Internal Audit - Publications - Faculty & Research

November 2005 (Revised December 2016)
Case

Bally Total Fitness (A): The Rise, 1962–2004

By: John R. Wells, Elizabeth A. Raabe and Gabriel Ellsworth

From a single, modest club in 1962, Bally Total Fitness had grown to become—in management’s words—the “largest and only nationwide commercial operator of fitness centers” in the United States in 2004. Bally had faced its share of challenges, but the last couple of... View Details

Keywords: Bally Total Fitness; Fitness; Gyms; Health Clubs; Chain; Securities And Exchange Commission; Paul Toback; Weight Loss; Exercise; Contracts; Personal Training; Retention; Accounting; Accounting Audits; Accrual Accounting; Finance; Advertising; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; For-Profit Firms; Customers; Customer Satisfaction; Public Equity; Financing and Loans; Revenue; Revenue Recognition; Geographic Scope; Multinational Firms and Management; Health; Nutrition; Business History; Lawsuits and Litigation; Management; Business or Company Management; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing; Operations; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Public Ownership; Problems and Challenges; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business Strategy; Competition; Corporate Strategy; Expansion; Segmentation; Trends; Cost Management; Profit; Growth and Development; Leadership Style; Five Forces Framework; Private Ownership; Opportunities; Motivation and Incentives; Competitive Strategy; Health Industry; United States; Illinois; Chicago

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30 Apr 2024
Book

When Managers Set Unrealistic Expectations, Employees Cut Ethical Corners

some other parts of the Group had not had an internal audit or compliance function at all. By comparison, at Enron or Siemens, for example, compliance and control functions existed while the wrongdoing was... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

17 Nov 2009
First Look

First Look: Nov. 17

related systems: incentives, risk management and control, accounting, human capital, and culture. The worst firms had lethal combinations of strong incentives, weak control and risk management, flawed internal and external accounting, low... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Web

General Management - Faculty & Research

volume brings together insights from legal advisors, investors, and governance experts and covers topics ranging from board refreshment and audit committees to shareholder activism, cybersecurity, and global governance trends. About the... View Details

21 Jul 2009
First Look

First Look: July 21

communication but also to less experimentation and less information collection. When two firms that are each internally homogenous but different from each other, merge, the above results translate to specific predictions how the change in... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

07 Jul 2008
Research & Ideas

Innovation Corrupted: How Managers Can Avoid Another Enron

testimonies in court documents, sources that were not yet available for earlier books on Enron. In addition, he interviewed former Enron executives and acquired internal Enron documents, which extended and deepened his research.... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Energy; Utilities

23 Apr 2024
In Practice

Getting to Net Zero: The Climate Standards and Ecosystem the World Needs Now

With each month clocking record-breaking temperatures across the planet, this Earth Day reflected the renewed urgency of regulators and businesses to find climate-change solutions. The US Securities and Exchange Commission recently adopted new rules that will mandate... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

May 2011 (Revised June 2011)
Case

The Crisis at Tyco - A Director's Perspective

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Aldo Sesia

In 2002, Wendy Lane had been a member of the board of directors at Tyco International a little more than a year when the company's CEO Dennis Kozlowski and other top executives were accused of fraud, which ultimately led to resignations, imprisonments, lawsuits, and... View Details

Keywords: Management Teams; Reputation; Governing and Advisory Boards; Crisis Management; Accounting Audits; Problems and Challenges; Risk Management; Finance; Managerial Roles; Lawsuits and Litigation; Service Industry; United States

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Topics - HBS Working Knowledge

Browse All topics Accounting Audits (3) Accounting (119) Acquisition (20) Activity Based Costing and Management (2) Adaptation (7) Adoption (3) Advertising Campaigns (6) Advertising (77) Agency Theory (3) Age (3) Agreements and... View Details

December 2010
Article

The Case for Professional Boards

By: Robert C. Pozen

When the world's largest financial institutions had to be rescued from insolvency in 2008, many experts laid the blame at the feet of corporate boards. But insufficient board oversight is a problem that had supposedly been solved in 2002. As the United States... View Details

Keywords: Financial Institutions; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Governing and Advisory Boards; Failure; Accounting Audits; Quality; Behavior; Legal Liability; Experience and Expertise; Corporate Governance; Governance Controls; Performance Effectiveness; United States

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27 Sep 2010
Research & Ideas

Customer Experts Lose Influence When Teams are Pressured

Effects of Performance Pressure on Teams' Knowledge Use and Performance". Her research on more than seventy audit and consulting teams—combining survey data, hundreds of interviews, and direct observation at meetings—reveals insights into... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert

Web

Becoming a Board Member - Alumni

customers/clients, strategic alliances, international opportunities, and/or new technologies. + – Board Bio Template Interested in joining a board of directors? In addition to your resume, you will also need a board bio to showcase how... View Details

09 Apr 2007
Research & Ideas

Industry Self-Regulation: What’s Working (and What’s Not)?

participate. In a second paper on self-policing, we are now looking at what happens after firms self-disclose. We speculate that two things may happen: Self-disclosing firms' compliance records may actually improve because of the internal... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

Web

Accounting & Management Awards & Honors - Faculty & Research

Gerardo Pérez-Cavazos and Caspar David Peter. Jonas Heese : Runner-up for the 2022 International Corporate Governance Society (ICGS) Annual Conference Best Paper Award for “Does Information Technology Reduce Corporate Misconduct?” with... View Details

24 Apr 2012
First Look

First Look: April 24

Watson Publication:In Effective Auditing for Corporates: Key Developments in Practice and Procedures, edited by Joe Oringel, 161-178. London: Bloomsbury Information Ltd., 2012 Abstract In the wake of the recent financial crisis,... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

Web

Social Enterprise - Faculty & Research

responding to local worker activism, evidenced by varying compliance with multinational enterprises’ (MNEs’) labor standards. Analyzing audit data from thousands of Chinese suppliers, we find that suppliers in cities with more... View Details

Blog

Is AI Coming for Your Job?

necessarily be true statements. "THESE TOOLS ARE KNOWN TO 'MAKE THINGS UP' (OR TO 'HALLUCINATE') AND, THEREFORE, CANNOT BE USED WITHOUT AUDITS FOR CORRECTNESS." These tools are known to "make things up" (or to "hallucinate") and,... View Details

Web

Industry Information - Alumni

current awareness and perspectives on business and policy challenges and trends in the banking industry. International Banking Library The International Banking Library is a web-based platform for the... View Details

21 Aug 2012
First Look

First Look: August 21

PublicationsThe Size and Composition of Corporate Headquarters in Multinational Companies: Empirical Evidence Authors:David Collis, David Young, and Michael Goold Publication:Journal of International Management 18, no. 3 (September... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

September 2020
Case

An Introduction to Money Laundering: 'The Hunter'

By: Eugene Soltes, Guilhem Ros and Grace Liu

Money laundering schemes disguise the criminal origins of an estimated 2% to 5% of the world’s gross domestic product. Money laundering not only enables criminals to escape detection, but may also be used to finance further criminal operations including terrorism. This... View Details