The focus of professional ethics: Ethical professionals or ethical profession?

Abstract

Most teaching and research in accounting ethics focuses on individuals. The presumption, therefore, is that the locus of professional ethics is the individual practitioner. This essay presents an argument for considering the profession itself as a significant locus for understanding professional ethics in accounting. Through a simple example employing the most basic thing we teach in the first accounting course, an illustration is provided that accounting techniques are rife with unexamined value judgments. Thus, accounting is itself a fundamentally ethical discourse for which the entire profession, not just individual practitioners, is responsible.

Citation

Williams, P.F. (2010), "The focus of professional ethics: Ethical professionals or ethical profession?", Jeffrey, C. (Ed.) Research on Professional Responsibility and Ethics in Accounting (Research on Professional Responsibility and Ethics in Accounting, Vol. 14), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 15-35. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1574-0765(2010)0000014005