Ethics Education for Aspiring Professional Accountants

Abstract

Despite the accounting profession having a long history of promoting ethical behaviour globally, with a robust Code of Ethics and formal International Education Standards which include training in professional values, ethics, and attitudes, the accounting profession still regularly features as the lead villain in many corporate failures. Training in ethics has been a core topic in Australian accounting undergraduate degrees now for many years, but the responsibility for teaching ethics still largely falls on faculty from within the business and accounting schools. Although these academics have a strong moral compass and know right from wrong, most do not have ethics-related research experience or professional ethics training. When ethics is taught by academics with little or no formal philosophical ethics training, our students will continue to have limited opportunities to cultivate and deeply internalise the professional values, ethics, and attitudes required of professional accountants in a multicultural world before embarking on their careers.

Citation

Highfield, C. (2020), "Ethics Education for Aspiring Professional Accountants", Schwartz, M., Harris, H., Highfield, C. and Breakey, H. (Ed.) Educating for Ethical Survival (Research in Ethical Issues in Organizations, Vol. 24), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 177-183. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1529-209620200000024016