Creating Opportunities: The State of the Nonprofit Sector in Los Angeles 2007

Provides an annual analysis and statistical review of the state of the nonprofit sector in the region, explores current policy and budget developments impacting the sector, and seeks to inform debate about the sector's current and future role

Palmer & Harvey: A Case of Governance and Audit Failure

Palmer & Harvey (P&H) is a recent example of a UK corporate failure which raises questions about current corporate governance practice, the quality and integrity of audit reporting, and the “sugar coating” of Annual Reports. P&H is but one example of UK firms currently struggling to survive, or failing. The paper presents some details about the P&H case, and then considers questions about corporate governance practice, and whether it is designed to truly safeguard the interests of stakeholders; it raises questions about conventional audit reporting, and whether it is too limited in its analysis and reporting. The paper recommends a strengthening of corporate governance guidelines and practice within the terms of the current Financial Reporting Council (FRC) review, and a wider adoption of forensic accounting practice and reporting, in part taking account of the impact of behavioural factors in management practice. A wider study is proposed to take this analysis and discussion further

The government fails to fund nonprofit human services in poor, African American neighborhoods

Much of the social safety net in the United States relies on partnerships between the service-providing non-profit organizations and the government, which funds those organizations serving high poverty areas. Eve Garrow examines how effective these partnerships are in serving impoverished neighborhoods, and finds that greater levels of neighborhood poverty improve the chances that nonprofit human services located in them will receive government funding—unless those neighborhoods are substantially African American. Based on these findings, she argues that the privatized welfare state may underserve neighborhoods where the need is greatest

White flight lowers the presence of nonprofit human services in minority neighborhoods

In recent decades, neighborhood segregation by race has been on the rise, with many whites leaving areas with increasing minority populations. Eve E. Garrow investigates the effects of this so-called ‘white flight’ on nonprofit services. She finds that as whites leave neighborhoods, this can lead to a fall in the number of local nonprofits. She argues that this may be due to a reduction in an area’s political influence and stakeholder’s perceptions that the neighborhood has become more isolated and prone to neglect

Accounting scandals: Beyond corporate governance

Accounting scandals are becoming perpetual in nature. They range from the ancient Mesopotamia, to the South Sea Bubble of 1720, to the famous Enron of 2001, down to Parmalat, Tesco and Toshiba of today. The series of accounting scandals that have occurred in the last two decades calls for a greater concern by the accounting profession. The accounting scandals that have occurred in this 21st century alone have shown that there is a need to look beyond corporate governance in the fight against financial deception. In this paper we argue that even in the face of the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002 and other regulations around the world that are targeted towards effective corporate governance, accounting scandals have never ceased to occur. Most of the legislation that has been passed in recent times was targeted at corporate governance, forgetting the crucial role that audit play within the agency relationship. And whenever there is any revelation of fraudulent financial reporting, investors don’t ask who are the directors, but the first question they ask is who are the auditors? Hence, there is a need to improve audit quality by approaching it from a forensic accounting perspective in order, to reduce the incidence of financial statement frauds in this era of information revolution. Thus, restoring investors’ confidence back in the financial reporting process and corporate governance. In this paper, we propose a forensic accounting paradigm as a viable option for reducing accounting scandals, since this will compliment corporate governance systems

Evaluating the Effect of Top Management Attributes on the Probability of Default

A few studies have focussed on the relationship between the top management team and probability of firm default. This research aims to evaluate the effect of CEO and CFO attributes, as top management, on the firm's probability of default. The research adopts a quantitative research methodology, of 642 companies on the FTSE all Share index. The findings show that as remuneration and tenure increased the probability of default decreased. This research proposes a regression model that ascertains the causal effect of an increase in the tenure and compensation of the Top Management Team on the Probability of default of a firm over a 3-year period. The findings will have a direct implication on management tenure and remuneration for firms to reduce their probability of default. This research can be developed further by undertaking a time series analysis of the data to see how the changes over time would affect the relationships. Keywords: Top Management Team, Probability of Default, CEO, CFO, KM