Most bosses open to cook books

TWO out of three bosses would consider cooking the books or interfering with their company’s operations to avoid a bad profit result, research suggests.

A new report says “earnings management” practices are more popular among chief financial officers than among chief executive officers.

But female managers are more likely to think accounting tricks are lying, the University of Adelaide and University of Melbourne report found.

The researchers contacted hundreds of CEOs and CFOs of large Australian companies for the study.