[.ca] Unaccountable: How the Accounting Profession Forfeited a ... (ISBN 0471423629)

the way of all business:
I found this book very interesting, despite some minor errors. After all, it is a big subject. The book is the best explanation I've yet seen of the transformation of the professions into businesses like any other, and the absolute dichotomy between what the public thinks auditors do and what the auditors actually do. Unfortunately, I think what one takes away from this is: don't buy stocks, you can't know what's going on with them. Although "Unaccountable" makes the accounting profession look bad, absent a complete restructuring fo the financial markets accountants will continue to work to please the management rather than the investors, because that is the only way the accountants can survive. The same is true for lawyers, bankers, and rating agencies.

a balanced assessment:
As a longtime consultant, now retired, I was pleasantly surprised to read Unaccountable. The book offers a balanced view of an area that is too often seen in blacks and whites, especially today when facile solutions to complex problems seem more the rule than the exception. The book presented a world of individuals and groups subject to human pressures to succeed and compete, and along the way bend the rules to gain advantage. But it also took pains to show the good parts of a professional culture once built on integrity that has, unfortunately, made some unwise compromises of late. The book's broad historical and personal perspective also adds interest to the discussion. In many ways, Unaccountable rings true to me, and for those with the time and patience to stop and consider what is really going on beyond the vogue for seeking quick fixes and scapegoats, it also points out a path toward sensible reform.

Unaccountable: How the Accounting Profession Forfeited:
This book doesn't just tell you what has been going on with the accounting profession during the last twenty years. It details the great history of accounting. Based on the historical backdrop, the current behavior of the former "big eight" takes on tragic proportions. As an indivdiual that studied much to receive a Masters degree in accounting, I am much encouraged that this sad era is closer to ending then beginning. The arrogance of these mega firms are causing them to self destruct on their own. The economy will be much better served when the country has twenty plus larger firms again instead of the current four. Mike Brewster does a great job of giving the reader an inside look at a mega firm and a great job of going back in time to explain the profession from an historical viewpoint.

HBS recommendation:
I saw this fairly obscure book recommended by Harvard Business Review Online. I'm an MBS student and this is a great introduction to the dual nature of auditors: in the business of making money but supposedly beholden ot the public. The author does a great job of showing how the big firms got caught up in the quest for business and forgot about their second duty. Not sure why I haven't seen more of this book; probably not sensationalistic enough.

Factual Errors and Unsupported Generalizations:
Unfortunately, this book was not carefully fact-checked. For example, on page 115, Brewster names Hain Hurdman as one of the Big-8 firms in the mid-60s, but omits Arthur Young & Company. On page 293, Brewster identifies Ernst & Young as IBM's auditor. That is certainly untrue in the US (PwC are the auditors), and one cannot discern from the text whether the reference id to E & Y's French affiliate. Throughout the book, Brewster consistently gets Laskawy's name wrong. Early in the book, the author cites Florie Munroe, an internal auditor at Greenwich Hospital and who "rose to senior manager \oat PwC\c, as a reliable source for partners' work habits. Give me a break!