Ethical and Cultural Issues in Accounting and Finance

Abstract

Encouraging high ethical and cultural practices in accounting and finance is an imperative. It is a collective responsibility of members and other stakeholders including statutory regulators. One beliefs that when ethics and culture are combined in the practice of accounting and finance, the result will be an enterprise with integrity and ingenuity. The focus of this paper is ethical and cultural issues in accounting and finance. Descriptive methodology was employed in this study. We found that socio—economic problems, institutional and supervisory inadequacy and lack of professional integrity are traceable to misdeed of some personnel who belong to the subject under discussion. However, in spite of the above challenges, we discovered among others that: emphasis on human resources will enhance self-actualization and professionalism; an entity with good cultural and ethical background backed with laws and regulations encourages compliance and conformity;  combination of skill with integrity will uplift ethical and cultural standard without affecting creativity and initiative. We recommend among others that accountants and finance analysts must play a meaningfully role to keep directors and management on their toes. Laws have to be enforced strictly or amended where it is loose, to ensure maintenance of high ethical and cultural practices on the topic being discussed. Judicial orders to discover, trace and freeze the benefits accruing from bad conduct should be possible. There may be need for bi-lateral and multi-lateral co-operation to ensure that high ethical and cultural values are adhered to especially now notably companies world-wide are involved in financial and accounting irregularities.

Keywords: Ethical issues, Cultural issues, Accounting and Finance