Arriving at our places of employment, we expect challenges but hope for a good day, walk thru our daily routines including the early morning cup of coffee, sharing pleasantries with our co-workers, reflecting on our weekends, and fulfilling our professional responsibilities. We come to trust our colleagues, depend on them, and never doubt that they will do the ethical thing. As Christians, we are expected to believe the best about others. In fact, most of us want to believe the best about our professional colleagues. Yet, we know that given the pressures of life, anyone may be tempted to do something unethical or illegal. Therefore, we have a duty to our professional colleagues to prevent putting them in a position that may lead them to unethical or illegal behavior. How do we do this? In part, we make sure that the appropriate internal controls are in place, followed, and recognize potential pressures that may be present.
We need to be ever vigilant in our pursuit of an ethical culture in order to protect employees, the organization, and its various stakeholders. The fraud triangle describes the three elements that when combined often lead to an ethical storm “Pressure, Opportunity, and Rationalization.” As professional’s we know that by removing one of the sides of that triangle can significantly reduce the probability of fraud.
On November 8, Dr. Kelly Pope, CPA will be presenting the Film, “All the Queens Horses.” In this documentary, we will see how the failure to eliminate the “opportunity” and missing simple yet crucial internal controls, and not being aware of the signs of fraud that ultimately led to the largest municipal fraud in U.S. history.
We hope that you will join us for this intriguing true story of fraud in the heartland of America.
-Professor Kent Williams
