Preview

Causes of Accounting Scandals

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
498 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Causes of Accounting Scandals
Causes of Accounting Scandals:

The accounting entities and accountants of the world have defined several standards and ethical guidelines that need to be and must be followed by the accountants so that things are not misrepresented and no wrong information is provided to the investors. The accounting information generated by any company is generally used by external entities and stakeholders as well and hence it is crucial to maintain and define some standards and practices that serve the purpose and are in the best of interest of all the stakeholders of any organization. However, despite of the development and establishment of such specific standards and regulations, there are several fraudulent activities that take place and there are several accounting scandals that come into the picture from time to time.

There are several factors that lead to such accounting scandals despite of the presence of the ethical guidelines and standards. The scandals are shown to occur because of the unethical behavior o f the employees and one major factor that may lead to the unethical behavior of the employees is the corporate culture developed and used in an organization. Every company adopts and works on a specific type of culture and the culture should always be such that is facilitates the overall learning and development of the employees. But at times, due to some gaps in the expectations and the culture actually defined, the employees start adopting negative and fraudulent measures, thus leading to scandals.

Miscommunication can also be a major reason for the observed scandal in several cases. It is possible that certain guidelines or practices are mis-communicated to the people. At times, it happens to be that the person responsible for giving the information misses out or omits some information all together. And hence, the accounting scandals tend to occur not because of the deliberate effort of some employee or a bunch of employees but mainly because they were

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    In the later part of 1990s, there was an epidemic of accounting scandals which arose with the disclosure of financials transgressions by trusted corporate executives. The misdeeds involved misusing or misdirecting funds, understating expenses, overstating the value of corporate assets or underreporting the existence of liabilities, and overstating of revenues.…

    • 2313 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    The paper will analyze the corporate ethical breaches in recent times, assess whether or not you believe that the current business and regulatory environment is more conducive to ethical behavior. Ethics behavioral aspect of accounting is a special area of accounting that is developed to address such aspect of human information processing behavior, judgment quality, accounting problems created by users and providers of accounting information as well as their decision making skills. Secondly, paper will describe the organization, the accounting ethical breach and the impact to the organization related to ethical breach. Thirdly, this paper will determine how the organizational ethical issue was detected and how management failed to create an ethical environment. In some cases, some company pledged its own stock to ensure that partnerships would be able to borrow money. And when Enron stock started plummeting, the whole thing fell apart. Fourthly, this paper will analyze the accounts impacted and or accounting guidelines violated and the resulting impact to the business operation. They operated as the masterminds behind the system to defraud investors. The banks, by offering fake, illegal and not approved by regulators deals,…

    • 2414 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    The extent and expanse of the finance and accounting branches have been expanding at a considerable step which has also put load on this ground field. Companies and businesses interface their financial rank by producing few outlines to the exterior world so as to retain the interest of employees, shareholders, investors, customers, etc. This statistics is shared in the outline of financial declarations, annual reports, etc which makes it easier on the decision making procedure as well. Besides, showing misleading and untrustworthy reports to the clientele may dare the likeness of the firm which may tremble the interest of the outer parties inside the company. Few of the businesses which have demonstrated the interpreted financial statistics are WorldCom and Enron have drove to disasters, as a result of which investors, shareholders and others have to cause enormous quantity of losses, when these businesses proclaim bankruptcy, years after a healthy financial reports. The principal point of such type of financial announcement is to make it easier when it comes tho decision making process in the field of investment, credit, etc. The environment in which a business functions has an extreme impact on the accounting of that particular business. Countries possess all different past histories, cultures, values, political and economical structures, and they are also in diverse phases of economic development, these are the elements that highly influence the development as well as the operation of the financial accounting operations of the country. With these dissimilarities the financial accounting qualities that are being embraced by different countries differ significantly. There are so many different legal, ethical and technical matter that influence the financial announce as well as accounting. There have been few legal, ethical and technological responsibilities of this reporting of business, that are as follow:…

    • 1574 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Corporate Scandals also known as Accounting Scandals are business scandals that originate from the misstatement of financial reporting by the executives of public companies who are trusted to run these organizations. These misrepresentations happen through overstating revenues, understating expenses, Overstating assets or understating liabilities, use of fictitious and fraudulent transactions and direct falsification of financial statements to give a misleading impression of the companies' financial status. These misrepresentations are sometimes done with the cooperation of officials in other organizations or affiliates.…

    • 3268 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    There are certain circumstances that can lead people to perform unethical accounting practices. If a person is dealing with financial strains in his/her personal life, has the ability and knowledge, it is possible to manipulate financial information of a corporation, this could lead to temptation. Mere greed is another motivator in unethical behavior. In any case, a person, or persons, convinces themselves that what they are doing is okay and they deserve it.…

    • 425 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Kermis G.F. and Kermis M.D. stresses that “Accountants’ failure to reflect ethically on the dilemmas they encounter in their work may lead them to make wrong decisions” (Senaratne, 2013). For this reason, ethics guides accountants and other makers of the corporation’s financial reports to include findings and data based on relevant sources. Top managers directed by ethical values develop effective leadership skills as well (Duggar, 2011). In this case, employees respect, trust and believe in them. Thus, it will lead to accountable financial statements that the corporation can use to make better decisions for the sake of the business in the distant future. These financial statements can be beneficial to other professional and to some practicing accountants as well.…

    • 414 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    This paper is about information that will address financial reporting practices and ethics. It will address four financial management functions, summaries that accept accounting principles by generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP).It will also give an example from an article that has reflected ethical standards of conduct and financial reporting.…

    • 996 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The special responsibility of self-governance is admonished for the members of a group. The second article reminds the professionals the main reason of the accounting professional in states that the accountants are only responsible for serving the interests of the public and that is their main priority. The article further clarifies that public interests refer to the interests of the investors, governments, credit grantors, employees, business and financial community and the clients. Furthermore, this also includes all those who rely on the services of the financial accountants, and these accountants are obligated to rely on integrity and objectivity to perform their duties and to main orderly functioning of commerce. The accountants are obligated to be dedicated towards professional excellence as the public relies on accountants. The accountants should also act with integrity as highlighted by Article III. All work done by the accountant should be without deception and completely honest. The obligation of client confidentiality is extremely important, and it should never be compromised by the accountant. Deontologists’ ethical practice is applied here that highlights that betraying confidentiality is wrong no matter how much happiness can be maximized by breaching it (Armstrong et al. 2003). All those acting with integrity will keep…

    • 1629 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Greed, the desire to have or obtain more than others an any cost. Greed has caused many otherwise honest people to break the law or to act in unethical ways. Accounting can deal with large amounts of monies and complex meathods for tracking. Some people can not resist the opprotunity to remove or hide somes of monies through their accounting practices. When persons are involved in marginal practices it can lead to a disconnect in their thinking that could lead to unethical practices. A persons ignorance as to what is or is not ethical can lead to practices and behaviors that can be unethical or illegal (Xaxx, 2013).…

    • 347 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    When Accounting Out Analysis

    • 2929 Words
    • 12 Pages

    Obviously, the path that those auditors took was the wrong path. Auditors need to start to catch the problem at an early stage. This will prevent problems from escalating into the size of the Enron scam. Both sections of accounting, financial and managerial are to blame for the collapse of Enron. The financial statement called the balance sheet did not really balance out. The auditors forced it to balance out, allowing the scam to seem right and succeed. But the balance sheet was based on false information given by management. The false information caused the huge mistake on the balance sheet, leading to the lie of profitability. The executives and CEOs agreed to this scam to benefit themselves. They can only hold their spot for three to four years. So they hoped to trick the stockholders, giving them a big profit. Then they would sell all their shares at the high price and leave the company. "The changes in executive compensation in the 1990s, designed to align executive interests with those of shareholders, provided an irresistible incentive to managers to inflate earnings, even if this was not sustainable, as they could bail out before the inevitable reality confronted the shareholders" (Clarke). This is the basis of the Enron scam. Even though the accountants failed, they still caught the mistake and helped save it from becoming a bigger disaster than it actually was. The Securities and Exchange Commissions caught the mistake. Most people in the business world also blame the success of the scam on lack of education of the accountants. "The Department of Labor estimates that only about 15 percent of the 5.5 million people in finance and accounting are actually CPAs involved in public accountancy" (Miller). The Enron case is an example of how the accounting field is used in huge corporations. Although it did lead to the biggest…

    • 2929 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Business ethics is an area of ethics that examines ethical rules and principles within a commercial perspective using cases such as: Accounting Irregularities at WorldCom and Arthur Andersen…No More: What Went Wrong? (Business Ethics 4th Ed: Cases 5 & 6 pg.101-109), both clearly present various moral and ethical problems that arise that are real life business scenarios as well as question the impact of certain ‘special’ duties/obligations that apply to particular individuals and employees who choose to engage in these activities in the organization leading to their downfall. The WorldCom case and scandal occurred because accountants as well as former CEO Bernie Ebbers and Scott Sullivan failed to live the virtues of accountancy as well as failed to adhere to the moral principles and ideals of their profession and further analysis reveals the ways in which these irregular accounting practices were carried out along with the consequences and charges laid by investigators such as conspiracy, fraud and many false claims regarding their accounts and profitability. The Arthur Andersen…No More: What Went Wrong? case is another scenario where a series of unethical accounting practices resulted in the firm’s decline and the role they played in the accounting fraud at Enron. The way in which these corrupt practices took place is an obvious indication of the culture of the organization and the moral standings of employees, close relationships which affected both the company and clients such as Enron.…

    • 4546 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    These acts are in violation of the Sarbares Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX). A recent article on the student website is reviewed to identify potential factors leading to unethical practices and behavior. The article analyzed is called “Becoming a More Relational Firm in the Post-Sarbans-Oxley Era”.…

    • 554 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The first reason that push employees commit the fraud is due to the opportunity and motivation which means the more dissatisfied the employee, the more likely he or she was to engage in criminal behavior. The other reason is related to the financial pressures which mean that the great majority committed fraud to meet their obligations. In this case, the opportunity to commit fraud is typically addressed to the ineffective internal control because of the important amount that makes it difficult to the auditors to check for the internal control. Moreover, the staff accountant failed to set up sufficient procedures in order to identify the fraud. Also, there are higher probabilities of fraud if the issue is related to information technology.…

    • 801 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Two examples of unethical practices in accounting are those of the 2002 Enron / Andersen and the WorldCom scandal. Both of these companies were involved in unethical accounting practices. While Enron was accused of a vast number of shady dealings that included concealing debts in order keep them from being reflected on the company’s accounts, WorldCom’s accounting practices were so fraudulent that the company was led into the largest bankruptcy in history.…

    • 371 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    (This article, “Model meat company's spiral of financial deceit,” is also available on Cecil. The Newztext database available through the library webpage is a good source on this company).…

    • 570 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays