Most accountants in business and the public sector, whether working in a small organization or serving as the chief financial officer (CFO) of an international corporation, face ethical dilemmas during their professional careers. Ethical dilemmas come in many forms and accountants sometimes need support to address complex and challenging conflicts. Accountants may also treat ethical dilemmas as “business decisions” and not utilize their professional code to assess potential courses of action.
Dear Agim
History has shown that despite the professionalism and ethics of the accounting, the pressure that accountants can receive from the highest management of the company or public administration managers is intense. This economic pressure has led to highly publicized accounting scandals. It is important to keep in mind that companies depend on their accounting to make many decisions, and the financial statements of any company are the main source of decision with which banks and investors decide to lend or place investment. For these reasons, it is not only necessary an adequate, standardized and correct accounting regulatory framework whose purpose is to reflect the true image of the company's accounting, but also those responsible for accounting in particular must have the decision and incentives to apply standardized procedures accounting, whatever the economic scenario of the company. A consequence of these experiences is the high risk that is incurred when unethical behavior happens, and we should learn that ethical behaviors in accounting in the long term are more profitable than those behaviors that are not ethic.
For this reason, ethics must be part of both the personal and the professional field of the manager, emphasizing principles and values such as good faith, sincerity and professionalism in managerial functions. Public accountants respond to their Code of Ethics, prepared by the International Federation of Accountants. This regulation covers different aspects such as professional behavior, for example competence, integrity, confidentiality and objectivity . Despite the existence of the Code of Ethics that pretends to resolve conflicts of interest that may be both internal and those that derive from abroad, the truth is that in the accounting performance always arise circumstances and pressures that turn out to be very difficult to account for operations rigorously, implementing into practice by the incentives and vested interests both own in the personal scope and the organization. For these reasons, the moral behaviors that should govern the accounting activity of the company remain in the background, and this should not be like that.
I hope that my comments could have helped you.
With regards
PM.
It is known that the most fundamental or essential ethical issues that businesses faces are governance, integrity and trust. Managers and accountants should confront these ethical dilemmas.
Dear Dr. Mamuti,
The accountancy profession must prioritize the public interest an private interest and take responsibility to protect the both of interests in the domain of financial reporting.This has become particularly evident after a series of corporate scandals in the U.S. and fraud with financial reporting
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