Ethics And Management : Ethical Considerations By Observers Of Earnings Management

When auditing a publicly held company, auditors need to observe principles. The ethical principles of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) Code of

Such an intense focus has been placed on quarterly earnings as an indication of a company’s success by everyone from analysts to executives that ethics have for the most part been thrown out the window, sacrificed to the all important number, i.e. earnings per share. This is the theory in Alex Berenson’s book “The Number: How the Drive for Quarterly Earnings Corrupted Wall Street and Corporate America.” This number has become part of a game to be played, a figure to be manipulated – beat the number and Wall Street all but throws a parade, miss it and a company’s stock may be abandoned. Take into account the incentives that executives have to beat the number and one can find plenty of reasons to manage earnings.

Financial reporting practices and ethics have manifested an ocean of literature. This has mainly come from organization theorists that address accounting practices. These theorists and professionals have given fresh accountability measures. Their ideals give this industry the tools needed to survive, grow and prosper. The way an organization prepares and reports its financial information and handles its daily operations is in essence financial practices, and in the way it accomplishes this reveals their ethical standards to which they adhere to. This paper will discuss the financial practices, ethical standards, and

“ In order to prevent fraudulent financial reports and statements, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants(AICPA) has created ethical standards” (Ethical standards in a financial statement, 2011). These standards aim to make financial professionals accountable for their accounting practices. This includes the integrity of financial reporting and ensuring financial reporting is done fairly and factually. Financial accountants and professionals should maintain professional integrity, objectivity, and independence to reduce the risk of resulting legal action, loss of profits, and a poor reputation if improper financial reporting is done (Ethical standards in a financial statement, 2011).

Accountants are held to a higher ethical standards and they must performed their duties in compliance with standards or ethical values of honesty, integrity, objectivity, due care, confidentiality, which must be fully committed to. They must put clients or public interest first before their own. They must have and ethical values and maintain those values way beyond what the society or the company’s code of ethic. It is important that accountants’ behavior or ethical values is in conformity with the

Ethics in any industry is important, but for Accounting professionals and those in need of their services, it is a particularly stressed element. Information provided by accountants is used to make major decisions, including investing, downsizing, expanding, etc, so accountants are expected to be competent, reliable, and have a high degree of professional integrity. Because of these high expectations, the professional accountancy industry, like many other professions, has adopted professional codes of ethics (Woelfel, 1986). These ethical codes go above and beyond the requirements for state or federal laws and regulations. There are several professional organizations within the

This study aims to understand what effect has an ethical framework in accounting. In particular, we examine the influence of ethics on earnings management, financial reporting, and external accounting. Today, the commercial environment reveals the unethical behavior of management and accountants through the manipulation of accounting records to boost the company’s stock price, falsified financial statements to mislead investors, failure of auditors to correct errors and omissions due to client’s pressure and personal material interests.

Within a competitive world, companies should become ethical throughout many perspectives. Ethics refers to the standards of right and wrong in an attempt to influence behaviour. (Kinicki 2015, p.83) In stating this, companies can be ethical within numerous occasions such as ethics and financial performance, ethical performance, ethics and sustainability and ethical competition such as competitive advantage. Despite the positive side, there are also some negative implications towards ethics.

I enjoyed the conversation on GAAP and earnings management relating to the case “Be Careful What You Wish For: From the Middle”. The conversation was brief, but got me thinking on the ethics of earnings management. GAAP accounting is to reflect in good faith the company’s actual financial status and present reality as is. It is not to present a manipulated set of numbers that paint a pretty picture. GAAP requires recording of revenue when there is persuasive evidence of an arrangement, assurance of collectability, a fixed or determinable price, and delivery. If Sarah recognizes revenue before delivery, she would violate GAAP and partake in channel stuffing. It would not be earnings management.

Ethical issues have greatly transformed in our lives since the great Enron, Xerox and other huge corporations proposed big profits showing earnings of billions of dollars and yet in reality facing bankruptcy. These corporations faced great trouble with the federals and state for manipulating financial statements. But not only corporations can be blamed on this, accounting firms were involved in this as much as the corporations were. With the business stand point, ethics comprises of principles and standards that guide behavior. Investors, traders, customers, and legal system determine whether a specific action is ethical or unethical. Ethical issue is a vast subject, but we will look at the niche

Ethical and legal obligations apply to all members of society. As one in society, the obligation to act in an ethical, law abiding manner on a daily basis is vital to the integrity of daily life. Many professions have their own code of ethics. Financial reporting is not exempt from such ethical and legal standards. One’s lively hood depends on decisions made in the business world. Business transactions are done daily and can impact one’s economic stability. Trust is placed in the hands of corporate America and an obligation of financial reporting to reveal a complete honest and legal picture of an entity’s accounting practices is important in attaining trust. This paper will discuss the obligations of

The majority of managers find that it is not immoral to manage earnings. They are convinced that if a practice is not explicitly prohibited or slightly deviating from the rules, it is considered an ethical practice. Though the methods they use to manage short-term earnings are not consistent with an ethical framework, they believe that they are not doing anything wrong

Abstract. The article reviewed was The Impact of CFOs’ Incentives and Earnings Management Ethics on their Financial Reporting Decisions: The Mediating Role of Moral Disengagement. The key of the abstract is demonstrate how CFO’s personal incentives, interests of stakeholders, and regulatory reforms influence on earnings management ethics (p. 505). The authors focus on the role of CFO’s optional accruals through the presence and absence of incentive conflict.

ABSTRACT: This paper reports analyses of data obtained using a field-based questionnaire in which 253 auditors from one Big 5 firm recalled and described 515 specific experiences they had with clients who they believe were attempting to manage earnings. This approach enables us to analyze separately managers’ decisions about how to attempt earnings management and auditors’ decisions about whether to prevent earnings management by requiring adjustment of the financial statements. Our results

The key to the article “Cooking the Books” is to cover the business ethics of an accounting manager ordering one of his accountants to falsifying a company’s accounting ledger. The Generally Accepted Accounting Principle of expense recognition was not followed. The accounting manager was attempting to commit fraud for personal gain, he does this by manipulating the books to show higher revenue in order to meet the volume for management bonus. The accounting manager also created a hostile working environment by threating his accountant’s job security if he didn’t comply with his orders. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act will also be explored to see if there was a violation due to the unethical behavior of the