Publications

August 2016 (Revised January 2017)
Case

Accounting for the iPhone Upgrade Program (A)

By: Jonas Heese, Krishna G. Palepu, H. David Sherman and Monica Baraldi

On September 9, 2015, Apple Inc. announced the “iPhone Upgrade Program,” a new way to purchase iPhone models 6s and 6s Plus in Apple’s retail stores throughout the U.S. Next to the strategic implications of the Upgrade Program, financial analysts tried to understand... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Apple Inc.; iPhone 6s; International Accounting; Electronics Industry; California; United States

Article

Supporting Value-Based Health Care—Aligning Financial and Legal Accountability

By: Mark M. Zaki, Anupam B. Jena and Amitabh Chandra

U.S. health care payment and delivery-system reforms have focused on improving care by making organizations accountable for outcomes, quality, and costs. Payers have supported the implementation of accountable care organizations (ACOs), bundled-payment models, and... View Details

Keywords: Value-based Health Care; Accountability; Health Care and Treatment; United States

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2021
Working Paper

Accounting for Organizational Employment Impact

By: David Freiberg, Katie Panella, George Serafeim and T. Robert Zochowski

Organizations create significant positive and negative impacts through their employment practices. This paper builds on the substantial body of research regarding job quality and impact measurement to present a framework for monetized analysis of employment impact. We... View Details

Keywords: Impact-Weighted Accounts; IWAI; Employment Impact; Employment; Jobs and Positions; Quality; Measurement and Metrics; Analysis; Framework

SSRN

June 2023
Case

Accounting for Loan Losses at JPMorgan Chase: Predicting Credit Costs

By: Jonas Heese, Jung Koo Kang and James Weber

The case examines the accounting for loan losses at a large bank, how a bank sets its Allowance for Loan and Lease Losses (ALLL) on its financial statements. ALLL, and the rules that set them, determine when banks would and would not extend loans, which significantly... View Details

Keywords: Accounting Standards; Accrual Accounting; Financial Statements; Financial Reporting; Banks and Banking; Financing and Loans; Banking Industry; United States

11 Mar 2010
Working Paper Summaries

The Many Faces of Nonprofit Accountability

Keywords: by Alnoor Ebrahim

December 1998
Case

Origins of National Income Accounting

By: David A. Moss and Joseph P Gownder

Set in the Great Depression, this case explores the origins of national income accounting in the United States. Highlights Senator La Follette's 1932 proposal for the federal government to begin collecting national income statistics. View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Financial Crisis; Analytics and Data Science; Mathematical Methods; United States

2008
Working Paper

Spanning the Institutional Abyss: The Intergovernmental Network and the Governance of Foreign Direct Investment

By: Juan Alcacer and Paul Ingram

Global economic transactions such as foreign direct investment must extend over an institutional abyss between the jurisdiction, and therefore protection, of the states involved. Intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), whose members are states, represent an important... View Details

Keywords: International Finance; Foreign Direct Investment; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Governance Controls; International Relations; Social Issues

January–February 2021
Article

Cross‐firm Return Predictability and Accounting Quality

By: Wen Chen, Mozaffar Khan, Leonid Kogan and George Serafeim

We test the hypothesis that if poor accounting quality (AQ) is associated with poor investor understanding of firms’ revenue and cost structures, then poor AQ stocks likely respond more slowly than good AQ stocks to new non‐idiosyncratic information that affects both... View Details

Keywords: Accounting Quality; Earnings Quality; Stock Returns; Investment Strategy; Accounting; Business Earnings; Quality; Investment Return; Investment; Strategy

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Article

Exposure to Harmful Workplace Practices Could Account for Inequality in Life Spans Across Different Demographic Groups

By: Joel Goh, Jeffrey Pfeffer and Stefanos A. Zenios

The existence of important socioeconomic disparities in health and mortality is a well-established fact. Many pathways have been adduced to explain inequality in life spans. In this article we examine one factor that has been somewhat neglected: people with different... View Details

Keywords: Occupational Health; Inequality; Life Expectancy; Socioeconomic Issues; Health

August 2011
Article

From the Outside In: The Negative Spillover Effects of Boundary Spanners' Relations with Members of Other Organizations

By: Lakshmi Ramarajan, Katerina Bezrukova, Karen A. Jehn and Martin Euwema

Contrary to much boundary spanning research, we examined the negative consequences of boundary spanning contact in multi-organizational contexts. Results from a sample of 833 Dutch peacekeepers show that employees' boundary spanning contact with members of other... View Details

Keywords: Inter-organizational Contact; Boundary Spanning; Peacekeeping; Relationships; Jobs and Positions; Organizations; Attitudes

2010
Chapter

The Many Faces of Nonprofit Accountability

By: Alnoor Ebrahim

Calls for greater accountability are not new. Leaders of organizations, be they nonprofit, business, or government, face a constant stream of demands from various constituents demanding accountable behavior. But what does it mean to be accountable? By and large,... View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Corporate Accountability; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Taxation; Leadership; Management; Nonprofit Organizations; Behavior; Trust

1985
Chapter

Accounting Lag: The Obsolescence of Cost Accounting Systems

By: Robert S. Kaplan

Keywords: Cost Accounting

2021
Working Paper

Accounting for Workforce Impact at Scale

By: Adel Fadhel, Katie Panella, Ethan Rouen and George Serafeim

Using new data on workforce composition and wages, we systematically measure the employment impact at U.S. firms from 2008 to 2020, including 2,682 unique firms and 22,322 firm-year observations. We document significant variation across industries and firms within each... View Details

Keywords: Impact Accounting; ESG; Employee Turnover; Wages; Employment; Measurement and Metrics; Human Capital; Diversity; United States

SSRN

September 1979 (Revised July 1993)
Background Note

Liberal Art of Accounting

By: William J. Bruns Jr. and Julie H. Hertenstein

Keywords: Accounting

2010
Working Paper

The Many Faces of Nonprofit Accountability

By: Alnoor Ebrahim

What does it mean for a nonprofit organization to be accountable? Nonprofit leaders tend to pay attention to accountability once a problem of trust arises—a scandal in the sector or in their own organization, questions from citizens or donors who want to know if their... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Accountability; Corporate Disclosure; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Leadership; Mission and Purpose; Performance Evaluation; Nonprofit Organizations; Business Strategy

August 1983
Background Note

Balance of Payments: Accounting and Presentation

By: David B. Yoffie

Provides an overview of balance of payments accounting and analytical presentation of balance of payments data. Includes sample transactions to illustrate the application of the basic accounting principles and definitions of the standard balances. View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Analytics and Data Science; Management; Standards; Mathematical Methods