KISS

    (By Joe Koletar) It is an old saying in every branch of the military. It stands for “Keep It Simple, Stupid!” It reflects the reality that we often tend to over-plan and over-prepare, to limit risk and increase our chances of success. While a fair degree of planning and preparation is necessary, too […]



Sniffing out the Bad Apples, Rotten Bushels and Sour Crops

 The“A.B.C.s”: How can we distinguish them? Sniffing out the Bad Apples, Bushels and Crops From the first conversations of a team dedicated to understanding the human side of fraud  we collectively came to realize that there were multiple problems in the conceptualization of fraud that needed to be tackled. This team was first assembled at […]



CORPORATE EXECUTIVE COMPLIANCE

(A NEW VIEW) (By Joe Koletar) We frequently have a tendency to gloss over Letters to The Editor, since they are usually over-heated opinion pieces. Some of them, however, are worth our attention. In the October 10, 2015 edition of The Economist magazine there is such a letter on page 18, titled “What VW Knew.” […]



THE BEAT GOES ON

(By Joe Koletar) It is the title of an old rock‘n roll song by Sonny and Cher. It also seems to capture today’s tone with regard to organizational misconduct. In the last six months we have seen FIFA (the international soccer federation,) VW (the car manufacturer which seems to have fiddled with emissions controls,) and […]



SOCCER BALLS AND VW’S

(IS THE U.S. THE WORLD’S WATCHDOG?) (By Joe Koletar) At first glance, soccer balls and Volkswagen (VW) automobiles do not seem to have much in common, but let us look at the two situations a bit more closely. On September 24, 2015 the Wall Street Journal carried the following article on page A-1: “VW CEO […]

    

CORRUPTION: BRAZIL 10, U.S. 2?

(By Joe Koletar) Or, to paraphrase an old TV host, “Now, for a really BIG show…” Is this an example of a really big, and corrupt, Farmer’s Market? The Wall Street Journal of April 7, 2015 carried the following Page One article: “Brazil Cracks Open Vast Bribery Scandal,” by Will Connors and Luciana Magalhaes. The […]