Ethical dilemmas occur every day in the accounting industry. We have witnessed scandals such as Adelphia, Enron, and WorldCom. They demonstrate the extent of unethical practices. The introduction of Sarbanes Oxley Act and stricter accounting standards have definitely helped mitigate unethical acts. Unfortunately, the incorporation of these systems is not sufficient to accomplish ethical business practices. Businesses use internal auditors to help protect their financial reputation. An internal auditor’s role is to assure the organization’s operations are conducted systematically, properly controlled, and with discipline (The Institute of Internal Auditors Research Foundation 3).
The Internal Auditor position was created, as a result of a rapidly growing American economy, in the mid twenty century. The developing American economy, also known as the golden years, included inappropriate business practice. These practices included, but not limited to, stock manipulations and false business statements. Maintaining an ethical position will avoid the breakdown of organizational progress and the opportunity to correct inappropriate accounting procedures. As the need for proper accounting increased, the demand for internal auditors took place. An internal auditor will review and assure the quality of cash disbursements, cash receipts, corporate governance, ethics, financial reporting controls, fixed assets, project management, sales, and stock controls within an organization (J.L. Vergaert). It is important for the auditors to abide by and ensure the company follows the accounting policies and standards via proper communication and suggestion for correction of any inadequate process found while performing their functions.
In addition t...
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With every business activity come opportunities for fraudulent behavior which leads to a greater demand for auditors with unscathed ethics. Nowadays, auditors are faced with a multitude of ethical issues, and it is even more problematic when the auditors fail to adhere to the standards of professional conducts as prescribed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). The objective of this paper is to analyze the auditors’ compliance with the code of professional conduct in the way it relates to the effectiveness of their audits.
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act is a legislation aimed at increasing the accuracy of financial statements that were issued by companies that are publicly held (Livingstone, 2011). The passing of this act was a response to some of the financial malpractices that took place at companies such as WorldCom and Enron. According to Livingstone, making ethical decisions is critical because ethical lapses can lead to severe unforeseen consequences (Livingstone, 2011). This paper will discuss the effects of the Act on the audit committees of public company boards of directors as well as outside independent audit firms. The main advantages and disadvantages of the Act and recommendations of the changes that should be made to the act will also be included.
Throughout the years, the news covered stories of corporate scandals involving accounting unethical practices. These unethical corporate acts had a tremendous negative impact on these company’s stockholders, investors, employees and the whole U.S. economy. Most of these scandals would have been prevented, if the independent audits of these companies were conducted in an ethical manner. With this in mind, two corporate scandals will be the subjects of further review to understand that an auditor might encounter ethical dilemmas, if independence and objectivity are not part of the audit process.
Ethics in business environment is core values and standards to guide one’s decision-making. (Mintz and Morris, 2008) Maxwell (2003) introduces “Golden Rule” to decide what constitutes to be ethical by asking one “How would I like to be treated in a particular situation?” Hence, unethical behaviours include allegedly inflating earnings to meet stockholders expectation in Healthsouth Scandal in 2003.
Building standards of ethical behavior is essential for public company. Otherwise, it causes accounting scandals and bankrupts. Over the last decade, there were a lot of enormous bankrupts that because of unethical behavior of investors and auditors. Lehman Brothers Holding Inc. is an example of accounting scandals. In this research paper, I am going to analyze this firm.
In today’s business world, an accountant and business owners should work together in order to become aware of scandals that occur in corporate companies. Since 2008 a series of corporate scandals and collapses have highlighted the importance of effective board oversight. One of the largest scandals in the corporate world was known as the Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. I will discuss the details of how an accountant allowed Maddoff to continue with his involvement in the Ponzi scheme. Since then, the board of accountancy is mandating that all corporate companies have good internal controls and getting more involved managing risks within the organization. This is becoming an essential role in maintaining a good system of internal control.
A good internal audit mechanism helps in detecting the frauds at an early stage so that the financial losses may be minimized. Operational audits can be taken up to review the effectiveness, efficiency, and economy of operation. It helps in identifying the risks faced by the organization and has an opportunity to improve controls. The external auditor should also try to obtain sufficient and appropriate audit evidence to be able to draw reasonable conclusions using which audit evidence is provided. Sudden checks have to be planned by the management to keep the staff alert and updated. The audit unit should be established separately, and proper vigilance and guidance are to be provided to them in order to check the frauds at an early stage. The staff, management and the executive officers of the organization have to work for the common good of all the stakeholders of the organization and should follow moral and ethical values while carrying on their
Blank, D., Wood, A., Wood, C. (2003). A Matter of Ethics. The Internal Auditor. 60(1)
Carmichael examined the ethical auditing to help companies-clients become more effective. Ionescu used the Carmichael’s research to analyze ethical processes of external auditing. The ethical auditing refers to companies that possess high organizational values and demonstrate their support of stakeholder interests and fair bookkeeping system (p. 122). The author agreed with McAuliff (2002) on ethical functions of external auditing. Ionescu indicated that an external audit should assess the ethical environment of the company-client and develop comprehensive methodologies that improve the ethics
Throughout the past several years major corporate scandals have rocked the economy and hurt investor confidence. The largest bankruptcies in history have resulted from greedy executives that “cook the books” to gain the numbers they want. These scandals typically involve complex methods for misusing or misdirecting funds, overstating revenues, understating expenses, overstating the value of assets or underreporting of liabilities, sometimes with the cooperation of officials in other corporations (Medura 1-3). In response to the increasing number of scandals the US government amended the Sarbanes Oxley act of 2002 to mitigate these problems. Sarbanes Oxley has extensive regulations that hold the CEO and top executives responsible for the numbers they report but problems still occur. To ensure proper accounting standards have been used Sarbanes Oxley also requires that public companies be audited by accounting firms (Livingstone). The problem is that the accounting firms are also public companies that also have to look after their bottom line while still remaining objective with the corporations they audit. When an accounting firm is hired the company that hired them has the power in the relationship. When the company has the power they can bully the firm into doing what they tell them to do. The accounting firm then loses its objectivity and independence making their job ineffective and not accomplishing their goal of honest accounting (Gerard). Their have been 379 convictions of fraud to date, and 3 to 6 new cases opening per month. The problem has clearly not been solved (Ulinski).
Ethics is derived from the greek word ‘ethos’, which means character and the latin word ‘moras’, which means customs. Thus ethics is defined as the personal and professional behaviour with regards to the values, customs, behaviour, principles and morals of society (Senarante, 2011). Professional ethics can be defined as the personal and corporate standards of conduct that is carried out by members of a particular profession. For example, medicine, accounting and engineering. Professional ethics or business ethics cover larger areas than the law, and although an issue may not be illegal, it can be considered as an ethical issue (ATT Ethics, 2013). Business ethics can be defined as the policies and principles that act as operational guidelines
It significantly affects the mentoring process, relationships with the client, and create a foundation for discrepancies between the firm’s leaders and accounting professionals (Bobek, Hageman, & Radtke, 2015). Bobek, Hageman, and Radtke (2015) used the descriptive statistics to measure the responses of accounting professionals and correlation analysis to evaluate the ethical environment. The research demonstrated that the participation of accountants in shaping the ethical norms increases the mentoring relationships, values, and outcomes (pp. 127-129). The sensitivity analysis demonstrated significant differences in perceptions of the ethical environment between the partners and non-leaders of the accounting firm. The differences do not allow maintaining a strong ethical atmosphere, decreasing the degree of organizational fit, and weakening the ethical perceptions of firms’ members (p.
A company’s ultimate goal is to make money and remain a going concern. With that goal in mind, management must continually report sustained or improved earnings to stakeholders to ensure constant and new investments in the company’s future (Geiger & van der Laan Smith, 2010). The pressure to report positive results can lead management to engage in earnings management activities to alter short-term results to meet the goals set forth (Geiger & van der Laan Smith, 2010). In addition to the pressures on company management, broad accounting principles introduce ethical issues into the accounting profession (Gibson, 2011). Merchant and Rockness (1994) suggested the practice of earnings management introduces “the most important ethical issues facing the accounting profession” (p. 79) while Rosenzweig and Fischer (1994) noted it to be “a significant ethical concern” (para. 18).
Accounting fraud refers to fraud that is committed by a company by maintaining false information about the sales and income in the company books, when overstating the company's assets or profits, when a company is actually undergoing a loss. These fraudulent records are then used to seek investment in the company's bond or security issues. By showing these false entries, the company attempts to apply fraudulent loan applications as a final attempt to save the company by obtaining more money from bankruptcy. Accounting frauds is actually done to hide the company’s actual financial issues.
The evolution of auditing is a complicated history that has always been changing through historical events. Auditing always changed to meet the needs of the business environment of that day. Auditing has been around since the beginning of human civilization, focusing mainly, at first, on finding efraud. As the United States grew, the business world grew, and auditing began to play more important roles. In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, people began to invest money into large corporations. The Stock Market crash of 1929 and various scandals made auditors realize that their roles in society were very important. Scandals and stock market crashes made auditors aware of deficiencies in auditing, and the auditing community was always quick to fix those deficiencies. The auditors’ job became more difficult as the accounting principles changed, and became easier with the use of internal controls. These controls introduced the need for testing; not an in-depth detailed audit. Auditing jobs would have to change to meet the changing business world. The invention of computers impacted the auditors’ world by making their job at times easier and at times making their job more difficult. Finally, the auditors’ job of certifying and testing companies’ financial statements is the backbone of the business world.