Ethics Article Review Paper

In today’s day and age, the ability to make as much money as quickly and easily as possible is found around every corner. With this topic in mind (ethics in finances) the first article researched, entitled, “Ethics In Accounting And Financial Decision Making”, talked about how ethics in accounting and financial decision making provide the foundation on which a modern business system exists (Accounting, 2007). The article speaks of how making ethical financial decisions sets the stage for the company to be more likely to endure hard-times and will be well-received by the public. It talks about how people can have many different driving forces behind wanting to be ethical such as: religion, history, personal observations or experience, etc. However, at the end of the day, businesses see that ethical behavior and employees will be a main force behind a successful business.

The second article, entitled, “The critical role of ethics: recent history has shown that when individual ethics are compromised, corporate ethics fail and financial disaster is not far behind” brings into light the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act and how it was brought into existence quickly following the fall of major corporations such as: Adelphia Communications Corp., Tyco International Ltd., Global Crossing, WorldCom Inc., FINOVA Group Inc., Enron Corp., and HealthSouth Corp (Jennings, 2003).

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 establishes new or enhanced standards for all U.S. public company boards, management, and public accounting firms. The Act contains 11 titles, or sections, ranging from additional Corporate Board responsibilities to criminal penalties, and requires the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to implement rulings on requirements to comply with the new law (Wikipedia, 2007).

These articles are directly related to the current readings assigned. Financial decisions can easily be misconstrued, mis-handled, or flawed. However, it is the driving purpose behind the decisions or calculations that determine weather the business was being ethical and simply made a bad choice or an error, or if the company intentionally made an unethical decision.

Currently, as a Starbucks supervisor at the retail level, I don’t have much to do with the accounting and financial decisions. However,