Chapter 11, Problem 11.1CP

Ethics and professional conduct in business

Tonya Latirno is a certified public accountant (CPA) and staff accountant for Kennedy and Kennedy, a local CPA firm. It had been the policy of the firm to provide a holiday bonus equal to two weeks’ salary to all employees. The firm’s new management team announced on November 15 that a bonus equal to only one week’s salary would be made available to employees this year. Tonya thought that this policy was unfair because she and her coworkers planned on the full two-week bonus. The two-week bonus had been given for 10 straight years, so it seemed as though the firm had breached an implied commitment. Thus, Tonya decided that she would make up the lost bonus week by working an extra six hours of overtime per week over the next five weeks until the end of the year. Kennedy and Kennedy’s policy is to pay overtime at 150% of straight time.

Tonya’s supervisor was surprised to see overtime being reported, because there is generally very little additional or unusual client service demands at the end of the calendar year. However, the overtime was not questioned, because firm employees are on the “honor system” in reporting their overtime.

Discuss whether the firm is acting in an ethical manner by changing the bonus. Is Tonya behaving in an ethical manner?