Paul Solman (the reporter) tells us in the beginning of the video, the story of Phar-Mor is a tale of fraud, one of the largest in American corporate history, but it’s also a modern morality play in which previously honest people, hired more or less at random, sustained the fraud for years. We’ll show you how they did it, but you’ll have to decide for yourself as to why and why they were allowed to carry on by everyone in a position to stop them, from investors to the board of directors to the auditing firm of Coopers & Lybrand.
But maybe the best question to ask as you watch the fraud unfold is simply this: What would you have done had you been a part of the juggernaut that was Phar-Mor? Having watched the video, it is now your turn to share your thoughts on just such a question.
The focus of this assignment is to utilize what we have covered so far in the course to discuss how you would have acted had you been part of the accounting team at Phar-Mor. Select one of the accounting persons presented in video and describe how you would have acted had that been you. Most importantly, describe how ethics (using the material we have covered so far in class) is involved, or maybe not involved. For example, if you choose to be Patrick Finn, would you have done the same thing? How does ethics and ethical decision-making enter into your behavior? How did it not? Was your motivation in doing what you did ethical? And so on. The same could be done for any of the other three key accounting persons discussed in the video. (Hint: make sure to include in your introduction which person you chose.) The key in this is to utilize what we have covered so far in analyzing this fraud case.
Other helpful links:
https://apnews.com/article/184adcacc7e89fc19caaa912e269528a
https://app.myeducator.com/reader/web/876/q586i/xv41t/
http://www.shoppbs.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/programs/transcripts/1304.html
https://www.nytimes.com/1995/05/26/business/ousted-phar-mor-president-found-guilty-in-1-billion-fraud.html
