Suffolk University

12.04

Just a reminder in response to several of your questions ... yes, you are expected to wear formal business attire on Thursday!

Most of our Advisory Board members will be arriving straight from work, so they will be dressed formally. They are expecting you to be dressed that way as well!

N/A

12.03

Thank you for taking our online quiz!

Here are the answers to the questions: (a) the Wal-Mart China strategy discussed in class encompassed China as a source of products and as a market for growth; (b) a risk assessment concluded that Wal-Mart's greatest concern should be difficulty in teaching Chinese employees the “Wal-Mart Way;” (c) a hydra is a multi-headed monster from Greek mythology; (d) according to our plan, Wal-Mart should place its risk management offices in the US and in China; (e) the COSO risk management model employed by Wal-Mart can be used by virtually any organization; (f) when firms decide to use the internet to conduct global negotiations, they face a high benefit / high risk situation; (g) during our recent class discussion, we noted that virtual reality communications may be risky because it is difficult to know who is controlling other avatars.

N/A

11.30

Here is our final quiz! It will be “open” until 11:59 Sunday evening; I will send out confirmations of responses by email within 24 hours.

Good luck! :)

N/A

11.21

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Our reading assignments for Thursday are a blog entry entitled Writing With Words, Talking With Pictures and our Wal-Mart application.

Your one page presentation handouts are due via email in PDF format on Monday 12/3 at 7:00 pm. The term projects and all extra credit assignments are due via email in PDF format on Wednesday 12/5 at 4:30 pm.

The presentations will be held in the lobby Law School Function Room from 4:30 pm to 6:30 pm on Thursday 12/6; at least one dozen members of our Advisory Board (and possibly more) will serve as guest judges. Please remember to bring approximately 70 copies of your 1 page handout ... just in case. You must dress appropriately for a formal business event, and you cannot refer to any notes whatsoever during your presentation.

Each presentation will be limited to a duration of four minutes; in addition, the guest judges will be permitted to ask one “clarification” question of each group.

Finally, please keep in mind that we still have two quizzes to complete this semester! On Thursday 11/29, the quiz will cover material that we discussed during our 11/8 and 11/15 class sessions, as well as the reading assignment for 11/29. And shortly after 11/29, we will conduct a quiz in cyberspace that covers material that we will discuss on 11/29.

Good luck! And enjoy the holiday ... :)

Blog entry

11.10

A number of you have asked me whether I expect individual write-ups from each of you for the extra credit exercise, or whether I expect a single write-up from each pair.

Just to let you know ... a single write-up from each pair will be fine!

N/A

^11.09

Good morning, class! As always, it was a pleasure to meet with you last night. :)

Laurie Pant will be addressing you next week on the topic of ethics. Please think about the following ethical questions as you meet with her ... and in fact, as you play your virtual reality negotiation game: (a) what are the factors that lead people to believe that certain behaviors are “ethical” or “unethical” in the business environment?, and (b) does one's sense of “what is ethical” vs. “what is unethical” change when one is communicating via the internet?

As you now know, the factor of “intentional harm” dominates my own personal sense of ethics, but Laurie will point out that many people consider other factors as well.

The only required reading is a blog entry entitled Email Scammers Ask Your Friends For Money. As I mentioned in class, there will be no quiz this week.

And, of course, please keep in mind that we have a relatively tight deadline for our virtual reality game ...

Technology blog

^11.03

Yahoo alert! Over the past two months, three students with Yahoo email accounts have told me that they sent me a message but didn't receive a response. Just to remind you ... I always respond to all messages by the next day ... even on Sundays! So if you contact me and don't hear back from me, please call me ... it means that I didn't receive your message.

Please read a column by Arianna Huffington about IRS tax shelter prosecutions.

And that's it. No more ugly reading assignments ... :)

We'll also “triple dip” through three related public speaking tips ... deception, narration, and repetition.

Huffington article

^10.31

Happy Halloween! Here is your virtual reality extra credit assignment; I'll discuss it during class tomorrow.

N/A

^10.28

Oops! In my posting of the assignment for next week (see 10.26 entry below), I forgot to include a link to your survey feedback! We'll discuss it in class on Thursday.

N/A

^10.26

Hello class! For next week, please read the web page entitled The Vision in the CPA Vision Process, as well as sections 51 through 57 of the AICPA's Principles of Professional Conduct. These are the only readings that will be “quizzable” this week.

Nevertheless, please also read a pair of articles about Parmalat that appeared in Accounting Today and the Financial Times, as well as a Washington Post article and a record of Congressional testimony about the WorldCom scandal.

As you can see, I'm trying to respond to your feedback about getting more cases into the curriculum!

Vision Process, Principles of Professional Conduct, Parmalat & Worldcom articles

^10.22

I have some bad news for you! Our invited guest from Merrill Lynch will not be able to join us tomorrow, so you'll be stuck with another (yawn!) lecture from me.

Please go ahead and read the two articles that I assigned in my 10.20 posting. In addition, please read an editorial by Will Guo entitled Wharton's most notorious alumnus. You can find it listed in the Monday, October 11, 2004 issue of The Daily Pennsylvanian.

I know that some of you do your readings over the weekend, so I'll only treat the articles from my 10.20 posting as “quizzable.”

For those of you who arranged to meet me after class on 11/1 to obtain feedback about your presentations, please email me if you would like to meet this Thursday (again, after class) instead.

Wharton article (not quizzable); 2 articles (see 10.20 below, quizzable)

^10.20

We have a guest speaker next week! Greg Coghlan of Merrill Lynch will join us to discuss “The 5 Factors That Will Put Your Retirement Income at Risk.” Apparently, we're about to put our risk management instincts to personal use. :)

To prepare for the class, please read an article on Monte Carlo simulations and another article on Nurturing The Nest Egg. To access that second article, you will need to click on the link entitled “budget planning tool” directly underneath the title.

2 articles

^10.18

Hi all! Here are some suggestions about delivering presentations; we'll discuss them in class today.

N/A

^10.17

Someone asked me if we're still having a quiz tomorrow, given that we didn't cover any new accounting material in class last week.

Just to let you all know ... yep, we are! It'll include the material we covered in class two weeks ago, as well as the advance reading assignment for this week.

N/A

^10.13

Oops! I almost forgot ... we will indeed begin class with a quiz; it will cover the material discussed in class on 10.04, as well as the reading assignment (see below) for 10.18.

See below

^10.13

Congratulations on having survived the midterm presentations! I do understand that it was a pretty nerve-wracking experience for many of you ... and I appreciate your willingness to give it your best shot!

We'll begin the class on Thursday by discussing your experiences and (in general termrs) the feedback that I received from the judges. We'll also discuss our public speaking tip of the week, which is ... domination! Then it's back to work with the COSO standards.

We're going to review Event Identification this week, and then we will cruise through the heart of the risk management plan ... Risk Assessment, Risk Response, and Internal Control. Please review the following exhibits in the Applications section: Exhibit 4.7 on pages 27 and 28, Exhibit 4.10 on page 30, Exhibit 5.2 on page 34, Exhibit 5.5 on page 38, Exhibit 5.13 on page 47, Exhibit 6.1 on page 55, Exhibit 6.3 on page 57, and Exhibit 7.3 on page 66.

Finally, please review a series of brief press statements that were issued by Hewlett Packard and are now posted on their web page entitled 2006 News Releases; we will focus on the statements titled HP Announces Resignation of Director Tom Perkins (5/19), HP Board of Directors Releases Statement (9/10), George Keyworth Resigns as HP Director (9/12), Patricia Dunn to Remain HP Chairman (also 9/12), HP Announces Press Briefing on Board Leak Investigation (9/21), HP CEO Offers to Appear Before the U.S. House of Representatives (also 9/21), Patricia Dunn Resigns from HP Board (9/22), Mark Hurd Named HP Chairman (also 9/22), HP General Counsel Resigns (9/28), Statement by Mark V. Hurd (also 9/28), and HP Appoints Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer (10/12).

COSO exhibits on pages 27 through 66

HP press releases

^10.09

Our schedule is final for Thursday! As I noted in my 10.06 entry (below), we'll be meeting in the Poetry Room of the library to deliver our presentations.

Our guests at Ernst & Young are planning to arrive at 4:15 pm, and thus we will begin very promptly at 4:30 pm. Please do your best to arrive somewhat early as well; it will help you become more comfortable with your environment.

One more reminder ... your 1 page handouts are due to me via email on Wednesday (i.e. tomorrow) at 4:30 pm. I'll respond with an acknowledgment as soon as I receive it, so please let me know if you do not receive my acknowledgment!

N/A

^10.06

I hope you're enjoying the holiday weekend! I'm delighted to report that we now have a professional “function” room assigned to us for our Thursday presentations ... it's the Poetry Room in the Sawyer School Library at 73 Tremont Street. Just go up to the second floor, enter the library, and follow the signs to the Poetry Room.

There is a chance that our guests at Ernst & Young will be a little late, so I will let you know (by posting another entry on this blog) if that is the case. It's always a good idea to arrive a few minutes before a presentation begins any way in order to “check out” the room; nevertheless, I'll let you know the situation before Thursday.

Finally, as I noted in my 10.03 blog entry (below), please remember to email your one page handout to me no later than Wednesday 10/10 at 4:30 pm. Unlike the final presentations, the minimum dress code for this one is casual ... but “business casual” is probably your safest choice this time around.

N/A – Midterm presentation week

^10.03

Hello again, class! I've posted our assignment for the week in my previous blog entry (below). In addition, though, please do check our midterm presentation scorecard for any errors. I've scheduled the presentations to run from 4:30 pm to 7:00 pm (if necessary) on Thursday 10/11, i.e. next week.

I am trying very hard to get a more professionally furnished room for our presentations. I am not certain that I'll be able to do it, so please check this blog within 24 hours of the presentations (i.e. by Wednesday 10/10 at 4:30 pm) for our room location.

Finally, please keep in mind that your one page presentation handout is due to me in PDF format by email no later than Wednesday 10/10 at 4:30 pm! You should also bring 40 copies of the handout to the presentation with you for distribution to our guests and fellow students.

See 09.29 entry below for reading assignment

^09.29

Good news! We did not have an opportunity to review our COSO sections on Objective Setting and Event Identification last week, so we will do so this week ... and thus we will not have any additional COSO readings this week! :)

We'll wrap up our discussions of Gary Winnick (Global Crossing), Joseph Nacchio (Qwest), and Brian Hunter (Amaranth Advisors), all of whom were covered by last week's readings. The only new reading for this week (and thus the only “quizzable” reading) will be an article about the fall of Barings.

This week we'll have a “double dip” ... two public speaking tips ... interaction and integration! We'll also spend some time preparing for the midterm presentations on October 11^th.

Barings article

^09.22

Hello class! This week, we'll speak in detail about our midterm presentations, which have tentatively been scheduled for Thursday 10.11. Please don't worry; they'll be very short and very casual, i.e. just a “warm up” for the formal final presentations. And they'll only cover the risk management plan sections we discussed in class through last week.

We'll also discuss our public speaking tip of the week, which is ... gesticulation!

Then we'll review the topic Objective Setting. Please read pages 35 to 40 of the Integrated Framework text, and then the related Applications pages 13 to 20.

We'll also review the topic Event Identification. Please read pages 41 to 47 of the integrated framework text, and then the related Applications pages 21 to 32.

Whew ... that's a lot of reading, and there's more to come! So I think it's only fair to guarantee you that my quiz questions for the upcoming week will only come from the “scandal” material (below) and not the COSO material (above).

But that's a “one time only” guarantee ... :(

Okay, now on to the scandals! Go to a web page that the US House of Representatives' Committee on Energy and Commerce established for its investigations of Global Crossing, and read: (a) the Member Statement of the Honorable Jim Greenwood, posted near the bottom of the web page, and (b) the Panel 1 testimony of Ms. Lenette Crumpler, posted near the top of the web page.

Finally, please read an article about Amaranth Advisors, a scandal that resulted in the instant death of a multi-billion dollar hedge fund.

P.S. Just in case you're “keeping score” at home, the paragraph numbers of the Citigroup SEC document that we reviewed in class were 16, 17, 23, 37, 41, 42, 104, 105, 107, 111 through 115, 121 through 125, 130, and 131.

COSO pages 35 to 40 and 13 to 20; COSO pages 41 to 47 and 21 to 32

Global Crossing (two readings), Amaranth

^09.15

REMINDER! Please send me your preliminary choices about your project, i.e. the organization, the product or service, and your team members. It is due to me via email by 4:30 pm on Thursday (i.e. right before our next class) ... even if you chat with me about it in person or by phone!

We'll begin our class this week with our quiz, with an “Elevator Pitch” video (which still wasn't working last week!), and with our second public speaking tip of the week ... conversation!

Then we'll summarize our long term objectives discussion and move on to our discussion of the Internal Environment and our scandal of the week. In your COSO text, please read the relevant Integrated Framework section on pages 27 through 34, and then the related Application Techniques section on pages 5 through 12.

This week's scandal will be Citigroup Global Markets (F/K/A Salomon Smith Barney); please read the first ten paragraphs of that SEC announcement, the ones that appear under the heading Nature of the Action.

COSO pages 27 to 34 and 5 to 12; SEC civil action regarding Citigroup

^09.08

This week, we'll dive into our risk management model! And we'll begin by discussing Martha Stewart's unfortunate journey into our prison system. :(

Our first quiz on the COSO risk management cube (and, as always, on the reading assignments) will occur at 4:30 pm on Thursday, so please be prompt! After the quiz, we'll (hopefully) watch the “Elevator Pitch” video that was not functioning last week, and we'll begin a series of public speaking tips of the week with an important concept ... locomotion! I'll also spend a few minutes chatting about my honors course in Applied Business Research.

Then we'll dive into the COSO text, which contains two different manuals, the first a 125 page document entitled ERM Integrated Framework and the second a 105 page document entitled Application Techniques. I've placed them on reserve in the library, bound in a single volume and listed under AC 450 and/or AC 861. And, as we discussed in class, they are also available for purchase through the Publications link of the COSO web site.

We'll address the brief Achievement of Objectives section in the Integrated Framework document; it runs from the bottom of page 20 through page 21. Then we'll discuss the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announcement regarding the Martha Stewart case, as well as a bit of recent history regarding the firm.

COSO pages 20 to 21; SEC announcement & Imclone article

^09.06

Welcome, class! I look forward to meeting you today. We'll begin by reviewing some administrative documents: our course calendar (below), our syllabus, and the term project requirements. We'll read about The Art of the Pitch and watch an Elevator Pitch. Then we will proceed to our introductory discussion of risk management by reviewing the 7 page executive summary at the beginning of the “Integrated Framework” COSO text, and by briefly discussing a Wal-Mart application.

Please note that there are two different documents in the COSO text, the first a 125 page document entitled ERM Integrated Framework and the second a 105 page document subtitled Application Techniques. Both are on reserve in the library, bound in a single volume and cross-listed under AC 450 and AC 861.

The textbook material column (to the right of this blog posting column) contains the readings that appear on your quizzes. If I assign a reading that will not be quizzed, I will list it in that column but will note that it won't be “quizzable.” Also, please keep in mind that the Horngren text readings will always be optional and thus will never be quizzed.

All documents must be submitted in PDF format. If you do not have software to convert a word processing file to PDF, here is a free online service that has been recommended to me by former students. Please note, though, that I have no relationship with the company that runs the site ... and I can't guarantee that it will always work for you!

COSO Executive Summary

Thu 09.13

I, II, III, IV. Long Term Objectives (Martha Stewart Omnimedia)

Thu 09.20

V. Internal Environment (Citigroup SSB)

Thu 09.27

VI. Short Term Objectives (Global Crossing)

Thu 10.04

VII. Event Identification (Amaranth, Barings)

Thu 10.11

Midterm Presentations

Thu 10.18

VIII, IX, X. Risk Assessment, Response, & Controls (Hewlett Packard)

Thu 10.25

XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV. Info. / Monitoring, Roles, Limitations, Next Steps (Drexel)

Thu 11.01

Revisiting Ethics (AICPA Vision, Parmalat, Worldcom)

Thu 11.08

Leading the Financial Profession (Tax shelters)

Thu 11.15

Guest Speaker / Virtual class

Thu 11.22

THANKSGIVING!! :)

Thu 11.29

Review

Thu 12.06

Final Presentations