Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Mathew MacGregor
ACCTG 2600
Personal ethics plays a large role in everyones daily lives. Depending on where you
grew up, who youre family and friends were, and what youre religious views are is just a few
examples of the nearly infinite amount of variables that play into someones personal ethics.
I believe that there were many variables and instances that played important roles
throughout my life so far in regards to my own ethical development. Since I was born here in the
United States of America; I believe I have naturally gravitated towards more western style of
philosophy in regards to my ethical choices in life. There is also the variable of family, and how I
was raised; coming from divorced parents, one of which was Mormon, and the other Atheist.
Although their religious views differed substantially, their views regarding ethical choices
seemed nearly identical. I was taught about ethical choices, or what is considered right and
wrong in the regards of many aspects. Depending on the action or behavior I displayed growing
up I would be taught about what is right or wrong, their reasons seemed to differ on a case to
case basis. Sometimes the reason was because it was illegal, or that I had hurt someone
physically or mental whether intentionally or not, and other times it was because of my parents
own misguided beliefs or ethics that they would pass down to me with good intentions.
Trying to decide on what is right and wrong in such a chaotic world with no definitive
answer presented before us, we are then left to decide for ourselves with were we would like to
draw the line. This is the core issue of why it is so hard to decide collectively on what is
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considered right or wrong, what is considered ethically okay, and what is considered morally
acceptable. Technically, I believe that ethics only exists where there are at least a pair of two or
more living organisms in conflict who are capable of processing the concept of ethics. To put
this into perspective, there would be no governing body of ethics without formation of some
organism capable of creating, devising, or enforcing that code of ethics in the world. There needs
to be however; at least two organisms which have different viewpoints on one or more points of
what that governing code of ethics should be given the subject at hand, because if there is only
one body of governing ethic in the universe, there would be no right or wrong for there is only
The question remains however, what are my own personal ethics, and how do I decided
on what is considered right or wrong. I have found that the older I get, the harder this question
seems to become. To create my own personal ethics I had to first lay a foundation of acceptable
behavior that my peers and I could all agree with; most of which is taught to us by our parents.
This stuff is very generic, things like; dont do to others that you wouldnt want done to you, a
great example would be physical pain, most would agree that it is not morally okay to randomly
hurt someone without cause or reason. As I got older I had to develop a higher function of my
own personal ethics, most of which started to come from social interaction with friends and
family. Things such as what is considered morally or ethically appropriate in a given situation,
this included things like how to dress for an occasion, how to speak to someone respectively, and
what behavior was deemed morally acceptable at the time. Most would not consider it to be right
As I got older however, it started to become difficult to decipher what is considered right
or wrong. This complex subject matter comes with a lot of gray area, and unlike the foundation
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of my own personal ethics where the vast majority of people seem to agree on, this is where
people start to disagree with each other a lot more on what is considered right or wrong. Like
trying to justify fraudulent behavior, such as stealing money from the company you work at in
order to help a loved one in need. Some people believe it is never morally alright, it was not his
money, he was not honest about what he was doing, and it is not his choice to decide how the
companys money is spent, even if it was to help a sick loved one. Others believe however that
on a case by case basis it was not entirely wrong of him to choose to do such an action, after all
he was only trying to look out for a loved one, and that the company could easily handle the
How do I decide on what is right when facing such a complex situation? Depending on
the amount of time I have, I first evaluate the entire situation to the best of my ability. I then
examine and analyze all of my choices that are presented before me, most of which are going to
probably have strong roots in the foundation of my personal ethics. I then compare and contrast
my options and decided on a course of action to take. The course of action I take however is not
written in stone, I am willing to adapt to new information or events as they unfold, for we cant
be 100% right in every possible situation we happen to walk into. There was once a situation in
which I faced an ethical choice, I got a call from a good friend, it was the dead of night and his
car had broken down and he needed a ride. Ethically I believe it is not morally acceptable to
leave a good friend out on the side of the road alone at night when I am easily able and willing to
go and get him. I was however morally against the fact that he had a trafficking amount of drugs
on him at the time. If I left him out there I would have gone against my own morals, and I would
have left a good friend out to possibly get picked up by the cops and thrown in jail. If I do go out
and help him, I am becoming an accomplice to a crime, and I still go against my own morals.
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In the end I decided to help him out because he had no one else to turn to. If I could go
back and do it differently, I dont think I would have done anything different. Some people may
not agree with my morals, and the ethical decision I made at that point in time, none the less I
Now to the question at hand, how would personal ethics impact financial reporting?
There are many ways that someones personal ethics could impact the financial reporting of an
organization. For example my own personal ethics could come into conflict with that of the
organization I work for if I decided to try and report false or wrong financial statements for the
benefit of myself or for a friend in need. A situation I could encounter in the future would be
something along the lines of my boss asking me to falsely the financial reports to either avoid a
lawsuit, make more revenue, or to attract more investors. I could respond to the situation by
examining the whole situation, analyze my options and who it would impact, and ultimately
decided on what to do given the opportunity. More likely than not I would likely stick to my
amount of incentive to engage myself in fraudulent behavior in regards to the financial statement
of an organization, I would not deem it to be logically okay to expose myself to such a level of
risk or ethically okay to deceive people to that of what the actual financial report may actually
In conclusion, our personal ethics impact us on a daily basis usually more than most of us
actually notice, and given the vast amount of variables that goes into considering what is
considered right or wrong, it can quickly become overwhelming. At the end of the day however,
we are presented with a choice and we have to make a decision based on what we feel is right.