Accounting in Professionals: Ethics and Sustainability Challenges

This essay delves into the critical aspects of ethics and sustainability within the accounting profession. It begins by defining accounting and emphasizing the importance of ethical conduct for professionals. The first part identifies and explains ethical dilemmas such as the omission of financial records and pressure from management, detailing their impact on stakeholders and the accounting profession's reputation. The second part addresses sustainability challenges, including automation and artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity issues, highlighting their threats to the planet and accounting practices. The essay provides potential solutions, such as prioritizing ethical behavior, creating positive work environments, and updating software to mitigate risks. The conclusion reinforces the necessity of ethical and sustainable practices in accounting for maintaining professional integrity and meeting stakeholder expectations.

Accounting in
Professionals- Ethics
and Sustainability

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
PART 1............................................................................................................................................1
Identification and explanation of ethical dilemmas which are affecting the accounting
profession.....................................................................................................................................1
PART 2............................................................................................................................................3
Identification and description of sustainability challenges that are affecting accounting
profession and threatening existence of the planet......................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Accounting could be defined as the process of recording information of financial aspects
in the books and reports. It is very important for all businesses and accounting professionals to
be focused with ethics and sustainability as it can help them to deal with all the issues which may
take place in future (Boutellis-Taft, 2019). For all the accounting professionals it is very
important to make sure that they are performing all their jobs in ethical manner as it will help
them to sustain in long run. Present essay is based upon various types of ethical dilemmas and
sustainability challenges for accounting profession and the way in which these are becoming
threat for planet.
PART 1
Identification and explanation of ethical dilemmas which are affecting the accounting profession
Accounting profession could be defined as the career which is focused with performing
all activities that are related to recording information of business transaction in books or other
reports. For all the accountants it is very important to make sure that they are performing all their
jobs in ethical manner (Yanti and Astuti, 2016). While trying the same they may face various
types of issues which are described below:
Omission of financial records is one of the main ethical issues which are faced by
accounting professionals. A senior executive or the corporate officer can ask the accountants to
omit specific financial figures from final accounts which may portray negative image of the
entity in front of investors and customers. The omission which is done knowingly is a breach of
accounting ethics and it involved manipulation of the financial statements so it is an ethical
problem. The parties which may get affected due to it are customers, accountants and
government. They will get affected because the information which will be shared with them will
be biased and inaccurate. The public interest will also be impacted because of this issues because
it will leave negative impact upon their mind set regarding the accounting profession. When
accountants will omit the information knowingly then it will also leave negative impacts on their
profession and a negative mind set for it will be developed by the individuals. The solution for
this issue is that the accountants should ignore the omission which is asked by executives so that
they can perform all their jobs with high level of integrity. There are various types of ethical
principles which may get affected due to this issue (Çalıyurt, 2019). These are professional
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behaviour as the accountants will not working professionally if they will omit the figures in final
accounts. Apart from this, several other principles which are developed by IESBA are integrity,
self review, professional competence and due care etc. All of them will get affected because
when the accountants will not work effectively then it will reflect that the principles of ethics are
not complied by the professionals. There are various safeguards which can eliminate or reduce
the threats to an acceptable level. For this purpose, the accountants can create safeguards with
the help of legislation and regulation which will guide them to perform all their work in ethical
manner (Wyness and Dalton, 2018).
Pressure from management is another ethical issue which is faced by accounting
professionals. All the large companies are having main goal of attaining success and higher
profits. For this purpose, they put pressure on the accountants that results in stress to create all
the final accounts. The ethical issue for them is that they have to maintain true and transparent
reports of al the profits, assets and liabilities of the organisation for management teams and other
officers which is very tough for them in such type of situation. The parties who will get affected
because of this problem will be the accountants as the level of stress for them will be very high.
They will get affected because of the huge pressure of management on them for formulating the
financial statements. This dilemma will affect the reputation of accounting profession because if
they will not work properly under stress then it will portray bad image of them in front of the
stakeholders. Apart from this, the ethical issue will also leave impact upon public interest as
customers seek for accurate information in financial statements and if it will not be accurate
because of the pressure on them then it will affect their interest. The main solution which could
be focused to deal with this dilemma is making sure that the accounting professionals are not
pressured to generate final accounts (Ethical dilemmas for accounting profession, 2017). There
are various types of fundamental principles which may get affected due to the ethical dilemma.
These are confidentiality, professional behaviour, self interest and intimidation. When the
accounting professionals will not be working effectively then it will result in breach of all these
ethical principles. For example, when the accountants will not work properly because of stress
then they will not be able to maintain professional behaviour. Apart from this, high level of
pressure may result in ethical issue like breaching the confidentiality of the records of
organisation. The safeguard which could be focused for eliminating the threat of acceptable level
of the dilemma is creating a positive work environment for all the accounting professionals. It
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will help them to work productively and reduce the possibility of unethical behaviour under
stressful working conditions (Tormo-Carbó, Seguí-Mas and Oltra, 2018).
PART 2
Identification and description of sustainability challenges that are affecting accounting profession
and threatening existence of the planet
Sustainability could be defined as the ability to maintain a certain level. Apart from this,
it is focused with meeting own needs without compromising with the ability of future
generations for meeting their needs. For accounting profession it is very important to be
sustainable as it can help accountants to determine activities that are having direct impact upon
economic performance of entity, environment and society. It is used in businesses for generating
value creation within the enterprises. It is recorded by accountants in books for ensuring that
organisations are considering impacts on sustainability related problems and able to determine
risk which may take place because of lack of it (Channuntapipat, Samsonova-Taddei and Turley,
2020). There are various types of sustainability challenges which are faced by accounting
profession and treating existence of planet. Two of them are discussed below:
One of the main sustainability challenge which is affecting accounting profession and
threatening existence of the planet is automation and artificial intelligence. Currently most of the
work related to accounting is performed with the help of artificial intelligence which is taking
place of traditional form of accounting. All types of complex tasks related to it are handled by
AI. It includes collection of transactions, recording them in final accounts and paying tax returns.
It is the biggest challenge which is faced by accounting profession and it is leaving impact upon
sustainability of it. According to estimation of Gartner if automation process will be used for
accounting processes then it may result in saving of 25000 hours of reworking every year. It will
result in saving of cost. Apart from this, it also free up time for higher value work that includes
forecasting and analysis while planning to increase engagement of employees and reduce staff
turnover. It shows that automation in accounting sector is good as it is facilitating entities to
reduce time to rework on accounting tasks (Sustainability Challenges faced by accounting
profession, 2019). On the other hand, it is leaving negative impact upon accounting profession as
individuals will be loosing their jobs if their work will be automated. Apart from this, automation
is also a threat for planet as it is resulting in long term impacts upon employment because most
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of the workers have lost their jobs because of it. Increment in artificial intelligence is also
resulting in lower physical work of individuals which is one of the biggest threat to planet
because if they will not work then it will result in different health issues for them and due to this
planet will get affected negatively. The solution for issue is discussed below:
In order to deal with challenges that are taking place for accounting profession because of
automation is to take repeatable tasks like tax form preparation and payroll creation as
opportunity for faster growth rather than challenge. The businesses should see AI as an
opportunity to grow business as it will reduce work of staff members and they will be able to pay
attention towards such jobs that could not be performed automatically. The automation in
accounting work is to help individuals to do their jobs in more productive and efficient manner
as it can save their time to perform critical tasks (Gibassier and Alcouffe, 2018). Apart from this,
it also facilitate them to carry out other difficult activities such as financial risk management,
planning and analysis in systematic manner. Additionally, in order to reduce negative impact of
it on business, entities can ignore possibility of laying off employees. If this step will be taken by
companies then it can also help to reduce threat for planet. On the other hand, individuals can
also reduce their dependency upon AI devices for performing their tasks which will also reduce
threat of it on planet.
Another sustainability challenge is issues related to cyber security. It is becoming main
priority of all the individuals who are taking accounting related support from businesses as their
personal details could be misused if the level of cyber security will be low. According to
estimations of Gartner information security spending for the year 2019 was around 124 billion
dollar world wide. For hackers accounting information like bank account number, password,
details of credit cars etc. are hot targets because the value of them is very high. The issues related
to cyber security is spread of information of individuals who are taking support from accounting
professionals. It leaves impact upon sustainability of profession because it is very important for
the accountants to protect their data that goes well beyond the walls of company (Lehner and
Harrer, 2019). If they will not be able to maintain it properly then it could be hacked by hackers
for their personal benefits. Apart from this, there are various attracts which could be caused by
lower level of cyber security which is a threat for the planet. Some of them are electrical
blackouts, breaches of national security secrets and failure of military equipment. Apart from
this, the threats that could be resulted by them are theft of sensitive and valuable information.
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When it will get affected then the planet will get affected negatively as the level of terrorism will
get increased because of it. The solution for challenge is as follows:
In order to reduce negative impact of issues in cyber security accounting professionals
are required to update their software on continuous basis so that possibility of theft of valuable
details could be ignored. Apart from this, they can restrict access for the information to
individuals who are not authorised to use it (Mburayi and Wall, 2018). It can help to deal with
threats in systematic manner.
CONCLUSION
From the above essay it could be concluded that ethics and sustainability should be
focused in accounting profession as it can help all them to perform all their jobs properly and
meet the expectations of their employers. There are various types of ethical dilemmas that are
related to accounting profession. These are omission of financial records and pressure from
management. Apart from this, different types of sustainability related challenges that are
affecting the accounting profession and treating the planet are issues related to cyber security and
automation and Artificial intelligence.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Boutellis-Taft, O., 2019. New Relevance of Accounting and Reporting: SMEs, Ethics and
Sustainability. In New Models of Financing and Financial Reporting for European
SMEs (pp. 95-105). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Çalıyurt, K. T. ed., 2019. Ethics and Sustainability in Accounting and Finance, Volume I.
Springer Singapore.
Channuntapipat, C., Samsonova-Taddei, A. and Turley, S., 2020. Variation in sustainability
assurance practice: An analysis of accounting versus non-accounting providers. The
British Accounting Review. 52(2). p.100843.
Gibassier, D. and Alcouffe, S., 2018. Environmental management accounting: the missing link to
sustainability?.
Lehner, O. M. and Harrer, T., 2019. Accounting for economic sustainability: environmental,
social and governance perspectives. Journal of Applied Accounting Research.
Mburayi, L. and Wall, T., 2018. Sustainability in the professional accounting and finance
curriculum: an exploration. Higher Education, Skills and Work-Based Learning.
Tormo-Carbó, G., Seguí-Mas, E. and Oltra, V., 2018. Business ethics as a sustainability
challenge: higher education implications. Sustainability. 10(8). p.2717.
Wyness, L. and Dalton, F., 2018. The value of problem-based learning in learning for
sustainability: Undergraduate accounting student perspectives. Journal of Accounting
Education. 45. pp.1-19.
Yanti, H. and Astuti, C., 2016. Technical, moral competencies and communication skills for
sustainability of accounting profession. OIDA International Journal of Sustainable
Development. 9(12). pp.55-64.
Online
Ethical dilemmas for accounting profession. 2017. [Online]. Available through:
<https://accountingweekly.com/ethical-issues-encountered-accountants/>
Sustainability Challenges faced by accounting profession. 2019. [Online]. Available through:
<https://blog.capterra.com/biggest-challenges-facing-accounting-profession-today/>
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