Abstract:
Society holds accountants to an ethically high standard. Due to accountants’ work with
confidential client financial information, accountants need to know how to react in certain ethical
dilemmas. Events, like the Enron scandal in 2001, have put the accounting industry’s ethical
behavior into question. To combat this, a major influence on accountants’ behavior is their prior
education. By implementing more ethical discussion in accountancy programs, students can
better prepare themselves to act ethically in their place of work upon graduation. However, there
are many limitations that prevent this ethical integration in the classroom. Universities need to
find a balance where they can add ethics into their curriculum, without depleting themselves of
time and resources to make this necessary adjustment.
