American Airlines was amongst the first airlines to reward frequent travelers with free tickets. How should an airline address the accounting issues raised by such "invisible" revenue?
Fall 2008
Professor Harris' research and practical experience has covered most areas of the use of accounting information for valuation, investment and management decisions, with a particular focus on global aspects. He originally joined the Columbia Business School faculty in 1983, and was the Jerome A. Chazen Professor of International Business, Director of the Chazen Institute of International Business and Chair of the Accounting Department, prior to joining Morgan Stanley as a Managing Director and Head of the Global Valuation and Accounting Team in 2000. He rejoined the faculty of Columbia Business School in July 2008 and was appointed as The Arthur J. Samberg Professor of Professional Practice. He has taught the core courses in financial and managerial accounting, and electives in corporate financial reporting and international financial statement analysis. He created a new elective course in Spring 2009 titled Fundamental Analysis for Investment & Management Decisions: A Practical Guide. He was the recipient of the Margaret Chandler Award for Commitment to Excellence in teaching EMBA class of 1998 and 2001, the Chazen Institute Prize for Innovation in Teaching, 1996, and the Singhvi Prize for Excellence in Teaching, 1985. He is co-Director of Columbia's Center for Excellence in Accounting and Security Analysis. He has published widely on valuation and accounting issues, in both academic and practitioner journals. He has made presentations at over 200 conferences, institutes and universities around the world.
Through September 2008, Professor Harris was a Managing Director and Vice Chairman at Morgan Stanley, working on special projects for Firm Management in all business areas. He became a Senior Advisor to Morgan Stanley in October 2008. In his time in Equity Research he was the primary author of the Apples-to-Apples research series focusing on global sector valuations and earnings quality issues, and led the development of Morgan Stanley's ModelWare project. He wrote extensively on earnings quality, company-specific investment ideas and global pension and retiree benefit issues and was voted to the Institutional Investor All American Team during his time in research. He has also worked with corporate and investor clients on disclosure and valuation issues, and capital raising situations. Working with senior management, he was responsible for developing strategic solutions, and enhancing the management information systems of the firm. He has served on the Standards Advisory Council to the International Accounting Standards Board (until November 2008), the Users' Advisory Council to the Financial Accounting Standards Board (current) and was a member of the International Capital Markets Advisory Committee at the New York Stock Exchange until its dissolution. Professor Harris has provided advice on international accounting, controllership, valuation and investor relations issues to many large, international corporations.
Professor Ziv was on the faculty of Yale School of Organization and Management, on the faculty of Columbia Business School and on the faculty of the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya (IDC) (where he also founded and headed the executive education unit) before rejoining Columbia Business School as a Vice Dean and a Professor of Accounting. Professor Ziv also serves on the editorial board of the Review of Accounting Studies since 1997. Professor Ziv teaches Financial Accounting and Managerial Accounting in MBA, Executive MBA, various Executive Education programs, and in Doctoral programs. He taught in Executive Development programs for, among others, Goldman Sachs, Paine Webber, Philip Morris, and Lafarge. His research deals with the effects of accounting regimes and alternatives on economic environments, and is important to the understanding of accounting institutions and phenomena. Specifically, he deals with the role of accounting information in organizational design, financial disclosure, performance evaluation, auditing, product quality, and information transmission among strategic players.