-
Accounting and business ethics: An
introduction
Ken McPhail, Diane Walters
There
has
been
something
or
a
mushrooming
of
texts
in
various
aspects
of
business ethics in recent years as the
subject has been included on more programmes
in management departments and business
schools. The professional accounting bodies
have
also
included
ethical
content
in
their
curricula
and
accrediting
bodies
such
as
AACSB
include ethical outcomes in their criteria. Given
that the broader themes of
business
ethics are covered in
a
range of established textbooks, perhaps
the time is
right
for
a
text
specifically
focussed
on
ethical
issues
in
accounting.
The
title
of
McPhail and Walters
’
book conveys this important notion
–
that this is a book with a
particular emphasis on accounting
ethics and in this regard, it is offers a
uniqueness
and contribution not present
in the more general CSR and business ethics books.
There
is
an
emerging
and
emerged
corpus
of
philosophical
theory
now
associated
with
the
various
strands
of
business
ethics
and
any
book
must
now,
it
seems, include this corpus in order to
fit in with the various modules on which ethics
is
taught.
This
book
includes
most
of
this
corpus
(including
Kohlberg,
Kant,
Mill,
Rawls,
Rousseau,
Habermas,
etc.)
and
also
introduces
Levinas
and
other
thinkers
whose work has more
recently been applied in the business ethics
academy. There is
a balance to be
struck between rigour in covering these
philosophies and maintaining
a pace
capable of retaining
students
’
interest and I
suspect this book has that balance
about
right.
In
reading
the
text,
I
was
able
to
understand
the
philosophical
contributions
whilst
at
the
same
time
seeing
how
each
one
fitted
into
the
larger
narrative of the book
and to that extent, then, the pace and depth seem
about right: it
covers material to an
adequate depth whilst not getting bogged down in
detail.
In terms of structure, the book
is divided into two parts: how to think ethically
about accounting and the ethics of
accounting practice. Accordingly, the book is
split
between the broad areas of theory
and practice. Part 1 contains 5 chapters and part
2,
4 chapters. The main
‘
headings
’
in part 1 are descriptive theories,
normative theories,
political
moral
philosophy,
and
post
and
new
modern
theories.
The
chapter
sub-headings are
expressed as questions:
‘
what factors influence the
way accountants
respond
to
ethical
dilemmas?
’
,
‘
how should accountants
behave?
’
, etc. Part 2, the
ethics of
accounting practice, is based around themes of the
morality of markets, the
ethics
of
professionalism,
international/
harmonisation
issues
and
reporting/
knowledge
management
issues.
Despite
this
range
of
content,
it
is
a
thinnish
book,
running to a total of 225 pages.
The books aims to address the specific
issues of accounting ethics but these are
naturally
placed
in
the
context
of
some
of
the
major
themes
in
organisational
and
business
ethics
also.
But
accounting
ethics
includes
a
number
of
context
specific
issues and the book
seeks to draw those out where appropriate and
consider them in a
more
detailed
way
than
would
be
the
case
in
a
general
business
ethics
text.
So
the
roles
of
accountants
in
managing
information,
reporting,
complying
and
acting
professionally are featured strongly
throughout.
In
terms
of
content,
each
chapter
is
self-
contained,
beginning
with
learning
objectives
and
ending
with
the
references
used
in
that
chapter
and
a
series
of