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Can improved ethics training by college professors help prevent future accounting scandals? PricewaterhouseCoopers thinks so. In its new monograph, Educating for the Public Trust, the firm calls on accounting educators to integrate the values of quality, integrity, transparency, and accountability into the curriculum. The Cohen Commission on Auditors' Responsibilities and the Treadway Commission on Fraudulent Financial Reporting also recommended that professors emphasize ethical values.
As an accounting educator, I've always believed that one of my roles, in addition to teaching technical material, is to introduce future accountants to the ethical standards of the profession. Most major accounting textbooks contain examples of ethical dilemmas and guidelines for resolving them, and my colleagues and I spend significant class time discussing earnings management, budgetary slack, client confidentiality, auditor independence, and other ethical issues.
Research suggests that accounting education does influence students' professional attitudes. Southern Methodist University professor Steve Henning and I conducted a study of business students' attitudes about financial reporting and earnings management (Issues in Accounting Education, February 2000). We administered a questionnaire measuring willingness to manipulate reported earnings to 164 college sophomores enrolled in their first accounting course. There were no significant differences between the responses of the students planning to major in accounting and those planning to major in other business disciplines, such as...