Publications

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2017
Working Paper

Does Financial Misconduct Affect the Future Compensation of Alumni Managers?

By: Boris Groysberg, Eric Lin and Georgios Serafeim

We explore how an organization’s financial misconduct may affect pay for former employees not implicated in wrongdoing. Drawing on stigma theory we hypothesize that although such alumni did not participate in the financial misconduct and they had left the organization... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Misconduct; Restatements; Stigma; Financial Misconduct; Compensation and Benefits; Crime and Corruption; Employees

Article

Does Financial Misconduct Affect the Future Compensation of Alumni Managers?

By: Boris Groysberg, Eric Lin and George Serafeim

We explore how an organization’s financial misconduct may affect pay for former employees not implicated in wrongdoing. Drawing on stigma theory we hypothesize that although such alumni did not participate in the financial misconduct, and they had left the organization... View Details

Keywords: Financial Misconduct; Stigma; Finance; Crime and Corruption; Executive Compensation; Employees; Compensation and Benefits

July 2020
Article

Does Corporate Misconduct Affect the Future Compensation of Alumni Managers?

By: Boris Groysberg, Eric Lin and George Serafeim

Using data from a top-five global executive placement firm, the authors explore how an organization's financial misconduct may affect pay for former employees not implicated in wrongdoing. Drawing on stigma theory, they hypothesize that although such alumni did not... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Misconduct; Financial Misconduct; Stigma; Crime and Corruption; Employees; Compensation and Benefits

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May 2022
Article

When Harry Fired Sally: The Double Standard in Punishing Misconduct

By: Mark Egan, Gregor Matvos and Amit Seru

We examine gender differences in misconduct punishment in the financial advisory industry. We find evidence of a “gender punishment gap”: following an incident of misconduct, female advisers are 20% more likely to lose their jobs and 30% less likely to find new jobs... View Details

Keywords: Financial Advisers; Brokers; Gender Discrimination; Consumer Finance; Financial Misconduct And Fraud; FINRA; Financial Institutions; Employees; Crime and Corruption; Gender; Prejudice and Bias; Personal Finance; Financial Services Industry

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2015
Working Paper

Misconduct in Financial Services: Differences across Organizations

By: Jennifer Brown and Dylan Minor

We examine misconduct in financial services. We propose a theory in which experts extract surplus based on the value of their firm's brand and their own skills. Using sales complaint data for insurance agents, we find that agents working exclusively for large branded... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Insurance; Sales; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry

June 2020
Case

Recovering Trust After Corporate Misconduct at Wells Fargo

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Jonah S. Goldberg

The case describes widespread misconduct at Wells Fargo Community Bank in the period leading up to 2017 and the company’s subsequent attempts to improve internal controls, company culture, and corporate governance. The case examines the potential causes of large scale... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Misconduct; Internal Controls; Banks and Banking; Crime and Corruption; Corporate Governance; Organizational Culture; Governance Compliance; Management Systems; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Performance Improvement; Governing and Advisory Boards

Educators

05 Aug 2020
Video

Taking Stock of Financial Adviser Misconduct

2016
Article

Scandal and Stigma: Does Corporate Misconduct Affect the Future Compensation of Bystander Managers?

By: Boris Groysberg, Eric Lin and George Serafeim

This paper explores whether a firm’s misconduct can affect the compensation of former managers who were neither at the firm at the time of misdeeds nor involved in the scandal. Results suggest that stigma may influence compensation of former managers, even in cases... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Misconduct; Stigma; Executive Compensation

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06 Dec 2017
Working Paper Summaries

Does Financial Misconduct Affect the Future Compensation of Alumni Managers?

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg, Eric Lin, and George Serafeim

08 Jan 2018
Research & Ideas

The Startling Percentage of Financial Advisors with Misconduct Records

advisors. By examining this data in detail, they found that financial misconduct is widespread within the financial industry, with one in 12 View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Financial Services

08 Nov 2018
Working Paper Summaries

When Harry Fired Sally: The Double Standard in Punishing Misconduct

Keywords: by Mark Egan, Gregor Matvos, and Amit Seru; Financial Services

Article

Cash-for-Information Whistleblower Programs: Effects on Whistleblowing and Consequences for Whistleblowers

By: Aiyesha Dey, Jonas Heese and Gerardo Pérez Cavazos

Cash-for-information whistleblower programs have gained momentum as a regulatory tool to enforce corporate misconduct. Yet, little is known about how financial incentives affect whistleblowers’ decisions to report potential misconduct to authorities. Similarly, there... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Misconduct; Whistleblowers; Financial Incentives; Ethics; Governance Compliance; Lawsuits and Litigation

09 Aug 2018
News

Two Million Fake Accounts: Sales Misconduct at Wells Fargo

Fall 2024
Article

The Problem of Good Conduct Among Financial Advisers

By: Mark Egan, Gregor Matvos and Amit Seru

Households in the United States often rely on financial advisers for investment and savings decisions, yet there is a widespread perception that many advisers are dishonest. This distrust is not unwarranted: approximately one in fifteen advisers has a history of... View Details

Keywords: Personal Finance; Behavioral Finance; Trust; Financial Services Industry

2020
Working Paper

Arbitration with Uninformed Consumers

By: Mark Egan, Gregor Matvos and Amit Seru

This paper studies the impact of the arbitrator selection process on consumer outcomes by examining roughly 9,000 consumer arbitration cases in the securities industry. Securities disputes present a good laboratory: arbitration is mandatory for all disputes,... View Details

Keywords: Arbitration; Financial Advisers; Financial Advisors; Brokers; Consumer Finance; Financial Misconduct; Fraud; Personal Finance; Conflict and Resolution; Information; Fairness

2018
Working Paper

It is Easy to be Brave From a Safe Distance: Proximity to the SEC and Insider Trading

By: Trung Nguyen and Quoc H. Nguyen

We use hand-collected data from SEC’s litigation releases for insider trading violations to examine the effect of geographic distance on its enforcement activities and insider trading activities. First, we find that the SEC is more likely to investigate companies that... View Details

Keywords: SEC; Enforcement; Financial Misconduct; Insider Trading; Geographic Proximity; Governance Compliance; Law Enforcement; Geographic Location; Finance; Crime and Corruption

12 Aug 2020
Research & Ideas

Why Investors Often Lose When They Sue Their Financial Adviser

School Working Knowledge. HBS Digital Media Producer Amelia Kunhardt produced the video interview. [Image: kuri2000 ] Related Reading The Startling Percentage of Financial Advisors with Misconduct Records A... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost; Financial Services

May 2021 (Revised May 2022)
Supplement

Odebrecht's 'Transformation Journey' (B)

By: Lynn S. Paine, Ruth Costas and Pedro Levindo

The case describes the changes in Odebrecht’s board of directors while the company had to file for court-supervised reorganization and cope with an ongoing feud within its founding family, and the new challenges that the Group’s leadership has to face. The changes in... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Misconduct; Corporate Governance; Crisis Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Reputation; Mission and Purpose; Business and Government Relations; Engineering; Family Business; Emerging Markets; Construction Industry; Brazil; Latin America

August 2020
Supplement

Luckin Coffee (B): Revelations of Fraud

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Karen Elterman

This case describes revelations of fraud at Luckin Coffee, beginning with an anonymous report in January 2020 and continuing with the company’s admission in April 2020 that it had inflated its revenues by 2.2 billion RMB ($310 million), almost half its reported... View Details

Keywords: Fraud; Corporate Misconduct; Business Earnings; Financial Statements; Financial Condition; Stocks; Financial Management; Profit; Revenue; Price; Food; Lawfulness; Crime and Corruption; Food and Beverage Industry; Technology Industry; Asia; China