Destrucción cilindros fuera de uso

The backbone of any commercial system is reliable accounting. High-quality accounting systems are required for an economy to move forward. Without which, capital cannot be easily allocated to its best and effective use in building and sustaining the economy. The goodness of the accounting profession sustains the integrity of the national economic system and in turn, the commercial system underwrites the national prosperity. This sets the accounting profession in an important position in the economic system. Independence of mind is a desirable psychological behaviour trait in accountants. This gives the accountant a mindset that is objective and free of bias making it a good platform for ethical reasoning. The accountant must be willing to challenge clients and maintain a good degree of scepticism aided with an inquisitive mindset. An accountant needs to be knowledgeable, that is competent as highlighted in the fundamental principles of professional ethics, to increase their ability to challenge management on their reporting basis. Accountants especially those performing audits must be impartial and independent of management of the business they are auditing. This will serve them from unconscious bias. The issue of unconscious bias will be

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discussed later in this chapter. It is important for an accountant to be independent and objective because the audit they carry out should be able to give an objective reasonable assurance on the truthfulness and fairness of the financial statements they are reviewing. This assurance cannot be guaranteed by the directors of the company because of the conflict of interests they have with the owners of the company. Managers can create a false impression of a good financial performance with the aim of rewarding themselves with higher bonuses. Such a practice can lead to a waste of resources and ultimately a collapse in the whole business system as a result of misallocation and misdirection of resources. Only the accountants acting independently and objectively can provide that assurance. It should, however, be noted that the accounting professionals are faced with situations that compromise or threaten their independence. This may arise in the form of self-interest, advocacy, self-review, familiarity, and intimidation and threats (Moore et al 2004: 13 – 22).

The self-review threat happens when the accountant or accounting firm that prepared the financial statements takes the responsibility for auditing them. This will affect the objectivity of the reviewal process. One cannot be sceptical and rigorously enquire on financial statements that they prepared themselves. Another threat to independence is self-interest. The ACCA codes of ethics and conduct have highlighted a number of areas in which the threat of self-interest might arise. A self-interest threat is a threat that a financial interest or other interest will inappropriately influence the professional accountant's judgement or behaviour. There are many factors that contribute to the threat of self-interest but only relational issues shall be discussed in this study. It is suggested that the fall of Enron in early 2001 was a result of greed and unethical behaviour by the accountant(Nguyen Huu Cuong, 2011: Bazerman et al 2002:1). It will be shown that the accountant willingly misled everyone and had a criminal intent. The adequacy of professional ethics in the accounting profession has been questioned

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following this scandal and many others that followed. There is another view that suggests that the Enron scandal was not solely on greed or lack of proper ethics but due to unconscious bias (Nguyen Huu Cuong, 2011: Bazerman et al 2002:1). Given the scale and effects of accounting scandals that have been happening throughout the world, it is not surprising to put the blame on unethical accountants falsifying books of accounts protecting equally unethical clients. If this deduction is taken as correct then it will follow that the accounting profession is full of crooks. It is true that some scandals are offshoots of fraud, corruption among the accountants and some are a result of unconscious bias. Bazerman et al notes that,

Because of the often subjective nature of accounting and the tight relationships between accounting firms and their clients, even the most honest and meticulous of auditors can unintentionally distort the numbers in ways that mask a company’s true financial status, thereby misleading investors, regulators, and sometimes management (Bazerman et al 2002:1).

Unconscious bias refers to a bias that we are unaware of, and which happens outside of our control. It is influenced by background, cultural environment, and personal experiences and relationships. It cannot be controlled by punishment or sanctions like conscious corruption but require more fundamental changes in the ways the accounting profession interacts with clients and other stakeholders. Skewed information processing brings about erroneous conclusions that our judgements are free from bias and error. There are aspects that create fertile ground for bias to influence judgement in the accountants' field of work. Accountants are always faced with ambiguous situations.

There is always the possibility of interpreting information in different ways. Whenever there is ambiguity in a piece of evidence, it is a common phenomenon for taking an interpretation that has a self-serving end. Another aspect that contributes to unconscious bias is attachment. A long time with a client will make that accountant have an attachment to the client and as a result, an accountant will have a strong business reason to remain in the client's good graces

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and thus motivated to approve their client's books of accounts. Auditing procedures will endorse or reject accounts of a company prepared by another accountant. It might be therefore difficult for one accountant to reject the fairness and truthfulness of accounts already approved by a fellow accountant. Another cause of bias is familiarity. It is human nature that one is willing to harm strangers than someone they know, especially if they are a paying client. Bazerman et al (2002: 2) “an auditor who suspects questionable accounting must choose, unconsciously perhaps, between potentially harming his client (and himself) by challenging a company’s accounts or harming faceless investors by failing to object to the possibly skewed numbers”. In such a case one might unconsciously abide with their client and approves the dubious figures.

Unconscious bias might look like something divorced from professional ethics. The source of such bias is however deeply rooted in lack of professional ethics. The professional codes of ethics and conduct in the accounting profession do not allow attachment to a client or over dependency in a client. An ethical accountant will avoid a situation that will cause him or her to have an over-dependence on a client. This is where the issue of being and seen to independent comes into play. Accountants must embrace all the stakeholders and understand the effects of giving a wrong opinion consciously or unconsciously. This brings in the issue that the accounting profession must open up from being a closed system and interact as stated by the systems theory. It must understand that it is operating as an element of an open system that depends on open interaction with other elements or subsystems within the global vast. The accounting profession must leave up to its promise of working for the public interest.