Publications

November 2008 (Revised November 2024)
Case

The Fall of Enron

By: Paul Healy and Krishna Palepu

The case traces the rise of Enron, covering the company's business innovations, personnel management, and risk management processes. It then examines the company's dramatic fall including the extension of its trading model into questionable new businesses, the... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Management Practices and Processes; Crime and Corruption; Financial Reporting; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards

Arthur I Segel

View Details

Keywords: federal government; real estate

17 Jan 2023
Book

Good Companies Commit Crimes, But Great Leaders Can Prevent Them

procedures, foreign corrupt practices, and virtual currency. The book speaks to “how organizations are actually held criminally accountable,” says co-author Eugene F. Soltes, the McLean Family Professor of Business Administration at... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert

29 Mar 2022
Book

5 Qualities That Help Companies Thrive for Decades—Even Centuries

try and sell a new culture. A bunch of [Indian businesses leaders] recognize the problem and are trying to do that.” 5. The businesses fight corruption, even if they aren’t always successful India routinely shows up near the top of global View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

2020
Chapter

Business, Ethics and Institutions. The Evolution of Turkish Capitalism in a Comparative Perspective

By: Asli M. Colpan and Geoffrey Jones

This chapter offers a survey of the evolution of Turkish capitalism from the 19th century Ottoman Empire until the present day. It shows that Turkish business over the last century and a half was shaped in an institutional context similar to those in many developing... View Details

Keywords: Business Groups; Capitalism; Entrepreneurship; Ethics; Government and Politics; History; Religion; Business History; Turkey; Central Asia; Middle East

Find at Harvard

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 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 September 2019)
Case

Theranos: The Unicorn That Wasn't

By: Joseph B. Fuller and John Masko

In 2003, 19-year-old Elizabeth Holmes founded a startup dedicated to making blood testing easier and more affordable. By 2015, her company, Theranos, was worth $9 billion. It boasted a star-studded board and contracts with national pharmacy and supermarket chains... View Details

Keywords: Theranos; Blood; Lab Testing; Fraud; Holmes; Balwani; Shultz; Carreyrou; Securities And Exchange Commission; Food And Drug Administration; FDA; SEC; Health Testing and Trials; Corporate Accountability; Organizational Culture; Misleading and Fraudulent Advertising; Crime and Corruption; Entrepreneurship; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

Topics - HBS Working Knowledge

Derivatives and Swaps (1) Credit (8) Crime and Corruption (43) Crisis Management (51) Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues (23) Culture (10) Currency Exchange Rate (3) Currency (12) Curriculum and Courses (2) Customer Focus and... View Details

27 Jan 2023
Op-Ed

Have We Lost Sight of Integrity?

Every month, another leader creates an onslaught of media coverage for being dishonest. Have we lost sight of the importance of leaders with integrity? Why do failed leaders get so much more attention than those who are doing things the right way? Take, for example,... View Details

Keywords: by Bill George

13 Feb 2020
Book

Open Your Organization to Honest Conversations

power will corrupt and that absolute power will corrupt absolutely? It’s certainly the most likely outcome if leaders cannot overcome the organizational silence created by the power differentials that go... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

28 Nov 2023
Book

Economic Growth Draws Companies to Asia. Can They Handle Its Authoritarian Regimes?

authoritarian regime organizes its institutions or informal practices to serve the productive interests of business, and mutual endangerment, whereby economic elites and political elites are mutually entwined in corrupt dealings and... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

February 2019 (Revised November 2024)
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

31 May 2023
HBS Case

Why Business Leaders Need to Hear Larry Miller's Story

View Video Editor's note: Watch the video in "full screen" mode for the best viewing experience. If Larry Miller hadn’t concealed his criminal record, would he ever have been given the chance to turn his life around? Would his talent have taken him to Nike, where he... View Details

Keywords: by Jamal Meneide; Entertainment & Recreation; Consumer Products

16 Jan 2024
Cold Call Podcast

How SolarWinds Responded to the 2020 SUNBURST Cyberattack

Keywords: Re: Frank Nagle; Information Technology

Research & Teaching - Creating Emerging Markets

might include: How do entrepreneurs in emerging markets build world-class brands? Why and how do entrepreneurs in emerging markets think about 'going global'? Are the motivating factors for them different than for business leaders in more developed markets? How does... View Details

March 2019
Article

Crime and Violence: Desensitization in Victims to Watching Criminal Events

By: Rafael Di Tella, Lucia Freira, Ramiro H. Gálvez, Ernesto Schargrodsky, Diego Shalom and Mariano Sigman

We study desensitization to crime in a lab experiment by showing footage of criminal acts to a group of subjects, some of whom have been previously victimized. We measure biological markers of stress and behavioral indices of cognitive control before and after treated... View Details

Keywords: Crime; Biological Markers; Experiment; Victimization; Desensitization; Crime and Corruption; Behavior