Publications

Journal of Accounting and Economics Vol. 55, No. 1 (February 2013), pp. 66–90.

We investigate the effect of standard setters in standard setting. We examine how certain professional and political characteristics of FASB members and SEC commissioners... View Details

February 2003 (Revised March 2007)
Case

Internet Customer Acquisition Strategy at Bankinter

By: Francisco de Asis Martinez-Jerez, V.G. Narayanan and Lisa Brem

Bankinter, a relatively small Spanish bank, has a large presence as an Internet financial services provider. Leading the way to profitability through the Internet will give Bankinter a major competitive advantage over the larger, more established Spanish banks. Ann... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Internet and the Web; Activity Based Costing and Management; Customer Value and Value Chain; Banks and Banking; Banking Industry; Spain

27 Jan 2015
First Look

First Look: January 27

January 2015 Journal of Financial Stability The Capital Purchase Program and Subsequent Bank SEOs By: Khan, Mozaffar N., and Dushyantkumar Vyas Abstract—We find that in the aftermath of the recent financial... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Career Coach

Rohit Sahni

Rohit (HBS ’08) has deep experience in financial services. He started his career in investment banking (Goldman Sachs), where he worked for three years. Thereafter, he worked at two different private equity firms (General Atlantic and... View Details

31 Oct 2007
HBS Case

Climate Change Puts Heat on GMs

What is the responsibility of business regarding social issues? And how does that jibe with maximizing profits? In "UBS and Climate Change—Warming Up to Global Action?" Associate Professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Professor Forest Reinhardt present the... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Energy; Utilities

08 May 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Corporate and Integrated Reporting: A Functional Perspective

Keywords: by Robert Eccles & George Serafeim

Paige Tsai

Paige Tsai is PhD candidate in the Technology and Operations Management Unit at Harvard Business School. Her research broadly examines the effects of job design on employees. Her current projects explore the financial and well-being effects of holding multiple jobs,... View Details

Keywords: service industry; service industry; service industry; service industry

May 2009 (Revised October 2009)
Case

Verne Global: Building a Green Data Center in Iceland

Verne Global, a pioneering startup created to build the first large-scale data center in Iceland, faces critical challenges regarding its green strategy. Verne Co-Founder Isaac Kato is tasked with evaluating how the company can most successfully market and sell the... View Details

Keywords: Buildings and Facilities; Business Startups; Marketing Strategy; Product Marketing; Sales; Environmental Sustainability; Pollutants; Service Industry; Service Industry; Iceland

July 1991 (Revised December 1993)
Case

Grupo Industrial Alfa, S.A.--1982

The rapid depreciation of the peso in 1982 precipitated a crisis at Grupo Alfa, Mexico's largest private company. The company's peso cash flow was insufficient to service its large dollar-denominated debt. Students are asked to formulate a plan for restructuring Alfa's... View Details

Keywords: Currency Exchange Rate; Restructuring; Negotiation Participants; Business Strategy; Financial Crisis; Mexico

11 Jan 2000
Research & Ideas

Calling All Managers: How to Build a Better Call Center

company can triumph. That's especially true in the financial services industry, where call centers have moved beyond their most obvious function—as low-cost channels for resolving a myriad of customer... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Service; Service

February 1991
Case

Burlington Northern: The ARES Decision (A)

By: Julie H. Hertenstein and Robert S. Kaplan

Burlington Northern's decision whether to invest in ARES, an automated train control system, is a ($350 million) strategic investment in information technology. Although set in a service industry (railroad) the issues around this decision arise in many organizations... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Rail Transportation; Information Technology; Competitive Strategy; Performance Evaluation; Performance Effectiveness; Cost vs Benefits; Technology Adoption; Technological Innovation; Customers; Quality; Rail Industry

December 2009 (Revised September 2014)
Case

TD Canada Trust

By: Dennis Campbell and Brent Kazan

The case illustrates the role of performance measurement and analytics in translating TD-Canada Trust's service model of "comfortable banking" into operational terms. In 2000, in a banking market where consumers and regulators were typically hostile to mergers and... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Satisfaction; Commercial Banking; Profit; Balanced Scorecard; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Banking Industry; Canada

March 2019
Article

Evidence of Upcoding in Pay-for-Performance Programs

By: Hamsa Bastani, Joel Goh and Mohsen Bayati

Recent Medicare legislation seeks to improve patient care quality by financially penalizing providers for hospital-acquired infections (HAIs). However, Medicare cannot directly monitor HAI rates and instead relies on providers accurately self-reporting HAIs in claims... View Details

Keywords: Medical Coding; Health Policy; Healthcare-acquired Conditions; Medicare; Health Care and Treatment; Policy; Performance Improvement; Quality; Measurement and Metrics; Government Legislation

SSRN

Find at Harvard

February 2022
Case

Agora (A)

By: Lindsay N. Hyde, Thomas R. Eisenmann and Tom Quinn

Agora was a civic technology (civic tech) startup founded by Elsa Sze, who wanted to enhance the connection between political officials and their constituents by facilitating virtual “town halls,” making underrepresented voices heard and benefiting elected and... View Details

Keywords: Civic Technology; Government Administration; Conferences; Business Startups; Business Strategy

15 Jul 2022
News

How Fintech Can Deliver on Its Social Impact Promises

13 Oct 2010
Working Paper Summaries

Employee Selection as a Control System

Keywords: by Dennis Campbell; Banking

03 Aug 2009
Research & Ideas

Corporate Social Responsibility in a Downturn

business sense? A: PNC [a financial services organization based in Pittsburgh] is an excellent example of how a business has focused on a cause that the company, its employees, and its customers deeply care... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

W. Carl Kester

Carl Kester is a Baker Foundation Professor and the George Fisher Baker Jr. Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus at Harvard Business School. He is a member of the Finance Unit. He served as Deputy Dean for Academic Affairs (2006-2010), Chairman of the... View Details

Keywords: financial services; financial services; financial services; financial services; financial services; financial services; financial services

2024
Working Paper

When Insurers Exit: Climate Losses, Fragile Insurers, and Mortgage Markets

By: Ishita Sen, Pari Sastry and Ana-Maria Tenekedjieva

This paper studies how homeowners insurance markets respond to growing climate losses and how this impacts mortgage market dynamics. Using Florida as a case study, we show that traditional insurers are exiting high risk areas, and new lower quality insurers are... View Details

Keywords: Insurance; Natural Disasters; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Insurance Industry; Florida