Publications

June 2010 (Revised April 2017)
Teaching Note

Pfizer: Letter from the Chairman (A) and (B)

By: Robert Simons and Kathryn Rosenberg

Teaching Note for 110003 and 110004. View Details

Keywords: Management Control Systems; Strategy And Execution; Performance Measurement; Pharmaceutical Industry

March 2017 (Revised May 2017)
Teaching Note

The Strategy Execution Series

By: Robert Simons and Jennifer Packard

This is the teaching note for the 15-module Strategy Execution series. New management tools and techniques are needed to implement strategy in the 21st century. Rapid innovation, entrepreneurial competitors, and increasingly demanding customers have radically altered... View Details

Keywords: Management Control Systems; Implementing Strategy; Strategy Execution; Performance Measurement; Profit Planning; Organization Design; Profitable Growth; Management Attention; Organizational Conflict; Job Design; Business Strategy; Management Systems; Entrepreneurship; Competition; Organizational Design; Performance Evaluation; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques

July/August 2004
Article

Stakeholders and Environmental Management Practices: An Institutional Framework

By: Magali Delmas and Michael W. Toffel

Despite burgeoning research on companies' environmental strategies and environmental management practices, it remains unclear why some firms adopt environmental management practices beyond regulatory compliance. This paper leverages institutional theory by proposing... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Management Practices and Processes; Environmental Management; Adoption; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Organizational Structure; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Competition; Framework; Governance Compliance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms

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16 Aug 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Managing Political Risk in Global Business: Beiersdorf 1914-1990

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones & Christina Lubinski; Beauty & Cosmetics

June 2023
Article

Regulatory Limits to Risk Management

By: Ishita Sen

Variable annuities, the largest liability of U.S. life insurers, are investment products containing long-dated minimum return guarantees. I show that guarantees with similar economic risks are treated differently by regulation and these differences impact insurers’... View Details

Keywords: Interest Rate Risk; Variable Annuities; Capital Regulation; Reinsurance; Derivatives; Risk Management; Interest Rates; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms

SSRN

October 2008
Article

It's Time to Make Management a True Profession

By: Nitin Nohria and Rakesh Khurana

In the face of the recent institutional breakdown of trust in business, managers are losing legitimacy. To regain public trust, management needs to become a true profession in much the way medicine and law have, argue Khurana and Nohria of Harvard Business School. True... View Details

Keywords: Competency and Skills; Education; Ethics; Corporate Accountability; Management; Trust; Value Creation

Article

The Big Five Personality Traits, Material Values, and Financial Well-being of Self-described Money Managers

By: Grant Edward Donnelly, Ravi Iyer and Ryan Howell

Previous research has linked personality traits, material values, and money management to savings, debt, and compulsive buying. To extend previous research, four online surveys examined the Big Five personality traits and material values of those who manage their money... View Details

Keywords: Values; Personality; Well-being; Personal Characteristics; Values and Beliefs; Personal Finance; Money

March 2011 (Revised December 2019)
Case

Wealth Management Crisis at UBS (A)

By: Paul M. Healy

The case describes the challenges that UBS faced as a result of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation for tax fraud, that claimed that UBS had helped some 52,000 U.S. residents hide billions of dollars in untaxed assets in secret Swiss accounts between... View Details

Educators

Research Summary

Overview

The Information Age has introduced well recieved opportunities to track performance. Fitbits and Fuelbands show individuals their own performance; service companies including Uber and leading hospitals help pick from drivers or doctors based on how others rate them;... View Details

Keywords: Management Accounting; Performance Measurement; Incentives; Control; Healthcare Industry; Education; Education Industry; Health Industry; Transportation Industry; Energy Industry; Auto Industry; United States; Japan; India

February 1994 (Revised July 2008)
Case

Banc One Corporation: Asset and Liability Management

By: Benjamin C. Esty, Peter Tufano and Jon Headley

Banc One's share price has been falling recently due to analyst and investor concern over the bank's heavy use of interest rate derivatives. Dick Lodge, chief investment officer in charge of the bank's investment and derivative portfolio, must recommend to the CEO a... View Details

Keywords: Credit Derivatives and Swaps; Financial Management; Interest Rates; Investment Portfolio; Governance Controls; Risk Management; Banking Industry

Educators

01 Dec 1998
News

Managing the Business of Life

interview, we catch up with the group for another update. Not surprisingly, much has changed over the past decade in their households and in their careers. In the profiles that follow, our protagonists once again candidly discuss how they are View Details

April 1991 (Revised May 2017)
Teaching Note

Automatic Data Processing: The EFS Decision

By: Robert Simons

Teaching Note for (9-190-059). View Details

Keywords: Strategy And Execution; Management Control Systems; Boundary Systems; Information Technology; Decision Making

September 2017
Article

The Real Effects of Capital Controls: Firm-Level Evidence from a Policy Experiment

By: Laura Alfaro, Anusha Chari and Fabio Kanczuk

Emerging-market governments adopted capital control taxes to manage the massive surge in foreign capital inflows in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Theory suggests that the imposition of capital controls can drive up the cost of capital and curb... View Details

Keywords: Capital Controls; Discriminatory Taxation; International Investment Barriers; Exports; Debt; Cost of Capital; Taxation; Investment; Borrowing and Debt; Equity; Brazil

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26 Jan 2015
Research & Ideas

National Health Costs Could Decrease if Managers Reduce Work Stress

pressure, alcoholism, mental illness. Even so, the connections between job pressures and health—and what management can do to address the problem—have been little studied. “We have not placed a lot of emphasis on the role of workplace... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Health

January 2013 (Revised March 2017)
Teaching Note

Luotang Power: Variances Explained (Brief Case)

By: Robert Simons and Craig Chapman

The primary objective is to explore the concepts of variance analysis in performance from one year to the next and the predictability of contracting counterparts to extract value from contract positions where they can. The general manager of a coal-fired power plant... View Details

Keywords: Variance Analysis; Strategy And Execution; Profitability Analysis; Management Control Systems; Contracts; Valuation; Energy Generation; Accounting; Performance Evaluation; China

Web

Accounting & Management Curriculum - Faculty & Research

Accounting & Management Overview Faculty Curriculum Seminars & Conferences Awards & Honors Doctoral Students MBA Required Curriculum (FIRST YEAR) Financial Reporting and Control (FRC) Recognizing that... View Details

2012
Case

Zhejiang Semir Garment Co., Ltd.

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Jie Jiao and Yuren Fang

With the rapid growth of China's economy and China's increasing integration into the global economy in the past two decades, China's leisure clothing and garment enterprises achieved a rapid rise and became an important competitive force confronting the foreign brands... View Details

Keywords: Business Model Innovation; Competitive Strategy; Management Controls; China; China