Kohlberg’s theory on decision making is made up of six stages made
up of three levels. Preconventional level is made up of stage one and
two. In the preconventional level Kohlberg believes that decision
making is all about yourself and being only concerned with how the
outcome will affect you and no one else. The second level is called
conventional and is made up of stage three and four. Conventional
level decision making is about doing what is best for everyone
according to want society wants. Your personal judgement also
comes into play by taking ownership of the decision made even if it
does go against what society wants. The final level of decision making
is post-conventional and is made up of stage five and stage six. Post-
conventional is making decisions based on what is morally and legally
right. In this level you are also able to find precedence for the
decision made, meaning you have done research and have examples
of decisions made by others facing the same type of situation that
you are currently facing.
For case study 1-7 Eating Time, I decided to not use Kohlberg’s
decision-making theory. I decided to use Rest’s four component
model of ethical decision making to analyze this case. Rest’s four
components are moral sensitivity, moral judgement, moral focus, and
moral character.
Moral sensitivity is knowing something is not quite right with what
you are being asked to do but you can’t put your finger on what
exactly the ethical issue is. In the study case you begin to see this
being displayed when the partners ask Kevin why it is taking him
longer to complete his audit work than what it did his predecessor’s.
He is uncomfortable with the question especially since he is a new
employee and is still learning while working on the job. This
statement puts Kevin on the defensive because his work ethics are
being questioned.
Moral judgement is all about “what ideally ought to be done.” (Mintz
and Morris, 2020, p.78) In this phase of Rest’s decision-making
process there is less focus on self-interest and more on group-based
perspectives. In the case study the partners are more focused on
what ought to be done by not charging a client with the true about of
time it takes to complete an audit. It could be inferred that the
partners are more focused on keeping a clients pricing down to keep
the client happy and keep them coming back every year than focusing
on an accurate audit. When Kevin finds out about “ghost-ticking”
from a colleague, this is an example of bad moral judgement. It is
definitely not what ought to be done. “Ghost-ticking” could lead to
not finding fraud which could then lead to Kevin’s firm being liable for
not finding the fraud.
Moral focus is about “moral action and follow through with ethical
decision making.” (Mintz and Morris, 2020, p. 79) Basically, moral
focus is about how much/far are you willing to sacrifice your personal
ethics in unethical situations. Kevin obviously feels that he will lose
his job if he does not find a way to quickly cut back on the number of
hours he is billing an audit client. Although the partners do not
explicitly say this nor do they explicitly tell him how to cut back on
the billable hours, he feels they are asking him to work after hours
and not be truthful about how much time the audit truly takes to
complete. If I were Kevin, I would notate the exact number of hours
that I worked on each audit and let the partners know exactly how
long it was taking me.
Moral Character is about how you execute and follow through with
your decision. Do you stick with our morals and make the ethical
decision despite the pressure to not account for your hours correctly?
Do you follow your colleagues advise and “ghost-ticket” audits? I
would let the partners know that I was uncomfortable with “ghost-
ticking” and not being completely honest with clients on how long
audits take. I would offer a suggestion to the partners to let the
client(s) know exactly how many hours it took this year but based on
previous years hours and being a loyal customer, we are going to give
a discount, so the price of the audit is not unreasonable. I would also
ask the partners to set me up with a mentor, someone who has been
doing audits for years, who may have ways of ethically shorting the
time it takes to complete an audit. I would offer these suggestions
knowing they may not agree with me and may decide that I am not a
good fit for their company.
References
Mintz, S. and Morris, R. 2020 Ethical Obligations and Decision Making
in Accounting Fifth Edition
