Cost Accounting - Publications - Faculty & Research

29 Jan 2019
Research & Ideas

'Green Bonds' May Be Our Best Bet for Environmental Damage Control

Municipalities have been selling bonds to pay for public works projects—fire stations, parking garages,sewage treatment systems—for 200 years. It’s only in the past decade or so, however, that they’ve been selling them with an extra perk: helping the environment. In... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Energy; Utilities; Construction; Green Technology; Public Administration

19 Oct 2010
First Look

First Look: October 19, 2010

emerged that explicitly links leadership and identity. Research and theorizing on leadership development have yet to specify the processes that account for identity transformations in role transitions. This paper proposes a new,... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

September 1990 (Revised April 1993)
Case

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.

By: William J. Bruns Jr.

Following the company's purchase as a part of a leveraged buyout, the new management team of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. had to decide what to do about the build-up of excess inventory of its independent wholesale customers. The case introduces students to the problems... View Details

Keywords: Activity Based Costing and Management; Customer Satisfaction; Business or Company Management; Business Growth and Maturation; Consumer Products Industry

Citation

Find at Harvard

09 Nov 2015
Research & Ideas

These Employers Pay Higher Salaries than Necessary

CORRECTING THE IMBALANCE To account for this first-timer penalty, Stanton recommends that platforms like Upwork reduce fees for inexperienced employers. Presently, the company charges a flat 10 percent fee on all transactions. Cutting the... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Employment; Technology; Computer

05 Jun 2019
Research & Ideas

If Your Customers Don't Care What You Charge, What Should You Charge?

motorists represent the prevalence of “consumer inertia” in the retail gas market. Consumer inertia is the tendency of some customers to buy or continue buying a product, even when superior options exist. Companies that can accurately View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz; Energy

November 1999 (Revised February 2000)
Case

Granny's Goodies, Inc.

By: Das Narayandas and Katherine B. Korman

The young entrepreneurs of Granny's Goodies, Inc., a corporate gift package specialist, face the challenge of finding ways to create consistent revenue streams and reduce sales costs. Outside of a few long-term contracts, the two founders have had to work very hard for... View Details

Keywords: Budgets and Budgeting; Customer Relationship Management; Entrepreneurship; Cost Management; Marketing Strategy; Product Design; Problems and Challenges; Sales; Segmentation; Service Industry

Citation

Educators

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01 Jun 2022
News

Making It Count

Weighted Accounts (IWA) Project has set about tackling accountability, a major hurdle on the path to an impact-driven economy. While the number of firms reporting their own ESG data has grown exponentially, and companies of all stripes... View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint

01 Sep 2020
News

Saving Grace

Illustration by Neil Webb About a year before he reached retirement, Frank Chapman started mapping out the travels he and his wife envisioned for their golden years. A career accountant for British telecom companies, he thought it best to... View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint

18 Dec 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, December 18, 2018

Value Accounting at Berkshire Hathaway, Inc.” students will evaluate the impact of a new rule related to the fair value accounting as it pertains to Berkshire Hathaway and Alphabet. Students will debate the... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

01 Dec 2007
News

Where Are the Innovators in Health Care?

No sector of our economy is more in need of innovation than health care, yet its many regulations handcuff entrepreneurs. A consumer-driven health-care system will unlock these shackles to bring about a much-needed entrepreneurial revolution. Health care’s $2.2... View Details

Keywords: Regina E. Herzlinger; Health, Social Assistance; Management

15 Aug 2024
Op-Ed

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

crisis is just as crucial as the response.” Over 60 percent of tech outages result in at least $100,000 in total losses, and 15 percent cost upward of $1 million, according to the Uptime Institute, a technology trade group. In severe... View Details

Keywords: by Hise Gibson and Anita Lynch

09 Dec 2008
First Look

First Look: December 9, 2008

opportunity to see both sides of the issue. When Hrad enters into a contract to create a new accounts payable system for Welsh toy distributor Tegan, the outsourcing firm from the Czech Republic views the project as another step in its... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

23 Oct 2006
Research & Ideas

Will the “Long Tail” Work for Hollywood?

long-tail view suggests that consumers will purchase an increasing number and a wider variety of videos, everything from Hollywood classics to obscure foreign films. Long-tail proponents believe that consumers have very different tastes, and online retailing with its... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Entertainment & Recreation

05 Sep 2012
First Look

First Look: September 5

global key account management program since 2010. The key account manager of an emerging account had been asked by his customer to cut the costs... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

20 Jul 2009
Research & Ideas

Markets or Communities? The Best Ways to Manage Outside Innovation

participate with you on your critical problems. Of course, the Internet and the massive reduction in communication and computation costs have made accessing external innovators a much easier task than what was possible 10 or 15 years ago.... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Technology

15 Nov 2010
Lessons from the Classroom

Connecting Goals and Go-To-Market Initiatives

indicates that while production efficiencies have enabled an average S&P 500 company to reduce the cost of goods sold by about 250 basis points over the past decade, SG&A (selling, general and administrative costs) as a percentage... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Retail

12 Feb 2008
First Look

First Look: February 12, 2007

produces slower learning in human subjects than the standard second price auction mechanism. Our results also serve to highlight differences in behavior between simulated agents and human bidders that mechanism designers should take into View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

01 Dec 2017
News

The Robots Are Coming to Save Your Job

estimating that Germany could see a shortage of 3 million skilled workers by 2030; China, which accounts for about 20 percent of the world’s manufacturing production, will have a high-skilled labor gap of about 24 million by 2020,... View Details

Keywords: Dan Morrell

14 Jul 2003
Research & Ideas

Keeping Your Balance With Customers

Industrial Era, product innovation and operations management predominated. Product innovation ensured the continuous flow of new products that would sustain growth or market share or both. Operations management ensured that costs and... View Details

Keywords: by Robert S. Kaplan & David P. Norton

03 Feb 2018
Op-Ed

How to Heed BlackRock's Call for Corporate Social Responsibility

do so, investment funds will need to collect new data. The good news is that over the past decades, many initiatives have contributed to developing standards to assess companies’ social performance. The Sustainability Accounting Standards... View Details

Keywords: by Julie Battilana

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