Publications

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Brian Trelstad is a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School in the General Management Unit and the Faculty Chair of the Advanced Leadership Initiative. He teaches elective courses on Social Entrepreneurship and Systems... View Details

Keywords: education industry; health care; service industry; emerging market private equity; private equity (other); venture capital industry

01 Mar 2012
News

Does America Really Need Manufacturing?

11 Sep 2020
Video

James Mwangi

James Mwangi, CEO of Kenya’s Equity Bank, explains that both international and state-owned banks failed to address the issue that 96 percent of the population had no bank accounts in post-colonial Kenya, and how Equity Bank was able to dramatically expand financial... 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 2011
Case

Trouble in Islandia; Computer Associates 2001 - 2004

By: Jay W. Lorsch and Melissa Barton

The Board of Directors of Computer Associates deals with pressure from the U.S. Department of Justice as its members try to gain better insight into the accounting practices of the company's top management team. View Details

Keywords: Problems and Challenges; Corporate Governance; Management Teams; Ethics; Practice; Florida; United States

01 Nov 2017
News

Should Pharmaceutical Companies Face Legal Action For The Opioid Epidemic?

March 2020 (Revised August 2022)
Case

Racial Discrimination on Airbnb (A)

By: Michael Luca, Scott Stern, Devin Cook and Hyunjin Kim

Facing mounting criticism and evidence of widespread racial discrimination on the platform, apartment rental platform Airbnb needed to decide a path forward. For years, Airbnb had given hosts extensive discretion about whether to reject a guest after seeing little more... View Details

Keywords: Platform Design; Digital Platforms; Design; Prejudice and Bias; Trust; Problems and Challenges

April 29, 2020
Article

The Case for AI Insurance

By: Ram Shankar Siva Kumar and Frank Nagle

When organizations place machine learning systems at the center of their businesses, they introduce the risk of failures that could lead to a data breach, brand damage, property damage, business interruption, and in some cases, bodily harm. Even when companies are... View Details

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Machine Learning; Internet and the Web; Safety; Insurance; AI and Machine Learning; Cybersecurity

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2025
Working Paper

Performance Capital Flows in DC Pensions

By: Bryan Gutierrez Cortez, Victoria Ivashina and Juliana Salomao

Are defined contribution (DC) pension funds' capital flows sensitive to performance? We examine pressures from individual account holders who can switch their pension managers. Using novel data on retirement accounts for nearly 10 million individuals, we analyze... View Details

Keywords: Investment Funds; Retirement; Risk and Uncertainty; Financial Management; Investment Portfolio; Financial Services Industry

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13 Oct 2015
News

How Thin Political Markets Undermine Democracy

14 Aug 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Insider Trading Preceding Goodwill Impairments

Keywords: by Karl A. Muller III, Monica Neamtiu & Edward J. Riedl

March 2009 (Revised May 2011)
Case

The Credit Suisse/Gerson Lehrman Group Alliance

By: Robert G. Eccles and Laura Winig

The equity research department of Credit Suisse and the expert network firm of Gerson Lehrman Group, historically competitors, have established a strategic alliance which both believe will give them a competitive advantage. Under the leadership of its head of equity... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Financial Crisis; Investment Banking; Innovation and Invention; Alliances; Social and Collaborative Networks; Competitive Advantage; Banking Industry

Research Summary

When Does IT Foster Markets, When Does it Foster Hierarchies?

The 'Electronic Markets Hypothesis' is, at present, essentially taken for granted. It holds that greater use of IT leads to greater use of market mechanisms for coordinating activity, basically because of IT's ability to reduce the costs of coordination.

The... View Details

September 2007
Article

Assessing the Performance of Business Unit Managers

By: J. Bouwens and Laurence van Lent

Using a sample of 140 managers, we investigate the use of various performance metrics in determining the periodic assessment, bonus decisions, and career paths of business unit managers. We show that the weight on accounting return measures is associated with the... View Details

Keywords: Business Units; Managerial Roles; Performance Evaluation

July 2007 (Revised May 2008)
Case

Central Bank: The ChexSystemsSM QualiFile® Decision

By: Dennis Campbell, Francisco de Asis Martinez-Jerez, Peter Tufano and Emily McClintock

The "Central Bank" series analyzes the use of information and product design for managing the counterparty risk of newly acquired customers. Central Bank, a mid-sized regional U.S. bank, was attempting to grow its customer base by increasing the number of new checking... View Details

Keywords: Central Banking; Knowledge Management; Customer Satisfaction; Risk Management; Risk and Uncertainty; Decision Making; Banking Industry; United States

30 May 2012
News

Government Regulation That Actually Works

March 2011 (Revised December 2019)
Case

Wealth Management Crisis at UBS (A)

By: Paul M. Healy

The case describes the challenges that UBS faced as a result of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation for tax fraud, that claimed that UBS had helped some 52,000 U.S. residents hide billions of dollars in untaxed assets in secret Swiss accounts between... View Details

February 2010 (Revised December 2011)
Case

Ricoh Company, Ltd.

By: Robert G. Eccles, Amy C. Edmondson, Marco Iansiti and Akiko Kanno

Ricoh, the Japanese copier manufacturer, is committed to reducing its environmental impact to one-eighth of its 2000 levels by 2050. It has already introduced three stages of environmental awareness to its operations, and its recycled copier business broke even in... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Accounting; Financial Reporting; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Investment; Operations; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Electronics Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Japan

December 1980 (Revised September 1987)
Case

Francis, Berther and Alfreed

At a large advertising agency, a campaign for a major account develops problems at the last minute, and the campaign must be redone. The management supervisor must determine what went wrong, who was to blame, and what to do about it. View Details

Keywords: Crisis Management; Advertising Campaigns; Advertising Industry