BUSN104 Money Matters: Survey Analysis & Accounting Ethics Report

This essay provides an in-depth analysis of the Survey of Employees Australia 2018, focusing on key findings and differences between various subgroups (gender, age, public vs. private sector, and organization size). It examines the ethical landscape within Australian workplaces, highlighting the prevalence of misconduct and the factors influencing employees' decisions to report it. The essay also explores the differences between the public and private sectors in terms of ethical practices, employee benefits, and career opportunities. Furthermore, it delves into the importance of codes of conduct in various industries, with a specific focus on the APES 110 Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants in Australia, discussing its structure and implications. The essay concludes by suggesting ways accounting practices can improve efficiency through better communication, training, batch processing, and adherence to ethics and sustainability compliances.

BUSN104 Money Matters

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Essay................................................................................................................................................4
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................11

The essay includes a description of the key findings from the Survey of Employees Australia
2018 with main differences between four different subgroups. Apart from that, the difference is
also present between sectors and how it affects the career of employees and other individuals.
Further, a small description is given about the code of ethics/ conduct with the key aspects of
code on the survey. Certain code of ethics in the accounting industry of Australia with the
support of improvements is also explained.
Key Findings
The Survey of Ethics at Work 2018 of Employees in Australia written by Guendalina and
Somasundaram, provides the understanding about attitudes of employees and perceptions of
morals at the workplace. From the survey, it is found out that, employees do their work
according to the culture of the organization and it is believed by 84% majority. Further, 35%
employees of the country who have been aware of misconduct at work decided not to speak up
because, 32% think that it might jeopardize their job, 27% believe that no action would take
place and 25% thought that people knew about it. 24% of employees were aware of misconduct
happened in last year, some common kinds of misconduct are harassment and bullying at 41%,
people treated unethically at 39% and working hours misreporting at 32% (Brunetto, et. al.,
2013)
Australian companies followed the ethics program for the welfare and development of
employees and the majority of respondents are aware of it. 73% organization maintains standards
in a written manner that gives guidelines about working and responsibilities. 61% of companies
give employees reporting misconduct with confidentially and 52% company offers a suggestion
or information helpline where employees can get better advice about ethical behaviour (Lang, et.
al., 2018). At last, 59% organization give training and development on ethical conduct standards
to employees.
Difference between four subgroups
Four various subgroups of the worker's population are analysed to look, whether there is any
difference in ethics in their experience at the organization. Firstly, gender secondly, Age in
which employees are divided into 3 age group, young employees aged 18-34, mid-career
employees aged 35-54 and other employees aged above 55+ (Brunetto, et. al., 2013). Thirdly,

employee’s population are divided into the public and private sector and at last size of the
organization in which, a large organization with more than 250 workers and small and medium-
sized workers (Andrade, et. al., 2017)
The following are the important differences between private and public sector:
 The public sector is coming under the nation’s economy where maintenance and control
are in hands of Government, but private-sector managed and owned by corporations and
private individuals.
 The objective of the public sector is to the welfare of people, but in the case of the private
sector has objected to earn a profit.
 Organizations are controlled by the government in the public sector but there is less
interference in the private sector (Hurley, et. al., 2016).
 There are certain benefits are given to employees such as perquisites, allowances,
pension, gratuity, superannuation fund, etc, with job security, but these are not available
in the private sector.
 There is competition in the market between the private sector, but this is not present in
the public sector because of meet the commercial objectives.
 In the public sector, seniority is used to promote the employees but in the case of the
private sector, performance is measured for the promotion (Hurley, et. al., 2016).
As the above discussion, it is further analysed that, the private sector is growing due to quality,
not about quantity, it motivates talent. The public sector is filled with reservations such as
females, minority section, disability, nobody looks talent here. In the private sector, there is no
security of a job, otherwise in public sector, various facilities are given to satisfy them. The
private sector is corruption free, much workload that stays active. In the public sector, a large
amount of money is paid to government officers to do a particular task. It is said that both have
some positive and negative aspects as well, people can use any one option to build their career as
per interest, liking, ability to do work, talent, education, etc (Ahvenniemi, et. al., 2017).

In every kind of business and industry such as manufacturing, telecommunication, public and
private sector, code of ethics are established for employers, employees, clients, colleagues,
company and profession. The set of doctrine has been framed to assist every concerned member
with the professional decision while holding ethical obligations and ideas. Code of conduct was
developed by ITPA predecessor, the system administrators Guild of Australia and is recognized
as worldwide. This code of conduct commits members to keep the integrity and confidentiality
of the computer system, for the security and safety of a person involved with and exaggerated by
it. IT professionals are guided by own judgment based on their profession as well.
Code of conduct must address certain things:
 The responsibilities and duties of managers, directors and all others to whom it’s
applicable (Sarker and Munro, 2015).
 Regulatory and legal obligations, involving how an organization complies laws, customs
and regulations. It manages various responsibilities of directors, conflicts of interest,
disclosure issues, related party transactions, insider trading.
Code of Ethics:
Fair treatment: All employees of the organization will treat fairly, without any discrimination
related to disability, age, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, and race.
Communication: Users have to be informed about all system which can affect them like
security maintenance, sharing of resources; acceptable use, legal obligations and occurrence of
monitoring the systems (Sarker and Munro, 2015).
Privacy: Individuals can access private information in case of necessity under duties and
responsibilities. They will maintain the information confidentiality which is to be assessed.
Co-operation: Every individual will cooperate and support all fellow members’ professionals. It
is acknowledged the responsibilities of community which is fundamentally based on the integrity
of national, local and international resources (Payne, et. al., 2018).

System integrity: Employees will ensure about the system integrity for which they are
responsible with the means of maintenance of hardware and software, analyze activity and
system performance, and protect unauthorized access and use (Richardson, 2017).
Education: Employees will continue to learn and increase their level of knowledge and skill in
technical and management area by study, training, information sharing and getting experience
from colleagues (Freeman and Evans, 2016).
Honesty: Individuals will be honest about their level of competence and can get help in case of
necessity. When any professional suggestion is sought, then he will be unbiased.
Social responsibility: Employees will continue to increase their understanding of legal and
social issues which arise in computing atmosphere and communicate such information to others
at the time of requirement. Employees will try hard to ensure such laws and policies of the
computer system are reliable with ethical principles (Richardson, 2017).
APES 110 Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants is issued by the Accounting
Professional and Ethical Standards Board. The role of APESB is to create and issue ethical and
professional standards in public interest which compiles to members of Australia and accounting
bodies. The code depends on the Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants issued by
international Ethics Standards Board for Accountants of the International Federation of
Accountants (Axtell, et. al., 2017) Members of the country have to comply with Code of conduct
according to regulations and laws. The Code is distributed into three sections:
PART A: (Applies to all members) it describes the responsibility to do for the public interest and
significant principles of code of conduct. The framework gives a decision-making technique to
verify and deal with risks to compliance with doctrine.
PART B: (Applies to members in public practice) members in this section face various
conditions that threaten regulations with fundamental doctrine (Chaplin, 2017).
PART C: (Applies to business members, but members in public practice can also find it
relevant) members in profession or business who are engaged or employed in industry,
commerce, service, industry education, public sector, not for profit sector, professional bodies
and regulatory bodies.

How Accounting can improve Efficiency:
 Communicate to the group: Communicate with team members if it is possible whether
junior accountants. Team members have some unique ideas for reducing unnecessary
work, gaining activities done faster, and searching for new methods for team
collaboration. Follow the ethics and sustainability compliances for better improvement
(Chaplin, 2017).
 Training and development: Provide best training and development program will be
launched and executed in organization for the improvement of accountants and their
efficiency in working culture.
 Batch Processing: Get benefits for this processing, and not process every receipt and
invoice at one time. Develop a system where information is consolidated and gathered
and processed singly.
Ethics and sustainability compliances matter a lot for the improvement in the business process
and accounting system and enhancing efficiency. It will give a positive impact for the whole
organization and employees as well to follow the code of conduct and principles of ethics and
sustainability according to the survey (Fleischman, et. al., 2017).
It is concluded from the above essay that employees get affected by the positive and negative
culture and behaviour of the organisation. The Code of conduct and ethics played an important
role in regulating the laws and compliances in the organisation in a better manner. Australian
Accounting code of practice is followed by accountants and professionals of the country with the
ethics and sustainability.

References
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Brunetto, Y., Xerri, M., Shriberg, A., Farr‐Wharton, R., Shacklock, K., Newman, S. and
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Fleischman, R.K., Tyson, T.N. and Oldroyd, D., 2017. Accounting history. The Routledge
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Lang, C., Macfadyen, L.P., Slade, S., Prinsloo, P. and Sclater, N., 2018, March. The
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