...of someone or their organization and want to do something against it in order to see that this behavior, or the wrong actions taken, are corrected – for them it is a matter of ethical responsibility, and they need to do it to feel comfortable in their skin. An advantage of this behavior is that the Whistleblowers feel a deep satisfaction making a substantial contribution toward the welfare of society. Of course, personal gratification isn’t the only benefit of becoming a whistleblower. For example, in qui tam cases under the federal False Claims Act, Congress decided to give whistleblowers (or “relators”) a share of the recoveries that result from their lawsuits to encourage people to step forward and take the risks involved in reporting fraud (Qui Tam Team). An overall advantage of whistleblowing is that the welfare of customers and employees can be protected. Blowing the whistle can take a long time and therefore can be very stressful. Families, friends and especially colleagues might not understand the decision and lose patience and trust very quickly. Without someone supporting you, the time until the case has finally settled, could be a hard one. Whistle-blowers have federal protection against recrimination. Regardless, it’s very likely that you will lose your standing in your chosen profession by the insidious practice of blackballing (T.A. White, 2010). Financial loss could occur, if the Whistleblower’s reputation is damaged by the case. The ethical behavior of Douglas...
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...1) Analyze the ethical dilemma faced by Antonio. In this case study Antonio work in the Empress Luxury Lines and he faced dilemma regarding the ethic in the work place. Kevin Pfeiffer works as a computer technician and his roles to estimated damage due to recent thunderstorm. Antonio requested a computer systems upgrade ever since he assumed his post two years ago. Phil Bailey, who was Kevin Pfeiffer’s supervisor, orders Kevin to reports the estimate of damage. Kevin reports about the $15,000 worth of damage so his supervisor and the chief financial officer both were unhappy with it. After that Phil Bradley called Kevin Pfeiffer to go back to work and haul all the underground wire and the systems prior to the arrival of the insurance adjustor. If Kevin perform this task than it would be damage of more than $500,000 which is beyond the actual estimate damage of $15,00.Kevin refused to perform the task and Matt called up to perform this task for them. Antonio faced dilemma such as what to do in this situation. He has mainly two choices such as a) to take a lawful action or b) compromise with person ethics. Antonio Melendez not feels any confident regarding bypass the chief financial officer Roger. Antonio Melendez not sure about his decision because he knows well very that there are no mechanisms was in place to report wrong-doing internally, and no protections were available for whistle-blowers. He had knowledge about the Empress Luxury Lines successfully defraud the insurance...
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...may ask? A whistleblower is a person who informs on a person or an organization engaged in an illicit activity. So what are the pro to being a whistleblower, better yet what are the cons as well? Some of the pros are that the person who is a whistleblower is a courageous individual who recognize a wrong and are willing to take risks in order to see that the wrongs are corrected. “Personal gratification isn’t the only benefit of becoming a whistleblower though. The amount that the relator can receive most often ranges from 15% to 30% depending on whether the government intervenes in the case or not. The whistle blower will also receive 10 to 30 percent of the monies the SEC and other government authorities collect based on the whistleblower’s information if more than $1 million is collected.” (Pros and Cons of Becoming a Whistleblower) This is what most people that are whistleblowers go for. Most people don’t care about what is the right thing to do in a case but instead what the pay out may be at the end of the tunnel. The people like this are the people that don’t deserve to have a job and need to just become hermits because no one wants any one like that working for them or around them. Lets talk cons now. “Filing a qui tam or whistleblower suit is not for the light-hearted. In addition to the stress and anxiety associated with reporting a fraud, qui tam cases are filed under court seal. This prohibits the whistleblower from disclosing the existence of the lawsuit to anyone...
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...Mandatory Audit Rotation Introduction In 2002, Enron became the largest case of fraud in history. It caused it investors to lose sixty billion dollars, two million two hundred thousand in pension plans, and five thousand six hundred jobs (Enron Sentences Will Be Tied to Investor Losses). This all could have been avoided if public companies were forced to changed independent auditors every five years. Throughout this paper, I will be talking about mandatory audit rotation and why I think it is a great idea. First I will talk about the Sarbanes Oxley act and what it requires when it comes to partner rotation. It is important to know what the current rules and requirements are before we discuss how they should be changed. The next item I will discuss is auditor independence and how it is affected by audit rotation. After I talk about the current rules and independence, I will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of mandatory audit rotation. Sarbanes-Oxley Act In 2002, President George W. Bush signed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 to protect investors from the possibility of fraudulent activities by corporations. This act was aimed to improve financial statements of corporations and prevent fraud. In section 203 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, it gives the requirements of partner rotation. “The new rules provide that an accounting firm will not be independent if either the lead audit partner or the concurring partner performs audit services for more than five consecutive...
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...where the auditors lower how many invoices they pull. Working until it is done is where the auditors do everything they should do but only report they either come under budget or at the budget hours. Not competing audit procedures is where the auditors just does not compete the procedures of GAAS. The pros of eaten time are that the group of auditors will come under or at the 35 hours. Another pro of eaten time are that the group of auditors could get some time off that they wanted so that they could spend time with their families. Also another pro of eaten time are that the group of auditors could possibly get promoted to senior auditor. Another pro of eaten time is that the group of auditors could gain popularity and respect from their fellow coworkers. The cons of eating time are that the group of auditors could possibly miss some invoices that had fraud being committed or mistakes that were made. Another con of eaten time is that group of auditors are not following GAAS, so if Northwest Steel goes under they could possibly be sued. Also another con of eaten time is that the group of auditors could face getting fired or just not getting the promotion they all seek. Another con of eaten time is that the group of auditors would be setting a high standard and expectation for new auditors. They firm may continue to lower they budget hours and make it even harder for the...
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...It’s a Numbers game. It’s a Numbers Game How it feels to work with a company’s money? Not all Accountants do the same thing even if they have the Degree. Not many people chose to become accountants because of the tedious paperwork or the math that is involved. This field grows as the money people make or lose grows. As an accountant, people look at others money. Money is what helps people survive and flourish. Business all over the world need accountants to prepare finance documents. Even if one becomes an accountant there are still many fields on could go into. As account you are not stuck with helping people with their taxes. There are some pros and cons in becoming an accountant. If one choses to become an accountant one could make good money. As you graduate college you will have to choose some type of path. Like I said there are many jobs one could do once you get that pesky degree in accounting. As Hallinston (2013) states in his article one could become a CPA. A CPA is a Certified Public Accountant and they do the broadest of jobs. Some things of those include bookkeeping, managing your client’s finances, preparing taxes and auditing financial statements. With that your clients could be individuals, companies, corporations, governments and non-profit organizations. (Hallinston 2013). Another job you could chose is Management accountant. Now with this you would be recording and analyzing the financial information of a company (Hallinston 2013). As this type of accountant...
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...longer is the focus solely on pre-hire background screening. Increasingly, organizations are engaging in continual screening, to catch anomalous activity that could be a precursor to actionable behavior. And they also are embracing policies and procedures to handle damaging data when it comes to light about current or acquired employees. How fraud occurs within organizations can be understood by examining the elements that comprise such actions. At an individual level, SAS No. 99 (Consideration of Fraud in a Financial Statement Audit) issued by the Auditing Standards Board indicates that the occupational fraud triangle comprises three conditions that are generally present when a fraud occurs. These conditions include an incentive or pressure that provides a reason to commit fraud (personal financial problems or unrealistic performance goals), an opportunity for fraud to be perpetrated (weaknesses in the internal controls), and an attitude that enables the individual to rationalize the fraud. At the organizational level, leadership, organizational culture and management control systems form the three points of the organizational fraud triangle (Free, Stein &Macintosh). Create and describe two strategies for addressing the situation at hand. Individualism and Utilitarian An individualistic approach to ethical decision-making lies in stark contrast to two other approaches, care ethics and utilitarianism. Under this strategy people have more of an independent state of mind...
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...WorldCom Accounting Fraud The purpose of this paper is to discuss the aspects of the WorldCom accounting scandal and the effects that this scandal had on the accounting world as we know it. We will discuss the corporate culture at WorldCom and how it contributed to the accounting fraud, how the CEO’s desire to be the #1 stock on Wall Street contributed to the fraud, pressures on accountants to book and release accruals to meet expectations, pros and cons of whistleblowing, and the creditability of the accounting profession when corporate fraud is revealed. First, we must look at WorldCom as a business standpoint. The driving factor behind this fraud was the business strategy of WorldCom's CEO, Bernie Ebbers. In the 1990s, Ebbers was clearly focused on achieving impressive growth through acquisitions. How was he going to pay for this acquisition binge? He paid for the acquisitions by using the stock of WorldCom. To accomplish this buying spree, the stock had to continually increase in value. "... WorldCom pursued scores of increasingly large acquisitions. The strategy reached its apex with WorldCom's acquisition in 1998 of MCI Communications, a company with more than two-and-a-half times the revenue of WorldCom. Ebbers' acquisition strategy largely came to an end by early 2000 when WorldCom was forced to abandon a proposed merger with Sprint (NYSE: S) because of antitrust objections ..." (Federal Bankruptcy Report, 2002) The fraud was accomplished in...
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...10/24/2010 Online Social Networks As technology is improving rapidly nowadays, there is a wide variety of ways for people to communicate with each other. Communication is not limited to phone calls and face-to-face conversations. People can be in contact by text messages, online messengers and online chat room. The invention of online social networks such as Facebook, Myspace and Twitter is particularly attracting people to join them to communicate with other people. An online social network is an online service, platform, or site that focuses on building social networks among people, who share interests and activities. An online social network essentially consists of a representation of each user, often a profile, the social links of the user, and a variety of additional services. Most online social networks are web based and provide means for users to interact over the Internet, such as e-mail and instant messaging. An online social network is sometimes considered as a social network service. In a broader sense, online social network usually means an individual-centered service whereas online community services are group-centered. Social networking sites allow users to share ideas, activities, events, and interests within their individual networks. (Latest News and Information on Social Networking) The online social networks are very useful and convenient for communications among people as users can get contact through e-mail and instant messages. There are also...
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...needed to operate at full potential. Choosing to us biometrics you can rest assure that your security is to knotch because with biometrics you get protection agains fraud, fakes and even mistaken identitys. There has been zero breaches in the biomertics security in the hundreds of installations of over many years. Biometrics als o allows users to add a duress finger or signature that when enter will automaticaly contact the local authorities. To gain access to the system the user my place there finger on the sensor until instructed to remove it. If they are usi ng the signature biometrics security system then they have t o sign on the line and wait for verification. Finger fraud protection delivers percise, prorietary finger print recognition information that does not allow the use of fake fingers or fingers with distortion or obstructions. The finger scanner identifys several distinctive areas in t he finger that are not likely to change given general day t o day operations. By identifing somany markers if there ever was a time where someone might have had an issue with one of the fingers the system not only uses the other marked areas but you also up load more then on finger in t o the data base and this allow the user more flexability without compermising the integrity of the informaiton and or software. Pros to finger print security: very accurate, when it comes down to tracking the information and who aproved or denied something the system...
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...HEALTH CARE: SHOW ME THE MONEY By defining health-care fraud, observers should be aware that hard-earned money is wasted annually. Consequently, more precautions should be enforced to safeguard citizens’ tax dollars. Simply put, health-care fraud is the submission of false claims by individuals acting with disregard to the truth (Lovitky, 1997). Individuals, empowered to be health care providers, can be guilty of committing health care fraud, as well as major corporations (Sparrow, 1996). According to former Attorney General of the United States, Janet Reno, states health-care fraud ranks second of the top priorities of the Department of Justice, just behind narcotics interdiction (Lovitky, 1997). Health-care fraud typically involves violations by way of: overutilization; up coding; billing for services not provided; failing to provide necessary services; and filing false cost reports (Lovitky, 1997). Fundamentally, overutilization is defined as providing medical services not needed or required. In the process of overutilization, fraud takes place when more services are provided than what the situation calls for, or when medical services are never performed and still billed to the insurance company (Lovitky, 1997). Up coding, according to Lovitky (1997), involves Current Procedure Terminology (CPT). The CPT code accurately describes medical, surgical, and diagnostic services and it is designed to make medical services and procedures consistent among physicians, coders...
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...online marketing. 2. eBay adapts to the culture of the country but retains its core elements of online business model. 3. eBay first expanded to Germany by buying an established firm. Other countries where eBay also expanded are Great briatain, Australia, Italy, Netherlands and Spain. ALTERNATIVE COURSES OF ACTIONS 1. Profile your customers and personalize the website according to the country it serves. Pro: Profiling can help you get data of your current customer and their behavior. It can also help you to have a more focus product offerings Con: Requires additional costing and research 2. Offer various modes of payments such as payment over the counter (banks, convenience stores), debit card, cash on delivery Pro: Offering various modes of payments can increase number of customers as other people are afraid of paying online via credit card. Some people think that they might get fraud. Con: 3. Create a user friendly workspace with event notification (i.e. email confirmation to all transactions by customers) Pro: Helps customers to have an easy online shopping. Event notification gives...
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...Discussion: Unlike large organizations, small organizations have been less active in integrating information technologies into their business operations. For example, some of the larger airliners use online information technologies to allow passengers to make reservation, buy a ticket, reserve a seat, check in, and even print their boarding passes online before they get to the airport. * Using the airlines example mentioned above, propose several possible IT solutions and how they would benefit a smaller airline to become more successful or attract more clients. * Tell us if the availability of information technology services has influenced your decision to travel on a particular airline. What airline was it? Response: When thinking about IT concepts that might benefit smaller airlines, a few ideas come to mind. Enterprise collaborative systems, this would allow better communication with employees which would in turn, increase production. When a customer is in need of assistance and the employee is unable to provide a response, instead of trying to contact one person at a time they could broadcast the issue to several employees which would provide multiple angles of aid. Also if a manager needs to relay a message to several employees for example weather delays he could easily accomplish this using an enterprise collaborative system. MIS (management information systems) which provides data to managers to help them make decisions would also benefit smaller airlines. It...
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...the weekend because it is an important engagement and he wants them to deliver. This causes him to miss time with his wife and also stress about what he can do to put his timing in half. One alternative that is available to Brent in regards to the audit payables is he can change the audit plan and only pull 20 invoices opposed to the chosen 30. The pro to this is they may be able to come in on or under budget and the con is they could miss something, and get in serious trouble for not following procedure. If they do this they would not be following the Statement on Auditing Standards (SAS) 99. Consideration of Fraud in a Financial Statement Audit requires auditors to obtain “reasonable” assurance that material fraud is not present. The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) standard 1210.A2 requires auditors to possess “sufficient knowledge” to identify indicators of fraud. (Zikmund, 2008) If they do not follow this procedure, they could end up being sued, losing their job, and not being able to work for another company. Another alternative is they can work more hours than the allotted time but report only 35 hours. The pro to this is they will be able to report on...
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...Combining Online Marketing with Traditional Marketing Marketing—the action or business of promoting and selling products or services, including market research and advertising—is a powerful tool for attracting customers and promoting a business. (Chapman/Businessballs) There are many types of marketing strategies and mediums through which different companies implement the practice of marketing. This paper will shed a light on traditional and online marketing, highlighting the very concepts along with the pros and cons of each type of marketing. The history of marketing is divided into two phases; the development of marketing theory, and the development of marketing practice. The history of marketing theory deals with the evolution of different...
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