Business Commons^™

Client Size, Auditor Specialization And Fraudulent Financial Reporting, Joseph Carcello, Albert Nagy

Albert Nagy

This study examines the effect that client size has on the relation between industry-specialist auditors and fraudulent financial reporting. Most of the major accounting firms have organized their audit practices along industry lines, reflecting a belief that industry specialization leads to higher quality audits. Furthermore, regulatory bodies and extant research suggests that larger clients have greater bargaining power and are more likely to be able to convince the auditor to acquiesce to aggressive accounting. Also, it may be more difficult for an auditor to possess industry expertise for larger clients who are likely to be more complex and operate in …

Audit Firm Tenure And Fraudulent Financial Reporting, Joseph Carcello, Albert Nagy

Albert Nagy

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (2002) required the U.S. Comptroller General to study the potential effects of requiring mandatory audit firm rotation. The General Accounting Office (GAO) concludes in its recently released study of mandatory audit firm rotation that “mandatory audit firm rotation may not be the most efficient way to strengthen auditor independence” (GAO 2003, Highlights). However, the GAO also suggests that mandatory audit firm rotation could be necessary if the Sarbanes-Oxley Act's requirements do not lead to improved audit quality (GAO 2003, 5).We examine the relation between audit firm tenure and fraudulent financial reporting. Comparing firms cited for fraudulent reporting …

The Fraud Diamond: Considering The Four Elements Of Fraud, David T. Wolfe, Dana R. Hermanson

Faculty and Research Publications

Focuses on the use of the elements of the fraud diamond to prevent and detect accounting fraud. Essential traits for committing fraud; Steps in assessing fraud risk through the use of the fourth element of the diamond; Ways for auditors to prevent potential fraud.

Icarus In The Boardroom, Introduction, David A. Skeel Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

Americans have always loved risk takers. Like the Icarus of ancient Greek lore, however, even the most talented entrepreneurs can overstep their bounds. All too often, the very qualities that make Icaran executives special - self-confidence, visionary insight, and extreme competitiveness - spur them to take misguided and even illegal chances. The Icaran failure of an ordinary entrepreneur isn't headline news. But put Icarus in the corporate boardroom and - as this book vividly demonstrates - the ripple effects can be profound. Ever since the first large-scale corporations emerged in the nineteenth century, their ability to tap huge amounts of …

Pb1750-Considerations For Membership Investment In A Processing Cooperative, The University Of Tennessee Agricultural Extension Service

Marketing, Finances and Value-Added Agriculture

The “Tennessee Processing Cooperative Law”1 provides new opportunities for Tennessee farmers. These include new market opportunities for farm commodities and the opportunity for investment in a value-added processing business. The new law is intended to encourage business formations that will add value to farm commodities and agricultural resources in Tennessee.

A thorough introduction and overview of Tennessee’s processing cooperative law is available in UT Extension PB1748, “Commentary and Overview for the Tennessee Processing Cooperative Law.” Basically, the new law provides for the establishment of a new business structure specifically for businesses that will add value by processing or marketing agricultural …

Pb1748-Commentary And Overview For The Tennessee Processing Cooperative Law, The University Of Tennessee Agricultural Extension Service

Marketing, Finances and Value-Added Agriculture

It has not been that long ago when the options for organizing a business were fairly straightforward. The list began with sole proprietorships and partnerships and then included cooperatives and corporations. This simplified list has become a bit more complex in recent years, and now includes limited liability companies and multiple subclassifications of corporations, partnerships and cooperatives. To complicate matters even more, the precise descriptions of any of these business organizations are often state-specific. That is, the definition and organizational details of a limited liability company or a cooperative in one state are not necessarily the same as in other …

Just Measures: A Methodology For Assessing The Global Value Added Of Corporate Activities, Alexander A. Boni-Saenz, Chih-Hung Chang, Ajan Reginald, Ravi Kacker

All Faculty Scholarship

This article accepts the premise of stakeholder theory, which asserts that corporations, like other human-run entities, have obligations to all parties affected by their actions. As such, corporations should be given suitable credit for projects that add value for these stakeholders, as well as held accountable for any damage done. To provide this credit and accountability, measurement is necessary. The methodology of measurement for corporate social value creation is in its infancy. Models are incomplete, measures are not validated, and methods used to estimate net value accumulated from different domains need improvement. This article builds on one model of global …

The Relationship Between Governance Structure And Risk Management Approaches In Japanese Venture Capital Firms, Toru Yoshikawa, Phillip H. Phan, Jonathan Linton

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper attempts to understand what drives Japanese venture capital (JVC) fund managers to select either active managerial monitoring or portfolio diversification to manage their firms' investment risks [J. Bus. Venturing 4 (1989) 231]. Unlike U.S. venture capitalists that use active managerial monitoring to gain private information in order to maximize returns [J. Finance 50 (1995) 301], JVCs have traditionally used portfolio diversification to attenuate investment risks [Hamada, Y., 2001. Nihon no Bencha Kyapitaru no Genkyo (Current State of Japanese Venture Capital), Nihon Bencha Gakkai VC Seminar, May 7]. We found that performance pay is positively related to active monitoring …

Managing Unmanageable Physicians: Leadership, Stewardship, And Disruptive Behavior, Tim Keogh, William Martin

Publications – Dreihaus College of Business

Physician and health care leaders are seeking guidance and support on how to address disruptive behavior that has an impact on safety, quality, and performance. This article equips leaders with a model and process to prevent and address disruptive behavior.

The Impact Of Corporate Governance On Value Creation In Entrepreneurial Firms, Wee Liang Tan, Teck Meng Tan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The compliance with codes of corporate governance has become the norm for listed firms all over the world. In most countries, entrepreneurial firms do not have to comply with such codes but it has been argued that such codes should also apply to these small medium enterprises (SMEs). Since corporate governance forms the environment for the internal activities of a company and appropriate environmental conditions are crucial for corporate entrepreneurship to flourish in a company, it is apt that these two topics be discussed in relation with each other. Corporate governance mechanisms may dampen value creation in firms if appropriate …

Managing Unmanageable Physicians: Leadership, Stewardship, And Disruptive Behavior, Tim Keogh, William Martin

William Marty Martin

Physician and health care leaders are seeking guidance and support on how to address disruptive behavior that has an impact on safety, quality, and performance. This article equips leaders with a model and process to prevent and address disruptive behavior.

How Corporate Culture Impacts Unethical Distortion Of Financial Numbers, Joseph F. Castellano, Kenneth Y. Rosenzweig, Harper A. Roehm

Accounting Faculty Publications

The recent accounting scandals have highlighted the critical role that investor confidence in the accuracy and lack of distortion of accounting data plays in the health of capital markets and, indeed, the whole economy. The legal and moral culpability of top-level company managers (as well as auditors) is an issue that will be addressed by the nation in the coming months. Whether or not legal sanctions are imposed on managers, it would be well to examine some of the reasons managers may feel compelled to distort accounting numbers as well as engage in other actions that damage the interests of …

Understanding New Hampshire’S Rule 4.2 As Applied To Corporate Litigants: An Explanation And Suggestions For Improvement, Heather Menezes

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

[Excerpt] “Consider this scenario: an attorney represents a client in litigation against a corporation. The attorney gets a call from an employee of that corporation and the employee says, “Everything in your complaint is absolutely correct.” However excited the attorney is to speak with this person, the Rules of Professional Conduct constrain whom the attorney can talk to if a corporation is involved in the pending litigation. In New Hampshire, any attorney can quickly find that Rule 4.2 prohibits contact with a represented party.1 But is this corporate employee a represented party? Even after reading the comment to the rule …

Going Beyond Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance: Five Keys To Creating Value, Mark S. Beasley, Dana R. Hermanson

Faculty and Research Publications

Discusses the factors involved in implementing Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 for U.S. accounting firms. Appreciation of the goal behind the law; Comprehension of the accounting fraud; Aggressiveness in addressing ethical attitudes and rationalization.

Obesity, Educational Attainment, And State Economic Welfare, Martin W. Sivula Ph.D.

MBA Faculty Conference Papers & Journal Articles

For the first time in history, estimates of the overweight people in the world rival estimates of those malnourished. The World Health Organization (WHO, 2002) ranked obesity among the top 10 risks to human health worldwide. In the early 1960s, nearly half of the Americans were overweight and 13% were obese. Today some 64% of U.S. adults are overweight and 30.5% are obese. Even more alarming, twice as many U.S. children are overweight than were twenty years ago, a 66% increase. Non-communicable diseases impose a heavy economic burden on already strained health systems. Health is a key determinant of development …

Ethical Considerations In The Marketing Of E-Health Products, Ashish Chandra, Andrew Sikula Sr., David P. Paul Iii

Management Faculty Research

The internet is now recognised as a growing international phenomenon. All kinds of products and services are being marketed over the internet to consumers throughout the world because country borders no longer restrict conducting business in the international marketplace. Though there are several advantages of online commerce, this form of marketing does raise ethical dilemmas, particularly when it comes to marketing healthcare products and information to consumers internationally. This paper examines some of these potential ethical concerns and provides some strategies for consumers and online pharmaceutical marketers to handle these dilemmas more appropriately.

Social Trust And Economic Governance, Fali Huang

Research Collection School Of Economics

The paper investigates the dynamic relationship between social trust and economic governance using a principal-agent model with stochastic returns. To mitigate the inherent moral hazard problem both intrinsic and extrinsic incentives are useful. The cooperative tendency of an agent measures his intrinsic discipline against shirking, the distribution of which characterizes social trust in society. The economic governance methods include direct monitoring and efficiency wage. The main results are the following. An agent with a higher cooperative tendency needs less monitoring and a lower wage to make effort, which brings higher profit for the principal. But competition among principals for more …

Independent Legal Significance, Good Faith, And The Interpretation Of Venture Capital Contracts, D. Gordon Smith

Faculty Scholarship

Venture capital contracts are inherently incomplete. When interpreting such contracts, courts could deal with the expectations of parties formally by inquiring only about the plain meaning of the contract or qualitatively by enforcing the presumed expectations of the parties, regardless of whether those expectations are expressed in the contract. The Delaware courts have opted for a formal approach. In doing so, they appear to be engaged in an effort to force contracting parties toward completeness. While the duty of good faith appears to respond to the inevitable incompleteness of contracts, the courts largely ignore this duty in preferred stock cases. …

Center For Professional Ethics, Spring 2004, Case Western Reserve University

Center for Professional Ethics

Table of Contents:

• Bonhoefer and King: Legacies and Lessons
• An Extraordinary Man: Case Celebrates Martin Luther King, Jr.
• It's About Ethics: An Interview with Robert P. Lawry
• Current Ethical Controversies in Internal Research: A Talk by Ruth Maklin
• Director's Corner: Civic Duty, Civic Courage by Robert P. Lawry
• News and Notes

A New Player In The Boardroom: The Emergence Of The Independent Directors' Counsel, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr., Edward B. Rock

All Faculty Scholarship

Over the last thirty years, the independent directors have occasionally been represented by independent counsel. Instances include: special litigation committees reviewing derivative suits; independent committees in parent subsidiary mergers and MBOs; and internal investigations of misconduct. We predict that, with the additional legal requirements imposed on independent directors by the Sarbanes Oxley Act and related changes to SEC rules and Stock Exchange listing requirements, the independent directors, especially those on the Audit Committee, increasingly will be represented on a continuing basis by independent legal counsel. Out of this will emerge a new figure in the board room: the Independent Directors' …

Ethics And The 21st Century University, Judith Bailey

Center for the Study of Ethics in Society Papers

Papers presented for the Center of the Study of Ethics in Society Western Michigan University

Looks Aren't Everything: Aren't Managers Concerned With Actually Being Fair, Terri A. Scandura Phd, Cecily D. Cooper

Management Faculty Articles and Papers

The justice literature has unequivocally noted how important it is employees feel they are treated fairly. Accordingly, managers often find themselves in predicaments of injustice which they must resolve. Research on social accounts describes strategies managers can use to make themselves “seem fair,” thus, alleviating their predicament. But in taking an impression management perspective of justice, this literature fails to acknowledge that many managers actually want to “be fair.” Based on the latter assumption, we propose an alternative framework for understanding how managers will address justice-related predicaments.

Rules, Principles, And The Accounting Crisis In The United States, William W. Bratton

All Faculty Scholarship

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the Securities Exchange Commission move too quickly ·when they prod the Financial Accounting Standards Board, the standard setter for US GAAP, to move immediately to a principles-based system. Priorities respecting reform of corporate reporting in the US need to be ordered more carefully. Incentive problems impairing audit performance should be solved first through institutional reform insulating the audit from the negative impact of rent-seeking and solving adverse selection problems otherwise affecting audit practice. So long as auditor independence and management incentives respecting accounting treatments remain suspect. the US reporting system holds out no actor plausibly positioned …

“Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds”: Airline Liability For Checked-In Jewelry, Eloisa Rodriguez-Dod

Faculty Publications

It is expected that when you arrive at an airport you most likely will have to check in a bag or two. What is not expected, however, is that someone would rummage through your baggage and take your belongings. Unfortunately, this happens frequently. A passenger packs her jewelry in her luggage, checks that luggage in, boards her flight, and never sees that jewelry again. Once she discovers the missing jewelry, her options for recovering the loss are quite limited.

This article examines the history and current state of the law regarding airline liability for passengers’ lost belongings on domestic as …

The Utility Of Offshoring: A Rawlsian Critique, Julian Friedland

Julian Friedland

Most prominent arguments favoring the widespread discretionary business practice of sending jobs overseas, known as ‘offshoring,’ attempt to justify the trend by appeal to utilitarian principles. It is argued that when business can be performed more cost-effectively offshore, doing so tends, over the long term, to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number. This claim is supported by evidence that exporting jobs actively promotes economic development overseas while simultaneously increasing the revenue of the exporting country. After showing that offshoring might indeed be justified on utilitarian grounds, I argue that according to Rawlsian social-contract theory, the practice is nevertheless …

Minds That Matter: Seven Degrees Of Moral Standing, Julian Friedland

Julian Friedland

No abstract provided.

Entrepreneurial Activity In Chile - Gem Report 2004, Alfredo Enrione, Ricardo Sanhueza, Alvaro Pezoa, Gerardo Martí, Nicolás Beza

Alfredo Enrione

No abstract provided.

Shaping The Body & Soul Of The Board: The Role Of Institutional Pressures, Alfredo Enrione, Fernando Zerboni

Alfredo Enrione

The world is witnessing a massive and generalized effort to improve the practices within the board of directors. However, there is still little understanding of the processes by which these new practices or models are adopted. Moreover, there is a growing consensus that the most important challenge is improving not only the more structural and visible attributes of the board but the internal dynamics that are much harder to monitor by a third party. This work seeks to bring some light into this discussion by analyzing the role of the environment in the adoption of specific board features. We propose …

All Party Oireachtas Committee On The Constitution Ninth Progress Report, Tom Dunne

Reports

Ireland, like many other countries with high rates of economic growth, is urbanising rapidly. There has been considerable emphasis on planning for this through the National Development Plan, the National Spatial Strategy, development guidelines and other measures. Through these the state intends that a proper planning process will lead growth rather than leaving it to market forces to drive development in what are regarded as undesirable directions. The latter it is feared will lead to unsuitable social, economic or physical outcomes. Unintended results have flowed from the implementation, or flawed implementation of many of these policies and have given rise …

Pari Passu And A Distressed Sovereign's Rational Choices, William W. Bratton

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.