Biography
Al has been a member of the Goizueta Business School faculty since 1980, and has held several administrative posts at Goizueta including Acting Dean, Senior Associate Dean, and Assistant Dean and Director of MBA Programs. He has been a Guest Professor on several occasions at the Helsinki School of Business and Economics in Helsinki, Finland and at Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria.
Al's teaching has focused on financial reporting and strategic cost management in the MBA and Executive MBA Programs. He has also taught in these areas in open enrollment and custom non-degree executive education programs. He served as Faculty Director for the Emory/LIMAK Austrian General Management Program and several other executive programs. In addition he has had consulting relationships with a variety of corporate organizations and law firms, and he served as an accounting advisor to the Enron Bankruptcy Examiner. He was a Visiting Scholar in the Atlanta office of KPMG.
Education
-
PhDGeorgia State University
-
Doctor of Science, Economics and Business (honoris causa)Johannes Kepler University
-
Master of AccountancyUniversity of South Carolina
-
Bachelor's Business AdministrationUniversity of South Carolina
Enron: what happened and what we can learn from it
Enron's accounting for its non-consolidated special-purpose entities (SPEs), sales of its own stock and other assets to the SPEs, and mark-ups of investments to fair value substantially inflated its reported revenue, net income, and stockholders' equity, and possibly understated its liabilities. We delineate six accounting and auditing issues, for which we describe, analyze, and indicate the effect on Enron's financial statements of their complicated structures and transactions. We next consider the role of Enron's board of directors, audit committee, and outside attorneys and auditors. From the foregoing, we evaluate the extent to which Enron and Andersen followed the requirements of GAAP and GAAS, from which we draw lessons and conclusions.