Values and Attitudes for Professional Accountants

Values and Attitudes for Professional Accountants

Values: Important and lasting beliefs or ideals shared by the members of a culture about what is good or bad and desirable or undesirable. Values have major influence on a person’s behavior and attitude and serve as broad guidelines in all situations. Some common business values are fairness, innovation and community involvement.

The monetary worth of something in areas such as accounting, economics, marketing or mathematics.

Attitudes: A predisposition or a tendency to respond positively or negatively towards a certain idea, object, person or situation. Attitude influences an individual’s and rewards. Four major components of attitude are
1. Effective: emotions or feelings.
2. Cognitive: belief or opinions held consciously.
3. Cognitive: inclination for action.
4. Evaluative: positive or negative response to stimuli.

Professional Accountants, whether practicing in public or private practice have an important leadership role in society. Society expects professional accountants to behave and act in the public interest. Proper ethical behavior is therefore as important as technical competence and together forms the basis to the definition of professional behavior.  This is one of the fundamental principles in the CIMA ‘Code of Ethics’ and is defined as ‘a professional accountant should comply with relevant laws and regulations and should avoid any action that discredits the profession’.

An individual’s values and attitudes underpin that person’s behavior or manner in which they conduct themselves. Value words such as integrity, honesty and transparency; and attitudes, such as desire to ‘do the right thing’ will help guide that individual. In professional life, values and attitudes are codified in a code of ethics which clarifies the behavior expected of members of that profession.

Business life, in whatever sector, can throw up many changes and challenges to professional accountants; throughout which professionals need to demonstrate consistency in their application of ethical values, attitudes and in their behavior towards others. It is primarily in the relationships with others that values and attitudes and in their behavior towards others. It is primarily in the relationships with others that values and attitudes are demonstrated. Professionals always need to behave with integrity, to be reliable and work in a timely fashion in his/her dealings with colleagues, customers, clients, suppliers and all others they come into contact with. However against a backdrop of being constant despite change, professionals need to be aware of the wider expectations of society in order to fulfill their public role.

Society values and expectations do however change from time to time, usually in reaction to events such as where there has been evidence of corporate failure due to misdemeanor or fraud. Professional accountants, therefore, need to understand and be sensitized to ethical issues and pressures, such as ethical implications when taking decisions, to play their role in protecting against such instances. This is important in helping to build public confidence and trust in business and the profession directly. If such confidence falters, society through the democratic process may introduce new laws to curb excessive behaviors. The failure in public confidence brought about by Enron was the genesis of the introduction of the Sarbanes Oxley Act in2002.

In real life applying values and demonstrating the right attitude of doing the right thing because it is the right thing to do can be difficult and takes courage.