Samantha Johnston

ACCT 1010

February 17, 2019

Ethics in Financial Accounting

Ethics are a very important factor when making a decision. Ethics are the code of rules

that a person lives by. They can be developed by many different factors. Family interaction is

one of the biggest environments that people develop a code of ethics. The people you live with

when you are growing up and learning, influence you so much. For example, if a mother

repeatedly steals a candy for you from the store, the child is going to see that it is okay to steal

candy and in turn, start to steal candy. In the other direction, if a child tries to steal a candy and

their mother tells them that stealing is not okay, the child learns that stealing is and they won’t do

it.

Religion is also a very important factor to the development of ethics. In most religions,

there is already set rules or commandments that the members are supposed to live by. This is

important for a lot of people when they make decisions because they want to do good in the sight

of their church. However, some people may not believe in all of the rules and they will develop a

unique set of ethics that are personal to them. For example, a christian woman might think that it

is okay to get wildly drunk because her past religion allowed that, while others in her new

religion believe it is okay to drink in moderation and under control.

Where someone grows up can affect their ethics. A person may believe certain things in

one environment because that is what is constantly shown to them or they could believe the total
opposite in another environment. For example, someone who lived in the south during slavery

believed having slaves was perfectly okay because that is what all of the neighbors were doing

too, while if that person was raised in a non-slave state, they would have believed that slavery

was horrible.

These ethics or rules that we develop from observing and experiencing help us make

decisions. They tell us what we believe to be right or wrong. When we are faced with a big

decision, we reflect on past consequences and will choose an option based on the outcome we

will get out of it.

Steve needs to buy food for his family, but he does have enough money to get everything

the family needs. The store owner is very oblivious and would not notice if a few things had

been taken without being paid for. Some of the consequences for stealing would include, feeling

guilty and possibly getting caught or he could get away with it and have food for his family.

Steve could also ask the owner for a discount because he does not have enough money. This

option seems like the best one, but the owner might not let him get everything he needs at such a

low price. This decision can influence Steve’s ethics because whatever he chooses to do and

what the outcome of that choice is will influence him to either make the choice again or pick the

other option next time.

Personal ethics are a big part of an organization’s ethics. The company is made of people,

so it is obvious that the people’s ethics need to be in line with the company. When doing the

accounting in a company, it is up to the people doing the work to be honest and do things in an

ethical way. If workers did not develop the same type of ethics as the company, they may do

things that are not in accordance to company standards and will embarrass the company or get
them into big trouble. It is important to companies to hire employees they know will follow the

same set of ethics.

In the future something like this may arise: I am an accountant and my boss tells me that

our numbers are not good this quarter. They want me to manipulate the numbers to make them

appealing to the investors and stockholders, so we don’t take a huge loss. If I don’t do this, I will

get fired. I have a family at home to feed and really need this job to support them. So what do I

do? I would quit the job. Commiting fraud would hurt my reputation more than losing my job. It

would be so much better for me to get out of that company and find a new job. Ethics are huge in

the workplace and you need to be careful who you choose to work for, making sure that what

you believe is what the company supports too.