This book is essential for students and practitioners in accounting, international business, finance, and economics. In a straightforward and readable style, it focuses on the changing accounting and auditing standards in national and global economies in the post-Enron/Arthur Andersen era. The authors clarify the reasons behind and consequences of the accounting profession's failure in auditing and self-regulation, as most firms placed consulting profits ahead of public audit duties. They show how Sarbanes-Oxley solutions, while not perfect, are major contributors to the profession's redemption, and have enabled it to rise to new heights of service and revenue. The book offers a detailed examination of accounting practitioners' past challenges and future prospects. It provides a realistic analysis of specific issues facing accounting and auditing firms today, including the growing problem of independence; the need for one set of international accounting standards and one set of auditing standards; adjustments facing the global financial system; and the impact of the Internet and communication systems on accounting firms.

This book is essential for students and practitioners in accounting, international business, finance, and economics. In a straightforward and readable style, it focuses on the changing accounting and auditing standards in national and global economies in the post-Enron/Arthur Andersen era. The authors clarify the reasons behind and consequences of the accounting profession's failure in auditing and self-regulation, as most firms placed consulting profits ahead of public audit duties. They show how Sarbanes-Oxley solutions, while not perfect, are major contributors to the profession's redemption, and have enabled it to rise to new heights of service and revenue. The book offers a detailed examination of accounting practitioners' past challenges and future prospects. It provides a realistic analysis of specific issues facing accounting and auditing firms today, including the growing problem of independence; the need for one set of international accounting standards and one set of auditing standards; adjustments facing the global financial system; and the impact of the Internet and communication systems on accounting firms.

Introduction to Business covers the scope and sequence of most introductory business courses. The book provides detailed explanations in the context of core themes such as customer satisfaction, ethics, entrepreneurship, global business, and managing change. Introduction to Business includes hundreds of current business examples from a range of industries and geographic locations, which feature a variety of individuals. The outcome is a balanced approach to the theory and application of business concepts, with attention to the knowledge and skills necessary for student success in this course and beyond. This is an adaptation of Introduction to Business by OpenStax. You can access the textbook as pdf for free at openstax.org. Minor editorial changes were made to ensure a better ebook reading experience. Textbook content produced by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The authors bring their unique insights to a close-range observation of Andersen's culture that has continued for more than 15 years. They first review Andersen's unique history and role; its traditionally careful attention to "enculturing" new employees via mentoring, social networking, rewards and punishments; and its social structure characterized by personal, "familial" relationships. Next, they narrate two decades of change at Andersen, showing how the firm's tightly integrated cultural system gradually began to devolve, rapidly coming apart in the wake of the 1990s new economy revolution. The book concludes with an insightful discussion of the systemic cultural and business factors that placed Andersen and many other organizations at risk, along with a realistic assessment of the proposed reforms.

"The Sabanes-Oxley Act has been one of the most significant developments in corporate and securities regulation since the New Deal. This collection of important articles would be a valuable resource for anyone seeking to understand Sabanes-Oxley's far-reaching effects on corporate governance in the United States and elsewhere." —Jesse Fried, coauthor of Pay Without Performance: The Unfulfilled Promise of Executive Compensation and Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley "The editors have assembled the latest cutting-edge research on international corporate governance by respected academics in this field. In this handbook, the editors deal with all aspects of the significant legislative changes to corporate governance regulation. It introduces the reader to the new rules that will certainly improve the reliability and the accuracy of disclosures made by corporations. The book comes at the right moment with the recent scandals such as Enron, which will educate all readers especially shareholders of corporate stock." —Komlan Sedzro, Professor of Finance, University of Quebec at Montreal "Today, corporate governance is a topic at the center of public policy debate in most industrialized countries. The range of concerns; the variety of approaches; and their tendency to converge in some areas or diverge in others (not always in the right directions) are emphatically demonstrated by these essays. There is material here of enormous interest for scholars of comparative law and economic regulation. And significantly, the presentation of essays from legal, financial, and regulatory viewpoints demonstrates the growing practical as well as theoretical utility of interdisciplinary work in this area. Professors Ali and Gregoriou are to be warmly congratulated for their skill and initiative in assembling an important publication, as well as for their own contributions to interdisciplinary scholarship." —R. P. Austin, BA, LLM (Sydney), DPhil (Oxon), Supreme Court of New South Wales "This very international collection emphasizes the economic line of descent, while including legal and socio-legal contributions. It fills a very important gap in our empirical knowledge of corporate governance. It is accessible and comprehensive and will greatly assist readers from all relevant disciplines, who are trying to discern the shape of corporate governance as a mature field." —Dimity Kingsford Smith, Professor of Law, University of New South Wales

This book examines the transgressions of the credit rating agencies before, during and after the recent financial crisis. It proposes that by restricting the agencies’ ability to offer ancillary services there stands the opportunity to limit, in an achievable and practical manner, the potentially negative effect that the Big Three rating agencies – Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s and Fitch – may have upon the financial sector and society moreover. The book contains an extensive and in-depth discussion about how the agencies ascended to their current position, why they were able to do so and ultimately their behaviour once their position was cemented. This work offers a new framework for the reader to follow, suggesting that investors, issuers and the state have a ‘desired’ version of the agencies in their thinking and operate upon that basis when, in fact, those imagined agencies do not exist, as demonstrated by the ‘actual’ conduct of the agencies. The book primarily aims to uncover this divergence and reveal the ‘real’ credit rating agencies, and then on that basis propose a real and potentially achievable reform to limit the negative effects that result from poor performance in this Industry. It addresses the topics with regard to financial regulation and the financial crisis, and will be of interest to legal scholars interested in the intersection between business and he law as well as researchers, academics, policymakers, industry and professional associations and students in the fields of corporate law, banking and finance law, financial regulation, corporate governance and corporate finance.

Why U.S. corporate governance regulation has lost its way, and what must be done to improve it Modern history persuasively demonstrates the inexorable link that binds comprehensive regulation to the global economy. This important book, rather than simply recount a litany of corporate governance failures, persuasively explains why, despite policymakers' best intentions, regulation has failed in the modern era. An objective study intended for a diverse readership, Corporate Governance Regulation unveils the underlying, root causes of regulatory failure. The result: A compelling and original analysis, broadly suited for a global audience of all backgrounds. Written by published, subject-area experts, the authors carefully delineate how U.S. corporate governance regulation, beginning with Sarbanes Oxley, lacks an adequate rational basis, as may be attributed to a non-existent policy dialogue The witnessed result: A conspicuous lack of regulatory efficacy, enormous costs, coupled with paltry benefits The focus is upon reigniting a stalled, non-productive policy dialogue, by eschewing stale, overly-polemicized arguments, as needed to develop a common ground Drawing from an eclectic, analytic framework, governance experts Nicholas Vakkur and Zulma Herrera offer both the professional and global citizen alike a multi-dimensional understanding of issues critical to global economic health. Nuanced and persuasively argued, Corporate Governance Regulation represents a formidable catalyst in the elusive, ongoing quest for global economic stability.