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Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(125)
- News (15)
- Research (102)
- Events (1)
- Multimedia (2)
- Faculty Publications (40)
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- April 2013 (Revised June 2016)
- Case
AIG and the American Taxpayers (A)
By: Karthik Ramanna and Matthew Shaffer
Explores the decision faced by AIG's board on whether to join shareholder and ex-CEO Maurice Greenberg's lawsuit against the U.S. government. The suit, argued by super-lawyer David Boies (of Bush v. Gore and California Gay Marriage fame), claims that in September 2008... View Details
Keywords: Property Rights; Financial Institutions; Financial Markets; Financial Crisis; Property; Insurance Industry; United States
Ramanna, Karthik, and Matthew Shaffer. "AIG and the American Taxpayers (A)." Harvard Business School Case 113-124, April 2013. (Revised June 2016.)
- July 2014 (Revised November 2014)
- Module Note
Responsibilities to Society: The Capitalist's Contract
By: Karthik Ramanna
Societies face many pressing challenges with serious implications for business leaders. These include pollution and climate change, poverty and income inequality, obesity and public health, and corruption and regulatory capture. This note presents a way of analyzing... View Details
Ramanna, Karthik. "Responsibilities to Society: The Capitalist's Contract." Harvard Business School Module Note 115-012, July 2014. (Revised November 2014.)
- 2015
- Working Paper
Auditor Lobbying on Accounting Standards
By: Abigail Allen, Karthik Ramanna and Sugata Roychowdhury
We examine how Big N auditors' changing incentives impact their comment-letter lobbying on U.S. GAAP over the first thirty-four years of the FASB (1973–2006). We examine the influence of auditors' lobbying incentives arising from three basic factors: managing expected... View Details
Allen, Abigail, Karthik Ramanna, and Sugata Roychowdhury. "Auditor Lobbying on Accounting Standards." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 15-055, December 2014. (Winner of the American Accounting Association Western Conference Best Paper Award.)
- July–August 2024
- Article
Disclosing Downstream Emissions
By: Robert S. Kaplan and Karthik Ramanna
An increasing number of companies are using the E-liability carbon-accounting method as an important tool for tracking progress toward reducing global emissions in their supply chains. The system does not require formal accounting for downstream emissions—those... View Details
Keywords: Carbon Emissions; Environmental Accounting; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Corporate Disclosure; Environmental Sustainability
Kaplan, Robert S., and Karthik Ramanna. "Disclosing Downstream Emissions." Harvard Business Review 102, no. 4 (July–August 2024): 124–133.
- April 2013
- Supplement
AIG and the American Taxpayers (B)
By: Karthik Ramanna and Matthew Shaffer
Explores the decision faced by AIG's board on whether to join shareholder and ex-CEO Maurice Greenberg's lawsuit against the U.S. government. The suit, argued by super-lawyer David Boies (of Bush v. Gore and California Gay Marriage fame), claims that in September 2008... View Details
Keywords: Financial Markets; Financial Policy; Property Rights; Financial Institutions; Financial Crisis; Financial Management; Insurance Industry; United States
Ramanna, Karthik, and Matthew Shaffer. "AIG and the American Taxpayers (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 113-125, April 2013.
- September 2010 (Revised May 2011)
- Case
Leadership in Corporate Reporting Policy at Tata Steel
By: Karthik Ramanna and Rachna Tahilyani
The case describes the challenges faced by Tata Steel, India's largest private sector steel company, as it transitions from Indian GAAP to IFRS. It first describes those challenges in the context of the institutional voids that make IFRS adoption difficult in India.... View Details
Keywords: Financial Reporting; International Accounting; Multinational Firms and Management; Policy; Leadership; Emerging Markets; Standards; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Steel Industry; India
Ramanna, Karthik, and Rachna Tahilyani. "Leadership in Corporate Reporting Policy at Tata Steel." Harvard Business School Case 111-028, September 2010. (Revised May 2011.)
- September 16, 2022
- Article
A Causal Test of the Strength of Weak Ties
By: Karthik Rajkumar, Guillaume Saint-Jacques, Iavor I. Bojinov, Erik Brynjolfsson and Sinan Aral
The authors analyzed data from multiple large-scale randomized experiments on LinkedIn’s People You May Know algorithm, which recommends new connections to LinkedIn members, to test the extent to which weak ties increased job mobility in the world’s largest... View Details
Rajkumar, Karthik, Guillaume Saint-Jacques, Iavor I. Bojinov, Erik Brynjolfsson, and Sinan Aral. "A Causal Test of the Strength of Weak Ties." Science 377, no. 6612 (September 16, 2022).
- 2017
- Working Paper
Inventory Management for Mobile Money Agents in the Developing World
By: Karthik Balasubramanian, David F. Drake and Douglas Fearing
Mobile money systems, platforms built and managed by mobile network operators to allow money to be stored as digital currency, have burgeoned in the developing world as a mechanism to transfer money electronically. Mobile money agents exchange cash for electronic value... View Details
Balasubramanian, Karthik, David F. Drake, and Douglas Fearing. "Inventory Management for Mobile Money Agents in the Developing World." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 17-109, June 2017. (Presented at INFORMS 2015 and POMS 2016. Finalist and first runner up, Production and Operations Management College of Sustainable Operations Best Student Paper Award.)
- 2015
- Book
Political Standards: Corporate Interest, Ideology, and Leadership in the Shaping of Accounting Rules for the Market Economy
By: Karthik Ramanna
There are certain institutions underlying our modern market-capitalist system that are largely outside the interest and understanding of the general public—e.g., rulemaking for bank capital adequacy, actuarial standards, accounting standards, and auditing practice. In... View Details
Keywords: Business And Society; Financial Institutions; Financial Reporting; GAAP; IFRS; Lobbying; Capitalism; Sustainability; Accounting; Finance; Business and Government Relations; Leadership; Accounting Industry; Financial Services Industry; United States; China; India
Ramanna, Karthik. Political Standards: Corporate Interest, Ideology, and Leadership in the Shaping of Accounting Rules for the Market Economy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015. (Reviews by Anat Admati, S.P. Kothari, Lynn Stout, Lawrence Summers, and Luigi Zingales, among others.)
- 01 Sep 2009
- First Look
First Look: September 1
Working PapersWhat Should GAAP Look Like? A Survey and Economic Analysis Authors:S.P. Kothari, Karthik Ramanna, and Douglas J. Skinner Abstract Based on extant literature, we articulate a positive theory of GAAP under the assumption... View Details
Keywords: Martha Lagace
- 05 Oct 2010
- First Look
First Look: October 5, 2010
Working PapersTowards an Understanding of the Role of Standard Setters in Standard Setting Authors:Abigail Allen and Karthik Ramanna Abstract We investigate the idiosyncratic influence of standard setters in standard setting. In... View Details
Keywords: Sean Silverthorne
- March 2013
- Article
Why 'Fair Value' Is the Rule: How a Controversial Accounting Approach Gained Support
By: Karthik Ramanna
For the past two decades, fair-value accounting—the practice of measuring assets and liabilities at estimates of their current values—has been on the ascent. This marks a major departure from the centuries-old tradition of keeping books at historical cost. It also has... View Details
Keywords: Fair Value; FASB; Finance; Politics; Financial History; Accounting; Fair Value Accounting; Financial Reporting; Accounting Industry; Financial Services Industry; United States
Ramanna, Karthik. "Why 'Fair Value' Is the Rule: How a Controversial Accounting Approach Gained Support." Harvard Business Review 91, no. 3 (March 2013).
- 12 Apr 2011
- First Look
First Look: April 12
Handbook for Banking and Governance, edited by James Barth, Chen Lin, and Clas Wihlborg. Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar Publishing, forthcoming Abstract In this chapter, we examine the characteristics of acquisition of private firms View Details
Keywords: Sean Silverthorne
- 14 Aug 2012
- First Look
First Look: August 14
relationship, it remains difficult to determine which firms any given piece of legislation will affect, and how it will affect them. By observing the actions of legislators whose constituents are the affected firms, we can gather insights... View Details
Keywords: Sean Silverthorne
- January–February 2013
- Article
When the Crowd Fights Corruption
By: Paul M. Healy and Karthik Ramanna
Corruption is the greatest impediment to conducting business in Russia, according to leaders recently surveyed by the World Economic Forum. Indeed, it's a problem in many emerging markets, and businesses have a role to play in combating it, according to Healy and... View Details
Keywords: Corruption; Emerging Economies; Crime and Corruption; Entrepreneurship; Ethics; Globalization; Russia; Georgia (nation, Asia); India
Healy, Paul M., and Karthik Ramanna. "When the Crowd Fights Corruption." Harvard Business Review 91, nos. 1/2 (January–February 2013).
- November 2014 (Revised June 2016)
- Case
Lobbying at eCab
By: Karthik Ramanna
Erin Jones' ridesharing startup in her mid-sized hometown is finally picking up. She's hoping to reach a sustainable scale so that she can sell to a large player such as Uber in a year. But suddenly, she hits political roadblocks—the local Democratic mayor, facing a... View Details
Ramanna, Karthik. "Lobbying at eCab." Harvard Business School Case 115-025, November 2014. (Revised June 2016.)
- 06 Apr 2010
- First Look
First Look: April 6
competition for the past 20 years: an ad hoc, laissez-faire vision promoted by the United States versus a managed vision relying on multilateral rules and international organizations promoted by the European... View Details
Keywords: Martha Lagace
- December 2014 (Revised June 2016)
- Case
Cameron Trebbi at Taylor Lowell, LLP
By: Karthik Ramanna
Cameron Trebbi is a senior executive overseeing accounting policy at a large global auditing firm. His role is to lobby the firm's position with various accounting rule-making bodies worldwide. The firm is close to acquiring as new audit clients a consortium of Chinese... View Details
Keywords: Lobbying; Thin Political Markets; Accounting; Business and Government Relations; Accounting Industry; China; United States
Ramanna, Karthik. "Cameron Trebbi at Taylor Lowell, LLP." Harvard Business School Case 115-026, December 2014. (Revised June 2016.)
- 26 Nov 2013
- First Look
First Look: November 26
workforce is not a quick fix to control costs or improve the quality of care. A poorly planned redesign can even result in increased costs and decreased quality. Changes in skill mix and role definitions should be preceded by a detailed... View Details
Keywords: Sean Silverthorne
- 2018
- Working Paper
Show or Tell? Improving Agent Decision Making in a Tanzanian Mobile Money Field Experiment
By: Jason Acimovic, Chris Parker, David F. Drake and Karthik Balasubramanian
When workers make operational decisions, the firm's global knowledge and the workers’ domain-specific knowledge complement each other. Oftentimes workers have the final decision-making power. Two key decisions a firm makes when designing systems to support these... View Details
Keywords: Employees; Decision Making; Training; Performance Improvement; Money; Mobile Technology; Developing Countries and Economies; Financial Services Industry
Acimovic, Jason, Chris Parker, David F. Drake, and Karthik Balasubramanian. "Show or Tell? Improving Agent Decision Making in a Tanzanian Mobile Money Field Experiment." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 18-106, May 2018.