Honors Program Theses

Award/Availability

Open Access Honors Program Thesis

First Advisor

Ron Abraham

Abstract

While the new requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act might seem like an excellent step towards improving the honesty, integrity, and reputation of the corporate accounting world, the actual implementation of these regulations is proving to be quite a headache for public companies and their auditors. Congress developed new rules for publicly held companies, but they failed to provide any guidelines or best practices for companies to follow in the compliance process. In addition, the costs of implementing the various provisions of SOX are adding up to be much higher than originally anticipated, creating a burden for smaller public companies. This paper will describe the benefits to the public marketplace that result from companies' compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley, and compare those benefits to the numerous costs incurred. The central question will be whether the Act creates more costs than the benefits provided by more stringent accounting and reporting standards are actually worth. The cost-benefit section will be followed by a more in-depth look at the effects of SOX on smaller public companies, including some of the recommendations made by the Advisory Committee on Smaller Public Companies. This paper will conclude with a few observations and an answer to the question of whether the benefits of SOX compliance are worth the costs.

Year of Submission

2007

Department

Department of Accounting

University Honors Designation

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the designation University Honors

Comments

If you are the rightful copyright holder of this thesis and wish to have it removed from the Open Access Collection, please submit a request to scholarworks@uni.edu and include clear identification of the work, preferably with URL.

Date Original

5-2007

Object Description

1 PDF file (20 pages)

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