Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(2,483)
- Faculty Publications (362)
- June 2021 (Revised November 2024)
- Case
MicroStrategy: Accounting for Cryptocurrency
By: Jonas Heese and Annelena Lobb
On February 15, 2021, Alina Moss, an analyst who covered the technology company MicroStrategy, pondered a rise in MicroStrategy’s share price. Moss had dialed into the company earnings call. When it ended, Moss had more questions than answers. MicroStrategy had... View Details
- 2023
- Working Paper
Data Governance, Interoperability and Standardization: Organizational Adaptation to Privacy Regulation
By: Sam (Ruiqing) Cao and Marco Iansiti
The increasing availability of data can afford dynamic competitive advantages among data-intensive
corporations, but governance bottlenecks hinder data-driven value creation and increase regulatory risks.
We analyze the role of two technological features of data... View Details
- Article
Impact-Weighted Financial Accounts: A Paradigm Shift
By: Ethan Rouen and George Serafeim
The last decade has seen an exponential increase in corporate sustainability activities and efforts by investors to use these activities in their portfolio formation, valuation, and stewardship activities. This paper explains the need for a uniform strategy to measure... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
Science-Based Carbon Emissions Targets
By: David Freiberg, Jody Grewal and George Serafeim
We examine the effect of voluntarily adopting a standard for setting science-based carbon emissions targets on target difficulty and investments to achieve those targets. We find that firms with a track record of setting and achieving ambitious carbon targets are more... View Details
Keywords: Target; Targeting; Target-setting; Target Efficiency; Management Control Systems; Management Accounting; Environment; Environmental And Social Sustainability; Climate Change; Environmental Management; Environmental Accounting; Environmental Sustainability; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques
- April 2021 (Revised January 2022)
- Case
SA Taxi: A Vehicle for Empowerment? (A)
By: Nien-he Hsieh, Dilyana Karadzhova Botha and F. Christopher Eaglin
SA Taxi was a vertically integrated business that operated in South Africa’s distinctive taxi industry. Despite being plagued by violence, informal structures, unsafe road practices and lack of government support, the taxi industry had grown to become South Africa’s... View Details
- April 2021 (Revised January 2022)
- Supplement
SA Taxi: A Vehicle for Empowerment? (B)
By: Nien-he Hsieh, Dilyana Karadzhova Botha and F. Christopher Eaglin
SA Taxi was a vertically integrated business that operated in South Africa’s distinctive taxi industry. Despite being plagued by violence, informal structures, unsafe road practices and lack of government support, the taxi industry had grown to become South Africa’s... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
Hidden Software and Veiled Value Creation: Illustrations from Server Software Usage
By: Raviv Murciano-Goroff, Ran Zhuo and Shane Greenstein
How do you measure the value of a commodity that transacts at a price of zero from an economic standpoint? This study examines the potential for and extent of omission and misattribution in standard approaches to economic accounting with regards to open source... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
The Emergence of Mafia-like Business Systems in China
By: Meg Rithmire and Hao Chen
A large literature on state-business relations in China has examined the political role of capitalists and collusion between the state and the private sector. This paper contributes to that literature, and our understanding of the internal differentiation among China’s... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
How Much Should We Trust Staggered Difference-In-Differences Estimates?
By: Andrew C. Baker, David F. Larcker and Charles C.Y. Wang
Difference-in-differences analysis with staggered treatment timing is frequently used to assess the impact of policy changes on corporate outcomes in academic research. However, recent advances in econometric theory show that such designs are likely to be biased in the... View Details
- February 2021
- Tutorial
Getting Started in RStudio Cloud
By: Chiara Farronato and Caleb Kwon
This video provides an introduction to the free programming language R using an online cloud version of RStudio, which is the most popular editor and interface for writing and executing R code. The video begins by providing a brief background of R and RStudio and... View Details
- February 2021
- Article
How Transparency into Internal and External Responsibility Initiatives Influences Consumer Choice
By: Ryan W. Buell and Basak Kalkanci
Amid growing calls for transparency and social and environmental responsibility, companies are employing different strategies to improve consumer perceptions of their brands. Some pursue internal initiatives that reduce their negative social or environmental impacts... View Details
- January 2021 (Revised February 2021)
- Case
Tech with a Side of Pizza: How Domino's Rose to the Top
By: Boris Groysberg, Sarah L. Abbott and Susan Seligson
After hitting an all-time low in 2008, Domino’s Pizza underwent a vigorous rebranding, product development, and embraced innovative technologies to become the world’s leading international fast-food retailer. Domino’s considered itself as much a tech company as it was... View Details
Keywords: Digital Marketing; Digital Technology; Innovation; Scaling; Data Analytics; Turnaround; Technological Innovation; Information Technology; Strategy; Management; Marketing; Operations; Human Resources; Entrepreneurship; Change Management; Analysis; Performance; Customers; Growth and Development; Competitive Advantage; Employees; Training; Leadership Development; Food and Beverage Industry; Technology Industry; United States
- January 2021
- Article
Turbulence, Firm Decentralization and Growth in Bad Times
By: Philippe Aghion, Nicholas Bloom, Brian Lucking, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen
What is the optimal form of firm organization during “bad times”? We present a model of delegation within the firm to show that the effect is ambiguous. The greater turbulence following macro shocks may benefit decentralized firms because the value of local information... View Details
- Article
Value of New Performance Information in Healthcare: Evidence from Japan
By: Susanna Gallani, Takehisa Kajiwara and Ranjani Krishnan
Mandatory measurement and disclosure of outcome measures are commonly used policy tools in
healthcare. The effectiveness of such disclosures relies on the extent to which the new information produced by the mandatory system is internalized by the healthcare... View Details
- September 2020 (Revised October 2020)
- Case
Briscola—Pizza Society: Scaling Affordable Luxury
By: Gary P. Pisano and Federica Gabrieli
Riccardo Cortese and Federico Pinna were the CEOs of Briscola—Pizza Society, a restaurant chain they had founded in 2014 with a clear ambition: create a distinctive international pizza chain that would combine a fast-casual format with the devotion to quality that... View Details
- 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
- June 2020 (Revised October 2020)
- Case
Muddy Waters vs. eHealth: The Debate of a 'Lifetime'
By: Jonas Heese and Cristo Liautaud
In May 2020, an analyst was assessing eHealth’s performance. eHealth was an online / tele-sales broker of health insurance products. The stock had recently hit all-time highs, closing at a peak of $146 on March 4, 2020. But now, May 4, 2020, eHealth traded at $103. The... View Details
- June 2020 (Revised February 2021)
- Case
Accounting for Leases at American Airlines (A)
By: Jonas Heese, Gerardo Pérez Cavazos and Julia Kelley
In March 2020, as coronavirus reduced demand for air travel, an analyst was forecasting American Airlines’ (American’s) first quarter financial results. To develop a forecast, she needed to familiarize herself with Accounting Standards Update (ASU) 2016-02, “Leases... View Details
- May 2020
- Article
Measuring Collaboration in Modern Organizations
By: Stephen Michael Impink, Andrea Prat and Raffaella Sadun
Internal communication has been a central theme in organizational economics, as employee collaboration provides insight into the structure of firms. Use of electronic communications data can be transformational for organizational economics, as these data provide a... View Details
- Article
The Changing Landscape of Auditors' Liability
By: Colleen Honigsberg, Shivaram Rajgopal and Suraj Srinivasan
We provide a comprehensive overview of shareholder litigation against auditors since the passage of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act (PSLRA). The number of lawsuits per year has declined, dismissals have increased, and settlements in recent years have... View Details