The many concepts and theories associated with accounting ethics. Everyone knows or has
heard of the "golden rule" yet I am reminded again and again how many people in business do
not practice what should be considered commonplace. Treat others with fairness, integrity
and honesty as you would also desire to be treated. However, in our analysis of case-after-
case, we see how people become distorted in the way they should think due to immense
greed, the desire to advance in their career by taking shortcuts, or they need an ego boost and
cheat their way to the top. d I have become more aware of ways in which people or companies
can commit accounting fraud and the red flags that are present to "tip one off" to the potential
of ethical violations or fraudulent activity. I'm pleased the landscape has changed with the
SEC having more power to investigate and penalize those companies’ committing fraud. I
believe Sarbanes-Oxley has had a positive impact on financial transparency and helping to
ensure financial statements are fairly represented. For me, it was challenging attempting to
tie-in or choose relevant, moral and philosophical theories to a case study. Many of them
would be relevant to a case and choosing the most representative one was challenging. d Being
a CPA, the AICPA Professional Code of Conduct is most relevant. d Carrying out our duties as
professional accountants in the right manner is critical to public trust and confidence. We
must all continue to do our best in carrying out the principles outlined in the "AICPA Code"
to continue to maintain (and grow) public trust in our profession! d
There are several theories regarding business ethics, and many different types can be found,
but what makes a business stand out are its corporate social responsibility practices,
transparency and trustworthiness, fairness, and technological practices. Fostering an
environment of ethical behavior and decision-making takes time and effort it always starts at
the top. Most companies need to create a code of conduct/ethics, guiding principles, reporting
procedures, and training programs to enforce ethical behavior. Once conduct is defined and
programs implemented, continuous communication with employees becomes vital. Leaders
should constantly encourage employees to report concern behaviour.
I do not feel that my understanding of accounting ethics has changed, I was just amazed that
after the Enron incident, there are still companies that are not doing anything different. In the
cases that we researched the top executives were that ones that initiated the fraud and forced
their employees to keep silent or continue with the discrepancies. I was glad to see that the
SEC is paying more attention, but companies are not really making a lot of changes when it
comes to transparency or applying ethical standards.
I work for a small company, and I have not encountered any ethical issues, but I would not
continue to work for anyone that would force me to do something unethical. Since I was
young my parents taught me right from wrong and the decisions that we make have
consequences. I have worked hard throughout my career that I would not like to be part of a
company that is doing something unethical. The class just reinforced what I already knew
with the cases and the laws.
The importance of ethics in accounting, but I didn’t grasp how big that proverbial iceberg was
until we started getting into the readings and cases. I’m relatively new to working in
accounting, only about 2 years of experience under my belt and primarily in AR, but overall,
after this class I don’t really think that my view of ethics in accounting has changed very
much. I do have to say though, that I really enjoyed this, it was incredibly enlightening, and
because I have a background in literature and writing, I found the philosophy aspects to be
almost fun. It was also interesting getting to read through the case studies on fraud, it was
weirdly almost like reading a detective novel as issues came to light and as motivations were
exposed.
Aside from that, I feel that the most useful / relevant information we covered was corporate
governance as it was something I had never really gotten to dive into before. The amount of
effort and planning that must go into it for it to function effectively is more than I anticipated,
and the amount of oversight it provides was also more than I was expecting. Gaining an
understanding of what makes good corporate governance work as well as it does will be more
immediately helpful as my company is expanding to more locations and hiring more people.
With all that change there will be more responsibilities and with more projects, vendors, and
customer accounts to work with, I think it will be important to make sure that all these new
risks are being addressed and that old ones don’t get disregarded.
This course has allowed me to see ethics in accounting from multiple viewpoints. When
studying the different ethical frameworks, I found it interesting how different viewpoints
could be interpreted as ethical and reasonable without any context, but arrive at very
conflicting conclusions when placed into context, making one viewpoint appear not
reasonable for a given scenario. The most challenging aspect is to understand the different
consequences that your actions would have from your decision when faced with a dilemma.
For me, I believe the most relevant information for an accountant is understanding who an
accountant, specifically a certified public accountant, is supposed to serve. When you can see
the impact of your actions through the eyes of the public, it becomes easier to make the right
decision, regardless of what ethical framework is used for your decision. I wish everyone well
in the rest of their academic and professional careers and have enjoyed our discussions
together these last ten weeks.
Before taking this class, I understood ethics and knew it was essential for the accounting
profession. I did not realize how ingrained ethics needs to be within accounting professionals
and a firm’s culture to promote ethical decision-making. Having heard about the big
accounting scandals of the past, it still baffles me the lengths these individuals and companies
went to to produce fraudulent results that could not last. Through these ten weeks, we
analysed cases using several ethical decision-making tools. This became my favourite part of
the class, taking a case and analysing it through the lens of ethics. I found the integrated
ethical decision-making process the easiest to apply to a case because it gave so many
guidelines and questions to ask yourself about the case that helped me understand the bigger
picture. I found the entire course content relevant. The information I have gained this term
will allow me to acquire more knowledge on the subject and use it in my future auditing
position. Being in the accounting field for several years, even before the passage of Dodd-
Frank in 2010, I have not found that my understanding of accounting ethics has changed. The
aspects I found most challenging was all the writing. Mainly because I hate to write, and I am
a very “to the point” kind of person. I found I most related to the ethical decision-making
process. I utilized this type of thought process in making decisions and it was not until a lot of
life experiences that I realized that this is not how everyone thinks or behaves. This
understanding has made it easier for me when it comes to managing employees and
businesses. This class has given me more tools in implementing ethical frameworks within
my career.
As a true crime buff, I especially enjoyed analysing the fraud cases. I am still amazed at the
level of effort people exert to deceive. While we have seen numerous cases that have been
uncovered, I wonder how many have not. I think we have hope that as with other professions,
most accountants are good and honest and only a small percentage are not. d
I learned during this course that we cannot assume that managers are in leadership roles
because they deserve to be there. As in the case Monsanto Company Roundup. Leadership
should have stayed up to date about the competitors arriving in the market and adjusted
mitigate their inevitable market share loss. Once they realized what had happened, they
misstated their consolidated earnings and violated SEC rules to save face, and their jobs.
Our first case study Eating Time was challenging for me. I put myself in Kevin’s place as a
new associate, wanting to impress the managers but not yet knowing the culture of the firm.
Deciding if doing the right thing and reporting the ‘ghost ticking’ was going to be the right
thing to do according to Bo and Moe. What a daunting decision for an inexperienced and
eager young professional. I identified with Kevin because I was in a comparable situation
when I was relatively new in my role, and it can cause sleepless nights.
This course has positively impacted my understanding of accounting ethics. I have learned to
evaluate ethical dilemmas from different perspectives. For example, before this course, when
reading about fraud or ethical dilemmas committed by accountants, I was so disappointed in
the accountant’s unethical act that I did not focus on examining why these acts happened and
what we can do to reduce them.
However, the different models and ethical theories learned through this course have interested
me in analyzing and understanding why people commit these acts and what can be done to
reduce these unethical actions. While greed might be one of the main reasons people commit
fraud, that is not always the case for some people, which is why I enjoyed learning about
Kohlberg's theory of moral development; it validates how an individual’s moral character is
developed.
The course's case studies were the most challenging part of this course; analyzing ethical
dilemmas using various theories was very challenging because it required extensive research
on the different approaches and sufficient knowledge to complete the case studies. Having to
put me in the shoes of the accountants involved in the case study was very relevant to me. As
an accountant, I have faced similar ethical dilemmas. For example, in the first case study, an
auditor was met with the moral dilemma of taking work home or committing ghost-ticking to
complete the audits in the projected time. In previous jobs as a tax preparer, I have been
pressured to complete the work in the projected time, and I struggled to find ways to be more
efficient without affecting the quality of my work or my personal time.
In every case I examined this term I noticed that each company was lacking something,
whether it be an ethical framework, weak corporate governance, or internal controls. If a
company is lacking in ethics, it can become vulnerable to fraud. One of the most challenging
aspects of this course for me was the textbook reading, I have a hard time reading accounting
textbooks. This was a challenging course and stretched my mind to really analyze ethics and
how a lack of ethics can impact the workplace. ethics has not really changed, but instead
deepened. I have been working in the accounting field for a little under 5 years, and currently
work for local government, which requires a special attention to detail and understanding of
ethics. I found most challenging the use of Rest’s four-component development and how to
analyze it using different cases. The four-component model of moral development helps you
to make ethical decisions by using the following four processes: moral sensitivity, moral
judgement, moral motivation, and moral character (accountingtools.com, 2022). To properly
analyse the situation using moral sensitivity, you need to be able to interpret a situation in
terms of specific courses of action and determine who could be affected by each action. Most
relevant to me, was the section on corporate governance. There are three strong pillars of
corporate governance that need to be recognized: Transparency, accountability, and security.
Regardless of if you are in public accounting or government accounting fields, these three
pillars are huge. In government accounting, we use these three pillars daily and are expected
to by the public, after all – it’s their money we are using to operate. I had a wonderful time in
this course and hope everyone else did as well. Best of luck to everyone in the future! d
How necessary ethics are in the accounting field. I knew ethics were required, but I did not
realize how deep it went. While completing the final project throughout the milestones, I
found it very interesting how companies went about committing fraud. It was interesting to
see the “logic” behind the company’s actions. I have realized simply how vital an
understanding of ethics is within the accounting field.
The entire course is relevant to me because I intend to pursue a career in the accounting field,
so I feel it is extremely beneficial to being the best accountant I can be. I will have the skills
required to act the most ethically and with the interest of regulation and standards rather than
just the client.
Overall, I have really enjoyed the course as I learned the regulations and standards that
accountants follow to act ethically. It has been very interesting!
a current issue of The CPA Journal called "SEC Enforcement Actions Support Critical Skills
Based Ethics Training". You will also notice that the your textbook author, Steven Mintz, is
referred to as "an expert in ethics education"!
https://www.cpajournal.com/2022/05/10/sec-enforcement-actions-support-critical-skills-
based-ethics-training/
Bragg, S. (2022, May 24). Four-component model definition. Accounting Tools. Retrieved
September 1, 2022, from https://www.accountingtools.com/articles/four-component-model
