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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 113 Results →
    • 07 Feb 2023
    • Research & Ideas

    Supervisor of Sandwiches? More Companies Inflate Titles to Avoid Extra Pay

    by Scott Van Voorhis

    What does an assistant manager of bingo actually manage? Increasingly, companies are falsely classifying hourly workers as managers to avoid paying an estimated $4 billion a year in overtime, says research by Lauren Cohen.

    • 13 Jan 2023
    • Research & Ideas

    Are Companies Actually Greener—or Are They All Talk?

    by Rachel Layne

    More companies than ever use ESG reports to showcase their social consciousness. But are these disclosures meaningful or just marketing? Research by Ethan Rouen delves into the murky world of voluntary reporting and offers advice for investors.

    • 24 Feb 2022
    • Op-Ed

    Want to Prevent the Next Hospital Bed Crisis? Enlist the SEC

    by Regina Herzlinger and Richard Boxer

    After two years of COVID-19, many hospitals still haven't figured out how to manage the overwhelming wave of patients that flood ICUs during each surge. Regina Herzlinger and Richard Boxer offer a novel solution. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

    • 28 Feb 2021
    • Working Paper Summaries

    Connecting Expected Stock Returns to Accounting Valuation Multiples: A Primer

    by Akash Chattopadhyay, Matthew R. Lyle, and Charles C.Y. Wang

    This paper introduces a framework to investors and researchers interested in accounting-based valuation. The framework connects expected stock returns to accounting valuation anchors. It can be generalized to evaluate an enterprise's expected returns, and can be adapted to correct for the use of stale accounting data.

    • 28 Feb 2021
    • Working Paper Summaries

    Measuring Employment Impact: Applications and Cases

    by Katie Panella and George Serafeim

    Employment impact-weighted accounting statements quantify the positive and negative effects of firm practices for employees and the broader labor community. This analysis of companies in different sectors shows how these statements are beneficial both at an aggregate and more specific level.

    • 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; 0 Comments.

    • 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; 0 Comments.

    • 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; 0 Comments.

    • 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; 0 Comments.

    • 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; 0 Comments.

    • 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.

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