What I enjoyed most about this course was the opportunity to examine
multiple different cases through the ethics lens. 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). In order to properly analyze 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 general public, after
all – its 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! a
Bragg, S. (2022, May 24). Four-component model definition.
AccountingTools. Retrieved September 1, 2022, from
https://www.accountingtools.com/articles/four-component-model
less
