Accounting & Management

Accounting & Management

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    • June 2025
    • Article

    Gender Diversity Performance and Voluntary Disclosure: Mind the (Gender Pay) Gap

    By: June Huang and Shirley Lu

    We study whether voluntary gender diversity disclosure is predictive of gender diversity performance. Exploiting a mandate in the United Kingdom that requires firms to disclose 2017 gender pay gap ("GPG") data for the first time, we find that providing voluntary gender diversity disclosure in 2016 is correlated with having a worse gender pay gap in 2017. Our results are concentrated in industries with worse gender diversity reputations, consistent with legitimacy theory, where firms facing more public pressure use voluntary disclosure to help legitimize their reputations. We further examine whether this disclosure reflects a firm's intent to improve its gender diversity performance over time. We find that forward-looking disclosures, such as gender diversity targets, are positively associated with GPG improvement from 2017 to 2019. Collectively, these gender pay gap findings shed light on how voluntary ESG disclosure can be used to predict current and future ESG performance.

    • June 2025
    • Article

    Gender Diversity Performance and Voluntary Disclosure: Mind the (Gender Pay) Gap

    By: June Huang and Shirley Lu

    We study whether voluntary gender diversity disclosure is predictive of gender diversity performance. Exploiting a mandate in the United Kingdom that requires firms to disclose 2017 gender pay gap ("GPG") data for the first time, we find that providing voluntary gender diversity disclosure in 2016 is correlated with having a worse gender pay gap...

    • June 2025
    • Article

    What Board-level Control Mechanisms Changed in Banks Following the 2008 Financial Crisis? A Descriptive Study

    By: Shelly Li, Shivram Rajgopal, Suraj Srinivasan and Yu Ting Forester Wong

    Following the 2008 financial crisis, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) identified major shortcomings in bank board governance, contributing to systemic risk management failures. This study adapts a management control framework and empirically examines changes in board-level “process control” and “input control” mechanisms in 95 large U.S. bank holding companies (2000–2015) and contrasts these with 1,452 nonbanks. Our findings indicate that most post-2008 improvements occurred in "process controls," e.g. Chief Risk Officer (CRO) appointments increased from 53% pre-crisis to 91% post-crisis, with significantly more banks establishing a dedicated risk committee and identifying the committee responsible for reputation management. We also find progress in "input control” related to domain knowledge with an increase of 16% in new bank directors with prior risk management experience, and significant increase in directors with other relevant domain knowledge. We observed limited or no change in control mechanisms related to improving the board members’ ability to voice different perspectives or commit more time to their role. Our results show that improvements in certain types of controls seem to have taken precedence over others which have implications for explaining and implementing changes in corporate governance and control mechanisms.

    • June 2025
    • Article

    What Board-level Control Mechanisms Changed in Banks Following the 2008 Financial Crisis? A Descriptive Study

    By: Shelly Li, Shivram Rajgopal, Suraj Srinivasan and Yu Ting Forester Wong

    Following the 2008 financial crisis, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) identified major shortcomings in bank board governance, contributing to systemic risk management failures. This study adapts a management control framework and empirically examines changes in board-level “process control” and “input control” mechanisms in 95 large...

    • May 2025
    • Case

    Dell Med: Transforming Care Delivery & Payment

    By: Robert S. Kaplan, David N. Bernstein and Mary L. Witkowski

    Health care in the U.S. and globally continues to undergo massive transformation, surging towards a system that rewards value for patients. However, widespread adoption of value-based health care remains a challenge. This case study focuses on the care delivery transformation undertaken within an academic medical center, with a specific focus on novel payment structures (e.g., bundle payments), integrated practice units (IPUs), and outcomes measurement. Insight into time-driven activity-based costing, or TDABC, and the use of innovative digital health solutions are also touched upon. Leadership challenges and strategic dilemmas are highlighted.

    • May 2025
    • Case

    Dell Med: Transforming Care Delivery & Payment

    By: Robert S. Kaplan, David N. Bernstein and Mary L. Witkowski

    Health care in the U.S. and globally continues to undergo massive transformation, surging towards a system that rewards value for patients. However, widespread adoption of value-based health care remains a challenge. This case study focuses on the care delivery transformation undertaken within an academic medical center, with a specific focus on...

About the Unit

The Accounting & Management unit at Harvard Business School strives to be the worldwide leader in research, course development, and teaching on top managements' use of performance measurement systems to:

  • Communicate with external investors to ensure that their firms' securities are fairly priced and that they are able to access capital,
  • Measure and evaluate their firms' economic performance,
  • Improve resource allocation and strategy implementation within their firms, and
  • Build accountability for performance through effective external and internal governance.

Unit research, course development, and teaching fall into two broad areas: Financial Reporting and Analysis and Management Accounting. Our research helps scholars and educators understand current best practices for the design and use of performance measurement systems that help managers to build more effective, value-creating organizations. Our teaching materials enable us to bring the results of this research into the classroom, and to practice.

Recent Publications

Gender Diversity Performance and Voluntary Disclosure: Mind the (Gender Pay) Gap

By: June Huang and Shirley Lu
  • June 2025 |
  • Article |
  • Accounting, Organizations and Society
We study whether voluntary gender diversity disclosure is predictive of gender diversity performance. Exploiting a mandate in the United Kingdom that requires firms to disclose 2017 gender pay gap ("GPG") data for the first time, we find that providing voluntary gender diversity disclosure in 2016 is correlated with having a worse gender pay gap in 2017. Our results are concentrated in industries with worse gender diversity reputations, consistent with legitimacy theory, where firms facing more public pressure use voluntary disclosure to help legitimize their reputations. We further examine whether this disclosure reflects a firm's intent to improve its gender diversity performance over time. We find that forward-looking disclosures, such as gender diversity targets, are positively associated with GPG improvement from 2017 to 2019. Collectively, these gender pay gap findings shed light on how voluntary ESG disclosure can be used to predict current and future ESG performance.
Keywords: Pay Gap; Diversity; Gender; Wages; Reputation; Corporate Disclosure; United Kingdom
Related

What Board-level Control Mechanisms Changed in Banks Following the 2008 Financial Crisis? A Descriptive Study

By: Shelly Li, Shivram Rajgopal, Suraj Srinivasan and Yu Ting Forester Wong
  • June 2025 |
  • Article |
  • Accounting, Organizations and Society
Following the 2008 financial crisis, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) identified major shortcomings in bank board governance, contributing to systemic risk management failures. This study adapts a management control framework and empirically examines changes in board-level “process control” and “input control” mechanisms in 95 large U.S. bank holding companies (2000–2015) and contrasts these with 1,452 nonbanks. Our findings indicate that most post-2008 improvements occurred in "process controls," e.g. Chief Risk Officer (CRO) appointments increased from 53% pre-crisis to 91% post-crisis, with significantly more banks establishing a dedicated risk committee and identifying the committee responsible for reputation management. We also find progress in "input control” related to domain knowledge with an increase of 16% in new bank directors with prior risk management experience, and significant increase in directors with other relevant domain knowledge. We observed limited or no change in control mechanisms related to improving the board members’ ability to voice different perspectives or commit more time to their role. Our results show that improvements in certain types of controls seem to have taken precedence over others which have implications for explaining and implementing changes in corporate governance and control mechanisms.
Keywords: Board Of Directors; Management Control; Governing and Advisory Boards; Governance Controls; Risk Management; Change Management; Banks and Banking; Financial Crisis
Related

Dell Med: Transforming Care Delivery & Payment

By: Robert S. Kaplan, David N. Bernstein and Mary L. Witkowski
  • May 2025 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
Health care in the U.S. and globally continues to undergo massive transformation, surging towards a system that rewards value for patients. However, widespread adoption of value-based health care remains a challenge. This case study focuses on the care delivery transformation undertaken within an academic medical center, with a specific focus on novel payment structures (e.g., bundle payments), integrated practice units (IPUs), and outcomes measurement. Insight into time-driven activity-based costing, or TDABC, and the use of innovative digital health solutions are also touched upon. Leadership challenges and strategic dilemmas are highlighted.
Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Business Strategy; Leading Change; Decisions; Transformation; Health Industry; United States; Texas
Related

Initial Financial Statements at Blank Corporation: Bridging Content and Commerce

By: Jung Koo Kang, Panje Jayden Kim and David Allen
  • May 2025 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
This accounting case is intended to teach students how to compile an income statement, a balance sheet, and a cash flow statement. It focuses on Blank Corporation, an innovative South Korean company that bridged content and commerce by selling products directly through social media posts featuring video content that was designed to go viral. As Blank grows in 2016 and 2017, CEO Nam Dae-Kwang puts the company on a firmer footing, and begins to communicate with investors, by creating standard financial results.
Keywords: Accounting; Financial Statements; Business Startups; Social Media; Advertising; Digital Marketing; Consumer Products Industry; South Korea
Related

Data-driven Technologies and Local Information Advantages in Small Business Lending

By: Wilbur Chen, Jung Koo Kang and Aditya Mohan
  • 2025 |
  • Working Paper |
  • Faculty Research
We investigate whether banks' adoption of data-driven technologies influences competitive dynamics in local small business lending by diminishing the information advantages traditionally held by local banks. Using local newspaper closures as an adverse shock to the local information available to non-local banks, we show that banks with higher local market concentration increase their share of small business loans in their local counties after these closures. However, these information advantages gradually diminish after cloud platforms—a key data-driven technology infrastructure—are widely implemented. We find that local banks' information advantages disappear in counties where they compete against banks that heavily invest in these technologies: those with greater AI-related human capital, AI patents, or web analytics technologies. We further support our findings by instrumenting banks' AI-related hiring activity with their proximity to AI research institutions. Overall, our results suggest that data-driven technologies can reduce local banks' information advantages and reshape the competitive landscape in local lending markets.
Keywords: Data-driven Technologies; Local Information Advantages; Local Banks; Relationship Lending; Small Business Loans; Small Business; Local Range; Financing and Loans; Banks and Banking; Analytics and Data Science; Banking Industry
Related

A Decade of Corporate Governance Reform in Japan (2013-2023)

By: Charles C.Y. Wang and Akiko Kanno
  • May 2025 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
Keywords: Corporate Governance; Japan
Related

Humana Commits to Value-Based Care

By: V.G. Narayanan, Henry Eyring and David Lane
  • May 2025 (Revised May 2025) |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
In late 2023, CEO Bruce Broussard reviewed health insurer Humana’s transformation into a value-based care ecosystem. Under its CenterWell brand, the several millions of members in Humana Medicare Advantage plans now had access to Humana-provided primary care, home care, behavioral health, and mail order pharmacy services. Innovative partnerships with private equity firms had helped finance the acquisition and operations of key CenterWell assets. Broussard and his top team now convened to review the merits of a potential acquisition of a large group of primary care clinics. The discussion centered on how best to build further on and integrate Humana’s successes to date in value-based care delivery.
Keywords: Business Model; Business Units; Financing and Loans; Innovation Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Service Operations; Mergers and Acquisitions; Insurance; Health Care and Treatment; Partners and Partnerships; Health Industry; Insurance Industry; United States
Related

Windsurf and the AI Code Assistant Market

By: Suraj Srinivasan, Sudhanshu Nath Mishra and Radhika Kak
  • May 2025 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
In April 2025, the founding team of Windsurf, an AI start-up specializing in code generation gathered in Mountain View, California, to assess its remarkable year of growth. The company had scaled from a niche GitHub Copilot alternative to a breakout player with over 700,000 individual users, 1,000 enterprise customers, and more than $40 million in ARR. Yet, as the AI code assistant market became increasingly crowded with tech giants, well-funded startups, and rapidly evolving user expectations, Windsurf faced three key strategic questions. First: Who should Windsurf serve? Should it continue to serve highly regulated enterprises demanding on-premise deployments, or shift focus entirely toward a broader base of cloud-first enterprises, including both technical and non-technical users adopting its new AI-native IDE, the Windsurf Editor? Second: How could Windsurf build a durable moat? Would long-term defensibility come from building a proprietary foundation model, from advanced context retrieval, or from delivering the most intuitive user experience? And third: How should Windsurf grow? Should it continue pursuing top-down enterprise sales or lean into the bottom-up, developer-led momentum that had already propelled it to eight-figure ARR within a month of launching a paid plan? This case examines strategic trade-offs in AI-first product companies, evaluate paths to defensibility in a fiercely competitive space, and how generative AI is reshaping the economics of software development.
Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Venture Capital; Innovation Leadership; Technological Innovation; Technology Industry; United States
Related
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Accounting & Management Unit
Harvard Business School
Morgan Hall
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
A&M@hbs.edu