Chapter 21
Identifying Some Themes
21.1 INTRODUCTION
In the first part of this book I looked at the background to creative accounting and fraud. This involved looking at the motives for companies indulging in creative accounting and fraud, and into the methods which they used. This was followed by an examination of the academic literature and a look at 20 celebrated accounting scandals and scams that had occurred throughout history up to about 1980. These scandals proved very varied, both geographically and historically.
Then in the second part of the book, we looked at scandals that had occurred across 12 different countries worldwide since 1980. These chapters were all written by nationals and experts of the countries involved. The chapters were diverse, ranging from developed countries such as the UK and USA to developing countries such as China and India.
In addition, a separate chapter looked at accounting scandals and the role of accounting in the global credit crunch. Despite their differences, in every country there was no shortage of accounting scandals from which to choose. The scandals covered are the most important ones to occur in each country, but they are by no means exhaustive.
In this chapter I seek to provide an overview of the different themes which I have synthesized and interpreted from the 13 chapters in Part B. Readers are referred to the individual chapters for the sources and details of the cases discussed. I start by outlining the major ...
