Publications

November 2006
Background Note

U.S. Taxation of Foreign-Source Corporate Income

By: Henry B. Reiling

Identifies several of the problems and policy choices associated with taxing foreign-source income. Examples are given of the practical after-tax effects of the major alternatives. Foreign tax credit and "tax haven" based business activities receive special attention.... View Details

Keywords: Earnings Management; Credit; Policy; Taxation; Problems and Challenges; United States

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January 2003 (Revised July 2003)
Case

Boston Automation Systems, Inc.

By: David F. Hawkins

Daniel Fisher, the CFO of Boston Automation Systems, must review a number of revenue transaction accounting policies following the issuance of the Securities and Exchange Commission's Staff Accounting Bulletin 101, "Revenue Recognition in Financial Statements."... View Details

Keywords: Revenue Recognition; Policy; Financial Statements

Article

Why Compliance Programs Fail: And How to Fix Them

By: Hui Chen and Eugene Soltes

Firms spend millions of dollars annually on whistle-blower hotlines, training, and other efforts to ensure adherence to laws, regulations, and company policies. Yet malfeasance remains entrenched in the corporate world. Why? Too many firms treat compliance as a... View Details

Keywords: Governance Compliance; Programs; Employees; Training; Performance Effectiveness; Measurement and Metrics

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September 2019
Article

The Effect of Enforcement Transparency: Evidence from SEC Comment-Letter Reviews

By: Miguel Duro, Jonas Heese and Gaizka Ormazabal

This paper studies the effect of the public disclosure of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) comment-letter reviews (CLs) on firms’ financial reporting. We exploit a major change in the SEC’s disclosure policy: in 2004, the SEC decided to make its CLs... View Details

Keywords: Disclosure; SEC Comment-Letter Reviews; Public Enforcement; Governance; Information Publishing; Policy; Financial Reporting; Capital Markets; Organizational Change and Adaptation

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Program

Competing in the Age of AI—Virtual

technology operations, marketing, supply chain and operations, talent management, and more, who want to move toward an AI-first digital business and operating model Government officials engaged in developing strategy and View Details

Joseph B. Fuller

Joseph Fuller is a Professor of Management Practice in General Management and Entrepreneurship. He founded and co-leads the school’s project, Managing the Future of Work, as well as the Harvard Project on the Workforce. He currently leads the FIELD Global Capstone... View Details

25 Jul 2019
Blog Post

Advancing a More Sustainable World with an MBA/MPA-ID

economics at Cornell. My undergraduate experience quickly brought home the fact that when it comes to grassroots impact, it is imperative to use what motivates people to drive change in behavior. For example, shaping an effective environmental View Details

John F. Batter

John Batter is a retired Litigation Partner in the Boston Office of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP where his practice focussed on on the defense of public and private companies and their directors and management against breach of fiduciary duty claims and... View Details

August 2008 (Revised July 2009)
Case

Gazprom (A): Energy and Strategy in Russian History

By: Rawi E. Abdelal, Sogomon Tarontsi and Alexander Jorov

Critics have accused Gazprom, the world's largest natural gas producer, of eschewing market principles in favor of the foreign policy priorities of the Russian government, ever since the energy giant cut off the supply to Ukraine in January of 2006. The purported... View Details

Keywords: History; International Relations; Trade; Energy Industry; Russia; Soviet Union; Ukraine; Europe

Video

Louisa Mojela & Gloria Serobe

Louisa Mojela and Gloria Serobe, Co-Founders and leading executives of WIPHOLD, discuss what South Africa's Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) policies and legislation have meant for the company and the country's business landscape as a whole. View Details

Program

Agribusiness Seminar

consumer-branded fresh and packaged food products Grocery retailers, restauranteurs, and foodservice distributors Government agencies and nongovernment institutions focused on food, nutrition, farming, food security, View Details

Keywords: Agriculture; Agriculture

November 2002 (Revised June 2003)
Case

China's Rural Leap Forward

By: Bruce R. Scott and Jamie Matthews

Collectively owned township and village enterprises (TVEs) played a pivotal role in China's rapid growth during the 1980s and 1990s. Although they originated in the policies and institutions of the Maoist era, TVEs thrived only after Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms... View Details

Keywords: Business and Government Relations; Public Sector; Public Ownership; Development Economics; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Macroeconomics; Emerging Markets; China

Article

B Corps: Can It Remake Capitalism in Japan?

By: Geoffrey Jones

This article examines the B Corporation movement that originated in the United States in 2006. The founders sought to create a new type of company whose governance structure mandated them to consider financial, social and environmental performance. A certification... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Responsibility; Sustainability; B Corporations; Stakeholder Capitalism; Governance; Organizational Structure; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Japan

December 2019 (Revised June 2025)
Case

Mãe Terra and Unilever (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine, Ruth Costas and Priscilla Zogbi

The case concerns the sale of Mãe Terra, one of Brazil's leading brands for packaged organic foods, to the consumer goods giant Unilever in 2017. Working with Unilever management, Mãe Terra’s CEO Alexandre Borges must determine whether and how to keep Mãe Terra's B... View Details

Keywords: Brand Management; Sustainability; Mergers and Acquisitions; Mission and Purpose; Social Enterprise; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Environmental Sustainability; Organizational Culture; Brands and Branding; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Brazil; Latin America

31 Jul 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Learning from Double-Digit Growth Experiences

Keywords: by Eric D. Werker

Research Summary

Overview

Professor Sawyer’s research focuses on U.S. political economy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, concentrating on the development of competition policy and the administrative state. While the conventional history of U.S. competition policy portrays the... View Details

2023
Working Paper

The Politics of Philanthropy in China

By: Geoffrey Jones and Yuhai Wu

This working paper looks historically at business philanthropy in China. In the West, the literature has distinguished between entrepreneurial and customary philanthropy, while the phenomenon of spiritual philanthropy has been identified in many emerging markets. This... View Details

Keywords: China; Philanthropy; Ethics; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Moral Sensibility; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Economic Systems; Economic Sectors; China

2019
Working Paper

Fiscal Rules and Sovereign Default

By: Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk

Recurrent concerns over debt sustainability in emerging and developed nations have prompted renewed debate on the role of fiscal rules. Their optimality, however, remains unclear. We provide a quantitative analysis of fiscal rules in a standard model of sovereign debt... View Details

Keywords: Sovereign Debt; Hyperbolic Discounting; Fiscal Rules; Sovereign Finance

September 2019
Case

Clean Energy for the Future

By: Richard H.K. Vietor and Howaida Kamel

This is an industry note on renewable energy – wind, solar, governmental incentives and storage. It covers the recent history of both the wind and solar industries, an extensive look at governmental policies in the United States, including the Green New Deal, and... View Details

Keywords: Green New Deal; Renewable Energy; Energy Policy; Industry Growth; Supply and Industry; Price; Motivation and Incentives; Energy Industry; Green Technology Industry; United States