Saberes científicos VS saberes fácticos

In a situation involving ethical issues, there are practical steps that should be taken.

 Establish the facts of the situation by further investigation and work.  Consider the alternative options available for action.

 Consider whether any professional guidelines have been breached.  State the best course of action based on the steps above.

An article in a student magazine contained the following advice for candidates who wish to achieve good marks in ethics questions. (The emphasis is BPP's.)

'The precise question requirements will vary, but in general marks will be awarded for:  Analysis of the situation

 A recognition of ethical issues

 Explanation if appropriate of relevant part of ethical guidelines, and interpretation of its relevance to the question

 Making clear, logical, and appropriate recommendations for action. Making inconsistent recommendations does not impress examiners

 Justifying recommendations in practical business terms and in ethical terms

As with all scenario based questions there is likely to be more than one acceptable answer, and marks

will depend on how well the case is argued, rather than for getting the 'right' answer.

However, questions based on ethical issues tend to produce a range of possible solutions which are, on the one hand, consistent with the ethical guidelines and acceptable, and on the other hand, a range of clearly inadmissible answers which are clearly in breach of the ethical guidelines and possibly the law.'

7.2 Step-by-step approach

We suggest, instead, that:

(a) You use the question format to structure your answer

(b) You bear in mind what marks are being awarded for (see above)

(c) You adhere to the following list of do's and don'ts. Be sure to read the notes following.

DO Note DON'T

Identify the key facts as briefly as possible

(one sentence?)

1 Merely paraphrase the question

Identify the major principle(s) at issue 2 Regurgitate the entire contents of the Ethical

Guidelines

Consider alternative actions and their consequences

3 List every single possible action and then explain how all the unsuitable ones can be eliminated

Make a decision and recommend action as appropriate

4 Fail to make a decision or recommend action. Propose actions in breach of the Ethical

Guidelines or the law

Justify your decision 5 Be feeble. 'This should be done because it is ethical' is not terribly convincing

Notes

1 One sentence is an ideal to aim for.

2 (a) Use the terminology of the ethical guidelines, but not ad nauseam. 'Integrity' is often

more clearly described as 'honesty' (although the two words are not synonymous). Don't forget the words 'fairness', 'bias', and 'influence' when discussing 'objectivity'.

(b) Don't torture the case study to make it fit a fundamental principle: if, say, 'justice' is the

most persuasive word for a situation don't be afraid of using it.

(c) If the law is involved, don't get carried away – this is not a law exam. 'The director has a

statutory duty to ...' is sufficient: there is no need to go into legal detail. 3 Useful ways of generating alternatives are:

(a) To consider the problem from the other side of the fence: imagine you are the guilty party

(b) To consider the problem from the point of view of the organisation and its culture and

environment

4 Making a decision is often very hard, but if you cannot do this you are simply not ready to take on the responsibilities of a qualified accountant. There are usually a number of decisions that could be justified, so don't be afraid of choosing the 'wrong' answer.

5 This is not actually as hard as you might think.

7.3 Regurgitating the question

Possibly the most common fault in students' answers to questions on ethics is that they include large amounts of unanalysed detail copied out from the question scenarios in their answers. This earns no

marks.

You can very easily avoid the temptation to merely paraphrase the question. Simply begin your answer by stating that you are referring to 'issues' (by which you mean all the details contained in the question) discussed at a previous meeting, or set out in full in 'appended documents'. If you do this you will be

writing your report to someone already in possession of the same facts as you have.

7.4 Justifying your decision

The article quoted above says that marks will be awarded for 'justifying recommendations in practical business terms and in ethical terms'. We shall conclude by examining a passage from a model solution

to a question on ethics to see how this can be done.

'Perhaps the first thing to do is to report the whole matter, in confidence and informally, to the

chief internal auditor with suggestions that a tactful investigation is undertaken to verify as many of the facts as possible. The fact that the sales manager has already been tackled (informally)

about the matter may be a positive advantage as he/she may be recruited to assist in the

investigation. It could however be a problem as the information needed for further investigation

may have already been removed. Tact is crucial as handling the matter the wrong way could

adversely influence the whole situation. An understanding of who participants are and how they are implicated can be used positively to bring about change with the minimum of disruption.'

The key to this approach is using the right language, and to a large extent you cannot help doing so if you

have sensible suggestions to make. The real problem that many students experience with questions of this type is lack of confidence in their own judgement. If you have sound business and managerial sense and you know the ethical guidelines there is every reason to suppose that an answer that you propose will be acceptable, so don't be shy of expressing an opinion.

In an internal company role, ethical problems could be in the following forms:  Conflict of duties to different staff superiors

 Discovering an illegal act or fraud perpetrated by the company (ie its directors)  Discovering a fraud or illegal act perpetrated by another employee

 Pressure from superiors to take certain viewpoints, for example towards budgets (pessimistic/optimistic etc) or not to report unfavourable findings