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    • COVID-19 Business Impact Center
      COVID-19 Business Impact Center
      Cold Call
      A podcast featuring faculty discussing cases they've written and the lessons they impart.
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      • 23 Feb 2021
      • Cold Call Podcast

      Examining Race and Mass Incarceration in the United States

      The late 20th century saw dramatic growth in incarceration rates in the United States. Of the more than 2.3 million people in US prisons, jails, and detention centers in 2020, 60 percent were Black or Latinx. Harvard Business School assistant professor Reshmaan Hussam probes the assumptions underlying the current prison system, with its huge racial disparities, and considers what could be done to address the crisis of the American criminal justice system in her case, “Race and Mass Incarceration in the United States.”  Open for comment; 0 Comment(s) posted.

      Read the Transcript

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      AccountingRemove Accounting →

      New research on general accounting from Harvard Business School faculty on issues including accounting principles, practices, and theory, and on regulations and policy.
      Page 1 of 108 Results →
      • 02 Nov 2020
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Accounting for Organizational Employment Impact

      by David Freiberg, Katie Panella, George Serafeim, and T. Robert Zochowski

      Impact-weighted accounting methodology standardizes previously disparate measures of impact, in this case the impact of employment. This paper’s methodology and analysis of Intel, Apple, Costco, and Merck shows the feasibility of measuring firm employment impact for insight into firm practices and performance. Closed for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 20 Sep 2020
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Updating the Balanced Scorecard for Triple Bottom Line Strategies

      by Robert S. Kaplan and David McMillan

      Society increasingly expects businesses to help solve problems of environmental degradation, inequality, and poverty. This paper explains how the Balanced Scorecard and Strategy Map should be modified to reflect businesses’ expanded role for society.

      • 24 Aug 2020
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Performance Hacking: The Contagious Business Practice that Corrodes Corporate Culture, Undermines Core Values, and Damages Great Companies

      by Robert D. Austin and Richard L. Nolan

      Performance hacking (or p-hacking for short) means overzealous advocacy of positive interpretations to the point of detachment from actuals. In business as in research there are strong incentives to p-hack. If p-hacking behaviours are not checked, a crash becomes inevitable.

      • 27 Feb 2020
      • Sharpening Your Skills

      How Following Best Business Practices Can Improve Health Care

      by Sean Silverthorne

      Why do Harvard Business School scholars spend so much time and money analyzing health care delivery? Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 18 Feb 2020
      • Working Paper Summaries

      A Preliminary Framework for Product Impact-Weighted Accounts

      by George Serafeim, Katie Trinh, and Robert Zochowski

      Although there is growing interest in environmental, social, and governance measurement, the impact of company operations is emphasized over product use. A framework like this one that captures a product’s reach, accessibility, quality, optionality, environmental use emissions, and end of life recyclability allows for a systematic methodology that can be applied to companies across many industries.

      • 16 Oct 2019
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Core Earnings? New Data and Evidence

      by Ethan Rouen, Eric So, and Charles C.Y. Wang

      Using a novel dataset of earnings-related disclosures embedded in the 10-Ks, this paper shows how detailed financial statement analysis can produce a measure of core earnings that is more persistent than traditional earnings measures and forecasts future performance. Analysts and market participants are slow to appreciate the importance of transitory earnings.

      • 28 May 2019
      • Research & Ideas

      Investor Lawsuits Against Auditors Are Falling, and That's Bad News for Capital Markets

      by Martha Lagace

      It's becoming more difficult for investors to sue corporate auditors. The result? A weakening of trust in US capital markets, says Suraj Srinivasan. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 22 Jan 2019
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Corporate Sustainability: A Strategy?

      by Ioannis Ioannou and George Serafeim

      Between 2012 and 2017, companies within most industries adopted an increasingly similar set of sustainability practices. This study examines the interplay between common and strategic practices. This dynamic distinction helps for understanding whether and how sustainability practices can help companies establish a competitive advantage over time.

      • 03 Jan 2019
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Financing the Response to Climate Change: The Pricing and Ownership of US Green Bonds

      by Malcolm Baker, Daniel Bergstresser, George Serafeim, and Jeffrey Wurgler

      Green bonds are used for environmentally friendly purposes like renewable energy. Complementing previous research, this paper explores the US corporate and municipal green bond and shows that a subset of investors is willing to give up some return to hold green bonds.

      • 03 Dec 2018
      • Research & Ideas

      How Companies Can Increase Market Rewards for Sustainability Efforts

      by Rachel Layne

      There is a connection between public sentiment about a company and how the market rewards its corporate social performance, according to George Serafeim. Is your company undervalued? Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 19 Nov 2018
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Lazy Prices

      by Lauren Cohen, Christopher J. Malloy, and Quoc Nguyen

      The most comprehensive information windows that firms provide to the markets—in the form of their mandated annual and quarterly filings—have changed dramatically over time, becoming significantly longer and more complex. When firms break from their routine phrasing and content, this action contains rich information for future firm stock returns and outcomes.

      • 24 Sep 2018
      • Research & Ideas

      How Cost Accounting is Improving Healthcare in Rural Haiti

      by Carmen Nobel

      The cost of healthcare in rural Haiti was found to vary widely, even inside the same health organization. A pioneering cost accounting system co-developed by Robert Kaplan was called in to determine the cause. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 14 Dec 2017
      • Working Paper Summaries

      The Real Exchange Rate, Innovation and Productivity

      by Laura Alfaro, Alejandro Cuñat, Harald Fadinger, and Yanping Liu

      Addressing debates on the effects of real exchange rate (RER) movements on the economy, this study examines manufacturing firm-level effects of medium-term fluctuations, in particular firm-level productivity across a wide range of countries. RER changes have different impacts depending on the export and import orientation of regions and the prevalence of credit constraints. Effects are non-linear and asymmetric, suggesting that the link between RER changes and macroeconomic performance might be much more nuanced than usually thought.

      • 31 May 2017
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Stock Price Synchronicity and Material Sustainability Information

      by Jody Grewal, Clarissa Hauptmann, and George Serafeim

      This paper seeks to understand and provide evidence on the characteristics of emerging accounting standards for sustainability information. Given that a large number of institutional investors seek sustainability data and have committed to using it, it is increasingly important to develop a robust accounting infrastructure for the reporting of such information.

      • 13 Mar 2017
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Why and How Investors Use ESG Information: Evidence from a Global Survey

      by Amir Amel-Zadeh and George Serafeim

      Survey data from more than 400 senior investment professionals provides insights into why and how investors use environmental, social, and governance (ESG) information as well as the challenges in using this information. This study also documents what investors believe will be important ESG styles in the future.

      • 01 Sep 2016
      • Cold Call Podcast

      Behind Apple's Tax Situation, an Unprecedented Financial Policy

      The European Union recently hit Apple with a $14.5 billion tax bill, but that’s hardly the first or worst financial challenge the technology giant has faced. Mihir Desai explains the financial wiring behind the inventors of the iPhone. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 01 Aug 2016
      • Research & Ideas

      Retail Execs Underplay Current Performance to Investors--but Why?

      by Dina Gerdeman

      In quarterly earnings calls with investors and analysts, some retail managers may underplay how their companies are actually performing, according to recent research by Kenneth Froot and colleagues. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 26 Oct 2015
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Applications of Fractional Response Model to the Study of Bounded Dependent Variables in Accounting Research

      by Susanna Gallani, Ranjani Krishnan & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge

      This paper discusses key features of the fractional response mode developed by economists Leslie E. Papke and Jeffrey M. Wooldridge.

      • 08 Oct 2015
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Market Reaction to Mandatory Nonfinancial Disclosure

      by Jyothika Grewal, Edward J. Riedl & George Serafeim

      How does the equity market respond to the adoption of mandatory nonfinancial disclosure? Research by George Serafeim and colleagues.

      • 16 Sep 2015
      • Op-Ed

      The Real Duty of the Board of Directors

      by Robert G. Eccles & Tim Youmans

      Robert G. Eccles and Tim Youmans argue that a board's primary duty is not to the shareholders, but to the corporation itself. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

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