Publications

January 1997 (Revised July 1997)
Case

Value-At-Risk

Introduces the student to the recently developed concept of value-at-risk (VAR) in risk analysis. By working through a stylized example using spreadsheet tools, the student learns the conceptual framework of VAR and its implementation mechanics. View Details

Keywords: Risk Management

January 2021
Case

Saham Group: It's In the Genes

By: Christina R. Wing and Gamze Yucaoglu

The case opens in August 2020 as Moulay Mhamed Elalamy (Mhamed), CEO of the Saham Group (the Group), a pan-African investment company that operates a variety of businesses out of Morocco, contemplates the Group’s identity, its investment strategy, and how to navigate... View Details

Keywords: Family and Family Relationships; Family Business; For-Profit Firms; Transformation; Transition; Emerging Markets; Change Management; Private Equity; Investment; Strategy; Insurance Industry; Real Estate Industry; Education Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Morocco; Africa

Teaching Interest

MBA Elective Curriculum: Investment Strategies

By: Malcolm P. Baker

This is a CORE course for students pursuing careers in finance. Thus, students interested in pursuing careers in mutual funds, hedge funds, pension funds, endowments, wealth management, financial consulting, marketing and client service, sales and trading,... View Details

Research Summary

Overview

By: Eva Ascarza

Professor Ascarza’s research primarily focuses on providing researchers and marketers a better understanding of how to manage customer retention so as to reduce churn and increase firm’s profitability. She addresses these issues by building empirical models of customer... View Details

March 2008 (Revised March 2010)
Module Note

Global Capital and National Institutions: Crisis and Choice in the International Financial Architecture

By: Laura Alfaro

This module note presents a series of case studies taught in the Harvard Business School course Institutions, Macroeconomics, and the Global Economy (IMaGE). The course addresses the opportunities created by the emergence of a global economy and proposes strategies for... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; International Finance; Globalized Economies and Regions; Macroeconomics

Article

Matching Firms, Managers, and Incentives

By: Oriana Bandiera, Luigi Guiso, Andrea Prat and Raffaella Sadun

We combine unique administrative and survey data to study the match between firms and managers. The data include manager characteristics, firm characteristics, detailed measures of managerial practices, and outcomes for the firm and the manager. A parsimonious model of... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Talent and Talent Management; Organizations; Management Teams

March 2014 (Revised October 2015)
Case

Teach For China and the Chinese Nonprofit Sector

By: William C. Kirby and Erica M. Zendell

Teach For China was founded in 2008 with the mission of expanding educational opportunity across China. By 2013, Andrea Pasinetti's lofty dream had taken flight: over 300 graduates from top American and Chinese universities were participating in its 2-year teaching... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit; China; Business And Government Relations; Business And Poverty; Business And Society; Emerging Market Entrepreneurship; Emerging Market; NGO; Education; Entrepreneurship; Social Enterprise; Emerging Markets; Non-Governmental Organizations; Nonprofit Organizations; Education Industry; China

22 Nov 2010
Research & Ideas

Seven Strategy Questions: A Simple Approach for Better Execution

Business leaders can't develop and execute effective strategy without first gathering the right information, says Harvard Business School professor Robert Simons. In his new book, Seven Strategy Questions: A Simple Approach for Better Execution, Simons explains how... View Details

Keywords: by Robert Simons

11 May 2020
News

Immigration Policies Threaten American Competitiveness

January 2023
Case

Thomas Buberl: Refounding AXA

By: Hubert Joly, Mihir Desai and Amram Migdal

In 2022, AXA and its CEO Thomas Buberl faced new types of challenges, including systemic risks such as climate change, geopolitical instability, public health crises, and social tensions caused by economic risks. AXA was one of the world’s largest insurers. Since... View Details

March 2011
Article

Accounting Scholarship That Advances Professional Knowledge and Practice

By: Robert S. Kaplan

Recent accounting scholarship has used statistical analysis on asset prices, financial reports and disclosures, laboratory experiments, and surveys of practice. The research has studied the interface among accounting information, capital markets, standard setters, and... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Disclosure; Asset Pricing; Risk Management; Surveys; Capital Markets; Measurement and Metrics; Valuation; Fair Value Accounting; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Financial Reporting

Find at Harvard

19 Mar 2006
Research & Ideas

Unlocking Your Investment Capital

risks—a process that can release more equity capacity. Finally, Merton argues, the job of managing the company's derivatives portfolio should not be delegated to in-house financial experts. The strategic importance of how a company View Details

Keywords: by Ann Cullen; Financial Services

14 Apr 2008
News

The Gap in the U.S. Treasury Recommendations

15 Aug 2024
Op-Ed

Post-CrowdStrike, Six Questions to Test Your Company's Operational Resilience

updates? People: Train product, technology, and security teams to understand and manage the risks of continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD), the kind of automated software update approach... View Details

Keywords: by Hise Gibson and Anita Lynch

31 Oct 2018
What Do You Think?

What is the Function of Fear in Leadership?

culture, won’t even scratch the surface of the performance problem.” As Jerry put it, “My experience with fear based management was that employees were reluctant to innovate because there was a risk that if... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

21 Sep 2020
Research & Ideas

Are You Sabotaging Your Own Company?

their work.” “Hold conferences when there is more critical work to be done.” The spy manual struck a chord with Stefan H. Thomke, the William Barclay Harding Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, since he recognized that many of today’s... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

Vikram Gandhi

Vikram S. Gandhi is the Gerald P. Kaminsky Senior Lecturer of Business Administration in the General Management Unit. He has developed and teaches two new courses in the Elective Curriculum of the MBA Program. The first is a finance and investing course, Sustainable... View Details

Keywords: financial services

2010
Working Paper

Just Say No to Wall Street: Putting A Stop to the Earnings Game

By: Joseph Fuller and Michael C. Jensen

Putting an end to the "earnings game" requires that CEOs reclaim the initiative by avoiding earnings guidance and managing expectations in such a way that their stocks trade reasonably close to their intrinsic value. In place of earnings forecasts, management should... View Details

Keywords: Stocks; Performance Expectations; Goals and Objectives; Risk and Uncertainty; Growth and Development Strategy; Decisions; Risk Management; Budgets and Budgeting; Earnings Management; Value; Projects