Inside Arthur Andersen

Inside Arthur Andersen PDF Author: Susan Elaine Squires
Publisher: FT Press
ISBN: 0131408968
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
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.

Inside Arthur Andersen

Inside Arthur Andersen PDF Author: Susan Elaine Squires
Publisher: FT Press
ISBN: 0131408968
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
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.

Final Accounting

Final Accounting PDF Author: Barbara Ley Toffler
Publisher: Currency
ISBN: 0767913833
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
A withering exposé of the unethical practices that triggered the indictment and collapse of the legendary accounting firm. Arthur Andersen's conviction on obstruction of justice charges related to the Enron debacle spelled the abrupt end of the 88-year-old accounting firm. Until recently, the venerable firm had been regarded as the accounting profession's conscience. In Final Accounting, Barbara Ley Toffler, former Andersen partner-in-charge of Andersen's Ethics & Responsible Business Practices consulting services, reveals that the symptoms of Andersen's fatal disease were evident long before Enron. Drawing on her expertise as a social scientist and her experience as an Andersen insider, Toffler chronicles how a culture of arrogance and greed infected her company and led to enormous lapses in judgment among her peers. Final Accounting exposes the slow deterioration of values that led not only to Enron but also to the earlier financial scandals of other Andersen clients, including Sunbeam and Waste Management, and illustrates the practices that paved the way for the accounting fiascos at WorldCom and other major companies. Chronicling the inner workings of Andersen at the height of its success, Toffler reveals "the making of an Android," the peculiar process of employee indoctrination into the Andersen culture; how Androids—both accountants and consultants--lived the mantra "keep the client happy"; and how internal infighting and "billing your brains out" rather than quality work became the all-important goals. Toffler was in a position to know when something was wrong. In her earlier role as ethics consultant, she worked with over 60 major companies and was an internationally renowned expert at spotting and correcting ethical lapses. Toffler traces the roots of Andersen's ethical missteps, and shows the gradual decay of a once-proud culture. Uniquely qualified to discuss the personalities and principles behind one of the greatest shake-ups in United States history, Toffler delivers a chilling report with important ramifications for CEOs and individual investors alike.

Best Practices

Best Practices PDF Author: R Hiebeler, T Kelly, C Ketteman
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1471109267
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
For the past five years, Arthur Andersen has been gathering, sorting, and condensing data from the world-class companies it works with to compile its Global Best Practices Database. Now, for the first time, Arthur Andersen shares its understanding of how more than forty best-practices companies focus on their customers, create growth, reduce cost and increase profits. Managers of any business in any industry can adapt and apply what those companies do best. Unlike other books based merely on limited anecdotal experience, BEST PRACTICES is backed up by 30,000 pages of active, documented data on hundreds of companies worldwide. With information being the most valuable commodity in business this is both comprehensive and cutting edge - it is without peer as an information resource.

And You Thought Accountant's Were Boring

And You Thought Accountant's Were Boring PDF Author: Larry R. Katzen
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781939758187
Category : Regnskabshistorie
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This is a story about the power of the government who destroyed Arthur Andersen, one of the largest accounting firms in the world. The company was later vindicated by a 9-0 supreme court ruling, but it was too late. The careers of 85,000 people were destroyed. Meet one of them: Larry R Katzen, who devoted his life to Arthur Andersen.

Arthur Andersen's Global Lessons in Activity-Based Management

Arthur Andersen's Global Lessons in Activity-Based Management PDF Author: Steve Player
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Penetrating case studies from around the globe. Arthur Andersen's Global Lessons in Activity-Based Management uses a wealth of case studies from around the world to illustrate how ABM is a global tool that works. Drawn from the experiences of fourteen different organizations in seven different countries, these studies illustrate how companies understand the work performed in their organizations and how this understanding can make any company more profitable. Each case study describes the conversion strategy selected by the implementation team, recounts the successes and challenges of the strategy, and explains how problems were avoided or overcome. These case studies, written by actual members of the implementation teams involved, reveal how ABM was used to: * Identify the cost of services and determine customer profitability in a Brazilian bank * Improve profitability through better decision making at a Canadian service-distribution firm * Turn a Portuguese telephone monopoly into a market competitor * Help a French manufacturing firm boost its profitability * Uncover new opportunities for improvement in a U.S. utility * And much more Loaded with important insights, practical tips, and a large portion of hard-won wisdom, this book is a must have for anyone who wants to use activity-based management to build a stronger, more profitable, more effective organization.

Conspiracy of Fools

Conspiracy of Fools PDF Author: Kurt Eichenwald
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0767911806
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 1258

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Book Description
From an award-winning New York Times reporter comes the full, mind-boggling true story of the lies, crimes, and ineptitude behind the Enron scandal that imperiled a presidency, destroyed a marketplace, and changed Washington and Wall Street forever. It was the corporate collapse that appeared to come out of nowhere. In late 2001, the Enron Corporation—a darling of the financial world, a company whose executives were friends of presidents and the powerful—imploded virtually overnight, leaving vast wreckage in its wake and sparking a criminal investigation that would last for years. Kurt Eichenwald transforms the unbelievable story of the Enron scandal into a rip-roaring narrative of epic proportions, taking readers behind every closed door—from the Oval Office to the executive suites, from the highest reaches of the Justice Department to the homes and bedrooms of the top officers. It is a tale of global reach—from Houston to Washington, from Bombay to London, from Munich to Sao Paolo—laying out the unbelievable scenes that twisted together to create this shocking true story. Eichenwald reveals never-disclosed details of a story that features a cast including George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Paul O’Neill, Harvey Pitt, Colin Powell, Gray Davis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Alan Greenspan, Ken Lay, Andy Fastow, Jeff Skilling, Bill Clinton, Rupert Murdoch and Sumner Redstone. With its you-are-there glimpse into the secretive worlds of corporate power, Conspiracy of Fools is an all-true financial and political thriller of cinematic proportions.

The Arthur Andersen Tax Guide and Planner 1989

The Arthur Andersen Tax Guide and Planner 1989 PDF Author:
Publisher: Perigee Trade
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
America's leading professional tax and financial advisers now bring their experience to everyone--in a authoritative new guide to dealing with the complexities of the new tax laws. Full of examples and tips to help explain key tax points in an easy-to-follow way, it is the one tax guide everyone needs to help lower taxes this year.

Power Failure

Power Failure PDF Author: Mimi Swartz
Publisher: Currency
ISBN: 076791368X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 434

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Book Description
“They’re still trying to hide the weenie,” thought Sherron Watkins as she read a newspaper clipping about Enron two weeks before Christmas, 2001. . . It quoted [CFO] Jeff McMahon addressing the company’s creditors and cautioning them against a rash judgment. “Don’t assume that there is a smoking gun.” Sherron knew Enron well enough to know that the company was in extreme spin mode… Power Failure is the electrifying behind-the-scenes story of the collapse of Enron, the high-flying gas and energy company touted as the poster child of the New Economy that, in its hubris, had aspired to be “The World’s Leading Company,” and had briefly been the seventh largest corporation in America. Written by prizewinning journalist Mimi Swartz, and substantially based on the never-before-published revelations of former Enron vice-president Sherron Watkins, as well as hundreds of other interviews, Power Failure shows the human face beyond the greed, arrogance, and raw ambition that fueled the company’s meteoric rise in the late 1990s. At the dawn of the new century, Ken Lay’s and Jeff Skilling's faces graced the covers of business magazines, and Enron’s money oiled the political machinery behind George W. Bush’s election campaign. But as Wall Street analysts sang Enron’s praises, and its stock spiraled dizzyingly into the stratosphere, the company’s leaders were madly scrambling to manufacture illusory profits, hide its ballooning debt, and bully Wall Street into buying its fictional accounting and off-balance-sheet investment vehicles. The story of Enron’s fall is a morality tale writ large, performed on a stage with an unforgettable array of props and side plots, from parking lots overflowing with Boxsters and BMWs to hot-house office affairs and executive tantrums. Among the cast of characters Mimi Swartz and Sherron Watkins observe with shrewd Texas eyes and an insider’s perspective are: CEO Ken Lay, Enron’s “outside face,” who was more interested in playing diplomat and paving the road to a political career than in managing Enron’s high-testosterone, anything-goes culture; Jeff Skilling, the mastermind behind Enron’s mercenary trading culture, who transformed himself from a nerdy executive into the personification of millennial cool; Rebecca Mark, the savvy and seductive head of Enron’s international division, who was Skilling’s sole rival to take over the company; and Andy Fastow, whose childish pranks early in his career gave way to something far more destructive. Desperate to be a player in Enron’s deal-making, trader-oriented culture, Fastow transformed Enron’s finance department into a “profit center,” creating a honeycomb of financial entities to bolster Enron’s “profits,” while diverting tens of millions of dollars into his own pockets An unprecedented chronicle of Enron’s shocking collapse, Power Failure should take its place alongside the classics of previous decades – Barbarians at the Gate and Liar’s Poker – as one of the cautionary tales of our times.

Business Ethics and Corporate Governance

Business Ethics and Corporate Governance PDF Author: Fernando A.C.
Publisher: Pearson Education India
ISBN: 9788131734629
Category : Business ethics
Languages : en
Pages : 560

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Book Description


Inside Arthur Andersen

Inside Arthur Andersen PDF Author: E Squiresm S
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Industrial management
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"Inside Arthur Andersen provides a perceptive analysis of the changes in cultural values that took Andersen from the top of the accounting profession to its doom. The authors do a superb job of analyzing the historical Andersen culture and the varied forces that led to dramatic changes in that culture in recent years. In addition, the authors display great insight into what made Andersen great and the changes that led it to fail, while also raising serious questions about the remaining accounting firms and whether they understand how they must change to survive. In the struggle between public interest and private profit, private profit won out only to cause Andersen to fail."--Arthur R. Wyatt, Retired Partner, Arthur Andersen, former member, FASB, and past Chairman, IASC "This book provides a thought-provoking account of how the firm's culture changed over time. It is balanced and helped me make sense of what happened to our once-great firm."-James Brennan, former Associate Partner, Andersen Consulting "This author team is the best to provide insider insights and credible explanations of what happened at Arthur Andersen and why it happened. The story they tell contains valuable lessons for all companies and leaders and is a must-read for anyone interested in the health and well-being of companies today."-D. Quinn Mills, Harvard Business School, and author of Wheel, Deal, and Steal . "The wave of corporate financial scandals has served to emphasize the critical role of the external auditor in maintaining a market economy. Arthur Andersen had a distinguished history of being the 'gold standard' of the profession. How this highly respected firm lost its bearings is the subject of a superb, serious study by former Andersen employees. Inside Arthur Andersen is and will remain the definitive explanation of the downward spiral to Enron."-Leonard R. Sayles, Professor Emeritus, Graduate School of Business, Columbia University " Inside Arthur Andersen provides a lively excursion through the conflicting goals and values that permeate organizations in general and the public accounting profession in particular. The story of the birth and death of the Arthur Andersen firm is loaded with lessons for us all. This book should appeal especially to readers who want an overview of the dramatic consequences of Andersen's changing values through the years."-Charles T. Horngren, Stanford Graduate School of Business " Inside Arthur Andersen provides an outstanding chro ...