A bold attack on a system that needs major overhaul.
A blistering indictment of auditors and their role in permitting corporate fraud.
Reading Littman’s well-researched, legitimately angry book will likely reinforce the already widely pessimistic perspective on both self-regulation and governmental oversight of the financial world. Littman attacks the “triangle” of “fraudulent executives, complicit auditors and intolerable public injury” in an impressive work that extends beyond analyzing just the latest financial debacle. In fact, the author demonstrates that the “era of low standards” that began with Enron in late 2001 “was a long one and is not over.” Littman assails fraudulent corporate executives, but as he documents in case after case, the fraud they perpetrate largely goes unchecked by auditing firms. Governmental regulation has proven to be less than effective as well, according to Littman. The SEC made a “drastic error in leaving auditing standard development to the care of the audit profession.” And beginning in 2006, the well-intentioned Sarbanes-Oxley Act, aimed at corporate reform, was subject to “a movement to dilute [it] and press for more restrictions on litigation against auditors or financial institutions by victims of fraud.” These are just two glaring examples in a sea awash with weak and contradictory rules. The most damaging assessment made by the author is his strong claim that the designers of derivative securities “based on platforms of bundled sub-prime mortgages and other sub-par platforms could not have been ignorant of the potential consequences of what they had constructed.” Littman writes that both public officials and private executives caused “severe public injury” and “all bear heavy burdens of responsibility for the crash of 2007-2009.” Littman concludes that auditors could have prevented the “major frauds” that occurred and “had they done so, the damages would have been very substantially less.” Littman offers a set of conclusions and suggestions for improvement, and their implications are significant. This is a sobering but much-needed exposé of the real culprits behind the country’s financial maladies. Unfortunately, it appears those in both the private and public sectors must share the blame.
A bold attack on a system that needs major overhaul.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1452810997
Page Count: 492
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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