Accounting & Management
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- July 3, 2025
- Article
A New Framework for Reducing Healthcare Disparities
By: Susanna Gallani, Mary Lynch Witkowski, Lidia M. V. R. Moura and Katie SonnefeldtDespite decades of initiatives to address healthcare inequities in the U.S., disparities across race, gender, geography, and income remain stubbornly persistent. This article introduces the Strategic Fingerprint Framework for Health Equity, a practical, principle-based tool designed to help healthcare organizations tailor equity initiatives to the specific needs of their communities and capabilities. Developed through in-depth study of Boston Medical Center’s Health Equity Accelerator, the framework emphasizes four foundational principles—hyper-locality, community co-creation, condition-specificity, and internal consistency—and two operational pillars: data-driven decision-making and prioritization. Using BMC’s experience as an illustrative case, the article outlines six strategic choices healthcare leaders must make to translate intention into impact. Early results from BMC include eliminating racial disparities in urgent cesarean section response times and cutting diabetes-related inequities in half—demonstrating the framework’s promise as a guide to targeted, measurable, and sustainable equity improvement.
- July 3, 2025
- Article
A New Framework for Reducing Healthcare Disparities
By: Susanna Gallani, Mary Lynch Witkowski, Lidia M. V. R. Moura and Katie SonnefeldtDespite decades of initiatives to address healthcare inequities in the U.S., disparities across race, gender, geography, and income remain stubbornly persistent. This article introduces the Strategic Fingerprint Framework for Health Equity, a practical, principle-based tool designed to help healthcare organizations tailor equity initiatives to the...
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- July 2025
- Article
Digital Lending and Financial Well-Being: Through the Lens of Mobile Phone Data
By: AJ Chen, Omri Even-Tov, Jung Koo Kang and Regina Wittenberg-MoermanTo mitigate information asymmetry about borrowers in developing economies, digital lenders use machine-learning algorithms and nontraditional data from borrowers’ mobile devices. Consequently, digital lenders have managed to expand access to credit for millions of individuals lacking a prior credit history. However, short-term, high-interest digital loans have raised concerns about predatory lending practices. To examine how digital credit influences borrowers’ financial well-being, we use proprietary data from a digital lender in Kenya that randomly approves loan applications that would have otherwise been rejected based on the borrower’s credit profile. We find that access to digital credit improves borrowers’ financial well-being across various mobile-phone-based well-being measures, including monetary transactions and balances, mobility, and social networks as well as borrowers’ self-reported income and employment. We further show that this positive impact is more pronounced when borrowers have limited access to credit, take loans for business purposes, and obtain more credit.
- July 2025
- Article
Digital Lending and Financial Well-Being: Through the Lens of Mobile Phone Data
By: AJ Chen, Omri Even-Tov, Jung Koo Kang and Regina Wittenberg-MoermanTo mitigate information asymmetry about borrowers in developing economies, digital lenders use machine-learning algorithms and nontraditional data from borrowers’ mobile devices. Consequently, digital lenders have managed to expand access to credit for millions of individuals lacking a prior credit history. However, short-term, high-interest...
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- June 2025
- Case
Redefining the Edge: Jahez’s Strategic Pivot in Saudi Arabia’s Food Delivery Battle
By: Krishna G. Palepu and Ahmed DahawyJahez made its mark in Saudi Arabia’s food delivery market by serving customers willing to pay more for reliable, high-quality service—a segment largely overlooked by other platforms. As the company grew, it expanded into the mass market and developed a network of subsidiaries to support its core focus on food delivery. The most prominent of these was Logi, its in-house logistics arm, which gave Jahez greater control over delivery speed and service quality compared to competitors that relied on third-party drivers. By late 2024, however, the competitive landscape was shifting. Rivals were closing the quality gap, and deep-pocketed international player Meituan had entered the Saudi market. In response, Jahez leaned more heavily on Logi to stay ahead. But at the same time, Logi had begun providing deliveries for external courier companies—creating new opportunities for the logistics arm, but also raising difficult questions about Jahez’s priorities and long-term direction. Should Logi remain focused on supporting the company’s core food delivery operations, or be allowed to grow by serving external clients? And more broadly, should Jahez continue to define itself around food delivery—or was it time to evolve into a multi-vertical platform, leveraging the broader ecosystem it had built?
- June 2025
- Case
Redefining the Edge: Jahez’s Strategic Pivot in Saudi Arabia’s Food Delivery Battle
By: Krishna G. Palepu and Ahmed DahawyJahez made its mark in Saudi Arabia’s food delivery market by serving customers willing to pay more for reliable, high-quality service—a segment largely overlooked by other platforms. As the company grew, it expanded into the mass market and developed a network of subsidiaries to support its core focus on food delivery. The most prominent of these...
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
Silicon Valley Bank: Gone in 36 Hours
- July 2025 |
- Teaching Note |
- Faculty Research
A New Framework for Reducing Healthcare Disparities
- July 3, 2025 |
- Article |
- Harvard Business Review Digital Articles
Digital Lending and Financial Well-Being: Through the Lens of Mobile Phone Data
- July 2025 |
- Article |
- Accounting Review
Redefining the Edge: Jahez’s Strategic Pivot in Saudi Arabia’s Food Delivery Battle
- June 2025 |
- Case |
- Faculty Research
Transforming a Titan (C)
- June 2025 |
- Supplement |
- Faculty Research
Transforming a Titan (B)
- June 2025 |
- Supplement |
- Faculty Research
Transforming a Titan (A)
- June 2025 |
- Case |
- Faculty Research
Fair Value Accounting for Debt Securities and Loan Assets
- June 2025 |
- Technical Note |
- Faculty Research
Harvard Business Publishing
Seminars & Conferences
There are no upcoming events.