Nguyen 1

Khanh Nguyen

ACCT 2600

10/2/2019

Ethics in Financial Reporting Reflection

Most people commit fraud and steal money because either they have motive, opportunity

or rationalization. From the book and assignment videos I found fraud happens way more than I

thought. It is true that some people that commit fraud have the matter of never having enough

that they just want more. Some are really in the need of quick cash or rationalizing their action

but none of these should be happening in the work place. Tracing the causes of these frauds can

relate to someone’s background, their upbringing whether they grew up poor, never had any

money or was raised in a bad family etc. These are huge factors that go into committing fraud

because the value of money can blind people’s eyes and messes with their minds. Recently my

coworker was fired due to stealing money from work through creating fake orders that place

orders normally, but they don’t add to the total sales, money was stolen from the business in that

way. Not that he’s necessarily bad or anything because I personally know him, but that he had

motive when the business had weak internal control. He kept doing it until was caught because

of rationalization.

In the world of organizations frauds can be committed on large scale. Perpetrator will

always find a way around the system, but smart people are smart enough not to do it because

sooner or later, things will line up and people will get caught stealing or cheating. Personal

ethics are very important key to success in a work place or to run an organization. People with

false mindset will find loopholes so they gain personal wealth. Corrupted individuals in an

organization will falsify financial reports to lie to investors about their financial position and
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control their stock price so then they dump their stocks and profit from it. If top executives are

corrupted, this will lead to employees committing frauds even more. If I happened to be in a

situation where financial statement was forced to be altered from the CEO or other big guys, I

would simply won’t do it because I don’t want to go to jail, so I would quit and report them to

the SEC or other legal departments. Fraudulent is unethical and should have no place in business.