Review of Accounting Ethics
Arlette Lamsa
Strayer University, Washington DC
ACC: 557 Financial Accounting
DR. Mohamed Gurey
Oct 29, 2013
1. Given the corporate ethical breaches in recent times, assess whether or not you believe that the current business and regulatory environment is more conducive to ethical behavior. Provide support for your answer
Accounting actions and beliefs depend completely on bluntness and transparency. If accountants do not behave ethically, shareholders can be harmed. The accountants at Arthur Anderson did not behave with honesty and artlessness. As a result, shareholders were harmed, the aggregation failed, and some Arthur Anderson accountants were captivated accurately accountable for their aperture of business ethics... The unpredictable increase and fall of the Enron Company set off a long turmoil under the American conscience. From every corner, voices rose demanding increased accountability, demanding stricter regulation, hoping that, the unethical be brought to justice. In such estimation, those at fault should have been punished or corrected. In order to apply ethical principles to such industries, it must be proven that they are morally behaving adequately or they are ethically responsible institutions. Also, an adequate discussion of what business ethics is just be provided before we can truly investigate why the situation does not conform to those standards. Lastly, the role of those same ethical standards must be explained with business content. Recent societal preventative measures for unethical practice should be examined as well. The contribution of philosophical trends and the current philosophical behavior of society must be investigated in order to develop into the mindsets of those who perpetrate such acts as society seeks to condemn. From the beginning, it is important to make the following remarks: despite the fact most of society views business as a whole, including executives as inherently dishonest, accountants and business persons are not inherently more likely to choose immorality over ethical behavior than any other segment of society (De Vois, 2002).
In Business, there are abounding altered humans you accept to acknowledgment to customer’s shareholders and clients. Determining what to do if as ethical bind arises a part of these altered interests can be acutely tricky and such business belief are circuitous and multi-faceted.
2. Based on your research, describe the organization, the accounting ethical breach and the impact to the organization related to ethical breach.
The former chief executive, Brian J. Dunn, who abruptly resigned in April, “violated company policy by
Engaging in an extremely close personal relationship with a female employee that negatively impacted the work environment,” the report by the company’s audit committee said. Mr. Dunn, 51, is married with children, and the employee in question was a 29-year-old female subordinate who still works at
Best Buy. (NY Times) 2012
Richard Schulze used poor judgment for failing to disclose CEO Brian Dunn's personal relationship with a young subordinate, a violation of company ethics that led to Dunn's departure last month. In light of these revelations, Schulze ‘acted inappropriately,’ by failing to bring the matter to the company’s audit committee. While Best Buy made it clear that Dunn did not use the company’s resources to facilitate his relationship with the female employee, the internal probe found that Dunn’s behavior showed ‘extremely poor judgment and a lack of professionalism.
3. Determine how the organizational ethical issue was detected and how management failed to create an ethical environment.
The neglect of managerial integrity capacity is at the moral root of Enron’s legal and financial problems.
What is legally permissible today, but morally questionable, may well become legally proscribed tomorrow. It is important for
