier, Paolo Sodini, and Boris Vallée; Financial Services; Financial Services

Research Summary

Corporate Debt, Firm Size and Financial Fragility in Emerging Markets

By: Laura Alfaro

The post-Global Financial Crisis period shows a surge in corporate leverage in emerging markets and a number of countries with deteriorated corporate financial fragility indicators (Altman’s Z-score). Firm size plays a critical role in the relationship between... View Details

12 Sep 2023
Research & Ideas

How Can Financial Advisors Thrive in Shifting Markets? Diversify, Diversify, Diversify

more comfortable using technology to make financial decisions. It turns out, Di Maggio says, that “having a broader view of the financial picture of the client helps [advisers] keep their clients and helps... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand; Financial Services

22 Apr 2002
Research & Ideas

Work, Family, Private Life: Why Not All Three?

nonprofit organizations. Hart, who is also co-head of the entrepreneurship and service management faculty unit at HBS, said that reflection on a balance between work and personal goals can never start too soon. In terms of role models,... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

1999
Chapter

How Financial Firms Decide on Technology

By: Lorin M. Hitt, Frances X. Frei and Patrick T. Harker

Keywords: Financial Institutions; Decision Making; Technology; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry

May 28, 2018
Article

How Companies Can Identify Racial and Gender Bias in Their Customer Service

By: Alexandra C. Feldberg and Tami Kim

Research shows that minority customers — blacks and Asians — regularly receive worse customer service than whites in ways that are not immediately obvious to onlookers (or even managers). These results prompt a couple of questions for executives and managers. One, does... View Details

Keywords: Internal Audit; Customers; Service Delivery; Prejudice and Bias; Race; Gender; Organizational Change and Adaptation