Ethical Challenges:
Cooking the books has been a long and time-honored (albeit illegal) pastime from time immemorial. The earliest know game was diluting olive oil during the Roman Empire.
The Roman’s solution was to record all aspects of each amphora of oil with all the particulars about the production, inspection, quality for the creation of the first (or one of the first) audit trails.
So what do you see as the pressures for cooking the books? Is it meeting investor expectations? Tax fraud? Fooling the bank? The writing off of non-business related expenses?
Is the size, ownership structure or other parameter more likely to influence the stressors and Ethical Challenges the C-Suite faces?
A recent in the Wall Street Journal discussed this topic: http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-ethical-challenges-facing-entrepreneurs-1448247600
Do agree with Kirk Hanson (the author)?
