The Hollow Science

Robert S. Kaplan

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Article | Harvard Business Review | May 2011

The Hollow Science

by Robert S. Kaplan

Abstract

The financial meltdown made clear that the executives of many major financial institutions were operating with inadequate or distorted information about the values and risks of their firms' assets. It's fair to say that business scholars bear some responsibility for that. Most of them are neither studying nor teaching emerging best practices in asset valuation and risk management. They need to begin exploring the interior of leading-edge companies to provide detailed, qualitative case studies.

Keywords: Accounting; Financial Crisis; Financial Management; Information; Knowledge Acquisition; Risk Management; Practice;

Format: Print

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Citation:

Kaplan, Robert S. "The Hollow Science." Harvard Business Review 89, no. 5 (May 2011).

About the Author

Robert S. Kaplan

Senior Fellow, Marvin Bower Professor of Leadership Development, Emeritus

Accounting and Management

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Case | HBS Case Collection | November 2018

Swissgrid: Enterprise Risk Management in a Digital Age

Robert S. Kaplan and Anette Mikes

Kurt Meyer, chief risk officer of Swissgrid, the Swiss national electricity transmission system operator, reflects on the risk management system he installed after the deregulation and liberalization of the European energy market. With 41 connections to other European networks, a failure in Swissgrid’s network could interrupt the supply of electricity in Switzerland and much of Europe. Meyer describes the periodic interactive risk workshops conducted at each business unit to identify, assess, and mitigate risks. Executive Risk Workshops of the CEO and the company’s leadership team discuss the business units’ risk profiles and risks that cut across the units, such as safety, weather, and regulatory changes. New and emerging risks are discussed at Extraordinary Risk Workshops. Meyer recently deployed an app on employees’ smartphones for them to easily report anomalies or concerns. Reports from the app are embedded in a new real-time crisis management platform used by several Swiss companies, federal authorities, and the Swiss Army. Despite a full array of risk management tools and processes, Meyer remains concerned about risks yet to be identified.

Keywords: enterprise risk management; energy transmission; Risk and Uncertainty; Risk Management; Energy; Energy Industry; Utilities Industry; Switzerland;

Citation:
Kaplan, Robert S., and Anette Mikes. "Swissgrid: Enterprise Risk Management in a Digital Age." Harvard Business School Case 119-045, November 2018. View Details

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Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2018

Reverse the Curse of the Top-5

Robert S. Kaplan

The past 40 years has seen a large increase in the number of articles submitted to journals ranked in the top-5 of their discipline. This increase is the rational response, by faculty, to the overweighting of publications in these journals by university promotions and tenure committees. The ranking factors for academic journals, however, arose for a completely different purpose, to guide the journal acquisition decisions by budget-constrained university librarians. Using journal impact factors to infer the quality of an faculty members’ publications incurs a high incidence of both Type 1 errors, when we conclude incorrectly that a paper published in a top-5 journal is a high-impact paper, and Type 2 errors, when we conclude that papers (and books) not published in top-5 journals have low impact. In addition, a third type of error gets introduced as faculty pursue the research they perceive is favored by editors of top-5 journals, at the potential expense of more innovative and relevant research, perceived to be unpublishable in a top-tier journal. Accounting scholarship, in particular, has underinvested in research about innovative practices or the emerging accounting issues faced by contemporary organizations (Kaplan, 2011), likely because such research is viewed as unpublishable in top-5 journals. This gap persists despite recent scholarship that has documented how important, fundamental ideas can emerge from “use-inspired” research (see Pasteur’s Quadrant (Stokes, 1997)). The paper concludes by suggesting reforms to overcome the dysfunctional fixation on publication in top-5 journals.

Keywords: Information Publishing; Journals and Magazines; Power and Influence; Research;

Citation:
Kaplan, Robert S. "Reverse the Curse of the Top-5." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 19-052, October 2018. View Details

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Background Note | HBS Case Collection | October 2016 (Revised October 2018)

Cost Variance Analysis

Robert S. Kaplan and Susanna Gallani

This note was written to provide students with fundamental concepts and methods for the analysis of cost variances. It focuses on the decomposition of cost variances into price, quantity, and mix variance components, an approach that allows students to identify the root causes of differences between expected and actual costs.

Keywords: Cost Accounting;

Citation:
Kaplan, Robert S., and Susanna Gallani. "Cost Variance Analysis." Harvard Business School Background Note 117-006, October 2016. (Revised October 2018.) View Details

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The Hollow Science

Abstract

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