ETHICS EDUCATION IN THE AUSTRALIAN ACCOUNTING CURRICULUM: A LONGITUDINAL STUDY EXAMINING BARRIERS AND ENABLERS - A REVIEW

Abstract

In the accounting profession, there can be a number of ethical issues that surround the future of the profession. These ethical issues are concerned with the moral act of an individual or the way in which one behaves. The article ‘Ethics Education in the Australian Accounting Curriculum: A Longitudinal Study Examining the Barriers and Enablers’, seeks to provide readers with the increased knowledge of why it is significant to incorporate ethics in the Australian Accounting Curriculum. These ethical issues have been a major source of concern resulting in losses of personal savings and commercial investments. According to the authors, a number of inquiries (e.g. the Fitzgerald Commission and HIH Royal Commission in Australia) were established to investigate the causes attributed to these transgressions, and identify possible preventative measures to avoid future scandals. These investigations acknowledged the complex ethical issues faced in the accounting profession and the difficulty in addressing them; in particular, independencerelated issues and conflicts of interest in client relationships in which economic benefits were substantial. The issue of ethics education has become more of an issue in accounting following the “high profile corporate collapses
during the 1980s and again in the early 2000s that resulted in huge losses of personal savings and commercial investments, mostly without explanation or compensation†[3 (p.362)]. Hence, in keeping with the requirements of this course, this article provides a critical review of the titled article.