ACCT 6400, Audit II
Ethics Essay—Ethical Decision-Making and Groupwork Affect
Ethics Essay #1
After having read, “The Effect of Groupwork on Ethical Decision-Making of Accounting Students,” by O’Leary and Pangemanan (2007), please thoughtfully answer the following ethics-related question,
In that, the Accounting Education Change Commission (AECC, 1990, p. 131), stated that accounting students should have “the ability to identify ethical issues and apply a value-based reasoning system to ethical questions,” and that this article by O’Leary and Pangemanan (2007) stated, “It appeared that in all scenarios individuals were more inclined to take the extreme actions (i.e. act unethically or ethically), whereas groups tended to take the middle ground (i.e. the neutral position)”(p. 222). How does this affect you? Specifically, in the future, if you found yourself working with a team and the consensus decision of the team is to act neutrally about an ethical issue and you believe strongly that reportable action is required (such as to a government regulator or the audit committee of the Board of Directors), what would you do?
Context: You are a staff auditor with a large public accounting firm. Your audit client is a publicly-traded company on the NYSE.
References
AECC. (1990). Accounting Education Change Commission. Objectives of education for accountants: Position statement number one, Issues in Accounting Education, AECC Fall, 306-312.
O’Leary, C. & Pangemanan. (2007). The effect of groupwork on ethical decision-making of accounting students. Journal of Business Ethics, 75(3), 215-228.
Ethics Essay #2
Ethics Essay—Ethical Decision-Making and Role Morality
After having read, “Role Morality in the Accounting Profession—How do we Compare to Physicians and Attorneys,” by Radtke (2007), please thoughtfully answer the following ethics-related question,
Please explain what role morality is. Do you agree with the concept of “role...