Can We Trust Financial Reports of Chinese Companies? It's déjà vu all over again as the famous philosopher Yogi Berra once said. The Securities and Exchange Commission in the U.S. has sued yet another China-based company and two of its executives, charging them with lying to investors about the value... Read more →
What Does it Take to be a Good Leader? I recently read a book From Values to Action: The Four Principles of Values-Based Leadership by a professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. He believes leadership must be rooted in who you are and what matters most to you.... Read more →
Enron Redux You remember the Enron failure. It ushered in a sustained period of financial statement fraud where earnings restatements totaled in the billions. It has been estimated that financial statement fraud caused a decrease in market value of stock of approximately 500 to 1,000 times the amount of the... Read more →
Abramoff is Out of Prison Just in Time to Witness the Buying of the Presidency Last week it was reported that Jack Abramoff, the former lobbyist, businessman and movie producer who was indicted on charges of fraud, conspiracy and tax evasion after an extensive corruption investigation, will give a talk... Read more →
Ethical Standards, Values, and Moral Judgment the Keys to Ethical Behavior Most people think they know what ethics is. However, from my experience that knowledge is limited to statements such: Knowing the difference between right and wrong. Ethics is much deeper because it is difficult to judge what may be... Read more →
Wasteful GSA Spending and Contract Procurement Policies to be investigated by Congress What in the world is the General Services Administration thinking? After all the fraud, misuse of funds and downright unethical actions that caused the financial meltdown in 2008, along comes the GSA with its own brand of greed... Read more →
The Signs are there: Market Stability at Risk You may have heard that Groupon restated its “earnings” to reflect a larger fourth-quarter loss after failing to set aside enough money to account for customer refunds. Groupon’s stock has been falling since it revealed last Friday that it was revising its... Read more →
Lack of Respect is the Root of Cause of Incivility in Society The word ‘civility’ shares an etymological root with the idea of ‘citizenship’ on the one hand, and of ‘civilization’ on the other. The first sense of civility, reflecting the link to the concept of citizenship, is found in... Read more →