The Ethical Code Of Ethics

The ACS codes of ethics is a part of the ACS constitution. As an ACS member you must uphold and advance the honor, dignity and effectiveness of being a professional. This involves, in addition of being a good citizen and acting within the law. While Because of their roles in developing software systems, software engineers have significant opportunities to do well or cause harm, to enable others to do well or cause harm, or to influence others to do well or cause harm. To ensure, as much as possible, that their efforts will be used for good, software engineers must commit themselves to making software engineering a beneficial

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

After the Enron debacle the responsibility of auditors shifted more towards fraud detection as the scandal highlighted the lack in auditing process with regards to fraud prevention since auditors were partaking in the fabrication and falsification of accounting statement. Thus auditors legitimized the falsified financial statement whether through inaptitude to properly conduct their work or conflict of interest between management and auditors. To sum this view it is important to keep in mind that researching misrepresentation within financial statement only became recently part of the auditor’s legal obligation.

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

In October 2001, Enron Corporation which was one of the world major energy, commodities and service companies with claimed revenues of nearly 111 billion dollars during 2000 collapsed under the weight of massive fraud in that it has become largest bankruptcy recognition in the US economy. Enron’s earning report was extremely skewed that losses were not represented in their entirety, prompting more and more wishing to participate in what seemed like a profitable company. After collapse of Enron, Auditor independence has become a social issue that weather auditor has to be independent or not. In addition, while auditing must consider matters objectively with dispassion, there were still doubts whether it implemented well. Further, there has been much speculation about the need for the mandatory rotation of auditors or audit firm rotation to warn false accounting between audit firm and client. By examining Enron case, this essay will discuss about advantages and drawbacks of the mandatory rotation of

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

The moral code of ethics as healthcare professionals is we have a responsibility and a moral code to our patients and the others we serve and they are: “Work to ensure the existence of a process to evaluate the quality of care or service rendered; to avoid practicing or facilitating discrimination and institute safeguards to prevent discriminatory organizational practices; work to ensure the existence of a process that will advise patients or others served of the rights, opportunities, responsibilities and risks regarding available healthcare services; work to ensure that there is a process in place to facilitate the resolution of conflicts that may arise when values of patients and their families differ from those of employees and physicians; demonstrate zero tolerance for any abuse of power that compromises patients or others served; work to provide a process that ensures the autonomy and self-determination of patients or others served; work to ensure the existence of procedures that will safeguard the confidentiality and privacy of patients or others served; and work to ensure the existence of an ongoing process and procedures to review, develop and consistently implement evidence-based clinical practices throughout the organization.” (American College of Healthcare Executives, 2015)

Businesses, investors, creditors rely on accounting ethics. The accounting profession requires honesty, consistency with industry standards, and compliance with laws and regulations. The ethics increase the responsibility and integrity of accounting professionals, and public trust. The ethical requirements influence the management behavior and decision-making. The financial scandal of Enron and Arthur Anderson demonstrates the failure of fundamental ethical framework, such as off-balance sheet transactions, misrepresentation of financial statements, inaccurate disclosure, manipulations with earnings, etc. The confronted accounting profession and concern for ethics in businesses forced regulators to revise the conceptual framework of accounting processes.

It is essential for the organization to have a strong code of ethics to ensure all employees understand the ethical expectations of the organization. The code acts as a guide for employees to ensure they apply ethical decision making in the workplace. As the manager you will play an essential role in disseminating this information to employees as well as ensuring they are in compliance with the code. Employees must understand the consequences of failing to uphold the code and the importance of reporting ethical failures. To ensure your complete understanding of the importance of the ethical code I have selected a code of ethics from three different organizations. These examples are a good guide for the code that will be established for the organization.

First adopted in 1914, the code of ethics for the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) is the model for professional conduct for all ASCE members. The code of ethics is an excellent model as it is broken down into eight canons for further understanding. The purpose of each canon is to serve as a guide and reminder for professional engineers that they are to have the moral and ethical integrity the profession calls for at all times while holding safety paramount. The ASCE code of ethics is very informative and insightful because although each canon does not go into great depth, the canons leave room for interpretation under different situations.

The code of ethics and conduct is a written set of rules and regulations that provides guidance to employees of an organization on how to conduct themselves and carry out their duties in line with the organization’s principles. The code of ethics and conduct is also be backed up by suitable disciplinary actions. A code of ethics and conducts helps employees deal with ethical issues and other gray areas that they face as they execute their daily activities. An effective code of ethics and conduct is required for an organization to run smoothly and maintain a positive image. Having an ineffective code of ethics and conduct is almost like having none.

According to Johnson (2015), the code of ethics is described as an organization’s ethical stance both to members and to the outside world. Individuals new to an organization look to the codes for guidance, instruction, and the organization’s ethical standards and values. Also, code of ethics serves as a formal ethics statement improving the organization’s image protecting it from lawsuits and further regulation.

"Our results indicate that the informal methods ("manager sets an example" or "social norms of the organization") are likely to yield greater commitment with respect to both employee attitudes than formal methods ("training courses on the subject of ethics") (Adam, et al, 2004).

The formal definition of ethics is as follows, moral principles that govern a person’s behaviour or the conducting of an activity or alternatively the branch of knowledge that deals with moral principles. (Ethics definition: dictionary.com, 2014)

Ethics in research are ideally the norms or the morals every person should adhere to when conducting research. In essence, ethics in research entails conducting research in a way that the method or procedure employed, the purpose of the research and the way one publishes his or her research findings adheres or exemplifies good conduct. This alludes to the notion that moral rules and professionalism extends to even the collection of research objects, analysis of the same, and publication of gathered information about the research objects for purposes of distributing to third parties.