Publications

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Professor WILLIAM E. FRUHAN, JR. is George E. Bates Professor, Emeritus at the Harvard Business School. He received his BS degree from Yale University, and his MBA and DBA degrees from Harvard University. He has served as Senior Associate Dean and Director of... View Details

Keywords: aircraft; airline; chemical; electronics; grocery; medical supplies; oil ＆ gas; pharmaceuticals; retailing; steel

October 2008
Article

The Effect of Macro Information Environment Change on the Quality of Management Earnings Forecasts

The 1990s were characterized by substantial increases in the performance of and investor reliance on financial analysts. Because managers possess superior private information and issue forecasts to align investors' expectations with their own, we predict that... View Details

Keywords: Information; Performance Expectations; Earnings Management; Financial Reporting; Forecasting and Prediction

2014
Working Paper

Cleaning House: The Impact of Information Technology on Employee Corruption and Performance

By: Lamar Pierce, Daniel Snow and Andrew McAfee

This paper examines how firm investments in technology-based employee monitoring impact both misconduct and productivity. We use unique and detailed theft and sales data from 392 restaurant locations from five firms that adopt a theft monitoring information technology... View Details

Keywords: Management Practices and Processes; Information Technology; Ethics; Performance Productivity; Employees

SSRN

December 2001
Case

Sarah Vickers-Willis: Career Decisions (A)

By: Myra M. Hart, Lynda M. Applegate, Sarah Harden and Susan Saltrick

Sarah Vickers-Willis, HBS MBA 1999, faces a critical career decision: Does she redirect the Internet start-up she helped found or join in shaping a for-profit firm with a social mission? Sarah, a young Australian business executive, has always strived to "find space"... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Leadership; Internet and the Web; Social Entrepreneurship; Personal Development and Career; Gender; Business Startups

October 2000 (Revised March 2004)
Case

Software Associates

By: Robert S. Kaplan

The president of a small consulting firm has just seen his second-quarter profit and loss statement, showing an increase in revenues but a substantial decline in profits. He asks his chief financial officer to explain the results. The CFO works hard to accumulate... View Details

Keywords: Budgets and Budgeting; Cost; Financial Statements; Production; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Information Technology Industry; Consulting Industry

12 Mar 2015
Working Paper Summaries

What Courses Should Law Students Take? Harvard’s Largest Employers Weigh In

Keywords: by John C. Coates, Jesse M. Fried & Kathryn E. Spier; Legal Services; Education

30 Jun 2015
News

SD Shibulal: 60 and rebooted

November 2014
Case

Ardian—The Sale of Diana

By: Paul A. Gompers and Michael Roberts

The case focuses on a European private equity firm—Ardian—and the process it uses to sell one of its portfolio companies, and the decisions around that sale. Key issues include the choice of an auction or acceptance of a pre-emptive bid, and the role of the portfolio... View Details

Keywords: Spin-out; Exit; Sale; Private Equity; France

December 2012
Article

What Drives Corporate Social Performance? The Role of Nation-level Institutions

By: Ioannis Ioannou and George Serafeim

Based on Whitley's "National Business Systems" (NBS) institutional framework (Whitley 1997, 1999), we theorize about and empirically investigate the impact of nation-level institutions on firms' corporate social performance (CSP). Using a sample of firms from 42... View Details

Keywords: Environment; Environmental Performance; Corporate Social Responsibility; Sustainability; Institutions; Institutional Theory; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Governance

December 2021
Article

Partisan Professionals: Evidence from Credit Rating Analysts

By: Elisabeth Kempf and Margarita Tsoutsoura

Partisan perception affects the actions of professionals in the financial sector. Using a novel dataset linking credit rating analysts to party affiliations from voter records, we show that analysts who are not affiliated with the U.S. president’s party downward-adjust... View Details

Keywords: Political Affiliation; Credit Rating Agencies; Political Partisanship; Political Elections; Perception; Credit

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08 Feb 2022
News

The ‘Do-Gooder’s Dilemma’: Why Purpose-Driven Companies Can’t Lose Focus On Profits

February 1989 (Revised November 1991)
Case

Science Technology Co.--1985

By: Thomas R. Piper

The CEO of a U.S. electronics firm is assessing the financial forecasts and the financing plan prepared by the chief financial officer. Given the cyclicality of the industry and the volatility of the firm's performance, the CEO is unsure as to the usefulness of... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Change Management; Industry Growth; Forecasting and Prediction; Financial Strategy; Volatility; Electronics Industry

16 Aug 2012
News

Focus on your results, not your hours

March 2011 (Revised March 2012)
Case

Fraunhofer: Innovation in Germany

By: Diego A. Comin, J. Gunnar Trumbull and Kerry Yang

Fraunhofer is one of the largest applied research organizations in the world. With 17,000 employees and a 1.6 billion euros budget, Fraunhofer has 60 institutes in Germany that cover most fields of science. The case examines the consequences that Fraunhofer has for the... View Details

Keywords: Economy; Entrepreneurship; Financial Markets; Government and Politics; Labor; Markets; Outcome or Result; Research and Development; Competitive Strategy; Germany

May 2014
Article

Incorporating Field Data into Archival Research

By: Eugene F. Soltes

I explore the use of field data in conjunction with archival evidence by examining Iliev, Miller, and Roth's (2014) analysis of an amendment to the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. This regulatory amendment allowed depositary banks to cross-list firms without the... View Details

Keywords: Analytics and Data Science; Research; Financial Reporting

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2025
Working Paper

Generative AI Use by Capital Market Information Intermediaries: Evidence from Seeking Alpha

By: Mark Bradshaw, Chenyang Ma, Benjamin Yost and Yuan Zou

We study the use of generative AI for firm-specific financial analysis on the Seeking Alpha platform. We find that, after the initial launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, the share of AI-generated articles rose sharply to 13.4% of all articles, then declined in late... View Details

Keywords: Generative Ai; Seeking Alpha; Equity Research; Large Language Models; Gpt; AI and Machine Learning; Information Publishing; Financial Markets

SSRN

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Research Summary

Dawn Matsumoto's research investigates managers' financial reporting decisions including the incentives driving these decisions and the impact of these decisions on capital market participants. She is interested in the role of financial intermediaries (such as... View Details

November 2019 (Revised December 2019)
Case

Marcus by Goldman Sachs

By: Rory McDonald, Samir Junnarkar and David Lane

Five years on from the 2008 financial crisis, Goldman Sachs remained wounded. Revenues at the global investment bank had stagnated below pre-crisis levels, and the firm had yet to rebound from a substantial decline in securities-trading revenues. Marcus by Goldman... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship; Banks and Banking; Innovation Leadership; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Organizational Culture; Financial Services Industry; United Kingdom