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On Creative Accounting: Two Creativity Myths

Harvard Business Review

"Creative accounting" is really bad. Say that in a roomful of managers, and you get nervous laughter. The only thing that can save us is an accounting breakthrough." Wall Street's " financial innovations " of recent years seem to have given creativity a bad name. So, by definition, creativity is morally neutral.

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We Can’t Study Short-Termism Without the Right Metrics

Harvard Business Review

However, firms can efficiently increase margin growth without much revenue growth by managing to squeeze out their fixed costs to service the same level of output. Many compensation plans reward managers for higher earnings and higher stock prices, as opposed to rewarding them for adding long-term value to the firm.

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