Bridging the Ethics Gap: Reaffirming the Role of Accounting Ethics in Professional Practice Through Content Analysis
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25299/ijbs.2026.25154Keywords:
Accountants, Ethical Thoughts, Professional Practice, Professional JudgmentsAbstract
Financial reporting is the means of communicating to interested parties information on the resources, obligations and performance of the reporting entities. The nature of the work carried out by accountants and auditors requires a high level of ethical consideration. Shareholders and other users of the financial statements rely on the annual financial statements of business entities to make informed financial decisions. Opinion of the accountants and auditors in preparing and verifying the statements is relied upon to ensure their truth and fairness regarding the actual financial position of the entities. The ethics of a profession requires that each member abide by its guiding rules. Failure to abide by the code of conduct is a violation of the professional ethics. As professionals in their disciplines, accountants need to strictly adhere to the ethics that have become a norm in accounting. This paper examines how ethical thoughts in Accounting are serving as foundation to the professional practice with a view to identifying the factors that influence some accountants to engage in unethical practices. The methodology used is purely content analysis, through secondary data. This study reveals that unethical practices in accounting can negatively affect investment decisions, thereby affecting the economic well-being of the country. The study, therefore, recommends that accountants and auditors should consider how best to comply with the ethical codes of their profession provided by the accounting and auditing standards best practice, in the interest of the stakeholders..
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