Managing People and Organizations Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Managing People and Organizations - Essay Example He / she help in curriculum development in conjunction with other colleagues, department and curriculum coordinators. He/she conduct research; develop new courses, topics, teaching materials and resources. Apart from the teaching job, teacher will be assigned other duties related to the job. These duties can be assigned to him/her by the school principal or department head. The duties may include representing the college during education or career conventions. He/she is expected to comply with Glenelg School of Abu Dhabi code of ethic as well as those specified by the association of teachers at the national level. The candidate should behave professionally at all times. The desired candidate will be liaising students and administration. He or she should interact and work well with colleagues, parents, students and school management. He/she should respect and treat all students as equal. The teacher should inform the parents of the students’ records .All important parents communications are recorded and submitted to the office. In the course of his duties the teacher is expected to use official language only. A job specification refers to skills, knowledge, abilities, education and experience required in order to perform a certain job. Job specification is derived from job analysis. It describes qualities of the candidate to be hired for a specific job (Jean Phillips, 2009). A teacher should have a minimum of a university degree and should be well versed with management, ethics and behavioral theories and concepts. Since the teacher will be dealing with different kinds of people in school, knowledge of management theories will help him/her in motivating student, building relationships with colleagues as well as time and cost management. Knowledge of behavioral theories will help him/her to understand the behavior of students, colleagues and parents. Ethic theories will guide his/her conduct. Apart from the teaching knowledge

Pathological Processes in the CNS and the Rest of the Body Essay

Pathological Processes in the CNS and the Rest of the Body - Essay Example Abnormal insulin signalling is not only involved at the glucose level but also at numerous degenerative processes. Another common feature of these two diseases is that their prevalence increases as age advances (Abbas, et al., 2009). This paper will review the common inflammatory and pathological processes in the CNS and the rest of the body. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia among older people. It is associated with the loss of cognitive functions like thinking, remembering and reasoning to an extent where it interferes with the patient’s day to day functioning (Russell, et al., 2007). Most patients diagnosed with Alzheimer disease are over 65 years old although the Alzheimer process can start earlier. In 2010, there were 27 million people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. It is projected that by the year 2050, 1 in 85 people globally will be suffering from Alzheimer’s disease (Holscher, 2011). Research has associated the disease with plaques and tangles in the brain. Alzheimer’s disease is characterized by loss of synapses and neurons in the cerebral cortex and some areas of the subcortical regions. This leads to the loss in gross atrophy of the affected parts of the brain (Irwin, 2010). In Alzheimer’s disease, an unknown protein causes amyloid precursor protein to be divided into smaller fragments by enzymes in a process called proteolysis. One of these fragments becomes fibrils of beta-amyloid that form deposits in dense formations referred to as senile plaques. A protein called tau stabilizes microtubules. In Alzheimer’s disease, tau undergoes chemical changes and begins to pair with other threads that create neurofibrillary and disintegrates the neuron transport system (Thompson, et al., 2007). Type 2 diabetes is the most common form of diabetes. Unlike type 1 diabetes, the bodies of type 2 diabetes patients make insulin, but either the body does not use the insulin well or the pancreas does not make enough insulin.  Ã‚  

Enron Scandal: Impact on Accounting

Enron Scandal: Impact on Accounting Accounting for Enron 1. Why is accounting being blamed for the losses sustained by investors as a result of the collapse of Enron? Is this criticism fair and do financial accounting and reporting practices need to be reformed? Accounting has been blamed for the losses sustained by Enron, as it allowed the company to hide details of its dealings from its investors, until the company’s financial situation was so bad that the firm was forced to go bankrupt almost overnight. Enron’s downfall has been characterised as â€Å"excessive interest by management in maintaining stock price or earnings trend through the use of unusually aggressive accounting practices.† (Healy, 2003) As part of this, Enron used â€Å"‘mark-to-market accounting’ for the energy trading business in the mid-1990s and used it on an unprecedented scale for its trading transactions.† (Thomas, 2002) Under mark-to-market accounting practices, companies with outstanding derivative contracts or purchases on their balance sheets when accounts are being prepared must adjust them to â€Å"fair market value† (Thomas, 2002) As a result, predicted long term gains or losses on these contract are applied to the company’s profits immediately, similar to depreciation, or asset write downs. The main difficulty encountered when doing this for long-term futures contracts in energy markets is that â€Å"there are often no quoted prices upon which to base valuations. Companies having these types of derivative instruments are free to develop and use discretionary valuation models based on their own assumptions and methods, as Enron did.† (Healy, 2003) Another accounting technique Enron used to hide significant debts was the use of special purpose entities (SPEs), which Enron took to â€Å"new heights of complexity and sophistication, capitalizing them with not only a variety of hard assets and liabilities, but also extremely complex derivative financial instruments, its own restricted stock, rights to acquire its stock and related liabilities.† (Thomas, 2002) Enron also used these SPEs to hide details of assets which were excessively declining in value, thus avoiding having losses from asset write down and depreciation charges on the company books. This practice was applied to â€Å"certain overseas energy facilities, the broadband operation or stock in companies that had been spun off to the public.† (Thomas, 2002) The accounting treatments around SPEs meant that the losses sustained on these asset write downs would not appear on Enron’s accounts. Enron promised share issues to the investors in the SPEs to co mpensate them for taking these assets on but, as the value of the assets fell even further, Enron found itself unable to meet these commitments from share issues. These creative accounting techniques began to be suspected by investors in October 2001, when Enron several new businesses failed to perform as well as expected. Enron was hoping these new businesses would cover its losses on the SPEs but, in October 2001 the company was forced to announce a major series of write-downs of its own assets, including â€Å"after tax charges of $2.87 million for Azurix, the water business acquired in 1998, $180 million for broadband investments and $544 million for other investments.† (Healy, 2003) These write downs amounted to twenty two percent of the capital spent by Enron on developing its business between 1998 and 2000. In addition, Enron sold Portland General Corp., the electric power plant it had acquired in 1997, for $1.9 billion, at a loss of $1.1 billion over the acquisition price. (Healy, 2003) The losses incurred as a result of this caused investors to question whether Enron’s strategy was feasible in the long tem, and in market s other than derivatives. In summary, whilst the accounting concepts and strategy underlying the gas derivatives trading was a reasonable attempt to produce value for investors, â€Å"extensions of this idea into other markets and international expansion were unsuccessful.† (Healy, 2003) However, whilst the mark to market and SPE accounting techniques used by the company helped hide this fact from investors, the stock markets as a whole were guilty of â€Å"largely ignored red flags associated with Enrons spectacular reported performance† (Thomas, 2002). This aided and, in the eyes of the management at Enron, vindicated the company’s expansion strategy by allowing Enron access to plenty of capital cheaply and easily. As such, accounting cannot be entirely blamed for the losses sustained by investors, as the investors themselves simply assumed that the value Enron appeared to be generating â€Å"would be sustained far into the future, despite little economic basis for such a projection.â €  (Thomas, 2002) As a result, whilst accounting made it easier for Enron to mislead its investors, the facts show that investors themselves were more concerned with Enron’s reported profits and growth, than analysing the roots causes and business model. 2. Does it matter what accounting policies are adopted by a company as long as they are adequately disclosed? A â€Å"very confusing footnote in Enrons 2000 financial statements† (Thomas, 2002) described the transactions in question one, however according to analysts, â€Å"most people would be hard pressed to understand the effects of these disclosures on the financial statements, casting doubt on both the quality of the companys earnings as well as the business purpose of the transaction.† (Thomas, 2002) By early 2001, several market analysts had begun to question the clarity and transparency of Enron’s disclosures. One analyst was quoted as saying, â€Å"The notes just dont make sense, and we read notes for a living.† (Thomas, 2002) Enron publicly denounced and abused these analysts however, because of these actions, investors began to view Enron’s accounting policies, and disclosures, with greater and greater scepticism. Indeed, despite the fact that Enron’s disclosures were adequate in the regulatory framework, they were still not in the spirit of managerial responsibility to shareholders. In another example of inadequate disclosure policies, Satava et al (2003) examined the celebrated Royal Mail Case and the implications of the case for the accounting practice today. Satava’s arguments claimed that the case was â€Å"not about the utilization of secret reserves, but about the non-disclosure of repayments by the Inland Revenue of over provisions for tax, and that defence counsel for the auditor succeeded because of the weak factual case presented by the prosecution.† (Satave et al, 2003) In summary, the duty of accountants to adequately disclose their accounting policies can often conflict with attempts by the same accountants to use these policies to benefit the company. As a result, these conflicts of interest often result in only materially adequate disclosures of substandard accounting policies. 3. To what extent did Enron use off balance-sheet financing in its operations? Were these transactions appropriately treated and adequately disclosed in the financial statements of the company? What consequences did the accounting treatment of these transactions have for Enron and its investors? The main way Enron used off balance sheet financing was in its extensive use of SPEs to give it ready access to finance without having to report any debts it incurred in its accounts. The company contributed assets, and debt secured against those assets, to an SPE in exchange for control of the SPE, and the SPEs then borrowed large amounts of capital which was used to finance Enron, without any debt or assets showing up in Enron’s accounts. Enron also sold assets to the SPEs at above market value, and thus reported profits on these sales. Enron used huge numbers of SPEs in this way, the most well known of which were LJM Cayman LP and LJM2 Co-Investment LP. â€Å"From 1999 through July 2001, these entities paid Enron managers more than $30 million in management fees, far more than their Enron salaries, supposedly with the approval of top management and Enrons board of directors.† (Healy, 2003) The SPEs in turn created yep more SPEs, known as the Raptor vehicles, which enabled Enron to invest heavily in a bankrupt broadband company, Rhythm NetConnections, during the dotcom boom. To finance this investment Enron made a share issue worth $1.2 billion. However, in order to complete this deal, Enron increased shareholders’ equity to reflect this transaction, which has been claimed to violate accounting standards and principles. Additionally, accounting rules actually meant that Enron should have included information from the LJM and Raptor SPEs in their accounts, rather than continue to use them as off balance sheet financing. (Healy, 2003) In addition to these minor violations, Enron revealed in October 2001 that several other SPEs had violated the accounting standard that required at least 3 percent of the entities to be owned by other investors, with no interest in the parent company. Again, by ignoring this requirement, Enron kept the financing it obtained from these entities off its balance sheet, enabling it to understate its liabilities and losses on this source of financing. However, on October 16, 2001, Enron announced that â€Å"restatements to its financial statements for years 1997 to 2000 to correct these violations would reduce earnings for the four-year period by $613 million (or 23 percent of reported profits dating the period), increase liabilities at the end of 2000 by $628 million (6 percent of reported liabilities and 5.5 percent of reported equity) and reduce equity at the end of 2000 by $1.2 billion (10 percent of reported equity).† (Thomas, 2002) In addition to the accounting failures, Enron only disclosed the minimum amount of details on its investments in the SPEs, and the amount of financing it had gained from them. The company claimed that it had hedged some of its investments using special purpose entities, but failed to inform investors that Enron shares were being used as part of this hedge. Moreover, Enron allowed several of its senior managers, including its chief financial officer Andrew Fastow, to become partners of the special purpose entities. Thus, these employees were able to make large amounts of profit, in both cash and shares, from the off balance sheet financing provided by companies they partly owned. (Thomas, 2002) This was a clear failure to fulfil their fiduciary responsibility to Enrons stockholders, and contributed to the extent of the company’s downfall. 4. Would similar treatment of off balance-sheet transactions be permissible in the UK? Tollington (2001) is one of the foremost academics claiming that financial accounts no longer provide a true and accurate representation of the value of a business, due to the widening between the values accounting policies place on assets, and the market values of said assets. His paper argues that â€Å"the definitional requirement for ‘transactions or events’ appears to restrict their recognition,† and therefore disclosure on balance sheets, which enables similar off balance sheet transactions in the UK. Equally, ‘white-collar crime’ has massively increased in recent years, with some estimates stating that over half a trillion pounds of criminal proceedings are laundered through the world’s financial markets each year. (Mitchell et al, 1998) The majority of this is moved in large quantities, and this cannot be done successfully without willing accountants, who can use creative accounting to hide any money laundering outside the scope of company accounts. However, new money laundering regulations mean that accountants, and related professionals, are now supposed to report any fraud or money laundering wherever they find it, and this applies as much to illegal activity the UK as to anywhere else. Whilst securitization, which incorporates the use of SPEs for off-balance-sheet financing, has been extensively reviewed in recent years, there are still concerns over the extent to which off balance sheet financing can be abused, both in the UK and abroad. The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and the US Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) recently introduced new standards, and modified their existing standards, in order to more rigorously define the acceptable accounting treatments for securities. (Satava et al, 2003) Whilst some accountant and analysts are still hoping to move towards a single, global, set of accounting standards, this is likely to take several times. Other jurisdictions are also keen to create a globally accepted set of standards, and in the UK the Accounting Standards Board (ASB) is converging with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), commonly referred to as IAS, to minimise the extent to which off balance sheet financing can be practiced. Two other factors have combined with the restructuring of financial and other industries in a way that has placed additional stress on the corporate governance function, and off balance sheet transactions: greater complexity of business structures and greater emphasis on stock prices. In the last decade or so, business has experienced a surge of fluid organizational arrangements as well as a routinisation of complex transactions, with alliances, joint ventures, multifaceted sale arrangements and hybrid, structured finance arrangements becoming commonplace. (Monks and Minow, 2003) The net effect is the economic boundaries of the firm have become ambiguous and extremely fluid, a phenomenon reflected in the wonderfully euphemistic phrase â€Å"off balance-sheet financing,† where the firm structures transactions and relationships to avoid their explicit recognition in traditional accounting displays. A typical example is a firm that holds a portfolio of mortgages. It places the po rtfolio in a free-standing legal entity with distinctly limited scope, a Special Purpose Entity, but continues the transaction processing and possibly provides credit enhancements. In different variations, inventory, research and development or even rights to future revenue cash flows are parked in Special Purpose Entities (Griffiths, 1995). Reporting regulations allow the Special Purpose Entity to be kept off of the firms formal financial statements; as long as it is disclosed, provided substantive risk has been shifted to an independent third party. (Nelson, 2003) General Electric, an aggressive purveyor of these arrangements, for example, reports sponsored Special Purpose Entities with assets in excess of $50 billion in its 2001 financial report. The â€Å"independent third party† must have (among other things) a minimum of 3 percent ownership of the Special Purpose Entity’s equity and debt, although the Financial Accounting Standards Board in the US has recently tightened these requirements to resemble that of the UK. (Demski, 2003) However, Special Purpose Entities are only one aspect of this wave of organizational and financial innovation. This greater degree of complexity has interacted with a corporate governance environment that has been placing heightened emphasis on shareholder value (Nelson, 2003), including an explosion in the use of option-based compensation. A substantial portion of the greater complexity appears to be motivated by a concern for financial presentation, for example, â€Å"beautifying† ones balance sheet In some cases, the effect may be as simple as a matter of timing: for instance, the timing of selected expenditures and shipments can affect current period financial results, just as can the time at which a sale is formally booked or a loan is consummated. With the assistance of hybrid financial and organizational transactions, a lease can be structured so it does, or does not, show up on the lessees balance sheet, thereby affecting the total debt that a firm reports, through other methods than off-balance sheet financing. However, fundamentally, Enron, used Special Purpose Entities to di sguise significant amounts of debt as commodity prepay transactions. Through a series of circular or round-trip prepaid transactions, this Special Purpose Entity was the centerpiece in â€Å"allowing† Enron to borrow money but to record the amount borrowed as cash generated by operations, because prepaid commodity contracts are generally booked as trades, not loans, a distinction which would have been clearer in the UK (Deminski, 2003). 5. Are principle based types of accounting standard like FRS 5 more effective in dealing with accounting abuses than the more rule based standards of the US? Although the foundation of financial accounting and auditing has traditionally been based upon a rule based framework, the concept of a principle based approach has been periodically advocated since being incorporated into the AICPA Code of Conduct in 1989. Enron and similar events indicated that the accountants and auditors involved have followed rule based ethical perspectives, however these rule based standards have failed to protect investors from accounting abuses. Satava et al (2003) thus described how â€Å"rule based traditions of auditing became a convenient vehicle that perpetuated the unethical conduct of firms such as Enron and Arthur Andersen.† They presented a model of ten ethical perspectives and briefly described how these ten ethical perspectives impact rule based and principle based ethical conduct for accountants and auditors, concluding by identifying six specific suggestions that the accounting and auditing profession should consider to restore public trus t and to improve the ethical conduct of accountants and auditors. Their conclusions showed that principle based standards were less open to abuses that rule based standards, provided the principles were well defined. Indeed, the publication of a recent amendment to Financial Reporting Standards (FRS) 5 by Great Britains Accounting Standards Board, sought to clarify how to account for SPEs and similar entities, with emphasis on how the principles of the FRS 5 will apply to transactions conducted with these entities. Accountancy (2004) claimed that by publishing an amendment to FRS 5, the United Kingdom Accounting Standards Board was attempting to stop the flow of off balance sheet accounting, despite concerns expressed surrounding the amended FRS 5. The article provided information on an amendment to FRS 5, â€Å"Reporting the Substance of Transactions†, namely the addition of â€Å"Application Note G, Revenue Recognition†. The note has been prepared in response to the need for clarity in respect to questions that arise concerning the treatment of revenue and, in particular, the treatment of turnover. The amendment was published as an Exposure Draft in February 2003 for public comment and, in finalizing the document; the Accounting Standards Board took into consideration the comments received in response to the draft and has consulted interested parties. In FRS 5, in the list of contents immediately preceding the summary, the list of Application Notes is extended by adding at the end, G Revenue Recognition and sets out basic principles of transaction and revenue recognition which should be applied in all cases This thus has increased the extent to which the principle based accountancy legislation in the UK can control the extent of off balance sheet transactions, and correspondingly increased the necessary amount of disclosure. (Accountancy, 2004) However, it has been argued by some theorists that the reform efforts may have been unwise (Culp and Nickanen, 2003), due to a need to recognise that accounting is retrospective, and Enron’s problems were evident to investors if they used more forward looking information. The share price was declining long before the disclosures, quick surveys of four issues: the state of wholesale electric markets before and after Enron, the state of regulation of wholesale electric markets before and after Enron, online trading before and after Enron, and whether swaps need regulation, shows that accounting abuses must still have an underlying business reason. It has also been argued that Enrons use of special entities for off-balance-sheet financing is a perversion of a useful, and often appropriate, accounting technique and such perversions can equally be applied to other techniques under principle-based standards. Equally, it has been recognised that the latitude inherent in principles, or concepts, based standards can be a double-edged sword. â€Å"Such latitude allows managers to choose accounting treatments that reflect their informed understanding of the underlying economics of transactions.† (Nelson, 2003) This latitude, however, also permits managers to â€Å"advocate reporting treatments that do not reflect the underlying economics of a transaction.† (Maines et al, 2003) Both managers and accountants must have strong ethical principles in order for their accounting under principle based standards to reflect the true value of their business, especially in difficult times Both the SEC and the Auditing Standards Board in America support this view with their focus on the quality, as opposed to simply the acceptability, of financial reporting, as well as placing strong emphasis on â€Å"the need for expert judgment and unbiased reporting† (Maines et al, 2003) Concepts-based standards have the potential to promote the financial reporting goals of the regulatory bodies in ways that rules-based standards cannot. However, in order for this to happen, individuals must possess a conceptual framework for financial information in order to use this information appropriately in decision making. Principle-based standards reflect a more consistent application of conceptual framework, and thus enhance individuals’ understanding of the frameworks. Thus, a concepts based approach is consistent with the FASBs stated goal to â€Å"improve the common understanding of the nature and purposes of information contained in financial reports.† (Maines et al, 2003) Also, principle-based standards are consistent with the stated goal of the FASB to promote convergence of accounting standards worldwide. The European Commission has recently proposed that the U.S. abandon GAAP in favour of the more flexible IAS, which emphasizes ‘substance over form’ in auditors inspection of the accounts. (Ampofo and Sellani, 2005) As a result, a concepts-based approach likely will lead to greater agreement in standard setting between the FASB and IASB and thus will also promote international harmonization. (Maines et al, 2003) 6. What has been the overall impact on corporate reporting of Enron and other recent financial scandals? The events surrounding the demise of Enron have led to corporate reporting procedures being called into question all over the world. It resulted in critics questioning how adequate the disclosure legislation was at the time, and also to query how a major accounting firm could conduct independent audits of a firm they were engaged in major consulting work for, when the audit fees were tiny in comparison to the consulting fees. The â€Å"scandal threatened to undermine confidence in financial markets in the United States and abroad; and the accounting profession and regulatory bodies were forced to act.† (Swartz, 2005) In a characteristic move, the SEC and the public accounting profession were among the first to respond to the Enron crisis. In a piece for the Wall Street Journal, the SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt called the outdated reporting and financial disclosure system the financial â€Å"perfect storm.† (Thomas, 2002) He stated that â€Å"under the quarterly and annual reporting system in place at the time, information was often stale on arrival and mandated financial disclosures were often, ‘arcane and impenetrable’† (Thomas, 2002) In order to reassure investors and restore confidence in financial reporting, Pitt called for â€Å"a joint response from the public and private sectors to strengthen regulations and prevent a recurrence of these events.† (Thomas, 2002) As a result, since the Enron debacle, the global corporate reporting regulators were quick to move to stem the rising tide of public interest against their profession, displaying the banner â€Å"Enron: The AICPA, the Profession, and the Public Interest† on its Web site. (Shwarz, 2005) It announced the imminent issuance of an exposure draft on a new audit standard on fraud, the third in five years up to 2002, providing more specific guidance on corporate reporting standards than was found at the time in SAS no. 82, ‘Consideration of Fraud in a Financial Statement Audit.’ The Institute also promised a â€Å"revised standard on reviews of quarterly financial statements,† (Thomas, 2002) as well as the issuance, in the second quarter of 2002, of an exposure draft of a standard to improve the audit, transaction reporting and disclosure process. The major piece of legislation to come out of the Enron scandal was the Sarbanes Oxley (SOX) report, which was passed by the U.S. Congress in 2002 in response to the demise of Enron and the WorldCom scandal. SOX requires firms to vouch for accounting controls and disclose weaknesses to shareholders, and almost all concerned parties have agreed that the SOX was a necessary and useful piece of legislation, that helped restore faith in U.S. companies and their financial statements. (Swartz, 2005) However, whilst no one disputes the benefits, business leaders have often complained that â€Å"the costs associated with Section 404 compliance are much higher than expected, and are an undue burden on most companies.† (Swartz, 2005) Many major companies, and some analysts, have criticised the large increases in auditing expenses, as these expenses create no direct value for businesses, and act to remove money from the economy which would otherwise be invested. Business lobbyists have a lso begun lobbying government bodies in the major financial centres, claiming that SOX slows business expansion and the growth in the number of available jobs (Swartz, 2005) The level of complaints from companies about the increased costs associated with the new corporate reporting standards prompted U. S. auditing regulators, in May 2005, to move to ease the auditing expenses companies were forced to engage in, however regulators also said that the law has greatly benefited investors and there is no need for the U.S. Congress to change it at this time. (Swartz, 2005) Despite the obvious benefits that the increased level of reporting and disclosure provides to investors, many companies have complained that the compliance costs are too high, and that auditors force them to go through expensive corporate reporting procedures that accomplished little than to line the auditor’s pockets. References: Accountancy (2004) November 2003 Amendment to FRS 5 ‘Reporting the substance of transactions’: Revenue recognition. Vol. 133, Issue 1325, p. 128. Ampofo, A. and Sellani, R. (2005) Examining the differences between United States Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (U.S. GAAP) and International Accounting Standards (IAS): implications for the harmonization of accounting standards. Accounting Forum (Elsevier); Vol. 29, Issue 2, p. 219. Culp, C.L and Nickanen, W.A. (2003) Corporate aftershock: the public policy lessons from the collapse of Enron. Demski, J. S (2003) Corporate Conflicts of Interest. Journal of Economic Perspectives; Vol. 17, Issue 2, p. 51. Griffiths, I. (1995) New Creative Accounting. London: MacMillian. Healy, P. M. and Palepu, K. G. (2003) The Fall of Enron. Journal of Economic Perspectives; Vol. 17, Issue 2, p. 3. Maines, C. L. A. Bartov, E. Fairfield, P. Hirst, D. E. Iannaconi, T. E. Mallett, R. Schrand, C. M. Skinner, D. J. and Vincent, L. (2003) Evaluating Concepts-Based vs. Rules-Based Approaches to Standard Setting. Accounting Horizons; Vol.17, Issue. 1, p73. Mitchell, A. Sikka, P. and Willimott, H. (1998) Sweeping it under the carpet: the role of Accountancy Firms in Money Laundering. Accounting, Organizations Society; Vol. 23, Issue 5/6, p. 589. Monks, R. A. G. and Minow, N (2003) Corporate Governance: 4th edition Oxford: Blackwell. Nelson, M. W. (2003) Behavioural Evidence on the Effects of Principles- and Rules-Based Standards. Accounting Horizons; Vol.17, Issue 1, p91. Satava, D. Caldwell, C. and Richards, L. (2003) Ethics and the Auditing Culture: Rethinking the Foundation of Accounting and Auditing. Journal of Business Ethics; Vol. 64, Issue 3, p. 271. Swartz, N. (2005) Executives Praise SOX but Seek Changes. Information Management Journal; Vol. 39, Issue 4, p. 22. Thomas, C. W. (2002) The Rise and Fall of Enron. Journal of Accountancy; Vol. 193, Issue 4, p. 41. Tollington, T. (2001) UK Brand Asset Recognition Beyond â€Å"Transactions or Events†. Long Range Planning; Vol. 34, Issue 4, p. 463.

The Role of Business Education in Secondary Schools Essay -- essays pa

The Role of Business Education in Secondary Schools Education and Vocational Education have many roles in today’s schools. Vocational education focuses on the future employment of the student, by using practical application. Vocational education gives students the opportunity to learn with hands-on experience. This can help in several areas of gaining an education. Most notably, this gives the student the opportunity to find out if this is what they want to do. Students will get a real-world experience very early on in their education. This experience can greatly enrich a student’s education by giving them the opportunity to become involved in activities that are relevant to their lives, therefore, becoming a source of motivation. Education provides these same experiences to a certain extent, but the connection to real-world experience is much less defined. I believe it is the obligation of an educator to help create lifelong learners out of our students. Three key elements need to be present for this to take place. Confidence, relevance and motivation must all be present. Students need to have the confidence to try and succeed, or try and fail. This may sound like a trivial example, but I believe it is essential to success. Without knowing and understanding failure, students will not be able to appreciate success and what it takes to succeed. Confidence will be gained through the trial and error that takes place in the successful business educator’s classroom. Rele...

The Role of Climate Change on Our Nation’s Infrastructure System

The Role of Climate Change on Our Nation’s Infrastructure SystemIntroduction: Infrastructure plays a critical function in everybody’s day-to-day life, but most people don’t recognize merely how extended that function truly is. Whether it’s going from one topographic point to another, utilizing power, imbibing tap H2O, or blushing a lavatory substructure helps us populate our lives to the criterion that we have become used to and maintain our economic system traveling. There are many factors that need to be considered when measuring the current and future province of substructure wellness. One factor is the consequence of a altering clime, but it is hard to gauge merely how it will impact our substructure system since its hereafter impacts can merely be loosely anticipated. In this paper I will look into the function substructure plays in the aiding and deterring of clime alteration, the current and future province of our substructure and how climate alteration can impact it, and possible solutions through invention in policy and support to assist minimise the effects. History of Support: Ever since President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal-Aid Road Act in 1916, the nature and extent of the federal authorities in the edifice, maintaining, and support of the corporate states surface substructure system has been broad ranging. The 1916 act launched the Federal-Aid Highway Program, every bit good as presenting the States with grants to assist in the building of roads that would be used in mail bringing. The mandate of the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways and the creative activity of the Federal Highway Trust Fund in 1956 marked a dramatic heightening of the Federal governments’ impact in the creative activity of the nation’s roadways by making the model for a national route system and a support system for roads to be created [ 1 ] . The basic construction for federal support of substructure was set up so that federal financess could be granted to the States by undertakings submitted for blessing, and so if the programs were approved for the financess they would have a part of cost, and the remainder of the support is required by the State and local authoritiess that need the undertaking completed [ 2 ] . Since so most federal support has been granted though extensions of old Acts of the Apostless and the procedure of how assistance is given has remained largely unchanged over this clip. A cardinal ground for the age of many substructure systems is due to the aggressive disbursement on substructure that was initialized in the late 1930’s through the early 1940’s by President Roosevelt, normally referred to as the New Deal Programs, which used big sums of federal financess to make the footing of many of our roadway and electrical systems. Much of the substructure built during this clip has non been undated since it was originally built. The sum of support for substructure has varied over clip but it has been at a degree under what it needed to be at to supply a strong and efficient system. Through history there has been a spread between what was needed for substructure and what was really spent. On mean merely about 2.4 % of our GDP is spent on substructure in America. To compare, Europe spends about 5 % and China spends about 9 % of their GPD on their substructure. This deficiency of disbursement and development in substructure has led to our current ranking of 15Thursday, out of the 32 OECD states, in footings of our overall satisfaction of our roads and main roads [ 2 ] . Current province of Infrastructure: The systems of substructure in America are presently in one of the poorest provinces in the country’s history. The American Society of Civil Engineers ( ASCE ) release a study card rating at least 12 of the country’s substructure systems every four old ages traveling back to 1998, in that clip they have released 5 study cards with the most recent being in 2013. The overall GPA of our country’s substructure has been given a class of D three times and a D+ two times, with the 2013 study card giving a D+ . A hapless and inefficient substructure system is non merely insecure, but it besides exacerbates fuel and energy ingestion, creates extra injury to the environment through pollution and taint, and besides wastes people’s clip and money. ASCE estimates that the sum of support needed to increase each class to a class of a B, considered to be in a ‘good’ province, by 2020 is $ 3.6 trillion. However, the estimated support by 2020 for all the classs is estimated to be merely about $ 2 trillion, go forthing a $ 1.6 trillion support spread which will surly take to an substructure province that is at a comparable degree that we see now [ 3 ] . With an expected substructure province to stay in hapless conditions, an added challenge in the appraisal of future impacts by clime alteration on substructure arise when finding how pieces and parts that are already stressed and aged will react to climate alteration. We can analyze how new parts will respond by preforming trial in labs to imitate clime alteration effects on them to see how the rates of impairment could perchance play out over clip, but seeking to detect how fast the altering rates of parts that have been used over the past decennaries is difficult to precisely quantify. Infrastructure and Climate Change: Infrastructure plays a big function in our nursery gas emanations and depending on the conditions of the system it can either assist us in the chase of diminishing emanations or it can be an added releaser of emanations. Many of the solutions to the jobs in our substructure system besides have the potency to assist out other jobs in the system every bit good as to assist diminish our usage of fossil fuels. An efficient transit substructure system is critical to assist swerve our oil use, co2 emanations, and increase productiveness. Traffic congestion on roads consequences in 1.9 billion gallons of gasolene to be burned per twelvemonth, and the costs to drivers is over $ 100 billion in wasted fuel and lost clip. A new and efficient air traffic control systems we would salvage around 3 billion gallons of jet fuel a twelvemonth from being wasted [ 1 ] . On the other manus if we increase people’s ability to use public transit and mass transit services the positive effects could ru ffle through many countries of transit and public wellness. Increased usage of public and aggregate transit would assist to maintain autos off the route, particularly during peak transposing times. This would hold the consequence of non merely cut downing traffic conditions, which would assist to relieve some of the otiose gasolene that’s burned while waiting in traffic, but to besides halt the combustion of gasolene by all the people who normally drive a auto. With less people really on the roads, the conditions of the roadways will be maintained for a longer clip, which once more has the consequence of cut downing traffic and wasted gas burned while waiting in traffic. Plus, taking more autos off the route during the early hours should assist to cut down the sum of smog formation in some high-dense metropoliss. Most of the effects of clime alteration will hold some impacts on different countries of the substructure system. A big factor to the substructure system is the addition in big precipitation events, an addition in planetary sea degrees, and the addition in utmost conditions events [ 4 ] . With increasing events of big precipitation our dikes, imbibing and waste H2O systems, and levees will all be subjected to new stressors that can worsen the procedure of early weakness and pre-mature impairment [ 5 ] . Sing the mean age of all the states dams to be 52 old ages old, and that approximately 17 % of them are considered high risky, the emphasis from the addition of flows coming in from affiliated H2O ways added to the addition of heavy deposits that big precipitation events bring into the H2O system which hurt the overall wellness of a dike, their length of service is expected to diminish. The imbibing and waste H2O systems is expected to endure from many of the same emphasis as dike wil l, except the excess H2O will besides be coming from our sewerage system so that big urban countries will see big impacts from the high sum of paving that helps funnel excess sums of H2O into the system. Large sums of precipitation and the addition of the sea degree will stretch our levee system with added stressors that can give a possible harmful failure that could be every bit annihilating as a dam failure. Both dikes and levees hold back H2O that could potentially deluge most of the coastal and low lying countries. Extreme conditions events are the chief causes for many of the energy grid power breaks. Breaks can be caused from knocked over tree limbs on power lines, implosion therapy of transmittal Stationss, to the devastation of grapevine subdivisions [ 3 ] . In America, our substructure is presently in an abysmal province, and with support for the hereafter projected to hardly cover half of what it will take to convey it into a good province it is safe to state that it will go on to let down. Decision and How to Continue: The chief stressors associated with substructure development are from the continual lacking of support and an overall absence of a big scale leading function in footings of establishing when and what undertakings are taken on so to most expeditiously finish staying undertakings so that their benefits will assist other unfinished undertakings or won’t be negated because of unfinished undertakings. All of the systems of substructure are connected ; the quality of H2O downstream of a river is effected by the quality that has been put out upstream and if a main road outside a metropolis has awful route conditions people and concern are less likely to go and devour in that metropolis even if the city’s roads have all merely been repaved. With this in head, the manner we choose the following set of undertakings to undergo demand to be picked with careful consideration to how its betterments will impact other undertakings still necessitating completed. The ability to implement this sort of planning is presently really hard though, because support is progressively being moved from big supervising body’s to smaller and smaller 1s. Federal support for substructure investings have been continuously shriveling over the past twosome decennaries which has led to the States, and progressively even more so the local and municipality authoritiess that are forced to come up with the support spread. With a lessening in centralisation of undertaking planning, along with an addition of undertakings that have to be delayed due to miss of financess that need to come from the fighting provinces budgets or till adequate financess can be raised by a local or municipality authorities, the ability now to integrate a program for phasing in different undertakings is acquiring progressively harder. When be aftering the range and particulars of a given undertaking factors such as sustainability, resilience, and the continual care and up-keep demand to be primary for any planning of substructure. The transit systems, H2O intervention systems, and flood control systems being built today must be able to account for both current and future challenges that are likely to be confronting them. Infrastructure needs to be built with future population motion in head as good, so when new systems are built or betterments are made to the bing substructure it needs to be able to manage tonss much greater than what it presently needed or a design for a system needs to be scaled so it’s merely responsible for a smaller population denseness. In add-on, funding for research and development at all degrees need to be implemented so the development of new and of all time more efficient methods and stuffs for the edifice and maintaining of substructure can go on. Future development besides needs to let for easier and cheaper betterments and ascents over the clip of its usage. Future care can be done more easy if they are built to let replacing over different clip intervals so that when it comes clip for the necessary betterments to be made it doesn’t demand to be all at the same clip. While funding demands to be increased from both private and public sectors, the users of the substructure demand to larn and besides pay the appropriate monetary value for them to utilize it. Mentions [ 1 ] ( 2012 ) â€Å"Highway Funding.† Congressional Digest. Volume 91, Issue 7, pp. 194, 195, 224. [ 2 ] ( 2012 ) â€Å"Surface Transportation Policy.† Congressional Digest. Volume 91, Issue 7, pp. 196-199. [ 3 ] ( 2013 ) â€Å"2013 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure.† [ 4 ] IPCC, 2007: Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working. Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, M.L. Parry, O.F. Canziani, J.P. Palutikof, P.J. new wave der Linden and C.E. Hanson, Eds. , Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 7-22. [ 5 ] Hall, David. â€Å" Corps of Engineers ‘ Studies Will Inform Response to Climate Change. †Civil EngineeringJuly-Aug. 2013: 20-23. Print [ 6 ] IPCC, 2007: Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2007: Extenuation. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fourth Assessment. Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [ B. Metz, O.R. Davidson, P.R. Bosch, R. Dave, L.A. Meyer ( explosive detection systems ) ] , Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA. [ 7 ] IPCC, 2013: Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [ Stocker, T.F. , D. Qin, G.-K. Plattner, M. Tignor, S. K. Allen, J. Boschung, A. Nauels, Y. Xia, V. Bex and P.M. Midgley ( eds. ) ] . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA. [ 8 ] ( 2011 ) â€Å"Failure to Act: The Impact of Current Infrastructure Investment On America’s Economic Future.†

Liberal and Conservative View About the Role of Government

As long as there have been politics in the United States, there has been a productive tension between liberal views and conservative views. These differences are most clearly demonstrated by the disparate views on subjects such as education, taxes and public health care. Liberals and conservatives have different views about the role of government. While liberals; currently represented by the Democratic Party; and conservatives; currently represented by the Republican Party; both believe that education, tax policy, and public health are important issues for the United States; they have different beliefs about the best approach for these policies. Liberals tend towards policies that empower the central government through large all encompassing programs. On the other hand, conservatives prefer locally run programs that are not the same in all communities but may produce results more consistent with community preferences. Currently, no topic provides a better example of the difference between conservatives and liberals than education policy. The liberal belief is that education policy is best when dictated from Washington D. C. with federal education subsidies contingent upon state and local government compliance with federal mandates. Conservatives believe that federal money should not be based on specific agendas developed in Washington D. C. but instead should be granted to state and local governments in the form of grants. These grants do not have strings attached and can be used for state and local education priorities. Conservatives and Liberals also disagree about where education dollars should be spent. The liberal view is that children should go to public schools regardless of quality, they believe that public education efforts and money should be directed towards public schools. Conversely, conservatives believe that children in non-performing schools should have the option to go to private school at public expense. Their view is that competition between public and private schools will improve both. Nobody likes tax time. Liberals and Conservatives both agree that taxes are unavoidable. Their beliefs about the use of taxes and tax policy are very different, though. Liberals seem to believe that taxes are a federal entitlement. They believe that tax money should be spent by the government on large government programs that provide services to people instead of by the taxpayer themselves. Furthermore, liberals believe that tax policy should be used to provide wealth distribution from the rich to the poor. This is most clearly demonstrated by the Earned Income Credit (EIC); the EIC is a tax provision that allows people to receive more in tax refunds than were paid in actual taxes. Conservatives on the other hand truly view taxes as a tool to provide for the common good; they differ from liberals in their approach. They believe that free market forces can more efficiently run large programs than the government can. They believe that large government programs are not inherently productive and taxpayers should be given wide latitude about the use of their money for services that directly affect them. Healthcare is another area where conservatives and liberals find very little common ground. Both sides agree that everyone needs health care, but they disagree what the government†s responsibility should be. Liberals believe that it is the government†s responsibility to provide cradle to grave health care. They believe this should be provided by government regulated quasi-HMO organizations funded by tax dollars. Conservatives think that the government has limited health care responsibility. They believe that the government should provide tax incentives to people so they can buy their health insurance; additionally, they believe that the government should provide limited health care to the poor and the aged. Two statements can best sum up the differences between conservatives and liberals. Conservatives believe in limited government and that government†s responsibility is to create an economy and environment where people can earn decent wages thereby making them self-sufficient. Liberals believe government†s responsibility is to provide for the people and conversely, the people should provide for the government. The truly interesting thing is that the extreme conservatism or fascism and extreme liberalism or communism, have both fallen into disfavor in the last few decades. I believe that this country was founded on conservative principles. Conservatives and liberals have very different views about the way this country should be run and the role of government, which everyone should listen to carefully.