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Forging Ethical Professionals Begins in the Classroom
The recent corporate accounting scandals at Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia Communications, and Tyco International, as well as the largest American embezzlement of taxpayer funds of a school district, in Roslyn. N.Y., have compelled academics to review the ethical training of students. Many of the corporate executives involved in the fraudulent acts were trained in some of the most prestigious schools in the nation.
Institutions of higher education are integrating courses on ethics into their curricula. There is an urgency to educate business students about the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX). Courses and programs on forensic accounting are also being expanded and repositioned to a higher priority level.
Colleges and universities have been investigating another contributing factor to the failed ethical conduct of our corporate executives and professional accountants: academic dishonesty on our campuses. Various studies suggest that we may be at the precipice of a culture of academic malfeasance, where large numbers of students engage in various t'omis of cheating.
This trend is troubling, especially because our business schools provide the formative training for many of our corporate and professional executives. Even more disturbing is that two studies [S. Nonis and C.O. Swift. "An Examination of the Relationship Between Academic Dishonesty and Workplace Dishonesty: A Multicainpus Investigation," Journal of Education for Business, November/December 2001, 69-76, and R.L. Sims. "The Relationship Between Academic Dishonesty and Unethical Business Practices," Journal of Education for Business, 68 (4), 1993, 207-212] found that students who committed acts of academic dishonesty in college were more likely to engage in unethical acts in the business environment. This is very disturbing and should not be taken lightly.
Accounting Students and Academic Dishonesty
All students should be expected to behave ethically and be academically honest. Because of the potential for accountants to be at the center of unethical business behavior, it is even more important to hold accounting students to the highest standards. It is imperative that educators encourage and insist on the academic honesty of accounting students. Academics must implement and enforce a strong code of academic honesty so that unethical accounting students are weeded out before they enter the accounting profession.
It is time for accounting professors and universities to take action. Just as SOX calls for...