Publications

January 2018 (Revised August 2018)
Supplement

Fair Value Accounting at Noble Group (B)

By: Siko Sikochi, Suraj Srinivasan and Quinn Pitcher

Following a series of reports by Iceberg Research alleging that Noble Group was too aggressive in its fair value accounting for contracts and investments in producers, Noble’s stock price continued to fall and stakeholders began to call for improved transparency in... View Details

Keywords: Fair Value Accounting; Contracts; Valuation

06 Dec 2021
News

Rescue & Recovery

Tjada D’Oyen McKenna (MBA 2002) sits in front of a photo mural on the walls of the Mercy Corps offices in Washington, DC After a full-on morning of Zoom sessions from her home office in Potomac, Maryland, Tjada D’Oyen McKenna (MBA 2002) climbs into her SUV and plugs... View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint; photographed by Stephen Voss; Social Assistance; Health, Social Assistance

2019
Article

More Amazon Effects: Online Competition and Pricing Behaviors

By: Alberto Cavallo

I study how online competition, with its shrinking margins, algorithmic pricing technologies, and the transparency of the web, can change the pricing behavior of large retailers in the U.S. and affect aggregate inflation dynamics. In particular, I show that in the past... View Details

Keywords: Amazon; Online Prices; Inflation; Uniform Pricing; Price Stickiness; Monetary Economics; Economics; Macroeconomics; Inflation and Deflation; System Shocks; United States

2021
Working Paper

Shareholder Activism and Firms’ Voluntary Disclosure of Climate Change Risks

By: Caroline Flammer, Michael W. Toffel and Kala Viswanathan

This paper examines whether—in the absence of mandated disclosure requirements—shareholder activism can elicit greater disclosure of firms’ exposure to climate change risks. We find that environmental shareholder activism increases the voluntary disclosure of climate... View Details

Keywords: Shareholder Activism; Climate Risk; Corporate Accountability; Climate Change; Corporate Disclosure; Corporate Governance; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Shareholder Relations; Risk and Uncertainty; Natural Environment; Environmental Sustainability; Financial Services Industry; United States

Ethan Bernstein (@ethanbernstein) is an associate professor in the Organizational Behavior unit at Harvard Business School. He has spent his career researching novel talent management practices and their effect on employee behavior, collaboration, and performance.... View Details

September 2022 (Revised August 2023)
Case

Audrey Tang: Using Technology to Strengthen Democracy in Taiwan

By: Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai

Since the early days of the internet, Taiwan had a vibrant community of civic hackers and open-source programmers who engaged with social issues. Audrey Tang was one of them. She spearheaded the 2014 Sunflower Student Movement in Taiwan, where protestors peacefully... View Details

Keywords: Democracy; Internet; Web Technology; Digital Transformation; Digital Platform; COVID; Information Technology; Applications and Software; Governance; Entrepreneurship; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Innovation and Invention; Taiwan; China; Asia

2020
Working Paper

Reverse Information Sharing: Reducing Costs in Supply Chains with Yield Uncertainty

By: Pavithra Harsha, Ashish Jagmohan, Retsef Levi, Elisabeth Paulson and Georgia Perakis

Supply uncertainty in produce supply chains presents major challenges to retailers. Supply shortages create frequent disruptions in terms of promised delivery times, quantity and quality delivered. To alleviate these challenges, dual sourcing--a strategy in which... View Details

Keywords: Information Sharing; Yield Uncertainty; Ration Gaming; Blockchain; Supply Chain; Risk and Uncertainty

May 2016 (Revised March 2020)
Case

Fasten: Challenging Uber and Lyft with a New Business Model

By: Feng Zhu and Angela Acocella

Fasten, a new ridesharing start-up in Boston, entered the scene in September 2015 hoping its unique vision of transparency for both driver and passenger and strategy to keep riders' fares low and charge drivers a flat $0.99 fee per ride as opposed to the 20-30%... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Transportation; Business Startups; Business Model; Transportation Industry; Boston

January 2010 (Revised October 2011)
Case

The Congressional Oversight Panel's Valuation of the TARP Warrants (A)

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin

The Congressional Oversight Panel wants to value the warrants issued to the government in connection with the TARP investments of 2008, in order to increase the transparency of options repurchases. The case describes the methodology used to value the warrants. Students... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Asset Pricing; Financial Instruments; Investment; Business and Government Relations; Mathematical Methods; Valuation; Banking Industry; Public Administration Industry; United States

Regina E. Herzlinger is the Nancy R. McPherson Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. She was the first woman to be tenured and chaired at Harvard Business School and serve on many established and start-up corporate health care/medical... View Details

Keywords: health care; insurance industry; medical devices; retailing; digital health

2010
Working Paper

The Mirroring Hypothesis: Theory, Evidence and Exceptions

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin

The mirroring hypothesis predicts that the organizational patterns of a development project (e.g. communication links, geographic collocation, team and firm co-membership) will correspond to the technical patterns of dependency in the system under development. Scholars... View Details

Keywords: Infrastructure; Product Design; Organizational Design; Practice; Groups and Teams; Social and Collaborative Networks; Information Technology

December 1997 (Revised August 1998)
Case

Shanghai Real Estate (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Harold F. Hogan Jr

An independent consultant from the United States must decide what to do when faced with his client's apparent violation of an agreement with a third party. The consultant is American, the client is a Chinese real estate developer, and the third party is a French... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Contracts; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Law; Agreements and Arrangements; Alliances; Corporate Accountability; Consulting Industry; Real Estate Industry; China; United States; France

28 Jun 2010
HBS Case

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center

percentile. "A key takeaway for students is the power of transparency as a mechanism for change," says Tucker. "Another is the motivational value of benchmarking themselves to an internal standard of zero accidents instead... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Health

24 Apr 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Bank Accounting Standards in Mexico: A Layman’s Guide to Changes 10 Years after the 1995 Bank Crisis

Keywords: by Gustavo A. Del Angel, Stephen Haber & Aldo Musacchio; Banking

2015
Working Paper

Service Quality, Inventory and Competition: An Empirical Analysis of Mobile Money Agents in Africa

By: Karthik Balasubramanian and David F. Drake

The use of electronic money transfer through cellular networks ("mobile money") is rapidly increasing in the developing world. The resulting electronic currency ecosystem could improve the lives of the estimated 2 billion people who live on less than $2 a day by... View Details

Keywords: Operations Strategy; Base Of The Pyramid; Mobile Money; Inventory Management; Competition; Currency; Service Operations; Mobile and Wireless Technology

09 Jul 2020
News

5 Tips for Communicating with Employees During a Crisis

November 2007
Case

The 1995 Release of the Institutional Investor Research Report: The Impact of New Information

By: Boris Groysberg, Nitin Nohria and Derek Haas

In 1995, Institutional Investor magazine began selling a complete ranking of the best equity research analysts. This report allowed research firms to assess the relative quality of each analyst across the industry, and this enabled firms to know nearly as much about... View Details

Keywords: Talent and Talent Management; Investment Banking; Retention; Selection and Staffing; Reports; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Performance Evaluation; Banking Industry

February 2009 (Revised June 2010)
Background Note

Note on Measuring Controlling Shareholder's Ownership, Voting, and Control Rights

Founders and their families can raise equity without relinquishing control of their companies through the use of mechanisms such as dual-class stock, pyramidal ownership, voting agreements, and disproportionate board representation. The use of these mechanisms in... View Details

Keywords: Equity; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Measurement and Metrics; Ownership Stake; Business and Shareholder Relations; Valuation