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Teaching Interest

Overview

Matthew has served as a Teaching Fellow for Harvard Business School's first-year required-curriculum acounting course Financial Reporting and Control (FRC), and the second-year elective Business Analysis and Valuation (BAV), where he taught technical sections on... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Finance; Valuation

December 1993 (Revised April 1994)
Case

Polaroid: Managing Environmental Responsibilities and Their Costs

Costs relating to companies' impact on the environment are increasing at a dramatic rate. Thus, managing, measuring, and reporting of these costs has become an important issue for managers. Accounting for environmental responsibilities is one of the largest and most... View Details

Keywords: Cost; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Accounting; Environmental Sustainability

Article

Market Heterogeneity and Local Capacity Decisions in Services

By: Dennis Campbell and Frances X. Frei

We empirically document factors that influence how local operating managers use discretion to balance the tradeoff between service capacity costs and customer sensitivity to service time. Our findings, using data from one of the largest financial services providers in... View Details

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Cost; Standards; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Performance Capacity; Performance Productivity; Financial Services Industry; United States

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18 Feb 2019
Working Paper Summaries

Diagnostic Bubbles

Keywords: by Pedro Bordalo, Nicola Gennaioli, Spencer Yongwook Kwon, and Andrei Shleifer; Financial Services

A Global Leader's Guide to Managing Business Conduct

An extensive global survey by three Harvard Business School professors finds that employees agree on core standards of corporate behavior; but meeting those standards will require new approaches to managing business conduct. The compliance and ethics programs of... View Details

October 1986 (Revised July 2010)
Case

Karen Leary (A)

By: Linda A. Hill

Describes the evolution of the working relationship of Karen Leary, a new manager of a Merrill Lynch retail branch, and Ted Chung, a new financial consultant in the branch. Leary has some concerns about her working relationship with Chung and with his performance.... View Details

Keywords: Management Style; Employee Relationship Management; Decision Choices and Conditions; Personal Development and Career; Performance Evaluation; Diversity; Financial Services Industry

23 Mar 2023
Research & Ideas

As Climate Fears Mount, More Investors Turn to 'ESG' Funds Despite Few Rules

Investor interest in social responsibility has skyrocketed in the past three years, even as US regulations to hold companies accountable remain in flux and the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) label itself draws backlash. Investors are willing to pay a... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Financial Services

24 Oct 2011
News

Harvard Business School's Business and Environment Initiative to Host Conference in 2013

Charlotte L. Robertson

Charlotte Robertson is an Assistant Professor in the Business, Government, and the International Economy Unit at Harvard Business School. She teaches BGIE in the MBA required curriculum.

Professor Robertson conducts research on the history of financial... View Details

24 Nov 2009
First Look

First Look: Nov. 24

Canadian regulators' decision to adopt International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). The Canadian decision in 2005 to adopt IFRS is particularly interesting because Canada had well-developed domestic... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

November 2000 (Revised December 2000)
Case

Loewen Group Inc., The

By: Stuart C. Gilson and Jose Camacho

A publiclytraded funeral home and cemetery consolidator faces imminent financial distress. The company has aggressively grown through use of debt. Restructuring the debt is potentially very costly to creditors, shareholders, suppliers, and other corporate stakeholders.... View Details

Keywords: International Accounting; Restructuring; Capital Structure; Cost of Capital; Debt Securities; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Crisis Management; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Service Industry

December 2002
Case

National Economic Accounting: Past, Present, and Future

By: David A. Moss and Sarah A. Brennan

Presents the fundamentals of GDP accounting (including definitions, etc.), examines the history of national accounting, and surveys the international debate over "Green GDP." The first section explains the basic rules and definitions of national economic accounting and... View Details

Keywords: History; Natural Environment; Quality; Accounting; Forecasting and Prediction; Environmental Sustainability; Economy; United States

August 2000 (Revised January 2006)
Case

Sears, Roebuck and Co. vs. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

This case is designed to familiarize students with the use of financial ratios. Two retailers, Sears, Roebuck and Co. and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., have a very similar value for return on equity (ROE) in the 1997 fiscal year. Students use the information in the case and... View Details

Keywords: Value Creation; Financial Statements; Retail Industry; United States

24 Oct 2011
News

Harvard Business School’s Business and Environment Initiative to Host Conference in 2013

February 2003 (Revised December 2005)
Case

Susan Griffin: Formulation of a Long-Term Investment Strategy

By: Dwight B. Crane and Julia Stevens

Susan Griffin, owner and cofounder of a small manufacturing company, is formulating a long-term investment strategy. Griffin plans to sell her $10 million company and invest the revenue. She must decide how to allocate her investment so that she can rely entirely on... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Business Exit or Shutdown; Investment

13 Dec 2022
Research & Ideas

The Color of Private Equity: Quantifying the Bias Black Investors Face

Black venture capital and growth investors have a much harder time getting funding than white investors, because—despite efforts to bring more racial diversity to financial services—private equity’s gatekeepers remain mostly white,... View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds; Financial Services

January 1994 (Revised July 1994)
Case

Dell Computer Corporation

By: Peter Tufano

Tina Chen, chief investment officer of a large insurance company, hears accusations by a Kidder Peabody equity research analyst that Dell Computer Corp. might be improperly accounting for what he suspects are large foreign exchange losses resulting from speculation.... View Details

Keywords: International Accounting; Financial Instruments; Ethics; Financial Statements; Computer Industry; United States

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January 2024
Case

Post-Wirecard: BaFin under Mark Branson

By: Jonas Heese, Carlota Moniz and Daniela Beyersdorfer

In November 2023, Mark Branson, the head of Germany's Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin), reflected on the efficacy of the reforms initiated since the Wirecard scandal. BaFin had been discredited after Wirecard’s downfall in 2020. The press had derided it... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Crime and Corruption; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Government Administration; Failure; Trust; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; Germany