Luna City Project

A Commentary on Perceptions of Accountants’ Ethics: Evidence from Their Portrayal in Cinema

The public’s perception of an accountant is everything to an accountant’s profession. It is so crucial that

The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants’ (AICPA) standard requires accountants to be independent in fact and in appearance. And there is even a code of professional conduct is set by the AICPA that states the profession’s reputation is “our most priceless asset” with expectations of such high caliber what is it that holds accountants accountable to the code of ethics one may wonder. Perhaps it is the mission statements of being “trusted financial leaders” or even higher is the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC). With the accounting profession being a necessity to the economic system, the integrity of an accountant based a mission statement and code of ethics alone. The public will do research as to the pros and cons of the firm and or the accountant.

The accountants’ ethics has not been well researched. Collecting reliable data about what is ethical or unethical behavior of an accountant is difficult. This may be due to the question “is ethics an attribute that can be taught or must one be born with the ethical trait, if there is such. So the public’s perception and most relied upon research source is the media.

As we have learned throughout this semester accountants deal with many various situations, as well as researching the accountants portrayed in some of the films listed in this article takes you away from the stereotypical thought of the accountant, without a life, trapped in the dark office just crunching numbers. Accountants deal with many ethical situations as well moral issues. As depicted in film and discussed in this article, we find that accountants can be many different types of people. In the “Dinner Game” you find the stereotype of the boring accountant in popular movies. Some movies such as “Moonstruck”...