Assume that you are the CFO of a listed company.
The shareholders, creditors, analysts and other stakeholders are awaiting the announcement of your company full-year financial results at the end of the month.
The market consensus is your company's earnings to be $2 per share.
However, you know that the earnings per share should be $1.50.
The CEO has pressured you to shore up the earnings per share to at least $2. He has suggested various unethical ways to increase the earnings before the announcement of the full-year results.
Question 1: Perform a stakeholder analysis and discuss how the various stakeholders would be affected if the CFO and CEO manipulated the earnings.