Accounting Ethics and Impact on Business Performance Term Paper

Accounting Ethics and Impact on Business Performance - Term Paper Example This paper seeks to explain the relevance and need to embrace these ethical practices and their impact on the general business performance. Accounting ethics are moral values that govern the profession of accounting. They can also be described as judgments that apply in course of undertaking accounting tasks (Saleemi, 2002). These ethics have become accepted globally by government agencies and companies and help instill some degree of discipline both at organization level as well as employee level. Embracing these ethics cannot be ignored at this time of global economic crisis caused by malicious employees who collude with others and form cartels that have ripped off organizations and government resources leading to complete collapse or closure of once profit-making companies and organizations. Driven by the need to earn profits, an organization should also strive to ensure that shareholders’ interests are met. These interests vary among individual shareholders and as such acc ounting ethics in an organization are paramount in meeting these. It is with regard of its importance in controlling and monitoring the accounting profession that this paper concurs with adherence to accounting ethics. Accounting Ethics Lead to Better Management and Profitability There are shareholders whose interest is in the capital gains from the company. Pandey (2003) states that if the motive behind investing in a company is driven on capital gains, then the shareholders are likely to have a keen interest in the dividend policy of the organization. Accounting ethics in this case would strive to ensure proper reporting of the accounting statement. Alternately, there are another group of stakeholders or investors who are mostly concerned with a company’s management style and hence would demand that accountants have the necessary skills to help them undertake their task in the most professional way. All government bodies and companies have set ethical measures for the pract ice of this profession. These include competence, confidentiality, integrity, objectivity, timeliness, full disclosure, materiality and many others which are to look in the discussion. At the height of growing concerns of whether or not ethics play a role in companies’ management, the duty to ensure that all works well rests with the management. Everything progresses or fails due to the management and as such it is paramount to ensure that all ethical practices begin with them (Carbone, 2012). Business is not all about making profits but also how the company is perceived in the general business environment (Belkaoui, 1992). Most of the organizations are driven by the desire to retain their clients. This begins right from the way such clients are handled and their needs met. There are cases of companies that have embarked on this journey of adherence to accounting ethics and as such have reaped a lot of benefits over the years. Some of these are Safaricom Ltd, Sammer Group of Companies, Equity Bank, Kenolkobil, British American Tobacco, Oldmutual Investment Services, Kestrel Investment Services, and British American Insurance (Garrison, 2009). Safaricom has been applauded for observing high standards of integrity in customer relations. This extends from the way they respond to client complaints to the preparation of their accounting statements (Ferugson, 2007). The company has been the most profitable company in Eastern Africa for the past seven years maintaining the lead even in economic recessions as experienced since 2011(Kieso, 2009). Their