Final Accounting: Ambition, Greed and the Fall of Arthur Andersen
The doomed accounting firm of Arthur Andersen emerges as a grown-up version of Lord of the Flies in this fascinating insider exposé. Toffler, a Columbia Business School professor and an expert on management ethics, provides an engrossing history of the accounting firm, from its early days as an icon of financial probity to its demise after a drumroll of accounting scandals culminating in the Enron and WorldCom bankruptcies. But the book's greatest strength is the author's first-hand account of corporate corruption. Toffler spent four years at Andersen selling ethics consulting services to clients while her own ethics were affronted and compromised by the atmosphere at Andersen. As a consultant, Toffler wasn't involved in the auditing shenanigans that brought Andersen down, but there was sleaze a-plenty-outrageous over-billing and forcefully selling consulting services clients didn't need-in her bailiwick. Her observations of this sordid milieu, of bullying bosses, desperate sales pitches, jockeying for power and demeaning motivational hoopla, are both funny and revealing. Looking beyond the "bad apples" to the "rotten culture," Toffler blames Andersen's problems on an ethos of conformity and deference to senior managers, bizarre compensation schemes that set partners at each other's throats, and the relentless pressure for lucrative consulting tie-ins that made auditors acquiesce in clients' fraudulent bookkeeping. The result is a case study in "group dependency," in which moral chaos mounts as good people do nothing. Toffler's acerbic wit and keen analysis make this essential reading for anyone concerned with the profit-driven turpitude of corporate America.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.