Date of Completion

Spring 5-8-2011

Thesis Advisor(s)

Sarbanes-Oxley, Corporate Greed, Greed, Scandal, Fraud, Auditing, Accounting Scandal

Honors Major

Accounting

Disciplines

Accounting | Business | Business Law, Public Responsibility, and Ethics

Abstract

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act is still a relatively new federal law set forth by the Securities Exchange Commission in 2002. Since its implementation, individuals have been wondering if Sarbanes-Oxley is effective enough and doing what it is meant to do – catch and prevent future accounting frauds and scandals. With the use of closer and stricter rules, the SOA is trying to prevent frauds with the use of a created Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. Most importantly, however, it was created to protect the investors from self-interested managers, so as to not have repeats of the Enron, WorldCom and Tyco International scandals. Lack of ethics and honesty seem to have been the primary issues within corporate and accounting scandals. Can the SOA identify companies that are being unethical even though its primary purpose is to prevent fraudulent acts? Can upper management still find a way around these extra rules and regulations newly implemented by law? In this thesis, I will discuss many concerns that public companies, auditors and individuals have about the effectiveness of the law over the past nine years of its existence.

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