Cambridge Business Association
Building Public Trust
Book

Building Public Trust

The Future of Corporate Reporting

Robert G. Eccles and Samuel A. DiPiazza
Wiley, 2002
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Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Applicable

Recommendation

In the wake of the Enron bankruptcy, there has been plenty of teeth-gnashing about what went wrong, but far too little analysis of what we can do to make things better. Samuel A. DiPiazza, Jr., CEO of PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Robert G. Eccles, a PwC fellow and former Harvard Business School Professor, take a brave stab at addressing the fundamental shortfalls in the process through which companies report their performance. By proposing a new vision of corporate transparency, the authors take an important first step in reforming the corporate reporting system and restoring investor confidence. getAbstract.com highly recommends this book to any readers wondering where the financial community should go from here.

Summary

The Future of Corporate Reporting

Information is the lifeblood of the capital markets. Investors risk their hard-earned capital in the markets, and they rely on information they receive from companies in making their investment decisions. They need reliable information on a timely basis. They want it in language they can understand, and they should receive it in formats they can easily use for analysis. Investors have the right to expect that the benefits or consequences they experience will result from the decisions they make, not from flawed information.

Recent corporate failures and scandals have undermined the trust that investors and other stakeholders place in the Corporate Reporting Supply Chain: company executives, boards of directors, independent auditing firms, information distributors, and third-party analysts. In working collaboratively to regain public trust, all of the supply chain participants depend on standard setters and market regulators to establish and enforce the rules under which they fulfill their roles. Supporting the entire supply chain are enabling technologies of many kinds.

Restoring public trust will require that every participant...

About the Authors

Samuel A. DiPiazza, Jr. is the CEO of PricewaterhouseCoopers, the world’s largest professional services organization. Mr. DiPiazza joined PricewaterhouseCoopers in 1973 and most recently served as Senior Partner and Chairman of the U.S. firm with executive responsibility for U.S. operations. Robert G. Eccles is a founder and president of Advisory Capital Partners, Inc. (ACP), and a Senior Fellow of PricewaterhouseCoopers. Prior to founding ACP, Dr. Eccles was a full professor at Harvard Business School, where he was a faculty member for 14 years, receiving tenure in 1989.

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