Does globalization threaten cultural diversity Essay

Does globalization threaten cultural diversity - Essay Example By the help of all the advancement and progress in the technology now anyone can travel a thousand miles in matter of hours and days. However Globalization is a very controversial topic, many economist don’t support the idea of globalization as it has many diverse affects on the economy. As many economist believe that Advances in communication and transportation technology, combined with free-market ideology, have given goods, services, and capital unprecedented mobility. And this can affect the local market of the country. It is also argued that globalization threatens cultural diversity by its promotion of an internationalized or corporate culture. Many cultures seem to be overly influenced by the most dominant cultures like American and Britain. The loss of cultural identities leads to the diminishing of such concepts as cultural diversity and multicultural environment. ... diversity by diminishing distinct cultural identities American Cultural Imperialism is the concept that strongly goes against the promotion of cultural diversity through globalization. The dominance of America on world economy and business market leads them to a place where their power of negotiation and economic stability influences the people as well as their beliefs and cultural priorities. The diverse population living in America, for instance, is under the influence of American culture, the freedom it brings, the dresses it allows and the social status it offers. Hence, smaller or less famous cultures are slowly and steadily transforming into an Americanized culture and the concept of cultural diversity diminishes. The swiftly increasing development pace of the globalization concept leads to several uncontrollable outcomes for the diverse cultural identities (Puledda 2000). The technological advancements, mass media and easy transportation give rise to a world where distances ca nnot place a boundary for people from reaching the foreign cultures, business markets and traditions. The people working abroad are even given chances to learn the language that is native to the country they moved to. Although it is a good move, it rejects the cultural diversity concept and rather snatches and transforms the distinct cultural identities of people. Globalization is bringing people together but it is also responsible for diminishing the uniqueness of other cultures. The marketing campaigns and rules of the companies trading in more than one country may not fulfill the cultural rules effectively due to unawareness or difficulty in managing different policies for each country. The unitary code of conduct for employees working under the name of a single brand may not be

Lessons for Auditors and Regulators from the WorldCom Fraud Essay

Lessons for Auditors and Regulators from the WorldCom Fraud - Essay Example The fraud was undertaken by representing line costs as capital, rather than expenses and inflating revenue on the financial statements. However, a team of internal auditors later on came to discover the fraudulent representation of financial statements and notified the Company’s board of directors and audit committee, who acted swiftly although the company had already become bankrupt (Albrecht, Albrecht, Albrecht & Zimbelman, 2011, 457). Lessons from WorldCom Fraud Lessons learnt from WorldCom fraud presents a broad range of issues to put into consideration such as, the importance of fraud auditors to have knowledge and an understanding of corporate systems and processes. Lessons have it that routine internal audit processes may not expose fraud, since auditors focus on providing assurance with respect to effective controls, rather than detecting irregularities as `possibilities of fraud. Fraud auditors should actively seek to identify irregularities and anomalies as indicator s of fraudulent behaviors among financial executives and general corporate staff, and use the knowledge to undertake further in-depth analysis to root out fraud. Fraud detection in corporate organisations relies on the knowledge and understanding of auditing and detection by officials of the fraud background, fraud schemes, principles, and indicators (Singleton & Singleton, 2010, p.145). WorldCom internal auditors were well conversant with the organisation’s culture and choices of recording the financial statement, which helped them immediately to recognise the $2 billion operating cost recorded as a fixed asset. This came out as a red flag unlike the normal culture of the organisation, more so when an official referred to the expenditure as prepaid capacity. Auditors’ understanding of the normal organisations culture was able to detect the omission of lease line cost in the operating expense account as a fraud (Rezaee & Riley, 2010, p.212). However, new loopholes in f inancial statements often require auditors to improve and devise new ways of detecting fraud, since past indicators may not be applicable in future fraud cases. Corporate fraud has continuously advanced with the computerisation of operations, and thus requires fraud auditors to be proactive in improving their fraud detection schemes. Corporations need to put in place mechanisms for assessing fraud as an organisation’s risk, and approach the risks using relevant internal audit methodologies. Fraud auditors should also be seen with regard to the presence of indicators of fraud, and design relevant controls and prevention methods of fraud. However, proactive fraud seeking auditing activities may be costly for organisations, though not comparable to extent of loss in case of successful fraud. Cost involved may include knowledge expansion in the area of fraud detection and more so, the use of electronic-detection tools. Internal auditors have the mandate to understand an organisat ion’s corporate culture, conditions, and choices that may have been used by fraudsters in engaging in financial statement fraud. Such an understanding would go a long way in providing accurate indicators of fraud and possible fraud in future of the organization's inconsistency with fraud risk levels that organizations face (Rezaee & Riley, 2010, p.213).