Examining Kevin’s case from using Kohlberg’s theory, he would likely be apt to engage in
the ghost-ticking as a way to keep his work performance at a satisfactory level for his
supervisor to meet his own needs if he were still in the pre conventional stages. In the
conventional stages, it is not clear how he would act, as he could determine it is fair to the
firm’s client to keep their billed hours within budget and keep their business, but to act
within the law and not engage in fraud, he would not engage in ghost-ticking. In the post
conventional stages, Kevin should be aware of the harms of not following through all stages
of the audit process and the risk of missing issues that would be discovered from not
skipping over those tasks. The universal ethical principles of accounting would deem ghost-
ticking unethical, as it misrepresents his work product and view fraud as universally
unethical.
I believe this model to be the best model to use as it requires Kevin to have growth in his
moral compass. As accountants, we are required to look at situations from a public
perspective, as to ensure that the information provided by our work is accurate and
truthful. To comply with this requirement, we must look at situations from a post
conventional viewpoint, with the understanding that some boundaries are never to be
crossed.
