Publications

25 Mar 2025
Other Presentation

Louis E. Caldera on the Panama Canal and DEI Under Trump's Administration

By: Louis Caldera and June Carolyn Erlick

Louis E. Caldera, a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School, chaired the Panama Canal Commission the year the Canal was returned to Panama, 1999. He was also the first (and only) Latino to serve as Secretary of the Army. He talks on issues ranging from President... View Details

Keywords: Government Administration; History; National Security; Diversity; Panama; United States

May 2019
Teaching Note

Tesla, Inc. in 2018

By: Siko Sikochi and Suraj Srinivasan

Teaching Note for HBS No. 119-013. The case facilitates a discussion about corporate governance and its role in achieving sustainable profitability and driving long-term shareholder value. The discussion can focus on such questions as what constitutes good governance,... View Details

Keywords: Public Company; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Cost vs Benefits

November 2018 (Revised January 2020)
Case

Tesla, Inc. in 2018

By: Siko Sikochi, Suraj Srinivasan and Quinn Pitcher

On August 7, 2018 Elon Musk, Chairman and CEO of Tesla tweeted that he was considering taking Tesla private and had secured funding. Weeks went by without details about a deal and speculation grew that Musk had misled investors. He soon abandoned the idea, but the... View Details

Keywords: Disclosure Regulation; Board Independence; Corporate Governance; Business and Shareholder Relations; Governing and Advisory Boards

December 2019
Case

WeWork Files for an IPO

By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz

For the board of The We Company—better known as WeWork—August 14, 2019, promised to be a pivotal day. It was then that WeWork’s IPO prospectus, known as an S-1 filing, would be made public, giving potential investors, the media, and the general public a window into the... View Details

Keywords: Capital Structure; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance; Going Public; Leadership; Management; Private Equity; Valuation; Venture Capital; Real Estate Industry; Technology Industry; United States

15 Jan 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, January 15, 2019

https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=55402 The Creation and Evolution of Entrepreneurial Public Markets By: Bernstein, Shai, Abhishek Dev, and Josh Lerner Abstract—This paper explores the creation... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

19 Mar 2014
Working Paper Summaries

The Use of Broker Votes to Reward Brokerage Firms’ and Their Analysts’ Research Activities

Keywords: by David A. Maber, Boris Groysberg & Paul M. Healy; Financial Services

2017
Working Paper

What Else Do Shareholders Want? Shareholder Proposals Contested by Firm Management

By: Eugene F. Soltes, Suraj Srinivasan and Rajesh Vijayaraghavan

Shareholder proposals provide investors an opportunity to exercise their decision rights within firms, but managers can seek permission from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to dismiss proposals. We find that managers seek to exclude 39% of all proposals... View Details

Keywords: Voting; Business and Shareholder Relations

SSRN

August 2005 (Revised August 2006)
Case

Grupo Martica

Grupo Martica commissions a computer security expert to conduct an audit of its systems, network, and processes. This audit reveals that Martica is quite vulnerable, and the company's de facto CIO must decide what steps to take to improve security. He wonders how... View Details

Keywords: Safety; Information Infrastructure; Information Technology; Information Infrastructure; Complexity

14 Feb 2023
Cold Call Podcast

Does It Pay to Be a Whistleblower?

Keywords: Re: Jonas Heese; Banking

Article

Is ‘Not Guilty’ the Same as ‘Innocent’? Evidence from SEC Financial Fraud Investigations

By: Eugene F. Soltes and David H. Solomon

When the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigates firms for financial fraud, investors learn about the investigation only if managers disclose it, or regulators sanction the firm. We investigate the effects of such disclosures using confidential records on... View Details

Keywords: Financial Fraud; Corporate Disclosure; Performance; Outcome or Result

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April 2018 (Revised December 2018)
Case

The Whistleblower at International Game Technology

By: Aiyesha Dey, Jonas Heese and James Weber

Robert Mayhem, a senior manager at International Game Technology, had filed a whistleblower report with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission alleging that the company had misstatements in its financial reports. Mayhem’s report involved IGT’s practice of... View Details

Keywords: Whistleblower; Financial Reporting; Governance Compliance; Ethics

May 2021 (Revised September 2021)
Case

Accounting for Bitcoin at Tesla

By: Charles C.Y. Wang and Siyu Zhang

On February 8, 2021, Tesla revealed, through its 10-K filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), that it had purchased $1.5 billion of Bitcoin, totaling 7.5% of the company’s cash, and that it planned to accept payments in the cryptocurrency soon. These... View Details

Keywords: Bitcoin; Accounting; Currency; Communication Intention and Meaning; Strategy; Investment Portfolio; Emerging Markets; Risk and Uncertainty; Value Creation

July 2003 (Revised February 2004)
Background Note

M&A Legal Context: Standards Related to the Sale or Purchase of a Company

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin, Constance E. Bagley and James Quinn

Introduces students to the legal standards affecting officers and directors when selling or purchasing a company. Provides a practical understanding of the Revlon Standard, the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, Rule 10b-5, and the legal criteria for a cause of... View Details

Keywords: Laws and Statutes; Law Enforcement; Government Legislation; Acquisition; Business Exit or Shutdown; Corporate Governance; Going Public; Courts and Trials

August 2003
Case

SEC Proposal for Nomination of Directors by Shareholders

By: Jay W. Lorsch and Ashley Robertson

Describes the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's 2003 proposal to allow shareholders to nominate a "short slate" of directors for the board of listed companies. Includes comment letters for and against the proposal. View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Management Teams; Business and Shareholder Relations; United States

September 2019
Article

The Effect of Enforcement Transparency: Evidence from SEC Comment-Letter Reviews

By: Miguel Duro, Jonas Heese and Gaizka Ormazabal

This paper studies the effect of the public disclosure of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) comment-letter reviews (CLs) on firms’ financial reporting. We exploit a major change in the SEC’s disclosure policy: in 2004, the SEC decided to make its CLs... View Details

Keywords: Disclosure; SEC Comment-Letter Reviews; Public Enforcement; Governance; Information Publishing; Policy; Financial Reporting; Capital Markets; Organizational Change and Adaptation

SSRN

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01 Apr 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Opting Out of Good Governance

Keywords: by C. Fritz Foley, Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham, Jonathan Greenstein & Eric Zwick

20 Dec 2006
Op-Ed

Investors Hurt by Dual-Track Tax Reporting

Since when do the taxman and the shareholder agree? IRS Commissioner Mark Everson and SEC Chairman Christopher Cox (HBS MBA '76) have advanced a simple, but controversial proposal. Companies would be... View Details

Keywords: by Mihir Desai

Summer 2019
Article

The Political Influence of Voters' Interests on SEC Enforcement

By: Jonas Heese

I examine whether political influence as a response to voters’ interest in employment levels is reflected in the enforcement actions of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). I find that large employers are less likely to experience SEC enforcement actions.... View Details

Keywords: SEC Enforcement; Government Preferences; Voters' Interests; Political Influence; Employment; Public Opinion; Government Administration; Governance Compliance; Political Elections