Week 4 discussion

Week#4 Dissusion thread

Write 5 to 6 sentences for each answers, one of my classmates already answers for those question. You can response to my answer if you have any other points related to the questions.

1) In 1999, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) issued Statement of Auditing Standards No. 99 (SAS 99), “Consideration of Fraud in a Financial Statement Audit.” SAS 99 is the cornerstone of the AICPA’s comprehensive anti fraud and corporate responsibility program. Through this program, the AICPA intends to rebuild the confidence of investors in the capital markets and to reestablish audited financial statements as a clear picture in to Corporate America. SAS 99 does not change an auditor’s responsibility for detecting fraud; however, it does provide guidance to improve the auditor’s ability to identify and respond to the risks of fraud.

Class, what caused the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to come into existence, and evaluate the attitudes and behaviors that created the failure of Enron.

Answer: The amount of money that these scandals were costing the shareholders as well as the amount of negativity towards the accounting industry and the government led to the formation of SOX. The chief officers had placed their financial wants over that of the shareholders and employees. They had to know that if that were caught that everybody that had any invested interest in the company would lose big. Every chief officer wants that big payday when their company succeeds, however, in the case of Enron the pushed the legal bounds to far and greed became their main flaw. Everybody will push your financial statements to the border but these officers knew that had crossed that boundary but did not have the ethical conviction to stop. Therefore, they cost shareholders and employees to lose out because of their unethical actions

1) Countrywide mortgage scandal brought up other issues, including that of executive compensation. Should executives receive hefty compensation packages and severance pay when their companies flounder?

Answer: The simple answers is no. However, in some situations the executives are not at fault. Some times the board of directors can make a business decision that the executive might had agree with but was out voted by the board. Thus, the failure could be the result of that decision. However, if the executives had any part of a failure then no they should not be compensated. Off topic but as an example. When a college football program is put on probation and they lose scholarships the school and current players suffer, however, the coach can simple move on to another school. Same as an executive can receive a hefty payout and be financially secure but the employees left in the wake are the ones that sometimes struggle to regain their footing.

Dear Class,

One of the greatest things about online learning is how we can use the world-wide web to increase our learning potential. The amount of information on the internet is exponential! I highly recommend that you learn to tap this information source, but in doing so, I ask that you use good business and educational practices in quoting and citing your sources.

Here are some IMPORTANT rules and considerations to use when using web-research in your thread posts in my class!

· DO include the URL (web address) that you took the information from. (Hit enter after pasting in the URL and it will become a hyperlink to the source for other students.)

· DO include quotation marks or <<>> around quoted (i.e. copied and pasted) material.

· DO introduce the quoted material with YOUR OWN WORDS about why you are providing that quotation.

· DO limit the quoted material to a paragraph or less (a snippet) to entice the reader into following the URL (link) you then provide.

· DO use an 80/20 rule of thumb for posting that is, for every sentence of quoted material, you should give us at least 4 sentences from you. AT LEAST give us a few sentences to orient us to why this quote is appropriately contained in your post. Worst case: use a 50/50 rule but in no event should you simply copy and paste in paragraphs from a website with no orienting material from you. As the % of your words to quoted material decreases, so too will the value of the post decrease.

What will I do if you “copy and paste” from a book or website, in contradiction of the above guidelines?

1. If the problem is simply that you have “too much” copy and paste, but you have included the URL, this will affect the “quality” of your post-and your post will likely be a “low quality” post. Avoid this problem by only providing a “snippet”-i.e. 2-3 sentences of quoted material…and then provide YOUR OWN WORDS about why that is important. INCLUDE the URL!

2. If you do not include a cite to the website or book from which your post information came, OR if you do not use quotation marks or some other method to show that the material was not written by you, then the issue will become one of Academic Integrity and I am required to turn it into the committee, subject to the rules on Academic Integrity in the student handbook.

Please let me know if you have questions about this class policy.