Review:
Building Public Trust, by Samuel A. DiPiazza Jr. and Robert G. Eccles, couldn't be more timely or necessary. Arriving in the wake of a seemingly endless stream of corporate accounting scandals--which in a matter of months have bankrupted Enron and brought WorldCom and Global Crossing down to earth--this book offers a bona fide framework for a new, open form of transparent financial reporting that should prove more palatable to businesses and their stakeholders, and more effective than any of those in misuse today. DiPiazza, CEO of PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Eccles, president of Advisory Capital Partners, certainly know of which they speak, and they lay out a highly informed and quite feasible system that actively involves every member of the so-called corporate reporting supply chain: executives, boards of directors, independent auditors, information distributors, third-party analysts, investors, and various other stakeholders. They propose specific ways to develop three key elements (a spirit of transparency, a culture of accountability, and people of integrity) that work together to "create public trust in markets." Based on their extensive firsthand experiences, they further show how using these principles can lead to a scenario where "capital is being allocated more efficiently all over the world." The timeliness of this book is one thing, the content within its pages another, and on both counts Building Public Trust definitely delivers. --Howard Rothman
From the Inside Flap:
There is a crisis in corporate reporting: the Enron bankruptcy; the shattering of a prestigious global accounting firm; criminal and civil litigation against management, financial institutions, and law firms; stock market volatility caused by repeated restatements and uneasy investors-add to this angry U.S. congressional hearings, pressure on and by the Securities and Exchange Commission, and talk of new rules and new regulatory bodies. The impact is global. There are no walls or oceans around this crisis: it affects the entire world's capital markets, investors, and economies.
Why has this happened? What must we do? What insights and innovations will prevent future financial disasters? The worlds of finance and investment need answers. The investing public demands them.
In this important new book, written as these events have unfolded, the CEO of PricewaterhouseCoopers and a former Harvard Business School professor put before us their recommendations for addressing the crisis. Take the journey with them, from pioneering concepts to pioneering technology. Their views build on a decade of research, analysis, and dialogue with business leaders assembled by a team of the profession's finest thinkers.
The time is ripe for change. What is needed is an entirely new level of clarity and relevance. To this end, DiPiazza and Eccles propose a Three-Tier model of corporate transparency that draws from the best thinking and practices worldwide. And there is a technology enabler that can help us get there: the authors show that this twenty-first-century style of reporting is a perfect fit for new Internet/XBRL technology.
This is the book we were waiting for. The blueprint for the future of corporate reporting is in these pages. Committed to quality, clarity, and relevance in corporate reporting, now and in the future, PricewaterhouseCoopers shares its thinking in a time of crisis and renewal.
Building Public Trust: The Future of Corporate Reporting continues and deepens thinking first presented in another book from PricewaterhouseCoopers and John Wiley & Sons: The ValueReporting Revolution: Moving Beyond the Earnings Game, by Robert G. Eccles, Robert H. Herz, E. Mary Keegan, and David M. H. Phillips.
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