Publications

April 1982 (Revised June 1985)
Case

Westinghouse Electric Corp.: Quality of Earnings Analysis

Westinghouse had just issued its annual report to shareholders for the year ending December 31, 1973. The report indicates that sales have increased to a record $5.7 billion but that net income is down almost 20% from its record level of $199 million in the previous... View Details

Keywords: Business Earnings; Financial Reporting; Corporate Finance; Electronics Industry

Spring 2013
Article

Accounting Quality, Stock Price Delay, and Future Stock Returns

By: Jeffrey Callen, Mozaffar N. Khan and Hai Lu

In frictionless capital markets with complete information and rational investors, stock prices adjust to new information instantaneously and completely. However, a substantial body of research studies information imperfections such as asymmetric information and... View Details

Keywords: Quality; Price; Stocks; Asset Pricing; Accounting

November 2007
Article

A Model of Consumer Learning for Service Quality and Usage

By: Raghuram Iyengar, Asim Ansari and Sunil Gupta

In many services, e.g., the wireless service industry, consumers choose a service plan based on their expected consumption. In such situations, consumers experience two forms of uncertainty. First, consumers may be uncertain about the quality of their service provider... View Details

Keywords: Experience and Expertise; Customer Value and Value Chain; Learning; Price; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Marketing Strategy; Consumer Behavior; Service Delivery; Quality; Risk and Uncertainty; Service Industry

December 2012
Case

Trouble Brewing for Green Mountain Coffee Roasters

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Michael Norris

In October 2011, noted hedge fund manager David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital delivered a presentation at an investors' conference analyzing the business and accounting quality weaknesses of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. Until then Green Mountain had exhibited rapid... View Details

March 2011
Article

What Do Dividends Tell Us About Earnings Quality

By: Douglas Skinner and Eugene F. Soltes

Over the past 30 years, there have been significant changes in the distribution of earnings (cross-sectional variation has increased, with increasing left skewness) as well as in corporate payout policy, with many fewer firms paying dividends and the emergence of stock... View Details

Keywords: Distribution; Business Earnings; Change; Policy; Stocks; Investment Return; Performance Consistency; Quality

14 Nov 2012
Research & Ideas

New Agenda for Corporate Accountability Reporting

leveraged to test and improve the quality of corporate accountability reporting. Ramanna thinks accounting theory has a lot to contribute, in three particular ways: (1) by... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Accounting; Accounting; Accounting

November 1997
Case

Intercon Electric Corporation: Quality of Earnings Analysis

By: David F. Hawkins and Norman Bartczak

Keywords: Business Earnings; Energy Industry

28 Sep 2009
Research & Ideas

Improving Accountability at the World Bank

accountability and effectiveness today? What should it do about them? With a detailed description of the Bank's challenges of democratic accountability, its constraints, and recommendations for the future, HBS professor Alnoor Ebrahim... View Details

Keywords: by Alnoor Ebrahim

2013
Chapter

Growth and the Quality of Foreign Direct Investment: Is All FDI Equal?

By: Laura Alfaro and Andrew Charlton

In this paper we distinguish different "qualities" of FDI to re-examine the relationship between FDI and growth. We use "quality" to mean the effect of a unit of FDI on economic growth. However, this is difficult to establish because it is a function of many different... View Details

Keywords: Quality; Economic Growth; Foreign Direct Investment

July 1993 (Revised June 1997)
Case

News Corporation Limited, The: Quality of Earnings Analysis

By: David F. Hawkins

Keywords: Business Earnings; Publishing Industry; Information Industry

January 2004 (Revised April 2004)
Case

Ford Motor Company: Quality of Earnings Growth Analysis (A)

By: David F. Hawkins and Jacob Cohen

Even though Ford Motor Co. reports improved profitability, an equity analyst issues a sell recommendation and Standard & Poor's downgrades long-term debt. View Details

Keywords: Quality; Business Earnings; Valuation; Investment Return; Profit; Financial Statements; Revenue; Auto Industry; Consulting Industry

Research Summary

Growth and the Quality of Foreign Direct Investment: Is All FDI Equal? (joint with Andrew Charlton)

By: Laura Alfaro

In this paper we distinguish different qualities of FDI to re-examine the relationship between FDI and growth. Establishing the quality of FDI, however, is a difficult concept. Quality, that is the effect of a unit of FDI on economic growth, is a combination and... View Details

February 2004
Supplement

Ford Motor Company: Quality of Earnings Growth Analysis (A)

By: David F. Hawkins

Keywords: Measurement and Metrics; Quality; Business Earnings; Auto Industry

30 Apr 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Earnings Quality and Ownership Structure: The Role of Private Equity Sponsors

Keywords: by Sharon P. Katz; Financial Services

July–August 2008
Article

Interview with a Quality Leader: Regina E. Herzlinger on Consumer-Driven Healthcare

By: Regina E. Herzlinger

Regina E. Herzlinger is the Nancy R. McPherson Professor of Business Administration Chair at the Harvard Business School, Cambridge, MA. She received her bachelor's degree from MIT and her doctorate from the Harvard Business School The first woman to be tenured and... View Details

Keywords: Consumer-driven Health Care; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry

June 2001 (Revised October 2002)
Case

Accounting for the Intel Pentium Chip Flaw

By: Gregory S. Miller, V.G. Narayanan and Lisa Brem

Investigates the 1994 Intel Pentium plan. View Details

Keywords: Fair Value Accounting; Quality; Measurement and Metrics; Cost; Computer Industry

2012
Discussion Paper

Labor Productivity and Quality Change in Singapore: Achievements in 1974-2011 and Prospects for the Next Two Decades

By: Koji Nomura and Tomomichi Amano

Labor productivity growth in Singapore that has grown at a rate of over 3.0 percent per year since 1970s considerably slowed down to 0.5 percent on average per annum in the latter half of the 2000s. The purpose of this paper is to ask, first, to what extent Singapore’s... View Details

Keywords: Labor; Performance Productivity; Quality; Economic Growth; Singapore