The tentative emergence, more confident rise and corrupted fall of management, clearly offers some pointers. The customs and practices which Friedmanism justified and helped establish need also to be changed. Firstly, attention is focused on legality and how accepted behaviour appears to be in flagrant conflict with the law. Problems may stem, in part at least, from the apparently ambiguous status of the joint stock limited liability company. The Friedmanite injunction to maximize shareholder wealth has also justified what has been referred to as creative accounting'. The off-balance-sheet deception became so widespread as to infect government and public accounts as well as the corporate and financial sectors, despite the fact that it involved contravention of the law. Internal accountability could be extended through, for example, individual disclosure in annual reports by directors, non-financial reporting to stakeholders and the holding of stakeholder general meetings.