Accounting & Management

- May 2025
- Case
Initial Financial Statements at Blank Corporation: Bridging Content and Commerce

By: Jung Koo Kang, Panje Jayden Kim and David Allen

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.
- May 2025
- Case
Initial Financial Statements at Blank Corporation: Bridging Content and Commerce

By: Jung Koo Kang, Panje Jayden Kim and David Allen

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...
- May 2025
- Case
A Decade of Corporate Governance Reform in Japan (2013-2023)

By: Charles C.Y. Wang and Akiko Kanno
- May 2025
- Case
A Decade of Corporate Governance Reform in Japan (2013-2023)

By: Charles C.Y. Wang and Akiko Kanno
- May 2025
- Case
Humana Commits to Value-Based Care

By: V.G. Narayanan, Henry Eyring and David Lane

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.
- May 2025
- Case
Humana Commits to Value-Based Care

By: V.G. Narayanan, Henry Eyring and David Lane

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...

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

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

Citation

Educators

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

Keywords: Data-driven Technologies; Local Information Advantages; Local Banks; Relationship Lending; Small Business Loans

Citation

Read Now

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

Citation

Educators

Mission First at Coinbase

By: Charles CY Wang and Brian K. Baik

May 2025 |
Case |
Faculty Research

This case study examines the organizational tensions at cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase as executives Brian Armstrong, Emilie Choi, and L.J. Brock implemented controversial talent management strategies to support their mission of increasing economic freedom through crypto. The case delves into the design of management control systems—including beliefs, boundaries, and incentives—that help managers balance the tension between growth and control in a volatile industry. Coinbase's controversial "no politics" workplace policy, which prohibited discussions unrelated to the company's mission, represents a pivotal example of how the company established clear cultural boundaries. As Coinbase evaluated its "talent density" initiative with structured cognitive assessments, standardized compensation, and rigorous performance management, leadership must weigh whether their mission-focused approach creates sustainable competitive advantage or potentially limits diversity and inclusion. The case, set in 2024, explores how these organizational practices can either facilitate or hinder a company's ability to attract top talent while maintaining cultural cohesion through periods of rapid growth and market turbulence.

Keywords: Cryptocurrency; Management Control; Talent and Talent Management

Citation

Educators

Purchase

Humana Commits to Value-Based Care

By: V.G. Narayanan, Henry Eyring and David Lane

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; Health Industry; United States

Citation

Educators

Generative AI Use by Capital Market Information Intermediaries: Evidence from Seeking Alpha

By: Mark Bradshaw, Chenyang Ma, Benjamin Yost and Yuan Zou

2025 |
Working Paper |
Faculty Research

We study the use of generative AI for firm-specific financial analysis on the Seeking Alpha platform. We find that, after the initial launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, the share of AI-generated articles rose sharply to 13.4% of all articles, then declined in late 2023 after Seeking Alpha equated the use of AI to plagiarism and announced a prohibition on its use. Compared to human articles, AI articles elicit smaller trading volume and abnormal return responses, suggesting they are less informative to capital market participants. However, authors who adopt AI exhibit increased productivity, publishing more articles and covering more new firms than non-adopters. Moreover, the expansion of AI coverage is associated with improved liquidity for historically undercovered firms, but provides no incremental benefit for firms that are already well-covered. Our findings suggest that while AI-generated articles are currently perceived as less informative than human-written articles, their comparatively low cost may enable broader coverage of, and capital market benefits for, firms traditionally overlooked by capital market intermediaries.

Keywords: Generative Ai; Seeking Alpha; Equity Research; Large Language Models; Gpt; AI and Machine Learning; Information Publishing; Financial Markets

Citation

Read Now

Japan Industrial Partners Powers the Leveraged Buyout of Toshiba

By: Brian K. Baik, Joseph Pacelli and James Barnett

April 2025 |
Case |
Faculty Research

The case explores Japan Industrial Partners (JIP) $14 billion takeover of Toshiba Corporation (Toshiba). JIP was a private equity firm that took over the troubled electronics corporation in late 2023. The deal, which had been labeled one of the largest leveraged buyout (LBOs) in Japanese history, would take one of the most well-known companies off the market as the private equity group sought to restructure it. The case provides an opportunity for students to critically evaluate the intrinsic value of Toshiba and evaluate the alternative bids that Toshiba received from other private equity firms. The case illustrates some of the valuation mechanics of valuing an LBO, which involve adjusting the target company’s capital structure and cost of capital to account for the influx of new debt on the balance sheet.