Accounting Theory and Practice the Ethical Dimension

Faculty of Commerce

Faculty of Commerce - Accounting & Finance Working Papers
University of Wollongong Year 

Accounting Theory and Practice: the Ethical Dimension
M. Gaffikin
University of Wollongong, michael gaffi[e-mail]

This working paper was originally published as Gaffikin, M, Accounting theory and practice: the ethical dimension, Accounting Finance Working Paper 07/04, School of Accounting Finance, University of Wollongong, 2007. This paper is posted at Research Online. http://ro.uow.edu.au/accfinwp/2

07/04
University of Wollongong
School of Accounting & Finance

Accounting Theory and Practice: the Ethical Dimension

Working Papers Series

Michael Gaffikin

School of Accounting & Finance University of Wollongong Wollongong NSW 2522 Australia Tel [phone] Fax [phone] eMail [e-mail] www.uow.edu.au/commerce/accy/

Accounting Theory and Practice: the Ethical Dimension Michael Gaffikin
It has often been suggested by some that the expression business ethics is an oxymoron – it employs contradictory terms because business seeks to optimise or maximise gains from its operations while ethics implies a very different basis for business practices. However, although the more cynically minded would seriously subscribe to this view, there has been a very dramatic upturn in an interest in ethical considerations by business leaders and professional business organisations partly as a result of the demands of societies which have had to bear the cost of spectacular corporate collapses and the unscrupulous business activities of a minority of business practitioners. In fact the subject has become an industry with several books on it being published, several courses, seminars, workshops and lectures devoted to the subject, numerous models promulgated and an ever increasing number of comments and debates in the public media. All people have some inner understanding of what constitutes ethical behaviour but when it

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