The successful influence of teaching ethics on Malaysian accounting students

The Malaysian accounting profession is committed to promoting education that results in a strong ethical culture within accountants. However, some consider ethical training unproductive since trainees may have their ethical values formed pre-commencement. This paper investigates the impact of ethics instruction on final year accounting students, the future accountants of Malaysia. 85 final year accounting students were given five ethical scenarios, and asked what action they considered appropriate. They were then subject to two ethical training methodologies, a traditional lecture/tutorial process and a group assignment. After a significant gap, students were re-presented with the ethical scenarios and asked what action they now considered appropriate. In all five instances students offered a more ethical response the second time. Also, participants rated both training methods and their combined effect as effective. Results suggest there is benefit in including ethics teaching and indeed emphasising its importance in accountancy courses, if the profession’s goal of ethical practitioners is to be achieved.

The ideological context of business : capital

This chapter focuses on the major social ruptures and developments that are most significant in the historical emergence and development of Capital and, more precisely, on those ruptures that highlight the most significant ethical issues upon which Capital, as a form of social organisation, is premised. Capital is most often viewed as a system of relationships between “things”, like land, labour, machinery, money, and so on. But this is to obscure the human relationships within which Capital flourishes.

Teaching crabs to walk straight : is there a place for ethics education in Malaysian accountancy courses?

Recent releases from the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) highlight the importance of ethics education. Academic institutions employ varying methods of teaching ethics and place varying levels of emphasis on ethics teaching during a business/accounting degree. This paper attempts to evaluate whether teaching ethics to final year accountancy students is beneficial. At the commencement of a semester 85 final year accounting students were given five ethical scenarios on which to make an ethical decision. During the semester they were subject to two different methods of teaching ethics, a traditional lecture/tutorial process and a group assignment. ----- After a significant gap, students were re-presented with the ethical scenarios and asked what action they now considered appropriate. In all five instances students offered a more ethical response the second time. When asked to evaluate the methodologies the students considered both training methods to have a positive effect on their ethical thinking. The results suggest it is beneficial to include ethics teaching in accountancy courses, if the profession’s goal of ethical practitioners is to be achieved.

Regulating corporate governance in China and Hong Kong : do Chinese values and ethics have a place in the age of globalization?

Much has been said about the convergence of corporate governance and regulations. The underlying assumptions of this phenomenon are driven by globalisation and the dominance of the Anglo-US model of corporate governance. Since the Asian crisis in 1997, Hong Kong and perhaps to a less extend Mainland China, had amended both Company laws and Stock Exchange Listing Rules obligations, arguably, mirroring provisions and rules in the UK and US. However, there has been a small amount of literature in law drawing from cross cultural management asking the question - is Western governance and regulation appropriate for the East? This paper will approach this issue from a different mindset, instead of drawing distinctions about East and West, a meta-regulatory framework will attempt to incorporate Western ‗hard‘ and ‗soft‘ laws with Asian ethical values. The aim is to combine laws and ethics thereby enhancing corporate governance and, improve compliance of those rules by adapting Chinese ethical values like Confucianism into the regulatory system. The overarching goal of this exercise is to adapt the wisdom of Chinese ethics into regulatory guidelines to suit the modern global market.

The pitfalls of publicizing ethics research

What happens to our research once it hits the popular media? Do marketers know how to promote our research in a way that is understandable and complete, while still capturing an audience? This case study follows the dissemination of the results of a consumer ethics study via a single press release, along with the resulting media coverage, interviews and audience comments. Perhaps in their quest for a touch of controversy, the story picked up by the popular press was not the one intended by the authors. If getting the public story right is important, marketing academics need to spend as much time carefully crafting their press releases as they do writing journal manuscripts – they may not be able to rely on the ethics of media sub-editors who choose controversial headlines.

The international search for ethics norms : which consumer behaviors do consumers consider (un)acceptable?

Purpose: Businesses cannot rely on their customers to always do the right thing. To help researchers and service providers better understand the dark (and light) side of customer behavior, this study aims to aggregate and investigate perceptions of consumer ethics from young consumers on five continents. The study seeks to present a profile of consumer behavioral norms, how ethical inclinations have evolved over time, and country differences. ---------- Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected from ten countries across five continents between 1997 and 2007. A self-administered questionnaire containing 14 consumer scenarios asked respondents to rate acceptability of questionable consumer actions. ---------- Findings: Overall, consumers found four of the 14 questionable consumer actions acceptable. Illegal activities were mostly viewed as unethical, while some legal actions that were against company policy were viewed less harshly. Differences across continents emerged, with Europeans being the least critical, while Asians and Africans shared duties as most critical of consumer actions. Over time, consumers have become less tolerant of questionable behaviors. ---------- Practical implications: Service providers should use the findings of this study to better understand the service customer. Knowing what customers in general believe is ethical or unethical can help service designers focus on the aspects of the technology or design most vulnerable to customer deviance. ---------- Multinationals already know they must adapt their business practices to the market in which they are operating, but they must also adapt their expectations as to the behavior of the corresponding consumer base. Originality/value: This investigation into consumer ethics helps businesses understand what their customer base believes is the right thing in their role as customer. This is a large-scale study of consumer ethics including 3,739 respondents on five continents offering an evolving view of the ethical inclinations of young consumers.

Enhancing professional ethics : service-learning in teacher education

The ethical conduct of professionals has been the focus of increasing scrutiny over the past several decades as members of the public, the media, professional bodies, and legislative authorities have struggled to define ethical behaviour in times of governmental change, increasing internationalisation, globalised communications, threats of terrorism, and the challenges of developments in science and medicine (e.g., Demmke & Bossaert, 2004). National governments and transnational bodies have responded to these concerns about ethics and corruption through measures such as the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2004), Transparency International’s annual corruption index (2010) and Queensland’s Public Sector Ethics Act 1994 (Queensland Parliament 1994). Similarly, academic interest in ethics and its application across a range of domains(e.g., business, health care, social welfare, criminal justice, law, journalism, defence, environment, and media) has also increased. To illustrate, in 1993, a non-partisan, non-profit national umbrella organisation, the Australian Association for Professional and Applied Ethics, was formed following a conference concerned with the teaching of ethics (http://www.arts.unsw.edu.au./aapae/about_aapae/about_aapae.htm), while a recent review of the Excellence in Research for Australian rankings of national and international academic journals revealed that 16 journals related to ethics had received the top ratings of A* or A (Australian Research Council, 2009). In this chapter we examine professional ethics and argue, with specific reference to the context of pre-service teacher education, that Service-learning is one way of enhancing emerging professionals’ understanding of ethics.

Ethics and Socially Responsible Investment : A Philosophical Approach

This volume breaks new ground by approaching Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) as an explicitly ethical practice in financial markets. The work explains the philosophical and practical shortcomings of ‘long term shareholder value’ and the origins and conceptual structure of SRI, and links its pursuit to both its deeper philosophical foundations and the broader, multi-dimensional global movement towards greater social responsibility in global markets. Interviews with fund managers in the Australian SRI sector generate recommendations for better integrating ethics into SRI practice via ethically informed engagement with invested companies, and an in-depth discussion of the central practical SRI issue of fiduciary responsibility strengthens the case in favour of SRI. The practical and ethical theoretical perspectives are then brought together to sketch out an achievable ideal for SRI worldwide, in which those who are involved in investment and business decisions become part of an ‘ethical chain’ of decision makers linking the ultimate owners of capital with the business executives who frame, advocate and implement business strategies. In between there are investment advisors, fund managers, business analysts and boards. The problem lies in the fact that the ultimate owners are discouraged from considering their own values, or even their own long term interests, whilst the others often look only to short term interests. The solution lies in the latter recognising themselves as links in the ethical chain.

Risky business : mapping ethical landscapes and negotiating governance tensions when researching female offending

Whilst there is an excellent and growing body of literature around female criminality underpinned by feminist methodologies, the nitty gritty of the methodological journey is nowhere as well detailed as it is in the context of the Higher Degree Research (HDR) thesis. Thus the purpose of this paper is threefold: i) to explore a range of feminist methodologies underpinning 20 Australian HDR theses focussing on female criminality; ii) to identify and map the governance/ethics tensions experienced by these researchers whilst undertaking high risk research in the area of female offending; and iii) to document strategies drawn from negotiations, resolutions and outcomes to a range of gate-keeping issues. By exploring the strategies used by these researchers, this paper aims to: promote discussion on feminist methodologies; highlight pathways that may be created when negotiating the challenging process of accessing data pertinent to this relatively understudied area; contribute to a community of practice; and provide useful insights into what Mason & Stubbs (2010:16) refer to as “the open and honest reflexivity through the research process by describing the assumptions, and hiccups” for future researchers navigating governance landscapes.

Ethics in project management : some Aristotelian insights

Purpose My aim is to introduce, in the project management field, an Aristotelian ethics lens moving beyond the classical deontological and consequentialism approaches underlying the current ethical practices and codes of ethics and professional conducts. In doing so, I wish to pose the premises of a debate on the implications of a conscious ethical perspective for the structure and agency relationship within the project management field Design/methodology/approach Project management is a knowledge field on its own right. However the current perspectives applied to make sense and develop the field (modernism vs. postmodernism) leads to dichotomous thinking rather than recognizing the merits and contextual validity of both sides. I call for Aristotelian Ethics as a way of moving beyond this dichotomous thinking. I introduce briefly Aristotelian Ethics and its consequences in term of relation theory – practice, means and ends, facts and values, and finally politics (i.e. being part of a community of practitioners). Then I illustrate some consequences for the field taking PMI Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct and APM Code of Professional Conduct as supports for discussion Findings I suggest a need for revisiting and/or redesigning the codes of ethics and professional conducts for project management according to an Aristotelian perspective, in order to move beyond the normative limitations of classical deontological (conflict between competing duties, exemplified by PMI Code) or consequentialism (focusing on the "right" outcome to the detriment of duties, exemplified by APM Code) approaches (both, in fact, leading to a disconnection means and ends, and facts and values). This implicates shifting our view from the question "what is my duty?" to the questions "why should I undertake my duty?" and "how ought I act in this situation?" Practical implications Raising Professional Bodies, Industry and Education institutions awareness and consciousness and leading them to rethink about codes of ethics and the implications for the way they conceive practice and research, bodies of knowledge, credentialing, education... Originality/value To the best of my knowledge, this kind of discussion has not yet been conducted within the project management field, and considering the implication of project management in our life and for the well being of the society, an ethical debate may present some value(s)

The ethics, aesthetics and practical politics of ownership in co-creative media

What is ‘best practice’ when it comes to managing intellectual property rights in participatory media content? As commercial media and entertainment business models have increasingly come to rely upon the networked productivity of end-users (Banks and Humphreys 2008) this question has been framed as a problem of creative labour made all the more precarious by changing employment patterns and work cultures of knowledge-intensive societies and globalising economies (Banks, Gill and Taylor 2014). This paper considers how the problems of ownership are addressed in non-commercial, community-based arts and media contexts. Problems of labour are also manifest in these contexts (for example, reliance on volunteer labour and uncertain economic reward for creative excellence). Nonetheless, managing intellectual property rights in collaborative creative works that are created in community media and arts contexts is no less challenging or complex than in commercial contexts. This paper takes as its focus a particular participatory media practice known as ‘digital storytelling’. The digital storytelling method, formalised by the Centre for Digital Storytelling (CDS) from the mid-1990s, has been internationally adopted and adapted for use in an open-ended variety of community arts, education, health and allied services settings (Hartley and McWilliam 2009; Lambert 2013; Lundby 2008; Thumin 2012). It provides a useful point of departure for thinking about a range of collaborative media production practices that seek to address participation ‘gaps’ (Jenkins 2006). However the outputs of these activities, including digital stories, cannot be fully understood or accurately described as user-generated content. For this reason, digital storytelling is taken here to belong to a category of participatory media activity that has been described as ‘co-creative’ media (Spurgeon 2013) in order to improve understanding of the conditions of mediated and mediatized participation (Couldry 2008). This paper reports on a survey of the actual copyrighting practices of cultural institutions and community-based media arts practitioners that work with digital storytelling and similar participatory content creation methods. This survey finds that although there is a preference for Creative Commons licensing a great variety of approaches are taken to managing intellectual property rights in co-creative media. These range from the use of Creative Commons licences (for example, Lambert 2013, p.193) to retention of full copyrights by storytellers, to retention of certain rights by facilitating organisations (for example, broadcast rights by community radio stations and public service broadcasters), and a range of other shared rights arrangements between professional creative practitioners, the individual storytellers and communities with which they collaborate, media outlets, exhibitors and funders. This paper also considers how aesthetic and ethical considerations shape responses to questions of intellectual property rights in community media arts contexts. For example, embedded in the CDS digital storytelling method is ‘a critique of power and the numerous ways that rank is unconsciously expressed in engagements between classes, races and gender’ (Lambert 117). The CDS method privileges the interests of the storyteller and, through a transformative workshop process, aims to generate original individual stories that, in turn, reflect self-awareness of ‘how much the way we live is scripted by history, by social and cultural norms, by our own unique journey through a contradictory, and at times hostile, world’ (Lambert 118). Such a critical approach is characteristic of co-creative media practices. It extends to a heightened awareness of the risks of ‘story theft’ and the challenges of ownership and informs ideas of ‘best practice’ amongst creative practitioners, teaching artists and community media producers, along with commitments to achieving equitable solutions for all participants in co-creative media practice (for example, Lyons-Reid and Kuddell nd.). Yet, there is surprisingly little written about the challenges of managing intellectual property produced in co-creative media activities. A dialogic sense of ownership in stories has been identified as an indicator of successful digital storytelling practice (Hayes and Matusov 2005) and is helpful to grounding the more abstract claims of empowerment for social participation that are associated with co-creative methods. Contrary to the ‘change from below’ philosophy that underpins much thinking about co-creative media, however, discussions of intellectual property usually focus on how methods such as digital storytelling contribute to the formation of copyright law-compliant subjects, particularly when used in educational settings (for example, Ohler nd.). This also exposes the reliance of co-creative methods on the creative assets storytellers (rather than on the copyrighted materials of the media cultures of storytellers) as a pragmatic response to the constraints that intellectual property right laws impose on the entire category of participatory media. At the level of practical politics, it also becomes apparent that co-creative media practitioners and storytellers located in copyright jurisdictions governed by ‘fair use’ principles have much greater creative flexibility than those located in jurisdictions governed by ‘fair dealing’ principles.

The ethics of corporate governance: A (South)African perspective

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review the developments in South African corporate governance since the end of apartheid, with a view to identifying themes and points of convergence and/or divergence with other models. Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents a critical review of South African corporate governance in the context of political and economic developments. Where relevant, aspects of corporate governance theory (in particular the stakeholder and shareholder debate) are considered in the South African context. Findings – South African corporate governance can be seen to broadly follow Anglo‐American examples with the notable exception of the stakeholder approach of the two King reports. This approach emphasises the responsibilities of companies to various stakeholders and encourages stakeholder engagement as an integral element of company strategy. There has not, however, been any substantial incorporation of stakeholder interests into formal corporate governance structures such as board structure and financial reporting. Practical implications – The ongoing consideration of corporate governance developments in South Africa is important for its continued development in the country and the region. Originality/value – A review of South African corporate governance is timely given the probable release of the third King report in 2009, together with new company legislation.

'Black international business': Critical issues and ethical dilemmas

In this chapter, we explore the 'darker' faces of international business (IB). Over a decade ago, Eden and Len way (2001) raised the need for examining both the 'bright' and the 'dark' side of globalization in order to achieve a better understanding of the concept and of its impact on IB activities. In doing this, they posited the multinational enterprise (MNE) as the 'key agent' and 'f.1ee' of globalization and discussed, primarily, the relationship between MNEs and nation-states as the central interf.1ce of its impact. Additionally, they posited that, by and large, the community of IB scholars positioned themselves at the bright end of the globalization spectrum, seeing it as essentially positive, whilst most non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and international political economy (IPE) academics set themselves at the dark end. Whilst they acknowledged their own 'bright side' tendencies, they called for a more nuanced consideration of MNEs as what they referred to as the Janus bee' of globalization.

The ethics of professional accountants: An Aristotelian perspective

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how Aristotle’s ethics can be applied to the ethics of professional accountants, in relation to the approach adopted by the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC), and to consider the reasons that justify the Aristotelian approach. Design/methodology/approach The paper outlines IFAC’s approach and identifies several weaknesses. Three themes of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics are applied to the work of professional accountants. Reasons why this perspective is more suitable for professional accountants are then articulated. Findings Several aspects of Aristotle’s ethics can be fruitfully applied to the ethics of professional accountants. These include the relationship between function, goals and the good, an awareness of the human goal to achieve eudaimonia, the development of both excellences of character and of intelligence, and the significance of non-rational aspects of morality, including emotions, will, responsibility and choice. Research limitations/implications This perspective provides an alternative conceptualisation of the ethics of professional accountants. Although it does not provide concrete guidance regarding what the ethical approach to specific situations may be, it presents a useful counterpoint to existing approaches that are largely deontological and utilitarian. Practical implications This paper provides accountants in practice with a more comprehensive and adequate perspective on what it means for a professional accountant to be ethical, and raises several issues related to how ethics is included in the education and training of accountants. Originality/value Investigating the philosophical basis for professional ethics approaches professional codes of ethics in a way that it is not typically considered. The paper also provides a more comprehensive application of Aristotelian ethics than previous work.