Publications

March 2005
Case

Vignette: Waiting for a CEO

By: G. Felda Hardymon and Ann Leamon

A venture capitalist must decide how to respond to an e-mail from his long-time troubleshooter now installed as interim CEO at a struggling contract manufacturing exchange for the custom car business. The investors have been seeking a full-time CEO but have made little... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Business or Company Management; Investment; Business Ventures; Corporate Governance; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Financial Strategy

06 Sep 2004
What Do You Think?

How Do We Prepare for a World Without Cheap Oil?

Summing Up Is the end of cheap oil a challenge to the world? Yes. Will it affect our standard of living adversely? Not likely. At least that is the verdict of most of the large number of respondents to this month's column who rely on assumed human ingenuity combined... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

21 Sep 2016
News

Ideas with Economic and Social Impact

Corporation (IFC) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Her report, Financing High-Growth Firms, the Role of Angel Investors, written for and published by the OECD in 2011, has attracted interest from View Details

09 Sep 2013
Lessons from the Classroom

Teaching Climate Change to Skeptics

are often shaped more by the political climate than by the actual climate. "The issue has become totally intertwined with political ideology," says Richard H.K. Vietor, the Paul Whiton Chertington Professor of Business Administration at HBS, who has been studying View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

06 Nov 2012
First Look

First Look: November 6

Download the paper: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=43264 Governing Misvalued Firms Authors: Dalida Kadyrzhanova and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf Abstract Equity overvaluation is thought to create the potential for manager misbehavior, while... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

May 2020
Article

Digitizing Disclosure: The Case of Restaurant Hygiene Scores

By: Weijia (Daisy) Dai and Michael Luca

Collaborating with Yelp and the city of San Francisco, we revisit a canonical example of quality disclosure by evaluating and helping to redesign the posting of restaurant hygiene scores on Yelp.com. We implement a two-stage intervention that separately identifies... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Disclosure; Consumer Behavior; Knowledge Dissemination; Food and Beverage Industry

February 2004 (Revised April 2004)
Case

Financial Reporting in the Catholic Church

The Catholic Church is a large and complex international organization with several layers of management spread across a diverse range of services and geographical areas. Creating a coherent and manageable communication strategy for is a challenging task that requires... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Disclosure; Religion; Financial Reporting; Organizational Culture; Communication Strategy

01 Jun 2010
News

M.I.A. Boards

companies. With developments such as the recent Supreme Court decision allowing companies to spend more freely on political campaigns, the importance of corporate governance is likely to grow. Many boards... View Details

Keywords: John Gillespie;David Zweig; Finance

22 Aug 2017
Working Paper Summaries

Investors as Stewards of the Commons?

Keywords: by George Serafeim

April 22, 2021
Article

Shareholders Are Pressing for Climate Risk Disclosures. That's Good for Everyone

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

Does shareholder activism induce firms to voluntarily disclose climate change risks? And how do markets respond to these disclosures? New research finds that the extent of climate-risk disclosure increases by approximately 4.6% for each environment-related proposal... View Details

Keywords: Reporting; Transparency; Activism; Shareholder Activism; Shareholder Engagement; Climate Change; Corporate Disclosure; Investment Activism; Business and Shareholder Relations

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February 1997
Case

RPG Enterprises--1995

By: Tarun Khanna

As in most emerging markets, a significant portion of the Indian private sector is dominated by extensively diversified, often family-owned or controlled, business groups. This case examines the strategy and structure of one of the largest business groups in India, at... View Details

Keywords: Emerging Markets; Restructuring; Corporate Strategy; Alignment; Policy; Problems and Challenges; India

2007
Article

Business Methods Patents as Real Options: Value and Disclosure as Drivers of Litigation

By: Atul Nerkar, Srikanth Paruchuri and Mukti Khaire

This paper proposes that patents are real options that allow holders of patents the right but not the obligation to sue others. We suggest that the likelihood of a patent's being litigated is positively associated with the value of the patent and the extent of... View Details

Keywords: Value; Corporate Disclosure; Lawsuits and Litigation; Patents; Rights; Business Processes

Keywords: Healthcare; Finance; Banking

25 Jul 2006
First Look

First Look: July 25, 2006

pursued flexible business strategies beyond its "core" business, even distributing condoms. It maintained a high standard of corporate ethics. It was effective at building contacts with local business and View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

November 2009 (Revised August 2013)
Case

IFRS in China

By: Karthik Ramanna, G.A. Donovan and Nancy Dai

In 2005, China announced plans to "converge with," but not completely adopt, IFRS. China also began to lobby for changes to specific IFRS provisions, such as for related party disclosures by state-owned firms, to bring them more into line with Chinese interests.... View Details

Keywords: Financial Reporting; International Accounting; Corporate Disclosure; Standards; State Ownership; Business and Government Relations; China

17 Jul 2012
First Look

First Look: July 17

institutional theory, managers, and policymakers. What Good Are Shareholders? Authors:Justin Fox and Jay W. Lorsch Publication:Harvard Business Review 90, nos. 7-8 (July-August 2012) Abstract The article looks at the role outside shareholders play in View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

November 2011
Article

The Role of the Board in Accelerating the Adoption of Integrated Reporting

By: Robert G. Eccles and George Serafeim

This report examines the concept of integrated reporting and its current state of adoption around the globe. It also discusses the benefits to both companies and society and recommends ways boards can help their organizations accelerate the implementation of integrated... View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Governing and Advisory Boards; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Social Issues; Global Range; Adoption

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2008
Working Paper

Consequences of Voluntary and Mandatory Fair Value Accounting: Evidence Surrounding IFRS Adoption in the EU Real Estate Industry

By: Karl A Muller III, Edward J. Riedl and Thorsten Sellhorn

We examine the causes and consequences of European real estate firms' decisions to provide investment property fair values prior to the required disclosure of this information under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). We find evidence that investor... View Details

Keywords: Fair Value Accounting; Financial Reporting; International Accounting; Corporate Disclosure; Standards; Real Estate Industry; European Union