Eyes on the prize

Detecting fraud, positive trends, and workforce effectiveness

A Guide to Forensic Accounting Investigation

Today’s demanding marketplace expects corporate directors and executives to take responsibility for fraud detection; this expectation is buoyed by such legislation as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and Canada’s most recently conceived Multilateral Instruments. But it is clear that, from CEOs to financial statement auditors, everyone has much to learn about the relatively new discipline of forensic accounting investigation. 

Written by three senior forensic accountants and auditors, Thomas W. Golden, Steven L. Skalak, and Mona M. Clayton, A Guide to Forensic Accounting Investigation explores exactly what management, corporate directors and auditors (internal and external) need to understand about fraud and forensic accounting. From basic techniques to intricate tests and technologies, this book is a rich, multifaceted response to the need for better-trained senior executives who are thoroughly familiar with fraud detection techniques and the intricate, demanding work of forensic accounting specialists.

By T. Golden, S. Skalak and M. Clayton. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. For more information visit www.wiley.com.

The Workforce Scorecard

Firms are most successful when they focus on the critical elements that drive their business performance. In The Workforce Scorecard — Managing Human Capital to Execute Strategy, the authors enhance our understanding of the factors that affect the success of a workforce. They discuss how a firm can develop an effective workforce scorecard that differentiates employees and defines employee characteristics that impact the success of a firm. Such a workforce scorecard contains elements affecting overall workforce success.

The effectiveness of the workforce impacts organizational success, since it is one of the four elements in a balanced scorecard — in this case, workforce success substitutes for the innovation and learning perspective of a traditional scorecard. The other components of the balanced scorecard proposed in the book are similar to the traditional elements of customer, financial, and operational perspectives.

The Workforce Scorecard includes many measurements for assessing workforce success and its three determinants — workforce mindset and culture; workforce competencies; and leadership and workforce behaviours. The authors describe how they chose particular measurements for assessing each component of this model at Big Pharma, a fake name for a real company. For example, for mindset and culture, they chose measurements that considered understanding strategy, commitment, skills, and culture. Key outcomes for Big Pharma included improved management decisions about employees’ roles, selection, and needs for improvement.

The Workforce Scorecard is a useful book. The concluding chapters describe the implementation of a workforce scorecard throughout an organization. The authors suggest many possible ways of assessing their scorecards and include these in their comprehensive discussion of organizational effectiveness.

By Mark A. Huselid, Brian E. Becker, and Richard W. Beatty. Published by Harvard Business School Press. For more information visit www.hbspress.org.

Reviewed by Patrick Buckley, CMA, PhD. Buckley is an Ottawa-based systems analyst.

Peripheral Vision

Communications networks today offer up many threats and many opportunities. Newspaper articles, blogs and online forums can tell you much about competitors, and the marketplace at large, and how your business might be affected by them. However, even when we are aware of the many signals of change (or grievances of clients) popping up in the public eye, it’s a rare company that can seize the opportunity to create true dynamic changes.

Peripheral Vision: Detecting the weak signals that will make or break your company suggests that all companies have to check their peripheral vision, and improve it to broaden the organizational vision. The book explains the concept through case studies of the BBC’s adaptation to digital and multimedia technologies, Mattel’s struggle with the Barbie franchise, and several other high-profile examples.

By George S. Day and Paul J.H. Schoemaker. Published by Harvard Business School Press. For more information visit www.hbspress.org.  

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