Free Sherlock Holmes And Accounting Essay Sample

Chapter 4 looks at the role and value of imagination in different fields. With “The Adventure of Norwood Builder” in the background, the author demonstrates the role of imagination by contrasting the approaches Sherlock Holmes and Inspector Lestrade. While the latter with his linear thinking jumps onto conclusion on the basis of the facts, the former recognizes that the picture may be complex and applies his imagination to recombine the facts as pieces in a puzzle to reconstruct the whole picture. In order to facilitate the work of imagination one has to distance himself from the situation physically or mentally. Applying it to the world of accounting, if auditors repeat their routine procedures each year which are already known to the clients, they may have little chance of discovering irregularities or fraud. While distancing from the situation and applying imagination would serve them better to identify where the problems are. Certain items deemed immaterial, may shed light on the real picture in the organization which is audited.
Chapter 5 describes the art of deduction used by Holmes. It is important to be aware of the pitfalls, where our mind can take as it is predisposed to superfluous analysis. With reference to psychological studies, the author demonstrates that in many cases people do not see the actual picture, but have tendency to see what they want or expect to see. The author encourages the readers to practice the mindful approach of Sherlock Holmes, who does his best to deduce his theories from the real facts, however improbable it may appear. Thus, ignoring red flag signals may hinder accountants’ ability to discover possible wrongdoing. A prominent case demonstrating that could be Madoff investment scandal, where signals pointing to fraud have been coming to the investigators for years before the fraud was discovered.

Reference

Konnikova, M. (2013). Mastermind: how to think like Sherlock Holmes. Canongate Books.