Publications

Educators

December 2003 (Revised February 2004)
Case

Scott Lawson's Dilemma

By: Thomas R. Piper

The head of SysCom's test equipment division is concerned about how to answer employee and customer questions concerning the possible sale or liquidation of the division. The consequences of alternative approaches (full transparency vs. strong optimism and reassurance)... View Details

Keywords: Business Exit or Shutdown; Interpersonal Communication; Business Divisions; Corporate Governance; Ethics; Manufacturing Industry; Technology Industry

Educators

01 Oct 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Responding to Public and Private Politics: Corporate Disclosure of Climate Change Strategies

Keywords: by Erin M. Reid & Michael W. Toffel

Article

Mandate Outcomes Reporting

By: Robert S. Kaplan and Michael E. Porter

Currently, few health care providers measure and report their patient outcomes, which leads to several problems. Attempts to introduce price transparency without outcomes transparency could trigger a “race to the bottom.” Should Medicare coverage be expanded to... View Details

Keywords: Outcomes Reporting; Outcomes Measurement; Medicare; Medicaid; Health Care and Treatment; Outcome or Result; Measurement and Metrics

05 Oct 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Doing What the Parents Want? The Effect of the Local Information Environment on the Investment Decisions of Multinational Corporations

Keywords: by Nemit O. Shroff, Rodrigo S. Verdi & Gwen Yu

December 2009
Article

Who Owns Metrics?: Building a Bill of Rights for Online Advertisers

By: Benjamin Edelman

I offer five rights to protect advertisers from increasingly powerful ad networks-avoiding fraudulent charges for services not rendered, guaranteeing data portability so advertisers get the best possible value, and assuring price transparency so advertisers know what... View Details

Keywords: Online Advertising; Crime and Corruption; Price; Measurement and Metrics; Technology Networks; Value; Advertising Industry

Find at Harvard

2019
Article

More Amazon Effects: Online Competition and Pricing Behaviors

By: Alberto Cavallo

I study how online competition, with its shrinking margins, algorithmic pricing technologies, and the transparency of the web, can change the pricing behavior of large retailers in the U.S. and affect aggregate inflation dynamics. In particular, I show that in the past... View Details

Keywords: Amazon; Online Prices; Inflation; Uniform Pricing; Price Stickiness; Monetary Economics; Economics; Macroeconomics; Inflation and Deflation; System Shocks; United States

2021
Working Paper

Shareholder Activism and Firms’ Voluntary Disclosure of Climate Change Risks

By: Caroline Flammer, Michael W. Toffel and Kala Viswanathan

This paper examines whether—in the absence of mandated disclosure requirements—shareholder activism can elicit greater disclosure of firms’ exposure to climate change risks. We find that environmental shareholder activism increases the voluntary disclosure of climate... View Details

Keywords: Shareholder Activism; Climate Risk; Corporate Accountability; Climate Change; Corporate Disclosure; Corporate Governance; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Shareholder Relations; Risk and Uncertainty; Natural Environment; Environmental Sustainability; Financial Services Industry; United States

SSRN

Teaching Interest

Audit Committees in a New Era of Governance

By: Suraj Srinivasan

The last ten years has heightened demands on audit committees. Not only are they responsible for overseeing internal and external audits to ensure that investors receive accurate and transparent information, but they must ensure compliance with new accounting and... View Details

19 Nov 2013
First Look

First Look: November 19

http://ssrn.com/abstract=2350805 Surfacing the Submerged State with Operational Transparency in Government Services By: Buell, Ryan W., and Michael I. Norton Abstract—As Americans' trust in government nears historic lows, frustration with... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2020
Working Paper

Reverse Information Sharing: Reducing Costs in Supply Chains with Yield Uncertainty

By: Pavithra Harsha, Ashish Jagmohan, Retsef Levi, Elisabeth Paulson and Georgia Perakis

Supply uncertainty in produce supply chains presents major challenges to retailers. Supply shortages create frequent disruptions in terms of promised delivery times, quantity and quality delivered. To alleviate these challenges, dual sourcing--a strategy in which... View Details

Keywords: Information Sharing; Yield Uncertainty; Ration Gaming; Blockchain; Supply Chain; Risk and Uncertainty

SSRN

January 2010 (Revised October 2011)
Case

The Congressional Oversight Panel's Valuation of the TARP Warrants (A)

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin

The Congressional Oversight Panel wants to value the warrants issued to the government in connection with the TARP investments of 2008, in order to increase the transparency of options repurchases. The case describes the methodology used to value the warrants. Students... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Asset Pricing; Financial Instruments; Investment; Business and Government Relations; Mathematical Methods; Valuation; Banking Industry; Public Administration Industry; United States

Educators

2021
Case

Walmart's Blockchain Quest: Integrating New Technology into a Complex Supply Chain

By: Andrew J. Hoffman

Blockchain is a digital, distributed, immutable ledger designed to build trust among parties without requiring an independent, third-party arbitrator or intermediary. The technology has potential to improve a variety of industries, including the complex, fragmented,... View Details

Keywords: Blockchain; Supply Chain Management; Technology Adoption

Research Summary

Accountability in the World Bank

This research, now complete, examines the roles of civil society actors in advocating for greater accountability at the World Bank at three levels of decision-making: (1) the project level, (2) the policy level, and (3) the board governance level. The research finds... View Details

Article

Corporate Social Responsibility and Access to Finance

By: Beiting Cheng, Ioannis Ioannou and George Serafeim

In this paper, we investigate whether superior performance on corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies leads to better access to finance. We hypothesize that better access to finance can be attributed to a) reduced agency costs due to enhanced stakeholder... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility; Sustainability; Capital Constraints; ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance; Stakeholder Engagement; Disclosure; Corporate Disclosure; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Capital

SSRN

Find at Harvard

October 14, 2022
Article

The Challenges of Transforming Twitter

By: Andy Wu and Goran Calic

Elon Musk may be an idiosyncratic leader, but if he buys Twitter he’ll face a familiar business challenge: how to transform a legacy tech company. Faced with this challenge, leaders should follow five principles: 1) prioritize an objective, 2) communicate the strategy,... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Corporate Strategy; Change Management; Leading Change; Technology Industry

September–October 2020
Article

Social-Impact Efforts That Create Real Value

By: George Serafeim

Until the mid-2010s few investors paid attention to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data—information about companies’ carbon footprints, labor policies, board makeup, and so forth. Today the data is widely used by investors. How can organizations create... View Details

Find at Harvard