Ethics in Financial Business Decisions

Ethics in Financial Business Decisions

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Ethics in Financial Business decisions

The work I reviewed begins with a simple introduction explaining the roots of ethics in America wrought with quotes from our earliest leaders including George Washington and John Adams. Additional quotes identify and support the “Ten Universal Values” of “honesty, integrity, promise-keeping, fidelity, fairness, caring, respect for others, responsible citizenship, pursuit of excellence, and accountability (Smith & Smith, 2003). The article identifies the purpose of ethics in business as being “to direct business men and women to abide by a code of conduct that facilitates, if not encourages, public confidence in their products and services” (Smith & Smith, 2003).

The articles intent is to provide a clear understanding of the importance of ethics in the business and a bit more specifically, the accounting arenas, when it divulges that the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) has adopted a code ethics for accounting professionals and further states that all three major accounting professional organizations have ethics codes.

The article attempts to drive home the point that ethics are an integral learned part, if not the absolute foundation, of the success or failure of a business and lays the responsibility of ethical education past its rudimentary levels on the educational facilities and businesses that employ and engage new workers in the business world. The work provides that while ethics must be taught on the home front that that level of education merely sets the foundation for ethical thinking and decision making, but that there is no structure atop the foundation if these values are not shored up by continuous exposure to the values that comes from higher levels of education and subsequently during ones employment.

This article reinforces, on a much grander scale, what our assigned readings for our first week of class offers in respect to ethical decision making. At the beginning of these weeks’ readings we are introduced to Enron, WorldCom, and Tyco, three huge conglomerates that were virtually destroyed by the unethical business practices of their executive managements and the accounting firm that aided in the un-disclosure of certain financial facts that would have made these corporations far less attractive to investors. The public relies heavily upon the information that is provided by the accounting firms that assume the responsibility of tracking and reporting a businesses financial position. Unfortunately, in the cases of Enron and WorldCom the accounting firm of Arthur Anderson was pressured to “meet the numbers” that would solidify their positions as profitable entities encouraging investment.

I happen to work for the world’s largest aircraft manufacturer, Boeing. This company has been building commercial and military aircraft for over 100 years, and to this day is still highly regarded as on e of the most ethical businesses today. However, this claim to fame has bee challenged on numerous occasions as of late with three major issues. The first involved an ex-employee of rival Lockheed-Martin that stole thousands of propriety documents when he left their employee and used these documents for the betterment of Boeing when he came to work for them. The other two ethically dilemmas that the company was cast into involved the hiring of an ex-government official after she retired from the government in return for favorable contract awards during her employ there and the scandalous affairs of a past CEO, Phil