Publications

February 1991 (Revised May 2016)
Background Note

Note on Organizational Structure

By: Ethan Bernstein and Nitin Nohria

Provides the reader with a basic understanding of organizational structure. The first section outlines some of the key tools and criteria that must be taken into account in designing organizational structures. In the second section, some archetypal forms of... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Structure

February 2003 (Revised February 2006)
Exercise

Revenue Recognition Exercises

The difference between the Financial Accounting Standards Board's Concept Statements #5 and #6 is explored as it pertains to revenue recognition and expense recognition. View Details

Keywords: Revenue Recognition

07 Dec 2010
Working Paper Summaries

Towards an Understanding of the Role of Standard Setters in Standard Setting

Keywords: by Abigail Allen & Karthik Ramanna; Accounting

05 Jul 2006
Op-Ed

Corporate Governance Activists are Headed in the Wrong Direction

that voting for directors should be more meaningful; corporate owners should be able to vote their board representatives in or out. Accountability is another common theme in their repertoire. But here's the rub. In light of public... View Details

Keywords: by Joseph Hinsey

September 1992 (Revised April 1993)
Background Note

Recognizing Revenues and Expenses: When Is Income Earned?

By: William J. Bruns Jr.

An introduction to the accrual concept used in accounting and its importance to revenue recognition and the matching concept. To be used in conjunction with inventory valuation cases where delivery may not constitute a sale and revenue. View Details

Keywords: Accrual Accounting; Logistics; Value; Revenue Recognition

2012
Article

Behavioral Economics and the Psychology of Fruit and Vegetable Consumption

By: Joe Price and Jason Riis

Behavioral economics is an emerging paradigm that challenges the assumptions and predictions of classical economics. This new paradigm emphasizes that consumers do not always make optimal use of available information nor do they always make choices and tradeoffs in a... View Details

Keywords: Plant-Based Agribusiness; Food; Social Marketing; Decision Choices and Conditions; Consumer Behavior; Nutrition

Read Now

Teaching Interest

Empirical Technology and Operations Management Course

By: Himabindu Lakkaraju

I taught a set of lectures on "Introduction to Machine Learning for Social Scientists" as part of this required course for first year PhD students. This module familiarizes students with all the basic concepts in machine learning, their implementations, as well as the... View Details

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

June 2023
Article

How New Ideas Diffuse in Science

By: Mengjie Cheng, Daniel Scott Smith, Xiang Ren, Hancheng Cao, Sanne Smith and Daniel A. McFarland

What conditions help new ideas spread? Can knowledge entrepreneurs’ position and develop new ideas in ways that help them take off? Most innovation research focuses on products and their reference. That focus ignores the ideas themselves and the broader ideational... View Details

Keywords: Innovation Adoption; Natural Language Processing; Knowledge; Science; Innovation and Invention; Knowledge Sharing; Analytics and Data Science

Find at Harvard

November 2006 (Revised October 2007)
Background Note

A Brief Note on Deferred Taxes: An Analysis Perspective

Provides an overview of accounting for deferred taxes. The primary objective is to provide external users with a basic understanding of deferred taxes. A simple illustrative example is provided, which is followed by a discussion of several important issues likely to be... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Financial Statements; Taxation; Legal Liability; Valuation

March 2023 (Revised March 2025)
Module Note

LCA Module Overview: Society

By: Nien-hê Hsieh

Leadership and Corporate and Accountability (LCA) is a required course in the first-year MBA curriculum at Harvard Business School to help managers determine and deliver on their economic, legal, and ethical responsibilities. This note summarizes the cases and outlines... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact

March 2009 (Revised October 2010)
Case

Tokyo AFM

By: Francois Brochet

This case was written as the financial accounting portion of the final exam for a first-year MBA course at Harvard Business School. The goal was to test students' ability to apply major concepts taught during the course to an industry which they had not covered, but... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Decision Choices and Conditions; Economics; Insurance; Insurance Industry; Japan

12 Jun 2007
Working Paper Summaries

Public Action for Public Goods

Keywords: by Abhijit Banerjee, Lakshmi Iyer & Rohini Somanathan

November 1994 (Revised November 2010)
Background Note

Financial Statement Analysis

By: David F. Hawkins

Covers basic financial analysis techniques. View Details

Keywords: Analysis; Financial Statements

June 2008 (Revised October 2009)
Case

InnoCentive.com (A)

By: Karim R. Lakhani

InnoCentive.com, a firm connecting R&D labs of large organizations to diverse external solvers through innovation contests, has to decide if it will enable collaboration in its community. Case covers the basics of a distributed innovation system works and the... View Details

Keywords: Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Open Source Distribution; Research and Development; Competition; Cooperation

2004
Chapter

Building the Microeconomic Foundations of Prosperity: Findings from the Business Competitiveness Index

By: Michael E. Porter

In The Global Competitiveness Report 2003-2004
Competitiveness has become a central preoccupation of both advanced and developing countries in an increasingly open and integrated world economy. Despite its acknowledged importance, the concept of competitiveness... View Details

Keywords: Economics; Growth and Development

Read Now

September 2011
Article

A Global Leader's Guide to Managing Business Conduct

By: Lynn S. Paine, Rohit Deshpandé and Joshua D. Margolis

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 most... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Management; Ethics; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Globalized Firms and Management; Standards; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance

Register to Read

June 2018
Background Note

Introduction to Life Settlements

By: Alexander Braun, Lauren H. Cohen, Christopher J. Malloy and Jiahua Xu

Life insurance is an asset owned by the majority of American adults (61%). Note that this 61% penetration rate is essentially at parity with home ownership (64%) and higher than that of 401(k) retirement account ownership (53%). Life settlements, or life insurance... View Details

Keywords: Insurance; Assets; Value; Markets; Investment Return