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 | | Final Accounting: Ambition, Greed and the Fall of Arthur Andersen by Barbara Ley Toffler, Jennifer Reingold ISBN-10: 9780767913836 ISBN-10: 0-7679-1383-3 ISBN-13: 9780767913836 ISBN-13: 978-0-7679-1383-6 Paperback 2004-04-13 Doubleday Business Find Lowest Price |
Editorials | ||
Product Description A withering exposé of the unethical practices that triggered the indictment and collapse of the legendary accounting firm. Arthur Andersen's conviction on obstruction of justice charges related to the Enron debacle spelled the abrupt end of the 88-year-old accounting firm. Until recently, the venerable firm had been regarded as the accounting profession's conscience. In Final Accounting, Barbara Ley Toffler, former Andersen partner-in-charge of Andersen's Ethics & Responsible Business Practices consulting services, reveals that the symptoms of Andersen's fatal disease were evident long before Enron. Drawing on her expertise as a social scientist and her experience as an Andersen insider, Toffler chronicles how a culture of arrogance and greed infected her company and led to enormous lapses in judgment among her peers. Final Accounting exposes the slow deterioration of values that led not only to Enron but also to the earlier financial scandals of other Andersen clients, including Sunbeam and Waste Management, and illustrates the practices that paved the way for the accounting fiascos at WorldCom and other major companies. Chronicling the inner workings of Andersen at the height of its success, Toffler reveals "the making of an Android," the peculiar process of employee indoctrination into the Andersen culture; how Androids—both accountants and consultants--lived the mantra "keep the client happy"; and how internal infighting and "billing your brains out" rather than quality work became the all-important goals. Toffler was in a position to know when something was wrong. In her earlier role as ethics consultant, she worked with over 60 major companies and was an internationally renowned expert at spotting and correcting ethical lapses. Toffler traces the roots of Andersen's ethical missteps, and shows the gradual decay of a once-proud culture. Uniquely qualified to discuss the personalities and principles behind one of the greatest shake-ups in United States history, Toffler delivers a chilling report with important ramifications for CEOs and individual investors alike. From the Hardcover edition. | ||
Reviews | ||
Buy 'Conspiracy of Fools' instead Don't waste your money on this book. I was lucky enough to check it out from a library. This book provides virtually no explanation of how the events that brought down Andersen played out inside of Andersen. To get those kinds of details, buy Conspiracy of Fools, The Smartest Guys in the Room, or other Enron-related books of that ilk. | ||
a good price and interesting story I bougth this for using in my MBA course. Even I was under the pressure of exam, the story attracted me to read for fun. | ||
Personal Aggrandizing While I am very interested in the concept that this book is based on, Mrs. Toffler does a terrible job of conveying relevant material to the reader. The book reads like a montage to her personal successes and failures while at Arthur Andersen. It is heavy on subjective material, and lacks the objective material that is necessary to effectively describe the turbulent period of accounting fraud at the beginning of the new millenium. It also involves a myriad of "he said this to her associate who then relayed the message to her superior who memo'd it to his subordinate who subsequently memo'd it to the firm while contacting a potential client about an existing client" type of descriptions that can be very confusing and drawn out. I wouldn't recommend this book. | ||
Focuses on the Firm's Culture, Not on Audit Issues This book is an analysis of the culture of Arthur Andersen, from 1913 when Andersen started the firm through its demise. The most interesting aspect of the firm's culture and history is the transition from a focus on reputation and integrity (Andersen's obsession) to the troubled culture focused on generating consulting fees; this allowed fraudulent accounting to go on at Waste Management, Sunbeam, Enron, Worldcom and others. This is really a organizational behavior/human resources book, but it does give the reader a window into the culture of a large firm during an interesting era in accounting history. This book was a little bit disappointing (for those interested in auditing) because it doesn't focus directly on audit problems. But it is still an worthwhile look at the declining culture of a Big 6 audit firm. It is worth reading for the history and cultural analysis of Arthur Andersen, but it doesn't offer much accounting information outside of that area. | ||
I enjoyed it, though sometimes boring. Maybe you have experienced a situation, when you are not able to get away from the book you have started to read. From my point of view, that was not that kind of a book. I read it, because I wanted to know something more about Arthur Andersen itself. I found some very interesting things, mostly about their top brasses and their behaviour, but very often I came across sections, which bored me to death (description of day to day work of the author...etc.). Overall, I recommend this book to all of you, who would like to get to know something more about Arthur Andersen and its greedy behaviour. | ||