Accounting and Business Ethics

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There is a lot of discussion about professional ethics these days and lots of developments within the accounting profession. For example, the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants has introduced a compulsory online ethics module and is attempting to reorientate the organization around the idea of professional values. The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland has also added a mandatory ethics component to its professional training. IFAC will produce a revised Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants this year and continues to work on clarifying issues such as auditor independence and conflicts of interest. While these initiatives represent important developments within the profession, we wonder whether much of the discussion on the ethical challenges facing the accounting profession nevertheless remain rather narrow in their focus and limited in their impact. In this text we have tried to take a broad view of ethics and accounting. We connect the practice of accounting into some contemporary social trends like globalization, terrorism, the knowledge society and the postmodern rejection of authority and deference towards the established professions. Another key contemporary issue, of course, is the environment.

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