ANTHONY H. CATANACH JR. is an associate professor in the School of Business at Villanova University, as well as the Cary M. Maguire Fellow at the American College Center for Ethics in Financial Services. His professional experience includes five years as an audit manager with KPMG and six years in the financial services industry. Dr. Catanach has received numerous awards for his publication, teaching, and curriculum innovation efforts. He has authored numerous articles on a variety of accounting, finance, and management issues, as well as several business education texts..
Ever since Enron and WorldCom entered the social discourse ten years ago, much has been written and discussed about business ethics, and this of course includes how to teach ethics to accountants. And quite frankly, the plethora of on-line ethics courses makes our skin crawl! And unfortunately, much of this ethics training has been targeted [...]
This year marks the 40th anniversary of Unaccountable Accounting, a tart polemic by Abraham Briloff. In this love-it-or-hate-it text Briloff debunked many accounting myths, pointed out the shortcomings of corporate financial reporting, discussed the fragility of GAAP in the hands of accounting marauders, described the ineptitude or conspiratorial nature of auditing firms, warned investors that [...]
Jan 092012
The Christmas and New Year’s break allows university faculty not only to enjoy family and friends, but also it supplies a moment to do some nontechnical reading. After all, we don’t need that much time to look over our teaching notes. Faculty need something constructive to do during the three or four weeks we have [...]
Dec 122011
If principles-based accounting is superior to rules-based accounting, as professed by so many in the profession, then this proposition ought to apply to other areas as well, including accounting ethics. The profession could set up accounting ethics as a principles-based system or as a rules-based codification, and which direction the profession chooses will speak volumes [...]
Arthur Andersen was not a hapless bystander when Enron’s managers committed their accounting frauds, nor was it a duped auditor, nor an innocent victim of the media. Perhaps it was a scapegoat as all the large firms have engaged in audits of less than stellar quality, but that does not excuse its poor performance at [...]
J. EDWARD KETZ is an associate professor of accounting in the Smeal College of Business at Pennsylvania State University. He has a bachelor’s degree in political science, a master’s degree in accountancy, and a Ph.D., all from Virginia Tech. Professor Ketz has been a member of the Penn State faculty since 1981. He also has taught at the University of Connecticut and the University of Maryland. Professor Ketz has authored and edited 17 books including Hidden Financial Risk (Wiley, 2003) which examines the corporate culture and the institutional setting that engendered recent accounting scandals. Dr. Ketz has been cited in the popular and business press, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Business Week, and USA Today. He also has appeared as an accounting commentator on CNN, National Public Radio, and Bloomberg Radio.