Special Assignment

1.

* Pressure. In the video, Myers was facing the pressure from his boss and the boss of his boss. Ultimately, they all are facing the high expectations from the Wall Street and its financial projections. The accounting department was facing a pressure that they had to make statements out of a boss’ thought.

* Rationalization. Myer’s boss, Scott convinced Myers that the terrible margin was due to an accounting error, which would, in the end, automatically fix itself, if they made the change.

* Opportunity. In Myers’ mind, he thought the change was just an aggressive accounting mistake. Nothing serious would happen to him.

2.

Not only because Scott was his superior, but also because WorldCom was a successful company led by Scott. And Myers still thought he was doing some aggressive accounting, not committing fraud. If think out of the box, everyone should be blamed for this scandal. It is not a day’s work, so Scott was at that spot and did not choose the optimum choice determined by the public.

3.

In my opinion, there is very vague difference between an aggressive accounting and outright fraud. It really depends on how much public influence it will have. It is essential to take losses into account when making decisions. The AICPA requires CPAs to act for in a way that serves the public interest, maintains public trust, and shows commitment to professionalism. However, CPAs are in great pressure from companies’ boards to meet their earning expectation. In this case, Accountants will play tricks to and even commit fraud to satisfy their needs.

4.

* WorldCom, for a long time, focused on shareholders’ value through stock price appreciation. This gives even bigger pressure for WorldCom to meet the expectations.

* WorldCom would pay a high premium for an overpriced asset and then hype the combined value to Wall Street. In the video, Jeff pointed out that reluctant to disappoint Wall Street, where there are lots of institutional...