Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Review of “Accounting Ethics and the Near Collapse of the World’s Financial Systemâ€, by Michel Pakaluk and Mark Cheffers (Allen David Press, Sutton Massachusetts, 2011)

Contents:

Author Info

  • Charles Richard Baker

    (Adelphi University)

Registered author(s):

    Abstract

    The book is a revision of prior version that was intended as a text for teaching accounting students about ethics, as well as a book about ethics for professional accountants. As such, the current book serves a useful purpose. Educating accounting students and practicing professionals is an important activity which should be encouraged. This organization outline is similar to the previous edition of the book, and much of the material is the same or similar, with the primary emphasis of the authors being directed towards instilling “virtue†ethics, as espoused by Alasdair MacIntyre, and based in turn on Platonic and Aristolian notions of ethics. The primary short-coming with the current edition of the book appears to involve the title, in which it is implied that accounting ethics had something to do with the “near collapse of the world’s financial systemâ€. There is effectively no evidence that a failure of accounting ethics contributed to the financial crisis of 2008-2009. Alleging a connection between accounting ethics and the worldwide financial crisis is misleading at best and it tends to confuse students. While it is certainly important to encourage high standards of ethical conduct among accounting students and practicing accounting professionals, to make unfounded assertions about linkages between failures of accounting ethics and financial crises is tenuous at best.

    Download Info

    If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
    File URL: http://www.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1053&context=ael
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.

    Bibliographic Info

    Article provided by De Gruyter in its journal Accounting, Economics, and Law.

    Volume (Year): 2 (2012)
    Issue (Month): 1 ()
    Pages: 2

    as in new window
    Handle: RePEc:bpj:aelcon:v:2:y:2012:i:1:n:2

    Contact details of provider:
    Web page: http://www.degruyter.com

    Order Information:
    Web: http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/ael

    Related research

    Keywords: accounting; business ethics; financial crisis; financial scandals;

    Find related papers by JEL classification:

    References

    No references listed on IDEAS
    You can help add them by filling out this form.

    Citations

    Lists

    This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:aelcon:v:2:y:2012:i:1:n:2

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Peter Golla).

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

    If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.