Business

RUNNING HEAD: Assignment 1: Review of Accounting Ethics

Review of Accounting Ethics

Sheumae Stanton

Professor Brandy Havens

ACC 557- Financial Accounting

January 27, 2013

Ethics are considered the moral standards by which people judge behavior. Ethics are often summed up in what is considered the “golden rule” do unto others as you would have them do unto you. While this makes sense as a general rule of thumb, it is not entirely useful when looking to define business ethics. In recent years, a wave of accounting scandals broke and a number of companies admitted to following fraudulent accounting procedures to defer attention from the company’s financial performance of a corporation. Enron Corporation, a natural gas provider, led the pack with dubious accounting practices, a series of off-balance sheet transactions, and a series of investigations that ultimately led to the beginning of accounting reform. This paper will discuss the accounting ethical breaches of Enron and the following topics:

1. Given the corporate ethical breaches in recent times, assess whether or not you believe that the current business and regulatory environment is more conducive to ethical behavior. Provide support for your answer.

2. Based on your research, describe the organization, the accounting ethical breach and the impact to the organization related to ethical breach.

3. Determine how the organizational ethical issue was detected and how management failed to create an ethical environment.

4. Analyze the accounts impacted and/or accounting guidelines violated and the resulting impact to the business operation.

5. As a CFO, recommend which measures could have been taken to prevent this ethical breach and how each measure should be implemented in the future.

Given the corporate ethical breaches in recent times, assess whether or not you believe that the current business and regulatory environment is more conducive to ethical behavior. Provide support...