Annotated Bibliography on Ethics in Accounting

Running head: ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Annotated Bibliography
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

1ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Article 1: Bayou, M.E., Reinstein, A. and Williams, P.F., 2011. To tell the truth: A
discussion of issues concerning truth and ethics in accounting. Accounting, Organizations
and Society, 36(2), pp.109-124.
Bayou, Reinstein and Williams (2011) held unethical behavior responsible in the
accounting firms for the scandals that happened in the late 90s and early twenty-first century.
Some of the major financial firms such as Enron, Global Crossing, Worldcom and Tyco faced
significant crisis in that period. The question answer for the veracity of accounting. The truth
according to the accounting is not clear. The policy and standard makers in the accounting firm
defended themselves by with the answer that the financial reporting’s ultimate objective is to
focus on the decision usefulness instead of the truth. This notion has resulted into a serious
unrest among the financial accounting content and the auditing of that content. In their report,
Bayou, Reinstein and Williams (2011) suggests the scholars and practitioners of accounting to
rethink about the truth from a different perspective and identify the actual type of corporate
reporting required in the for maintaining the truthfulness of the report.
Article 2: Copeland, M.K., 2015. The importance of ethics and ethical leadership in the
accounting profession. In Research on Professional Responsibility and Ethics in
Accounting (pp. 61-98). Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Copeland (2015) identifies that the starting of the twenty-first century faced serious
ethical dilemma over the industries. The accountants despite of having high standards
professional morals and ethical codes, was tainted with various ethical leadership carelessness
during this period. The author directed has study to identify the efficiency of the ethical
leadership and the variables affecting it, along with a comparison of ethical leadership with other

2ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
variants of leadership factors to identify its importance on the firm. The results conclude that the
ethical leadership worked better than the other factors such as tenure of the individual in the
organization, tenure of the accountant in the leadership position, accountant’s gender, which was
under comparison in the study. The report further reveals that a combination of ethical and
transformational leadership can have greater impact on the organization by significantly
increasing its potentials. This narrates the need of incorporation of ethics in the accounting and
for the accountants.
Article 3: West, A., 2017. Multinational tax avoidance: Virtue ethics and the role of
accountants. Journal of Business Ethics, pp.1-14.
West’s (2017) study on the multinational companies reflects that these organizations have
incorporated mechanisms to reduce their tax liabilities. This has come into light the in recent
years that have increased public insecurity. The author used Alasdair MacIntyre’s approach that
provided a greater useful philosophical analysis of the issue and helped in identifying the main
parties involved. The results reflect that these kinds of issues are the result of ethical violation of
the accountants and regulators who encourage them to take such measures. This not only
endangers the public trust by also put the company into the risk. The ethical violence in this case
is a national level crime, which can charge the company with some serious fines or even
permanently stop company’s venture in the host country. The author also re-conceptualizes the
issue by relating it to the Donald Cressey’s fraud triangle. Hence, it makes it necessary for both
the accountants and the regulators to work within the ethical boundaries to avoid such situations.
Article 4: Brennan, N., 2016. Are Ethics Relevant to the Practice of Professional
Accounting?.