Strategic Finance articles from March 2006

Strategic Finance archives from March 2006

We don't have ethics here ... or do we?(Academic Corner)
March 1, 2006... * A prospective student called a major research university on the West Coast. "Do you have a doctoral program in business ethics?" she asked. The administrative assistant replied, "No, we don't have ethics here." Although that student might be...

Working hand in hand: balanced scorecards and enterprise risk management.(ANNUAL CONFERENCE TOPIC: Risk Management)
March 1, 2006... Recent scandals and changes in corporate governance requirements are increasing stakeholder expectations for senior executives and boards of directors to effectively manage all risks that exist across an organization. As these expectations are...

Seven mistakes to avoid as a manager.(Careers)
March 1, 2006... * The road to success for leaders is rarely easy. Nearly all managers make their share of missteps as they learn how to become effective in their roles. Even experienced financial executives must evaluate and readjust their management...

Not exactly clackety-clack.(End Note)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... The QWERTY layout is older than your grandfather--it goes back to 1868. Over the years, as people tried to untie themselves from the wrist-twisting limitations of QWERTY, they have contorted the standard bed of Chiclets into some very odd...

Good Corporate Citizenship is a fundamental business practice.(Ethics)
March 1, 2006... One of the most extensive studies of the perspectives of U.S. business leaders on corporate citizenship and the role of private business in society has been completed. A joint effort of The Center for Corporate Citizenship at Boston College and...

Be the change you wish to see in the world.(Best Practices)(Column)
March 1, 2006... The title of this month's column is pure Gandhi. He lived by this mantra. By adhering to it he led the people of India and brought the British Empire to its knees nonviolently. What may be disquieting in Gandhi's words is the implication that...

IFRS and you: what are the implications of the European accounting revolution?(International)
March 1, 2006... IN SEPTEMBER 2002, the Parliament and Council of the European Union (EU) introduced the biggest change to financial reporting in Europe in 30 years. They approved a new Accounting Regulation that would require all EU-listed companies to follow...

The last mile of finance: if you navigate it properly, you can have a smooth financial close, a good set of internal controls, and an accurate set of financial statements.
March 1, 2006... As I speak with today's CFOs and other senior finance executives and compare the challenges they face with the ones I tackled during my years as a public company CFO, it's apparent that the job has become increasingly difficult. In the last 25...

Scorecarding goes global: companies around the world are deriving benefits from performance management tools.(ANNUAL CONFERENCE TOPIC: Performance Measures)
March 1, 2006... Although scorecarding systems have been around for quite some time, their popularity and use have increased considerably since Robert Kaplan and David Norton introduced the balanced scorecard in 1992. While perhaps initially viewed as a North...

Internal controls.(Message from the Chair)
March 1, 2006... As I mentioned a couple of months ago, IMA is a member of the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO) along with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), the Institute of Internal Auditors...

Accounting leaders want stronger enterprise governance, government accountability.(NEWS)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... In a discussion last month to determine the strategic priorities for the accounting profession over the next five to 10 years, chief executives of several worldwide accounting organizations called for improvements in the quality of governmental...

SEC, PCAOB want SOX feedback.(NEWS)
March 1, 2006... * The Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) are holding a roundtable on May 10, 2006, at the SEC's headquarters in Washington, D.C., to discuss companies' experiences during their...

IFAC seeks public members for ethics, public sector accounting standards boards.(NEWS)
March 1, 2006... IFAC is seeking nominations for a public member for the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants and for the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board, which are independent standards-setting boards within the...

SEC proposes changes to executive pay reporting.(GOVERNMENT)
March 1, 2006... SEC Chairman Chris Cox continued on what has to be called an ambitious reform agenda--much more ambitious than predecessor William Donaldson's--with his January 17 proposal, backed by all four commissioners, to require better disclosure of the...

New SEC policy on civil penalties for accounting misdeeds.(GOVERNMENT)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... The very specific dollar-level aspects of SEC Chairman Cox's executive compensation reform proposal made it stand out starkly from a second reform initiative the SEC announced earlier in January: a new policy on civil penalties. There the...

Predicting business cycles.(Ahead of the Curve (book))(Book Review)
March 1, 2006... The resulting sense of uncertainty in dealing with the economic and investment outlook is a universal problem for business managers, investment professionals, and individual investors. In Ahead of the Curve, published by Harvard Business School...

New e-filing requirement at issue.(GOVERNMENT)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... The Tax Executives Institute (TEI) is pressing Congress to countermand an IRS requirement that large companies file their 2005 tax returns electronically. For tax year 2005 returns that are due in 2006, the regulations require that corporations...

WP's new office and some pocket devices.(tools of the trade)
March 1, 2006... Corel's latest version of its classic WordPerfect([R]) Office suite is available in Office X3 Standard and Office X3 Home editions. The Office Standard X3 features word processing with WordPerfect, spreadsheets with Quattro Pro, multimedia...

Inventing New Media--the podcast.(Tech Forum)
March 1, 2006... * THE OLD MASS MEDIA--printed word, radio, television, photography, movies--have been shaping our culture for the last 500 or so years. The new mass media have only been around for a few decades, but they also have been transformative. Words...

In search of ROI for XBRL.(eXtensible Business Reporting Language)
March 1, 2006... In the summer of 1998, just as the brand new Extensible Markup Language (XML) was reaching recommended status from the World Wide Web Consortium, Charles Hoffman began to think about how the new language would benefit the world of accounting....