Irvin T. Nelson Utah State University

1
Ethics in Accounting Does It Really Matter?
Irvin T. NelsonUtah State University
2
What is the purpose of accounting?

• To provide information to decision makers

3
What are the desired characteristics of
information?

• Timeliness
• Understandability
• Reliability
• Truthfulness

4
What is truth?

• Fair
• Not misleading
• Unbiased
• Not predisposed in a particular direction
• Representational faithfulness
• Conveys an accurate impression of the underlying
  reality

5
What is Truth?

• Oh say, what is truth? Tis the fairest gem that
  the riches of worlds can produce Tis an aim for
  the noblest desire. John Jaques

6
What is Truth?

• Truth is a correspondence between what we think
  and what is real. -- Plato

7
What is Truth?

• Truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as
  they were, and as they are to come. Joseph
  Smith, Jr.

8
What is Truth?

• To tell the truth, rightly understood, is not
  just to state the facts, but to convey a true
  impression. Robert Lewis Stevenson

9
Forms of Lying

• Saying something that is not so
• Overstatement/exaggeration
• Understatement
• Withholding relevant information
• What do these have in common?
• They all fail to convey a true impression

10
How Important Is Truth?

• The truth shall make you free. Jesus of
  Nazareth

11
What is the relationship between truth and CPAs?

• The auditors job is to determine what is and
  what is not true, then to assure that what is
  true is properly communicated to the
  stakeholders. Richard L. Ratliff

12
What is the relationship between truth and CPAs?

• What has been the function of the CPA profession
  in society?
• Historically, it has been looked upon as the
  watchdog of business, the trustworthy
  guardians of truth.
• Even the Academy Awards hired Price Waterhouse to
  tally the votes for the Oscars. Why? Because
  their integrity was unquestionable. The public
  perceived that the integrity and independence of
  CPAs was beyond reproach, beyond question.

13
What happens in the absence of truth?

• Stock market crash of 1929
• Led to the Great Depression
• Audit failures in the 1980s
• Enron, World Com, etc.
• Damaging public confidence in capital markets
• Cost to the economy is not measurable but may be
  larger than 9/11 and Iraq combined

14
What are the implications to CPAs?

• When a societal institution fails to fill the
  function expected or demanded by society, it is
  done for. Thomas D. Hubbard
• Hence, the CPA profession is rightly concerned
  over its tarnished reputation.
• Unfortunately, its reaction to the scandals has
  not addressed the real problems

15
What Stands In the Way of Truth?

• Greed
• Gaming Mentality
• Incorrect conception of business
• Tinkering with little changes will not solve the
  problem
• Tweak peer review
• Spin off consulting, etc.
• Business as usual

16
What Stands In the Way of Truth?

• The very conception of the corporation as a
  legal fiction defined in terms of obligations
  to its stockholders implies that corporations are
  not moral or morally responsible agencies.
  Robert C. Solomon

17
What Social Systems are Supposed to Ensure Truth?

• Securities Acts of 1933 and 1934
• Independent Auditors
• Why do you think Congress passed those acts?

18
What Social Systems are Supposed to Ensure Truth?

• The middle word in CPA is public
• Does this imply auditors have a duty to the
  public?
• Or does it mean auditors first duty is to the
  public?
• Or does it mean auditors only duty is to the
  public?

19
Only THREE things protect the public from lies

• Competence
• Independence
• Ethics

20
There is no substitute for competence

• No matter how independent and ethical you may be,
  if you dont know what youre doing, the public
  will not be protected
• Many audit failures in the past have been caused
  by a lack of competence
• However, competence by itself is dangerous. In
  the absence of independence and ethics,
  competence only increases the ability to figure
  out how to get away with doing the wrong thing!

21
Competence is Necessary but Not Sufficient

• True independence, and/or
• Unimpeachable ethics are also needed

22
Independence is Problematic

• Independence is more than not owning stock in the
  company being audited, not dating people employed
  by the company being audited, etc.
• It means not having a conflict of interest
• But auditors always have a financial and
  psychological interest in the companies they audit

23
Independence is Problematic

• In theory, auditors are hired by the board
• In practice, auditors are hired by management
• There is essentially no auditor rotation
• You dont want to be the one who lost the
  account.
• Barry Minkow, ZZZ Best

24
Independence is Problematic

• Bottom line
• The relationship between client and auditor in
  the real world is rather cozy

25
Independence is Problematic

• The interviewer asked me why I wanted to be
  an auditor. I told him I had wanted to be an FBI
  Agent when I was young and that I viewed auditing
  as a similar type of activity digging and
  analyzing evidence and ferreting out whats true.
  He looked at me like I didnt know what I was
  talking about. Jeffrey T. Doyle

26
Independence is Problematic

• When the FASB wants to increase financial
  statement truthfulness and fairness, the large
  firms have traditionally argued against any
  proposed rule change

27
Independence is Problematic

• The firms have partner groups that discuss
  FASB proposals and submit responses in behalf of
  the firm. Individual partners are not free to
  express a position different from that taken by
  the firm. Of course, before the firm position is
  adopted, the responsible partner group listens
  carefully to the opinions of their clients and,
  for some unexplained reason, always seems to end
  up advocating the same position as their clients

28
Independence is Problematic

• During my career, I have had many discussions
  with leading partners of what were once the Big 8
  firms. These partners are all men and women whom
  I respect, but in 40 years of such conversations,
  I don't recall a single case where the partner
  agreed with the position that I felt was right

29
Independence is Problematic

• They seemed unable to discuss a topic with
  intellectual honesty, based on what would lead to
  more truthful financial statements. Instead,
  they always recited the party line advocated by
  the firms clients and seemed oblivious to the
  error of their ways. They behaved more like
  cheerleaders for their clients than they did
  watchdogs of the public interest.
• A. Tom Nelson

30
In the Absence of De Facto Independence

• Then theres only one remaining thing
  protecting the public
• ETHICS!

31
Something Has Gone Wrong

• Trust is the accountants stock in trade.
  Thats all we have to sell.
• Richard L. Ratliff
• AICPA Surveys
• Before Enron, CPAs ranked a step above clergy in
  public trust
• After Enron, CPAs ranked a step below used car
  salesmen in trust

32
Something Has Gone Wrong

• My heart breaks, and I'm embarrassed for our
  sport right now.
• NBC commentator Sandra Bezic, a five-time
  Canadian national pairs champion and
  choreographer of many gold medalists, after the
  Canadian pairs skating team of Sale and Pelletier
  lost the gold medal in the 2002 Salt Lake City
  Winter Olympics due to crooked judges, after
  clearly having won the competition based on
  skating merit

33
Something Has Gone Wrong

• My heart breaks, and I'm embarrassed for our
  profession right now.
• Irv Nelson, after hearing Arthur Andersen
  partners defend their audit of Enron by saying
  they didnt do anything wrong because they
  followed GAAP

34
Something Has Gone Wrong

• ... certain occurrences (this year) deeply
  trouble me.... in my esteemed profession of
  accounting. It has taken a big hit in what I
  thought were the very roots of this
  profession--integrity. Now we find that some of
  the most highly respected accounting firms have
  violated their dedicated trust. These firms have
  caused the reputation of this once-honored
  profession to be in question. They have bowed to
  corporate greed and have issued audit statements
  that have been found to be misleading and
  outright dishonest

35
Something Has Gone Wrong

• Imagine having to create a public
  "accountability board" to see that the integrity
  of the accounting profession is being upheld. The
  purpose of this board would be to address
  accountants' ethical lapses or competency
  deficiencies. U.S. Securities and Exchange
  Commission chair Harvey L. Pitt has declared
  This model . . . sends a loud and clear message
  that the era of self-regulation of the accounting
  profession is over.

36
Something Has Gone Wrong

• Furthermore, Mr. Pitt went on to imply that
  the auditing standards are not a problem rather,
  the problem lies with compliance and execution
  according to the standards of this profession.
  For years the profession has signed statements
  that the audit report represents fairly and
  accurately the information contained therein. Now
  the validity of that statement has to be clearly
  questioned because men have violated the
  standards of integrity that are so vital to
  public confidence in the credibility of the audit

37
Something Has Gone Wrong

• What a sad, sad commentary on the integrity
  of those we depend on for reliable information
  regarding the businesses of our nation.
  Unfortunately it is just a symptom of what is
  going on. People have become so possessed with
  the desire to achieve worldly recognition, power,
  and wealth that they have lost their sense of
  what is right. They have violated the standards
  that must be upheld for the sake of our nation or
  any other nation.
• L. Tom Perry

38
Something Has Gone Wrong

• Are there such things as ethical
  accountants? My father is under the impression
  there are only two ethical accountants in the
  world one located in a small Appalachian hamlet
  who has since given up the profession to
  apiculture, and the other occupying a small
  corner office in New York, teetering on
  bankruptcy. Obviously you can imagine what a
  shock it was a year ago when I announced at the
  Sunday dinner table that I was changing my major
  to accounting. (I am still invited home, but only
  if I dont talk about business.)

39
Something Has Gone Wrong

• The sad thing is, my fathers views turned
  out to be near prophecy. Until the beginning of
  this semester, I held accounting related jobs for
  the last three and a half years. In the course of
  my employment I saw and even participated in
  activities I deemed unethical. These activities
  ranged from falsifying payroll records to padding
  invoices. More than once, I went to my superior
  and aired my disapproval but coming from a
  junior bookkeeper, I was ignored

40
Something Has Gone Wrong

• I also saw a CPA firm not only turn a blind
  eye to such practices, but actively put their
  signatures on an income statement in which the
  net income was understated to lessen the amount
  of dividends paid to non-participating partners.
  My reaction to all of this? Well, to be an
  ethical accountant means to not be an accountant
  at all.
• --Brian C. McBride

41
Something Has Gone Wrong

• When former SEC chairman Aurthur Levitt
  testified before the Senate Hearing on the
  Collapse of Enron (January 24, 2002) he decried
  the culture of gamesmanship in which the
  objective is not to ensure the reality of the
  numbers but rather to try to get away with as
  much as possible.

42
Something Has Gone Wrong

• He further asserted that Rarely, of all the
  groups that the Commission (SEC) oversees, has
  this group (the accounting profession) spoken of
  the public interest. For a profession whose
  sole reason for existence is supposedly the
  public interest, it is difficult to imagine a
  more scathing condemnation.

43
Something Has Gone Wrong

• Sadly, the condemnation is well deserved. In
  the last decade, the AICPA engaged in an
  unprecedented political lobbying process - not to
  protect the public, but to protect itself from
  accountability. Several years ago, when the SEC
  was proposing some very reasonable rules changes
  that just might have helped prevent the Enron
  scandal, an astonishing amount of political
  pressure was brought to bear on the SEC by the
  accounting profession. No reasonable person can
  objectively conclude that the motivation of this
  behavior by the accountants was to protect the
  public. It is painfully obvious that its ONLY
  motivation was to protect the status quo.

44
Management Accounting Examples

• Manipulating Earnings
• Smoothing
• Playing with bad debt reserves, asset lives,
  inventory adjustments, timing of write offs
• Playing with timing of revenues
• Hiding Debt
• Leases
• Special Purpose Entities

45
Auditing Examples

• Allowing clients to get away with accounting
  treatments the purpose of which is to lie /
  distort / manipulate
• Holding GAAP as the ultimate standard, instead of
  truth
• Failing to follow substance over form
• Advising clients how to structure transactions so
  as to get around the rules

46
Something to think about

• As the FASB moves away from rules-based
  standards towards principles-based standards,
  ethics will become increasingly important

47
What are Ethics?

• Perhaps one of the problems is that we have a
  flawed conception of ethics.
• Some view ethics as adherence to a set of rules
  (code of ethics)
• Like the rules of a game (gaming ethics)
• If its not against the rules, its OK
• Others view ethics as flexible whats right for
  some might not be right for others

48
Models of Ethics

• Relativism
• There is no such thing as right and wrong it all
  depends on the situation
• There is no such thing as truth it all depends
  on your point of view
• List the stakeholders, consider their competing
  claims
• Objective the most good for the most people

49
Models of Ethics

• Principles-based Ethics
• Virtue Ethics based on Aristotle
• There is such a thing as right and wrong
• Our duty is to figure out whats right and do it
  because its right (not because of an analysis of
  the relative social good of various choices)
• Objective live a life of virtue and integrity

50
Definitions

• Principles
• Values
• Pseudo-values
• Ethical Behavior
• Integrity

51
Principles

• Universal truths
• What IS right and wrong
• Exist independent of any person or group
• Do not vary between cultures, time periods

52
Can We Agree on Universal Principles?

• Dr. James W. Brackner proposed 10 values that
  seem to be universal across all cultures
• Honesty
• Integrity
• Promise-keeping
• Fidelity
• Fairness

53
Can We Agree on Universal Principles?

• Caring for Others
• Respect for Others
• Responsible Citizenship
• Pursuit of Excellence
• Accountability
• May these be considered examples of correct
  principles?

54
Principles

• People cannot see principles perfectly
• We view principles through the lens of our
  experiences
• Colored and distorted to some degree
• Thus, we dont live our lives on principles we
  have to translate them into VALUES

55
Values
Life Experiences
Principles
56
Values

• How each person decides what he/she THINKS is
  right and wrong
• Core beliefs upon which we live our lives
• Do vary between individuals and cultures
• Because each persons lens is different
• May or may not be based on correct principles
• Making choices in accordance with values leads to
  self-esteem

57
What Is Ethical Behavior?

• To be ethical, a choice must be in accordance
  with ones values, AND
• Those values must be based upon correct
  principles
• Neither is sufficient both are necessary

58
What Is Ethical Behavior?

• "What ought to be?"
• The choice that is more right, more good, and
  more just than the others

59
What Is Integrity?

• When a person consistently makes ethical choices
  across a wide range of situations, over a
  lifetime, that person has integrity.

60
Everyone must answer the following question

• What is my highest aspiration?
• Wealth
• Power
• Knowledge
• Popularity/fame
• Integrity

61

• Be on guard if integrity is secondary to any of
  the alternatives, it will be sacrificed in
  situations in which a choice must be made. Such
  situations inevitably occur in every persons
  life.
• -- Dr. L. Murphy Smith, in testimony to U.S.
  House of Representatives Subcommittee on
  Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection hearing
  on accounting scandals, July 26, 2002

62
American Institute of CPAs Code of Professional
Conduct, Principles Article I In carrying out
their responsibilities as professionals, members
should exercise sensitive professional and moral
judgments in all their activities.
63
Pseudo-Values

• Beliefs professed but not lived

64
Enrons Values Statement, included in 2000 annual
report

• Excellence
• Communication
• Respect
• Integrity

65
Pseudo-Values

• When values are not lived, emotional dissonance
  results
• Two possible responses
• Elevate behavior to level of values, or
• Use thinking errors

66
Thinking Errors

• Excuses we tell ourselves to make us feel better
  about our unethical behavior
• Examples
• Rationalization (its OK because)
• Justification (I deserve it)
• Minimization (its not so bad)
• Blame Shifting (dont blame me)
• Sincere delusion (its only this once)

67
Look for the Thinking ErrorsManagement
Accounting

• We work for management. Our job is to make
  management look good.
• Our obligation is to our shareholders. Anything
  we do to make the stock price go up is ethical.
• Every good accountant knows where to find it.
• Youre not being a team player.
• Youve got to stop thinking like a CPA and start
  thinking like a management accountant.
• You WILL make this journal entry.

68
Look for the Thinking ErrorsPublic Accounting

• We followed GAAP.
• Enron didnt do anything illegal.
• If you want more transparency, you need to
  change the rules. Dont blame us.
• Those partnership documents are incredibly
  complex and 80 pages long.
• We couldnt force Enron to put it on the balance
  sheet because we cant break the rules.
• Our capital markets are the most efficient in
  the world.

69
Look for the Thinking ErrorsBetty Vinson article
70
Three Choices

• Blind loyalty
• Exit
• Voice

71
In his best-seller, The Closing of the
American Mind, Allan Bloom says that the eternal
conflict between good and evil has been replaced
with Im okay, youre okay. Students
unthinkingly embrace a blind tolerance in which
they consider it moral never to think they are
right because that means someone else is wrong.
Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind,
New York, Simon and Schuster, Inc. 1987
72
Should Universities Teach Principles and Values?

• Professional accounting education must not
  only emphasize the needed skills and knowledge,
  it must also instill the ethical standards and
  the commitment of a professional.
• Bedford Committee Report, 1986

73
Should Universities Teach Principles and Values?

• University education should support the
  development of intellectual skills, which include
  the ability to identify ethical issues and apply
  a value-based reasoning system to ethical
  questions, and also general knowledge, which
  includes experience in making value judgments.
• -- Perspectives on Education Capabilities
  for Success in the Accounting Profession (1989),
  white paper jointly authored by the Big Eight.

74
Should we teach values? The National Commission
on Fraudulent Financial Reporting (Treadway
Commission) recommended that accounting
curricula should integrate the development of
ethical values with the acquisition of knowledge
and skills. In a keynote speech to the American
Accounting Association, John Burton, Dean of the
Columbia University Business School stated that a
declining influence of social institutions has
increased the role educators must play in shaping
values.
75
Should Universities Teach Principles and Values?

• High quality corporate reporting requires
  people of integrity, a spirit of transparency and
  a culture of accountability. The values of
  quality, integrity, transparency, and
  accountability should be integrated throughout
  the curriculum People of integrity are essential
  because transparency can only occur when
  individuals try to do the right thing

76
Should Universities Teach Principles and Values?

• All business students must understand that
  personal integrity is not a choice. It is an
  obligation for those who serve the public
  interest. The profession is best served by
  academic experiences that require compliance with
  reasonable standards of conduct. Faculty members
  should not tolerate actions that demonstrate a
  lack of integrity.
• PricewaterhouseCoopers white paper, March 2003

77
Should values be taught? Teddy Roosevelt said,
To educate a person in mind and not in morals is
to educate a menace to society.


78
If we want to produce people who share the values
of a democratic culture, they must be taught
those values and not be left to acquire them by
chance. Cal Thomas, The Death of Ethics in
America
79
Not Everyone Agrees

• Sellers and Milam (1979) examined accounting
  student perceptions of professional ethics and
  concluded,
• (Accounting) students are better in a
  moral/ethical sense than they are given credit
  for, and
• There is less need for the addition to
  curriculum of courses in professional ethics than
  many educators would have us believe.
• Sellers and Milam further concluded that the CPA
  code of ethics was all that was needed and that
  additional courses in professional ethics are
  not necessary.

80

• What do profs think?
• In a survey of college faculty, 187 professors
  responded to several statements about teaching
  ethics
• The importance of ethics and personal integrity
  should be
  stressed in the courses I teach. 4.75
• 2. The basis for ethics and personal integrity
  should
  be discussed (e.g. benefit to society
  as a whole, moral and religious
  foundations of society,
  etc.) 4.11
• Note Scores are based on a scale from
  
  1 Strongly Agree to 5 Strongly Disagree

81
In an issue of Management Accounting, James W.
Brackner stated The universities are responding
with an increased emphasis on ethical training
for decision making. For the most part, however,
they ignore the teaching of values. For moral or
ethical education to have meaning there must be
agreement on the values that are considered
right.
82
Until about 50 years ago, it was commonly
accepted that universities were to provide
students not only with knowledge and skills, but
also moral guidance based on the essentials of
the Western tradition. Geoffrey Lantos
83
Should Universities Teach Principles and Values?

• In the early years of American University
  education, moral values were an important part of
  the curriculum
• In the last 50 years this has been replaced by
  relativism
• There is an extreme reluctance to talk about
  right and wrong for fear of offending
• What is the result?

84
In a recent Wall Street Journal
article, Psychology
professor Steven Davis says that cheating by
high school students has increased from about
20 percent in the 1940s
to 75 percent today. Students say cheating
in high school is for grades, cheating in college
is for a career.
85
If students lack ethics in high school and
college, then there should be little surprise
that they lack ethics in their careers. Greed and
over-reaching ambition often end in disastrous
personal consequences. Convicted inside trader,
Dennis Levine, in a Fortune magazine article
wrote
I have painful memories of Sarah learning to
walk in a prison visiting room, and of Adam
pleading with a guard who wouldnt let him bring
in a Mickey Mouse coloring book.
86
Educational Institutions have established ethics
codes for their students, e.g. the U.S. Air Force
Academy
We Will Not Lie, Steal Or Cheat, Nor
Tolerate Among Us Anyone Who Does -- Which do
you think is the harder part Line 1 or Line 2?
Why?
87
What Happened to the Young Auditors at Andersen?

• The firm owns you
• Team player lose individual identity
• Culture Were here to help Enron succeed
• Desensitization from ignoring conscience
• Principles fell like dominoes
• Integrity fell first, knocking down others
• Truth, fairness, empathy then fell

88

• We, as individuals, become the resultant sum
  of each ethical confrontational event as
  experienced from the beginning of our careers.
  Simply stated, if we have conditioned ourselves
  to blink at the small decision opportunities at
  the beginning of our careers, then we will
  precondition ourselves to also blink at the more
  important decision opportunities later.
• -- Roger M. Boisjoly, Morton Thiokol engineer
  who strongly argued against Space Shuttle
  Challenger launch at 29 degrees F, in the face of
  tremendous management pressure

89
Implications

• Strength of financial markets
• Health (survival?) of accounting profession
• Bigger implications than these???

90
Implications

• Before the American Republic, a common belief was
  that where there was liberty, anarchy would
  result because people are unable to govern
  themselves. Yet Americans were free and well
  behaved. How could this be?

91
Implications

• The great English writer, G.K. Chesterson,
  observed that America was the only nation in the
  world founded on a creed. He said that creed was
  set forth with dogmatic and even theological
  lucidity in the Declaration of Independence.

92
Declaration of Independence The second paragraph
of America's founding document states "We hold
these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain unalienable rights, that
among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness."
93
Implications

• A society teeters on the brink of disaster
  when its people lack moral character. No nation
  survives for long without citizens who share
  common values such as courage, devotion to duty,
  respect for other peoples lives and property,
  and a willingness to sacrifice personal interests
  for a greater cause. L. Murphy Smith

94
A nation or a culture
cannot endure for long
unless
it is undergirded
by common values such

as valor, public
spiritedness, respect for

others and for the law It cannot stand unless it
is populated by people who will act on the
motives superior to their own immediate
interest." Chuck Colson, Against the Night
95
One recent national election day poll indicated
that 56 percent of voters thought that Americas
problems are primarily moral and social. Only
36 percent thought that the nations problems
were primarily economic.
96
More than 200 years ago, Professor Alexander
Tyler wrote of the Athenian Republic, which had
fallen 2,000 years earlier A
democracy cannot exist as a
permanent form of government The average age of
the worlds greatest civilizations has been 200
years. These nations have progressed through this
sequence From bondage to spiritual faith, to
great courage, to abundance, to selfishness, to
complacency, to apathy, to dependency, and back
again to bondage.
97
In the quest for educational
reform, we would do well
to
turn not only to the great books,
but the great
exemplars of
wisdom with which our country
is
blessed. To help reclaim our
destiny as human beings
and
citizens, we need to rediscover the
generation that really can claim to be the best
and the brightest in American history, at least
from the moral and political point of view the
founders of the American Republic. C.R.
Kesler Kesler, C.R. Education, Cultural
Relativism, and the American Founding. The
Intercollegiate Review, Vol. 24, No. 2, Spring
1989, pp. 35-42
98
Whereas it is the duty of all nations to
acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to
obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits,
and humbly to implore His protection and
favor. George Washingtons Thanksgiving
Proclamation of 1789
99
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to
political prosperity, religion and morality are
indispensable supports Reason and experience
both forbid us to expect that national morality
can prevail in the exclusion of religious
principle. George Washingtons Farewell
Address, September 17, 1796
100
We have no government armed with power capable
of contending with human passions unbridled by
morality and religion. Our Constitution was made
only for a moral and religious people. It is
wholly inadequate to the government of any
other. President John Adams, 1789
101
God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the
liberties of a nation be secure when we have
removed a conviction that these liberties are the
gift of God?
. Thomas Jefferson
102
Can you make a difference?

• It all boils down to personal choices

103
Be sure you are right, then go ahead. Davy
Crockett 1786-1836
104
To sin by silence when they should protest makes
cowards of men. Abraham Lincoln Do you think
this relates to line 2 of the U.S.A.F. Academy
Code of Honor?
105

• Employees have both a right and a
  responsibility to become involved in attempting
  to correct any irresponsible or dishonest actions
  that senior management is promoting Roger M
  Boisjoly

106
Leadership is a potent combination of strategy
and character. But if you must be without one, be
without strategy. General H. Norman Schwarzkopf
107
The reputation of a thousand years may be
determined by the conduct of one
hour. Japanese proverb
108

• In the AICPA's Code of Professional Ethics, as
  amended in 1983, a philosophical essay entitled
  "Concepts of Professional Ethics" was included
  with the code, which suggested that CPAs should
  strive for behavior beyond the minimum level of
  acceptable conduct set forth in the code. The
  theme of the essay was
• "A man should be upright not be kept upright."
  (Marcus Aurelius).

109
At the Congressional Hearing on Accounting and
Business Ethics in July 2002, Truett Cathy, the
Founder of Chick-Fil-A, quoted Proverbs 221
"A good name is more desirable than great
riches to be esteemed is better than silver or
gold."   The truth is that fame and fortune are
nothing compared to personal integrity.
110
President Lincoln said Honor is better than
honors.