ETHICS PAPER ASSIGNMENT
Maximum Length: 5 pages of text, and a one-page cover sheet containing your name, section number, and a 100 word abstract summarizing the most important things you learned from completing this assignment.
Locate the following two articles on Professor Kuang's course webpage:
(1) "Hollow men and women at the helm...Hollow accounting ethics?"
(2) "Danish evidence of auditors' level of moral reasoning and predisposition to provide fair judgments".
Your paper should be organized into four sections by addressing the following four questions.
a. What are the major arguments made in the first paper? Do you agree with them? What are the strengths of Professor Waddock's analysis? What are the weaknesses? What does the fact that there were frauds and unethical behavior long before the advent of formal business school education imply regarding Professor Waddock's views?
b. What was the average level of moral reasoning for the auditors surveyed in the second paper? What does this imply for potential audit judgments made by those auditors and the extent to which they may be influenced by client preferences?
c. Discuss whether you believe that ethics interventions during your college education will be helpful in assuring that your ethical framework will be appropriate for the duties you will be expected to perform as a professional accountant.
d. Nearly all of the students in your class will be entering the professional workplace during the next year or so. It is important that you consciously consider how you might react if you encounter an ethical dilemma. Most importantly, you need to recognize that you are encountering an ethical dilemma and to think very carefully about the nature of that dilemma, how you might handle the situation itself, and how you might anticipate the outcomes of that situation. Toward that end, you are to "imagine" an ethical dilemma that you may encounter in your new professional life. Describe the nature of the dilemma. Describe how you plan to handle the situation. Describe potential outcomes of your reaction to the situation.
Citations for paper:
Waddock, S. 2005. Hollow men and women at the helm...Hollow accounting ethics? Issues in Accounting Education 20 (2): 145-150.
Warming-Rasmussen, B. and C.A. Windsor. 2003. Danish evidence of auditors' level of moral reasoning and predisposition to provide fair judgments. Journal of Business Ethics 47 (2): 77-87.