Publications

28 Feb 2011
Research & Ideas

The Importance of ‘Don’t’ in Inducing Ethical Employee Behavior

in two different ways. Some students received promotion-based instructions that included the following statement, focusing on advancement: "This research project is being conducted to advance the ideals and aspirations pursued by applied social science."... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

28 Aug 2007
First Look

First Look: August 28, 2007

Harvard Business School Case 107-035 Obadiah Vineyard's owners create financial statements in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) to help them obtain funding to plant more... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

October 2023 (Revised January 2024)
Case

Ball: EVA Driving the World's Leading Can Manufacturer (A)

By: Jonas Heese and Susan Pinckney

The case describes Ball’s multi decade history of using Economic Value Added to drive decision making and workforce compensation. In 2016, the company acquired Rexam PLC and became the world’s leading metal beverage container company. Consumer demand for varied... View Details

30 Nov 2018
What Do You Think?

What’s the Best Administrative Approach to Climate Change?

Summing Up: Should a 'Montreal Protocol' for Administering Global Warming Be Pursued? Climate change and how to manage it is a daunting subject. Nevertheless, several readers of this month’s column were willing to venture a model or two for administering a system... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Energy

15 Sep 2015
First Look

September 15, 2015

behaviors in others and in themselves. This paper identifies a solution: instilling a mindset of vigilance. In an experiment, individuals playing the role of financial advisers recommended one of four possible investments to their... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

May 1998
Case

Stone Industries

By: David F. Hawkins

Managers must decide how to account for a debt refinancing. View Details

Keywords: Financial Statements; Borrowing and Debt

12 Aug 2008
First Look

First Look: August 12, 2008

the Statement of Financial Accounting Standards, No. 141R. Purchase the note: http://hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=108067 ADR Choices Harvard Business School Note 908-040 Six different... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

January 2017 (Revised August 2017)
Case

Earl Gordon - Eastern Circle

By: Steven Rogers and Greg White

This case follows an African-American entrepreneur through the process of sourcing a potential acquisition, valuing a company, and securing the funding to purchase the company. This entrepreneur must decide if he should close the deal and which financing term sheet to... View Details

16 Jun 2009
First Look

First Look: June 16

economic theory of GAAP under the assumption that GAAP's objective is to facilitate efficient capital allocation within an economy. The theory predicts that GAAP, as shaped by the economic forces of demand for and supply of financial... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

February 2001 (Revised April 2001)
Case

Warnaco Group, Inc. (B)

By: David F. Hawkins

Supplements the (A) case. View Details

Keywords: Financial Statements; Financial Reporting; Restructuring; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Retail Industry

16 Sep 2015
Op-Ed

The Real Duty of the Board of Directors

interests of the corporation itself. As one of us responded in a recent interview with John Authers of the Financial Times, “The shareholders don’t actually own the corporation. They own shares in the corporation. The corporation owns... View Details

Keywords: by Robert G. Eccles & Tim Youmans

October 1998 (Revised January 1999)
Case

Echlin vs. SPX

By: Paul M. Healy, Bjorn N. Jorgensen and Penny Joseph

Echlin has received a hostile takeover offer from SPX. Both companies have been undertaking major restructurings, and Echlin's shareholders face a difficult decision of whether to support current management or sell out to SPX. Students are asked to analyze the two... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Financial Statements; Business and Shareholder Relations

March 1993 (Revised March 1994)
Case

Sierra On-Line, Inc. (A)

Sierra On-Line, a fast growing software developer, is criticized by a Forbes journalist for excessively capitalizing software development costs. In contrast to most other software developers that typically capitalize about 20% of R&D costs, Sierra capitalizes 80%.... View Details

Keywords: Applications and Software; Financial Statements; Corporate Finance; Information Technology Industry

January 2005
Tutorial

Buying Time

By: Robert S. Kaplan

Managers must frequently make decisions involving trade-offs between cash flows to be paid or received at different points in time. Accountants, in turn, must describe transactions that involve the payment and/or receipt of cash far in the future. This interactive... View Details

Keywords: Cash Flow; Value; Interest Rates; Financial Statements

November 1985
Case

Prentice Stevens, Inc.: Rating Industrial Debt

By: David F. Hawkins

Keywords: Borrowing and Debt; Management; Financial Statements

October 2016 (Revised January 2017)
Supplement

Bally Total Fitness (B): The Fall, 2005–2016

By: John R. Wells and Gabriel Ellsworth

By many measures the largest health-club chain in the United States in the early 2000s, Bally Total Fitness sold most of its remaining fitness clubs to 24 Hour Fitness in 2014 and disappeared from the industry top 100 rankings. After Bally was bedeviled by accounting... View Details

November 1999 (Revised June 2011)
Background Note

Accounting for Foreign Operations

By: David F. Hawkins

Students are required to compute and explain the quality annual earnings per share figures and major differences between managing domestic and global operations. View Details

Keywords: Business Earnings; Financial Statements; International Accounting; Globalized Firms and Management

October 1976 (Revised June 2008)
Case

Chemalite, Inc.

A chemical engineer who has set up a company to manufacture and market one of his inventions is trying to prepare his state of the corporation report. This case is designed to serve as a vehicle to introduce students to basic bookkeeping and accounting functions. View Details

Keywords: Financial Reporting; Financial Statements; Business Startups; Valuation; Chemical Industry