A group of so-called socially conscious investment firms fired off a letter to 35 major companies urging them to re-evaluate whether it makes sense to remain serving on the Board of the US Chamber of Commerce.

The 44 investors argue there is a major difference between the individual companies' policies on certain matters and Chamber policy objectives.

Corporate credit quality will continue to rise in 2011, but the majority of the weakest companies are in the US, and those companies are more likely to default than any other segment, according a recent report by Standard & Poor’s.

The report, which evaluated the ‘weakest links’—or companies with ratings of B- or lower, noted that this group of entities tend to have more defaults by percentage than any other group. Noted the report authors: “Although we expect credit quality to continue improving in 2011, a moderate number of companies are likely to default—most likely those at the lower end of the ratings spectrum.”

In a follow-on from my blog yesterday on small business confidence and economic recovery, today I will take a look at the impact on retirement planning of continued tough conditions and a lack of external funding for businesses.

Retirement planning has taken a back burner for many small business owners since the crisis started. With small business confidence dropping in December for the first time in three months and many still reporting a dearth of outside funding sources, many owners expect to see their savings dwindle further in the coming six months, rather than grow.

As spending soared above even optimistic predictions this holiday season, small business owners are still far from optimistic about economic recovery as a whole, according to a survey by Discover Small Business Watch.

Discover's monthly index of small business confidence fell for the first time in three months in December, even as consumer spending soared. The index fell to 81.6 from 87.2 in November, a drop of 5.6 points.

CFOs who cook the books are often bullied into it by overbearing CEOs that are looking out for their own equity stakes, according to a new piece of research by a group of global academics.

The research looked at why and when CFOs become involved in material accounting manipulations, and what factors increased the likelihood that CFOs would knowingly become involved in accounting fraud.

Here are more encouraging signs that the economic recovery continues to gain strength.

Credit quality continues to improve and some indicators stand at two-year highs.

According to Standard & Poor's, the US speculative-grade default rate fell to 3.35 percent in mid-December, down from a peak of 11.4 percent hit in November 2009. In the US, 53 issuers defaulted through November, compared with 185 at the same time in 2009.

Although corporate social responsibility and sustainability are big buzzwords right now, and have been for some time, actual efforts to implement sustainable practices within the supply chain have not been a priority for many companies over the past few years.

This is, of course, hardly surprising. Given the vast array of changing regulations, increased compliance requirements, and the need to simply focus on basics as markets floundered through some of the toughest economic conditions of the past century, any projects not deemed either necessary for compliance purposes or able to show a very quick return on investment were understandably put on hold.

Data breaches happen for all kinds of reasons, from employee sabotage to human error. But the past week or so has been a big one for security disasters caused by hackers, according to Risk Management.

Two of them involve hackers who infiltrated a third party a corporation had hired to do email marketing. At McDonald's, a company managing the franchisor's email campaigns used another firm to send out the promotions. Hackers stole data from that last firm, including names, phone numbers, and addresses.

When it comes to data security breaches, the bulk of the attention goes to problems with information storage and transmission. In fact, I recently wrote something about some particularly egregious, recent examples.

 But it turns out there's also a big threat posed by what's known as visual privacy issues-that is, data displayed on screens. With the rise of a mobile workforce, constantly working on laptops, tablets, and smart phones, sending and receiving emails and tapping proprietary corporate information while on the go, security breaches caused by visual information are also increasing.

Although chief financial officers, risk managers, and other corporate executives recognize the importance of strategic risk management, many are as yet unable to put it into full practice and linking it effectively with overall corporate strategy is a still-elusive goal.