...A Primer on Sarbanes-Oxley This paper is an investigation of violations in finance according to Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) as related to ethics and those influenced by decisions from investment management. I assessed the financial and social business practices of different organizations and identified ethical issues within the businesses that impacted internal and external stakeholders. Research revealed issues and activities that should have been resolved voluntarily prior to SOX’s enactment to meet ethical considerations relative to social and financial performance and the organization’s reputation. Recommendations were made based on studies and scholarly articles implicating the best governance practices organizations should adopt to remain compliant with SOX. What is SOX? SOX was established in 2002 as an act to strengthen corporate governance and restore investor confidence. The most important conditional term was to protect investors by improving the accuracy and reliability of corporate disclosures made pursuant to the securities laws and other purposes (Jennings, 2012, p. 212). Provisions under SOX affected organizations’ processes and changed how financial information was released to the public. The act highlights the importance of information system controls by requiring management and auditors to report on the effectiveness of internal controls over the financial reporting component of the organization’s management information systems (Li, Peters, Richardson & Weidenmier...
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... MGT7019 | Dr. Jennifer Scott | | | Ethics in Business | Case Study: A primer on Sarbanes- Oxley | <Add Learner comments here> ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- Faculty Use Only ------------------------------------------------- <Faculty comments here> ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- <Faculty Name> <Grade Earned> <Writing Score> <Date Graded> Case Study: A primer on Sarbanes-Oxley Leona M. Anderson Dr. Jennifer Scott Northcentral University A Primer on Sarbanes-Oxley Introduction The problem to be investigated is whether Sarbanes-Oxley has helped to improve public trust in the markets and reduce non-ethical practices in business. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) was passed by the 107th Congress on July 30, 2002 (Sarbanes-Oxley, 2002) to provide protection to investors and shareholders as a result of fraudulent activities by some U.S. Corporations such as Enron, Tyco, WorldCom, and Adelphia, as well as other public companies (Jennings, 2012; Scott & Nganje, 2011). SOX introduced major regulatory changes which affect financial practice and corporate governance; and compliance is mandatory for ALL organizations (Guide to Sarbanes-Oxley, 2006). SOX is actually Public Law 107-204 and it is divided into eleven different...
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...exams, term papers, and other projects required by the faculty mentor. The known submission of another person’s work represented as that of the Learner’s without properly citing the source of the work will be considered plagiarism and will result in an unsatisfactory grade for the work submitted or for the entire course, and may result in academic dismissal. | | MGT-7019 | Jo Ann Davis | | | Ethics in Business | Assignment 7 – Case Study: A Primer on Sarbanes-Oxley | | | ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- Faculty Use Only ------------------------------------------------- <Faculty comments here> ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- <Faculty Name> <Grade Earned> <Writing Score> <Date Graded> Case Study: A Primer on Sarbanes-Oxley Tanya M. Johnson MGT 7019: Ethics in Business Northcentral University February 3, 2013 Abstract In the wake of...
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...Whistleblowing LEG 500 Whistleblowing in a Publicly Traded Company Whistleblowing implies the imperative necessity to alert others (company) about immorality issues, including illegal activity, happening inside the organization. For the employee who decides to blow the whistle “usually brings to he/she undesirable consequences.” Some consequences are like threats, loss of employment, and social rejection. (Chiu,R. 2003) Whistleblower Traits Whistleblowers are characterized by strong ethic-moral values. They are perceived as an active person with enough courage to expose the wrongdoing occurring inside their company. They are “perceived as altruistically driven individuals who are steered by their attitudes.” The whistleblower is characterized by being an altruistically motivated person, perfectionist, professionally well educated, self-driven attitudes, conscious invariant behavior, and functional utilitarian. They are competent and professionals. Usually, the whistleblower act in good faith and they think they act for the best of the company. They have access to relevant information from the business that allows them to be aware of unlawful situations. Having this position in the business makes the easy to share information with the superiors or in another scenario to the authorities. A publicly traded company affected by whistleblowing is Rabanxy Inc. (NSE: Ranbaxy) Ranbaxy is an Indian Multinational pharmaceutical company that was producing generics drug...
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...A Primer on Sarbanes-Oxley The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was declared a law in 2002 (Orin, 2008). The primary purpose of this new law was to convey meaning to restoring faith in corporate America’s financial endeavors (Orin, 2008). The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was meant to aid and protect investors, who suffered extreme losses because of corporations having poor financial performances, which was the case before the law was enacted (Orin, 2008). Distinctively, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was meant to concentrate on accounting fraudulence by holding corporations accountable for disclosing accurate and reliable financial records. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was also meant to ensure corporate executive leadership acted ethically throughout daily business (Orin, 2008). Assess the Effectiveness of SOX Legislations Key Ethical Components of the SOX To efficiently and effectively implement the Sarbanes-Oxley Act corporations need to broaden their views and focus on the greater purpose of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Beasley and Hermanson (2009) believe to accomplish this corporate leadership need to focus on the following: • Value the purpose of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. • Comprehend the effect of fraudulence behavior. • Concentrate on ethical attitudes pertaining to rationalizing fraudulence behavior. • Making the Sarbanes Oxley Act the foundation to compliance to improve governance and control. • Investigate and implement enterprise risk management (para 5). Value...
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...Assignment 1 – Whistleblowing and Sarbanes-Oxley Tialia Booth LEG 500 – Law, Ethics, & Corporate Governance Strayer University Professor Lateefah A. Muhammad July 20, 2015 Whistleblowing and Sarbanes-Oxley Peter Buxtun. Linda Almonte. John Kopchinski. Edward Snowden. Everett Stern. J. Kirk McGill. The commonality in each of the individuals listed is that they have been identified as a whistleblower. This paper will review the key characteristics of a whistleblower, examine an example of whistleblowing from recent history, provide an opinion on whether or not such whistleblowing was justified by the individual, and finally review the current Sarbanes-Oxley Act to determine to what extent the individual was protected. A whistleblower can be most basically defined as an individual or persons who report and make known unethical and illegal actions taken by their employer. The employer could be a publicly traded or privately held company or a not-for-profit organization. The whistleblower may choose to release their findings and information uncovered within their own company or to outsiders such as the news media, law enforcement officials, or federal regulators. In every case of a whistleblower coming forward there is a shared desire to stop the unethical and possibly illegal behavior or acts being committed and to ensure those who have been affected are identified and hopefully compensated or righted in some way (Halbert, Ingulli, & Frey, 2015). In 2003...
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...Running head: THE SARBANES-OXLEY ACT: A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE 1 The Sarbanes-Oxley Act Matthew Gurniak University of Maryland University College Author Note This paper was prepared for AMBA 630, Section 9046, taught by Professor Wylie. Introduction American investors lost confidence in the American market, as a result of several large companies falsifying financial statements. In response to this matter, Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) in the year of 2002 (Rehbein, 2010, p.90). Though there are many benefits that have come out of SOX, many argue that there are several issues that should be addressed. As a team we will discuss the main advantages and disadvantages of the act, the effect the act has had on CEO’s and CFO’s of publicly held companies, how the act has affected the function of internal controls within organizations, and what changes should be made to act. What Are the Main Advantages and Disadvantages of SOX? The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) has many advantages. There are repeated ethical scandals in business and the majority of the time “ethics and the law run parallel” to each other (Livingstone, 2009, P. 4). The SOX is the first step in holding companies accountable and is a model for accounting practice reform. The SOX controls auditors’ independence and responsibility by fighting business fraud and improving corporate governance. Tsui (2009) stated that “the SOX increases personal liabilities of senior management...
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...A Primer on Sarbanes-Oxley By Steven Williams Activity 7 MGT7019-8 NorthCentral University Abstract This paper identifies issues, activities and practices,in financial reporting by public companies that were sanctioned by the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation Act of 2002 (SOX). This act was passed with the intent to restore public confidence and increase transparency in financial reports of publicly held companies, due to the aftermath of the financial scandals that plagued companies such as Enron and Worldcom (Jennings, 2012). The problem to be investigated is the ethical issues that were legislated by SOX, the cost associated with the implementation of the new act on different stakeholders, and new governance practices required of public companies to insure compliance with the new act. Introduction SOX was implemented in 2002 as “an act to protect investors by improving the accuracy and reliability of corporate disclosures made pursuant to the securities laws, and for other purposes” (Jennings, 2012, p.212). This act focused primarily on the independence of auditors who are responsible for auditing public companies, the corporate responsibilities of Chief Executive Officer(CEO) and Chief Financial Officer(CFO), the proper disclosure of financial statements, the conflict of interest between the parties involved, criminal fraud accountability of those involved, and the imposition of the penalty in case of violations. The Public Accounting oversight Board (PAOB) was...
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...Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 Bus 102 – Dr. Sean D. Jasso John Chi 12/9/2010 Table of Contents - Table of Contents Introduction History of the Act Implementation Impact on Business Policy Analysis Conclusion Appendix References pg. 1 pg. 2 pg. 3 pg. 4 pg. 7 pg. 9 pg. 11 pg. 12 pg. 14 1|P a ge Introduction Corporate Scandals are business scandals that initiate from the misstatement of financial reporting by executives of public companies who are the ones trusted to run these organizations. Corporate scandals are derived in many ways and these misrepresentations happen through overstating revenues and understating expenses, overstating assets and understating liabilities, and use of fictious and fraudulent transactions that gives a misleading impression of the company’s financial status. There were a few corporate scandals that took place in the last decade that forever changed investment policies in corporate America. The companies that are most commonly known for these scandals are Enron, Adelphia, and WorldCom. These companies had hidden their true financial status from creditors and shareholders until they were unable to meet the financial commitments which forced them reveal massive losses instead of the implicated earnings. The ultimate result cost investors billions of dollars when the share prices of the affected companies had collapsed. According to Hopwood, Leiner & Young (2002), pg. 130, “the public outcry from the corporate scandals were enormous...
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...Assignment #1 – How Personal Can Ethics Get? Leadership and Organizational Behavior - BUS 5200030016 Margo R Coley Strayer University Dr. Maggie Sizer July 18, 2010 Introduction The term “ethics”, as it is applied to business and organizations, is difficult to precisely define. The International Business Ethics Institute defines business ethics as “a form of applied ethics” that “aims at inculcating a sense within a company’s employee population of how to conduct business responsibly” (Business ethics primer, 2008). How Do Personal Differences and Preference Impact Organizational Ethics? Personal ethics act as the foundation for your moral compass; the internal guide that tells you what’s right and wrong. They drive your actions and, to a certain extent, your emotions, on a daily basis. (Scivicque, 2007). Personal ethics are also developed by our feelings. When we do something that is against our moral code, we feel bad, guilty or ashamed. Likewise, when we do something that fits into our ethical idea of “right” we feel good, proud or happy. This causes a sort of immediate feedback for creating our moral standards and making ethical decisions. (Rhoden, 2008) It is commonly understood that there are ethics and then there are workplace or organizational ethics. Often we don’t stop to realize that there is no difference between personal ethics and ethics in the workplace; ethics are the same whether at work or in personal life. After all, ethics are about making...
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...LUEGO DE ENRON: BENEFICIOS Y RETOS ANTE LA LEY SABARNES-OXLEY DE 2002 Abstracto Haciendo un recuento de la historia de Enron, desde grandes e importantes de la historia de los la fundación de la empresa, sus “innovadoras” Estados Unidos. La empresa originalmente se prácticas contundente dedicaba a la administración de gasoductos crecimiento del valor de sus acciones, hasta varios dentro de los Estados Unidos, aunque luego contables, su éxito, el sucesos que comenzaron a degradar su imagen, veremos cómo no hubo más lugar dónde esconder el expandió sus operaciones para desarrollar, engaño y casi todo salió a la luz pública (un suicidio construir y operar los gasoductos y plantas de y la destrucción de documentos de auditoría energía, en muchos países de todo el mundo, impidieron que se conocieran muchos detalles). convirtiéndose rápidamente en una empresa Daremos una mirada a la carta que Sherron Watkins de renombre internacional. envió advirtiendo de prácticas inapropiadas en la administración de la empresa, la influencia de Enron El primer paso fue diseñar una en la alta esfera política de los Estados Unidos, entre estrategia de negocio innovadora para otros eventos que predijeron la estrepitosa caída de Enron en 2001 y que fue el detonante para la creación de la Legislación Sarbanes-Oxley de 2002. Además, obtener los mejores beneficios posibles sin tener en cuenta la ética o la moral...
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...According to McShane and Von Glinow, “organization structure refers to the division of labor as well as patterns of coordination, communication, work flow, and formal power that direct organization activities” (2003, p. 446). The purposes of this memorandum are to identify and describe the formal organizational structure of the Smith & Falmouth (S & F) company. The S & F is a tele-shopping and mail order network that has operation in the United States and Canada. The memorandum also compares S & F’s structure with other organizational structures, analyze the effectiveness of the S & F organization’s informal culture with the formal structure. The memorandum also assesses the informal culture of the S & F’s company, determines its impacts on the formal structure, and discusses the role of power and politics within the organizational culture. In addition, the memorandum will demonstrate the power and politics within the S & F culture and recommend the most effective leadership style to Irene Seagrave, chief executive officer of the S & F. In terms of labor and coordination, the formal structure of S & F was coordinated through informal communication under a formal hierarchy that included sharing information on the mutual task between the three managers and the chief executive operation. According to McShane and Von Glinow (2004), the Hierarchy assigns legitimate power to individuals for directing the work flow. In terms of elements of organizational structure, S & F was a flat...
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...Enron Corporation: El Gran Fraude Financiero En 1985 nació Enron Corporation de la fusión de Houston Natural Gas Company e InterNorth. Enron Corporation pasó de ser una empresa común de gas en Texas, a participar en gran parte del mercado energético mundial y a ser considerada la séptima empresa de Estados Unidos según la lista de Fortune 500. Incluso las acciones de Enron en ese entonces se valoraban en más de 90 dólares. El fraude de Enron salió a la luz cuando en octubre del 2001 informaron sobre los resultados del primer trimestre de ese año. Algo en el informe no cuadraba y eso fue lo que levantó sospechas y dio inicio a una investigación. Es díficil determinar cómo empezó este gran fraude y son innumerables la cantidad de acciones antiéticas que relizó Enron. Primero que nada, creó compañías ficticias con el fin de generar mayores ingresos, crear y aumentar valor para los accionistas y por supuesto, aumentar la rentabilidad de la empresa. Los ejecutivos de la empresa recibieron opciones sobre acciones, y solicitaron la indemnización de gastos para así evitar pagar impuestos. Por otro lado, las personas que notaban las irregularidades en la contabilidad de la compañía eran despedidas para poder continuar con la farsa “tranquilamente”. La compañía realmente estaba en la quiebra y logró ocultarlo manipulando la información con ayuda de la firma auditora Arthur Andersen, encargada de la contabilidad de Enron, que luego admitió haber destruido documentos y como si fuera...
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...bepress Legal Series Year Paper Enron and the Special Purpose Entity. Use or Abuse? The Real Problem - The Real Focus Neal F. Newman Texas Wesleyan Law School This working paper is hosted by The Berkeley Electronic Press (bepress) and may not be commercially reproduced without the permission of the copyright holder. http://law.bepress.com/expresso/eps/1165 Copyright c 2006 by the author. Enron and the Special Purpose Entity. Use or Abuse? The Real Problem - The Real Focus Abstract In December of 2001, Enron Corporation filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code; one of the largest corporate bankruptcy filings at that time. When the investigations commenced and the tangled Enron web was unraveled, it was discovered that Enron had perpetrated a very sophisticated form of accounting fraud through its repeated use of what are referred to as Special Purpose Entities (“SPEs”). In their most basic forms, SPEs are business entities formed for the purpose of conducting a well specified activity such as construction of a gas pipeline, or collection of a specific group of accounts receivable. However, because of their complex nature, SPEs can be used to manipulate a corporation’s financial results, which was the primary use for which Enron employed the SPE structure. As a result, the investment and financial community has cast a dark cloud over the special purpose entity, depicting the SPE as an inherently evil structure whose only purpose is to...
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...Draft Assignment 2: Ethics and Corporate Responsibility in the Workplace and the World Stakeholders:- The Stakeholders in this case are:- 1. PharmaCARE 2. PAC 3. The People and Government of Colberia 4. Executives of the PharmaCARE 5. PharmaCARE Clients Worldwide 6. FDA 7. OSHA 8. MR Alen Jones 9. CompCARE and Employees 10. Doctors and Hospitals who were dealing with CompCARE 11. Donna, Tom and Ayesha 12. Wellco The Ethics of PharmaCARE in Colberia:- Now days it has become a critical measure for companies (small and Large) to abide by ethical standards, which are designed to protect the well-being of society they are operating in and marketing with. In doing so companies, especially big corporations like PharmaCARE, are expected to have certain type of ethical standards as well as embrace and implement (CSR) corporate social responsibility policies and strategies in every aspect of their operation and beyond. According to David Vogel the definition of CSR is ‘practices that improve the workplace and benefit society in ways that go above and beyond what companies are legally required to do’ (Alexander (Sascha) K. Nussbaum). In light of this we can observe that the operational activities of PharmaCARE in Colberia were in fact completely contrary to the company’s claim of caring about the world. In spite of exploiting the people and the indigenous healers of the country, the fact that they did not have a tiny bit of initiative...
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