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Natasha Velasquez
Mrs. Lisa Ramirez
BADM 350
April 25, 2015

Ethical Problems and Solutions in the Accounting Profession

Mastracchios, Jimnez-Angueiras and Toths article entitled The State of Ethics in
Business and the Accounting Profession (2015) states that ethics in the accounting profession is
a necessity, although it is lacking in many areas due to corporate accounting scandals and
academic cheating. They proposed that all colleges and universities offer ethics education as a
necessity in order to instil ethical standards in the minds of students who are about to enter the
world of work. Mastracchio, Jimnez-Angueira and Toth stated three questions that are
frequently asked in the accounting profession: are we teaching enough ethics, how we can
incorporate ethics in existing cases that are lacking, and is ethics something that can be taught
(Mastracchio, Jimnez-Angueira, & Toth 2015). The National Business Ethics Survey in 2013
showed that there was a decline in the unethical practices in businesses; it was 55% in 2007 and
fell to 41% in 2013 (Mastracchio, Jimnez-Angueira, & Toth 2015). This is a large amount of
ethical issues in the accounting profession today; increasing the education of students about
proper business ethics should further decrease the ethical issues present in the accounting
profession. The authors raised the point that there is a difference between ethics and morals.
Morals is a persons personal belief and varies from person to person, while ethics should be a
standard practice that is adhered by a group of people in the same profession (Mastracchio,
Jimnez-Angueira, & Toth 2015).
Businesses have to restate their financial statements once it included errors that are found
by auditors. The restatement of financial statements is increasing; this could be a sign that fraud
is being committed and it makes consumers and investors not able to fully trust the business

managers to make ethical and moral decisions (Mastracchio, Jimnez-Angueira, & Toth 2015).
Only five states in America require students to take an ethics course in order to get a CPA
license; this small number might be an indicating factor as to why there are so many unethical
practices in the accounting profession, today. If the amount of states that require students to take
an ethics course would increase, the possibility of unethical issues in the workplace decreasing
would be greater.
Mastracchio, Jimnez-Angueira, and Toth also explained that unethical practices are not
only present in the accounting professions itself, but also in the academic world of future
accountants (Mastracchio, Jimnez-Angueira, & Toth 2015). Many students cheat their way
through school, which is a practice they would naturally carry into the business world. Another
way to get ethics education without actually having to take a college course on it, is through the
online ethical leadership certification program which started in 2014. This program is set up on
college campuses, but it is not an actual college course. So far, 780 students have successfully
completed this program. The last method that Mastracchio, Jimnez-Angueira, and Toth
requested as a way to decrease unethical practices, is for auditors to make a greater effort to pick
up and call out unethical practices that they note while going through the books of businesses.
Auditors are the perfect authority figure to ensure that ethical practices are being followed and
not overlooked. All of these methods are good prospective preventative methods, however, none
of them guarantees that the successful students will actually use these methods in their acting
profession. We can find as many preventative measures as possible, but we can only hope that
they work. Reason being, none of them will be able to stop the unethical practices in businesses
completely.

In conclusion, I agree with every point that Mastracchio, Jimnez-Angueira, and Toth
stated in their article, for they coincide with my personal beliefs. I also agree with them for they
proved every point with statistics and reference to past research papers. Most of their subtopic
headings were phrased as questions which caused the reader to start thinking before actually
starting to read the following passage. They started each subtopic passage with a statement of
their own viewpoint and followed it up with some form of statistic that proved what they were
stating. It was also good that they did not simply state the ways ethics is lacking in the
accounting profession, but they also stated a few possible solutions and a solution that has
already been implemented. Business ethics will always be lacking no matter how much
education is provided to the workforce, however, we can aim to steadily reduce it by placing a
greater emphasis on the education of the future workforce. Due to greed and immorality in this
world, ethical practices will never fully be incorporated into the workforce. However, if the
majority of accountants take a stand against unethical practices, it should start to decline even
more than it presently is.

References
Mastracchio, N. J., Jimnez-Angueira, C., & Toth, I. (2015). The state of ethics in business and
the accounting profession. CPA Journal, 85(3), 48-52. Retrieved from http://web.a.ebsco
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