Accounting provides economic and financial information for investors, creditors, external users, and the general public at large. Financial accounting is an aspect of accounting is the associated with the complexity of preparing financial statements: the Income statement, Retained earnings, Balance sheet and statement of cash flow. Financial accounting is the battlefield in the business world today. It is faced with unprofessional accounting practices that delve its principles. According to Valter W.J (1972), generally accepted accounting principles incorporate the consensus at any time as to which economic resources and obligations should be recorded as assets and liabilities, which changes in them should be recorded, when these changes should be recorded, how the recorded assets and liabilities and changes in them should be measured, what information should be disclosed and how it should be disclosed, and which financial statements should be prepared. Recognizing these issues, identifying the principal element, and alternatives is the rock upon which accounting ethical standard lies. In also every society, there are certain behaviors, interactions, and practices that are relatively acceptable. In the corporate world practices such as misinterpreting figures on the financial statements is considered illegal, whereas wadding a goodwill figure on a balance sheet is legal but unethical. Although different cultures define ethics in different ways, there are universal basic principles that are considered ethical or unethical. Jerry. J Weygandt et al, 2012 defined ethics as the standards of conduct by which one’s actions are judged as right or wrong, honest or dishonest, and fair or unfair. They emphasized that effective financial repo... ... middle of paper ... ...t penalty be instituted and the need for top management to certify the accuracy of financial information to reduce the occurrences of fraud should be implemented. The company should initiate proper control and recording process. All transactions should be carefully analyzed, documented in a journal and posted into ledger accounts. An honest external auditor should be used. References Werhane, P., & Freeman, R. (1998). The Blackwell Encyclopedic Dictionary of Business Ethics. Malden, Mass: Blackwell. Claypool, G. A., Fetyko, D. F., & Pearson, M. A. (1990). Reactions to Ethical Dilemmas: A Study Pertaining to Certified Public Accountants. Journal Of Business Ethics, 9(9), 699-706. Vatter, W. J. (1972). The State of the Art. Abacus, 8(1), 76-90. Wilson, A. C., & Key, K. G. (2012). Enron: A Case of Deception and Unethical Behavior. Feature Edition, 2012(1), 88-97.
Brooks, L.J. (2007) Business & Professional Ethics for Directors, Executives & Accountants. Mason, OH: Thomson South-Western.
On the surface, the motives behind decisions and events leading to Enron’s downfall appear simple enough: individual and collective greed born in an atmosphere of market euphoria and corporate arrogance. Hardly anyone—the company, its employees, analysts or individual investors—wanted to believe the company was too good to be true. So, for a while, hardly anyone did. Many kept on buying the stock, the corporate mantra and the dream. In the meantime, the company made many high-risk deals, some of which were outside the company’s typical asset risk control process. Many went sour in the early months of 2001 as Enron’s stock price and debt rating imploded because of loss of investor and creditor trust. Methods the company used to disclose its complicated financial dealings were all wrong and downright deceptive. The company’s lack of accuracy in reporting its financial affairs, followed by financial restatements disclosing billions of dollars of omitted liabilities and losses, contributed to its downfall. The whole affair happened under the watchful eye of Arthur Andersen LLP, which kept a whole floor of auditors assigned at Enron year-round.
Ethics policies are implemented in almost all businesses. Companies search for candidates that will be moral in their actions so they can ensure long-term financial success. Throughout history we have seen businesses fall due to unethical behavior. In recent years the business Enron Corporation is best known for the scandal that led to the bankruptcy of a company with more than 60 billion dollars in assets. We will examine the circumstances that led to the downfall of Enron, how the scandal was realized, as well as the outcome of one of the largest bankruptcies in American history; a case that exemplifies unethical professional behavior.
Romal, Jane B., and Hibschweiler, Arlene M. "Improving Professionals Ethics: Steps for Implementing Change." The CPA Journal (2004). Retrieved on 16 September 2006 .
Trevino, L., & Nelson, K. (2011). Managing business ethics - straight talk about how to
...urvey of ethical behavior in the accounting profession. Journal of Accounting Research, 9 (2), pp. 287-306.
Brooks, L., Dunn, P. (2012) Business & Professional Ethics for Directors, Executives & Accountants. 6th Edition. Thompson South-West.
Ethical behavior is behavior that a person considers to be appropriate. A person’s moral principals are shaped from birth, and developed overtime throughout the person’s life. There are many factors that can influence what a person believes whats is right, or what is wrong. Some factors are a person’s family, religious beliefs, culture, and experiences. In business it is of great importance for an employee to understand how to act ethically to prevent a company from being sued, and receiving criticism from the public while bringing in profits for the company. (Mallor, Barnes, Bowers, & Langvardt, 2010) Business ethics is when ethical behavior is applied in an business environment, or by a business. There are many situations that can arise in which a person is experiencing an ethical dilemma. They have to choose between standing by their own personal ethical standards or to comply with their companies ethical standards. In some instances some have to choose whether to serve their own personal interests, or the interest of the company. In this essay I will be examining the financial events surrounding Bernie Madoff, and the events surrounding Enron.
Brooks, Leonard J. Business & Professional Ethics for Directors, Executives, & Accountants. Mason: Thompson South-Western, 2004. p227.
Ferrell, O. C., Fraedrich, J., & Ferrell, L. (2013). Business ethics: Ethical decision making and cases: 2011 custom edition (9th ed.). Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.
Financial accounting is the analysis, classification, and recording of financial transactions and reporting such information to respective users especially external users who use the information to make decisions about their engagements with the entity. In financial accounting general purpose financial statements are used for external reporting. The public by standards imposes the development of the statements through respective national professional bodies, International Accounting Standards Board and respective company Acts for various nations.
When working within any professional body, an individual will be subjected to circumstances in which personal ethics will come into play. The Accounting profession is no different as ethical questions arise as part of any working day and can effect how an individual or the company conducts business. These questions can vary greatly in practice from selection of new customers to the rates at which those clients are going to be charged. These ethical questions are raised regularly within the workplace and each employee will react to them differently. The varying reactions will depend on the morality of each individual, or each employees own ‘ethics’. As each employee has their own set of values companies must be alert to the fact that some of their employees may have more ‘flexible’ morals than others. This ‘flexible’ morality can lead to corruption and manipulation within the workplace and can give companies serious problems. As a result of this, all of the main professional accounting bodies have begun to re-introduce mandatory courses teaching ethics to their employees. As well as this, ‘A Guide to professional ethics’ was published which contains a number of different principles in order to govern the behaviour of accountants and also to identify and reduce the greatest areas of risk with respect to unethical behaviour.
This essay will talk about the ethical standards and code of conduct in the accounting profession, in particular for CPA Australia, the importance of ethical education for accounting students, the importance for ethical financial reporting and also addresses ways to deal with conflicts that arise from ethical issues in the
CEO Kenneth Lay’s ambition for ENRON a company he had helped form went beyond the business of piping gas. Enron went to become the largest natural gas merchant in North America and the United Kingdom. But the reality is, this company business model never worked. This was a company that was so desperate to win Wall Street 's respect that it kept it stocks shares prices going up despite the losses it was incurring in order for executives to keep lining their own pockets. Over the course of this Case Assignment, I will identify the examples of financial reporting misconduct, I will explain the deontological as well as a utilitarian ethical perspective and lastly I will identify the stakeholders likely to be affected by that misconduct.
Frederick, R. E. (Ed.). (2008). A companion to business ethics. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.