I’d like to introduce Professor Kelly Richmond Pope. She will be contributing to this blog on an ongoing basis and I am thrilled. Professor Pope is a Ph.D. and CPA and Assistant Professor in the School of Accountancy and MIS at DePaul University here in Chicago. She received her Ph.D. from Virginia Tech University in 2001. She teaches […]
Many companies are using Web 2.0 tools to aid in corporate communications and public relations. How many companies are using these tools for investor relations? In order to determine this, I looked at the top 100 Fortune companies’ investor relations Web sites.
A guest post from Karen Chodzicki
Recently, a friend of this blog was promoted to a supervisory position and asked us for recommendations for books to read to guide in these new responsibilities. There are many books out there that focus on developing leadership skills.
A reader asked for some recomendations for students and professionals at the beginning of their accounting /auditing career. These books are good at any point in your career.
I had the pleasure of participating in the Maryland Association of CPAs Business Expo this past week. In addition to moderating a panel on regulatory reform and participating in another on accountants use of socal media tools, I gave a presentation:
Managing Your Career: Turning Uncertainty Into Opportunity
I thought it would be interesting to look at how the Big 4 firms address their own internal ethics and compliance issues in the BRIC countries, in particular. I was especially interested in the availability of ethics/independence hot lines in these countries. Given the experience of Satyam and PwC in India, you have to wonder whether anyone on the PwC audit team suspected any inappropriate activities by the client management, the PwC partners now accused of allowing the alleged improprieties to occur, or both. If anyone had seen or heard any wrongdoing, could they have reported ethics, independence, or risk and quality concerns to anyone locally or internationally without risking retaliation or worse?
The contributions to the impromptu haiku contest, inspired by gogo Inflight and their offer of a free hour of inflight wifi to SOBCon attendees, have been AMAZING! I am now sure there are some hidden poets, fiction writers, and essayists, as well as a few more bloggers, amongst my readers. Glad to have inspired you to think in a different structural form, for a few moments at least.
My friend and former colleague, Richard Chambers, is now the President of the Institute of Internal Auditors. Richard has a lifetime of internal audit experience and is my go-to-guy when it comes to the fine points of the internal auditing career. He’s now writing a blog for the IIA and his latest post touches on the challenges of being a government auditor.
“…with an alarming frequency, it seems that some of our colleagues who audit local government operations are waging an uphill battle against formidable political forces.
I asked myself, “fm, what would you do if one of them asked you to step up and offer solutions?” If anyone asked me to help find a way to get through this period,
-Without reductions in force,
-Without betraying the trust of otherwise very loyal employees,
-Without losing the confidence of key clients,
-Without endangering quality and integrity in the work they’ve been enfranchised to do under the exclusive licensing of various federal governments and public/private bodies such as exchanges,
-Without risking new lawsuits for negligence and complicity on fraud and malfeasance, and
-Without completely abdicating responsibility to their true client – the shareholders and investors in the public companies they audit,
I would start at the top.
No, I’m not talking about the BDO International case or the Deloitte Parmalat case, although those two are game changers too. In those cases, the audit firms may lose their ability to hide behind the “global network” model as a way to avoid liabilty for what happens to one of their satellites…What I’m talking about is a case that has been lightly publicized, except in its own world and in the local California environment. That case is Campbell v. PricewaterhouseCoopers. …the pattern and precedent, both legal and moral, that will be set will have a ripple effect throughout the accounting industry – all the firms, everywhere in the US.
Becoming a CPA enhances your earning potential and upward mobility over the course of your entire career. Can you afford not to become a CPA?
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