会计信息与道德

摘 要 ：企业管理者、会计和审计人员的道德水平在很大程度上影响着会计信息,而会计信息的质量对于企业内外部使用者又至关重要,因此企业中道德的构建对于会计信息有着十分重要的意义.本文从会计信息与道德的关系入手,从几方面分析了道德对会计信息质量的影响,并对企业道德构建提出了一些建议和方式.

关 键 词 ：会计信息 质量保证 道德构建

1.Introduction

As is known to all,accounting information embodies a panys financial condition and level of management,and it is very important to stakeholders such as investors,banks,government and Companys management.As a result,the authenticity and reliability of accounting information are vital factors that can deeply affect the users’ decision-making.However,there are serious accounting information distortions existing nowadays.In my opinion,this phenomenon can be largely attributed to lack of ethics.To some extent,ethics is the quality guarantee of accounting information.In the following pages I will analyze the relationship between accounting information and ethics,and then discuss several possible ways to construct ethics in corporations.

2.the Impact ofEthics on Accounting Information

In this part,I will firstly make it clear what accounting ethics is,and then strengthen the importance of ethics by stating bad effects of lacking accounting ethics.After that I would explain how ethics guarantee the accounting information from three different angles: accountants,managers and auditors,which will make it more specific and detailed.

2.1 the Connotation of Accounting Ethics

When we talk about ethics,what e to our mind may be honesty,justice,responsibility and information transparency.Ethics related to accounting is primarily a field of professional ethics,the study of moral values and judgments which are applied to the accountancy.“Accounting ethics can be defined as a set of distinct guidelines for a business to maintain clean balance sheets,accounting for their profits,losses and expenses incurred and prevent it from mishandling financial reports and statements.” (Buzzle 2011) The nature of the work carried out by managers,accountants and auditors requires a high level of ethics.

With the rapid development of economy,ethics related to accounting has been increasingly attached much importance.It is the foundation of enterprises’ long-term development,and is also the principle that corporations in the process of pursuing mercial interests should follow.However,unlike laws and rules,ethic is just a kind of ideology,which cannot be written on papers.It just exists in peoples hearts.Although it is an abstract concept,we can not ignore the important role it plays in ensuring the quality of accounting information.Lack of ethics is very dangerous and terrible for a pany.By discipline themselves with ethics,people will resist various temptation and produce accounting information with high quality.

2.2 the Consequence of Lacking Accounting Ethics

As we can see,there are many different accounting fraud operations in business world.If people ignore the accounting ethics,they would cheat for economic interest,which will lead to accounting information distortion.

The distortion of accounting informationwould seriously affect the normal order in the social and economic life.On the one hand,this action will hide the contradiction and danger in the economic condition of our country,and disturb normal interest allocation and resource distribution.On the other hand,the false information will mislead the stakeholders.For investors and creditors,they may make the wrong decision and lose their interest,which would cause economic disputes thus affect social stability.For the government,since the corporations may evade tax,the state will lose some ine.For the pany itself,it will finally pay for what they did immorally,for example,they may get punished or go bankrupt.These consequence are so serious that they should be paid enough attention.

From the analysis above,we can see that ethics is very important in the economic life.As a result of the significant bad effects of accounting information distortion,the code of ethics and enforcement of ethics are extremely important to every professional anization.Only with ethics in their heart,can the staff choose the justice ways to display the accounting information,thus the legitimate rights and interests of the stakeholders can get protected.

2.3 the Ethics of Accountants,managers and auditors

People who are responsible for accounting information should obey code of ethics,because corporations aren't ethical or evil of themselves--but people can be.The behior of accountants,managers and auditors will affect the quality of accounting information.

First,accountants take an unshirkable responsibility for the quality of accounting information,because they are the direct producer of accounting information.Accountants are in the key position of a panys financial management, they may take advantages of their position and lose direction in front of the economic interest.For example,some accountants fe,conceal or destroy the accounting vouchers,accounting books and accounting statements in order to embezzle funds from the pany for their own use.If they he integrity and moral standard in their heart,they would not violate moral codes.Accountants are surely taught to be honest and just before they get down to their work,but it is difficult to do so at the temptation of interest.However,they should be aware that being uhical will not only do harm to other people,but also lead them to be punished eventually.

Second,the managers can also exert great influence on accounting information.As people are selfish to some extend,the managers’ most important concern may be economic pensation,corporate ladder,social status,personal success and so on.When a panys performance appears not beautiful or even at crisis,the managers may pel accountants to regulate the profit change corporate image by means of fraud,in that way they can obtain many economic and non-economic interests.The motivation of operating accounting information is more intense especially when the exercise period is approaching,because even tiny movement of the share-price would directly affects the value of managers’ stock options.As a result,the managers may conduct unstable ine confirmation or delay unsure expenditure during this period.It is mon that sometimes the accountants are pressured by their managers to preceed accounting fraud.

Last but not least,the auditors he an unshirkable responsibility for the accounting information too.Although the auditing standards are positively stated and provide general guidelines that certified public accountants should strive to follow,there are still many problems existing in auditing.Some certified public accountants fail to implement the principles of independence,objectivity and impartiality,and issue inappropriate audit report,which acts as the umbrella of accounting information distortion.Although some certified public accountants are aware that the accounting statements are misstated and deliberately fed,they would not specify, instead,they issue false statements and produce untruthful audit reports.These actions help enterprises to whitewash business performance and do great harm to the stakeholders.

From the above we canconclude that ethics is the quality guarantee of accounting information.Lack of ethics will cause serious problems,so we should spare no effort to construct ethics in our society.

3.EthicalConstruction in Corporations

Ethics is an abstract concept.It is very difficult for people to overe their nature and beingdisciplined with ethics,but it doesn’t mean that we can do nothing with it.In fact,we can take measures to construct ethics in order to promote the quality of accounting information.In my opinion,we can build ethics through the following ways:

3.1 Enhance Accounting Ethics Education

In addition to the constructionof law and system,we also need moral education this is the motivation of establishment and implementation of business ethics.Business operators and managers should recognize the necessity of moral education.In the moral construction,we can bine the spirit of enterprise culture with ethical education.For example,we can put business ethics requirements into the construction of enterprise culture and show panys moral style in mercial culture.This will make all the staff of the pany get ethical edification and feel proud of being ethical.

Whats more,the pany should conduct regular vocational training in order to improve both professional knowledge and moral quality of the staff.Education of ethics is a long-term project and we shouldn’t expect that once being taught,they will act morally.At school,we get educated in class and the teachers always strengthen the importance of being ethical for an accountant.Before we get down to our work,we he to pass tests to get the qualification of being an accountant.After we join a pany,the pany also has its own rules of ethics such as keep secret of important business information.During their work,they will receive various vocational training and get to know what they should do and what shouldnt do at their positions.Accountants,managers and auditors all need these kinds of education so that they will discipline themselves in their work.

3.2 Create Good Internal Environment

Since I he point out that accountants are sometimes pressured by their managers topreceed false accounting information,it is very important for the pany to create a equal and orderly internal environment.Dependency of the accountants makes their work always under the lead of managers.When the interest of the managers and the interest of the whole conflict,accountants will get into a dilemma.Accountant may sometimes find that the leaders’ orders are different from standards and regulations.Although they e up with reasonable suggestion,leaders probably still stick to their opinion,which eventually leads to the distortion of accounting information.

The pany should establish adequate internal controlsystem.For example,they should make the responsibilities of every position clear and restrict to each other, the board of supervisors and independent directors should supervise the panys financial activity responsibly.From my point of view,one of the most important things is that they should endow the accountants some rights to judge affairs independently.For the accountant,the pany must create a good working environment for them and ensure that they can perform their duties according to law.he The managers shouldn’t incite or instigate the accountants to handle accounting matters illegally,in other words,the managers should concern and support the work of accountants,guaranteeing the accounting work in an orderly manner.

3.3 Establish Moral Evaluation System

In the assesent of the staff,the pany tends to lay particular stress on the performance of operation and may ignore ethical evaluation.However,this is very dangerous because the action will bring potential risk to the enterprise.If a person makes great achievements in his work but he is lack of ethics,he may try hard to seek interest by means of fraud,which would do great harm to his pany and related people.As a result,we shouldn’t ignore the motivation and only see the results.Establishing scientific moral evaluation system can help pany select the right person and produce accounting information with high quality.

Currently,the theory and practice of moral evaluation in our country is still in the initial stage.It is a long way to go if we want to build a scientific moral evaluation system.The system should include anization setting,evaluation method,credit information resources,supervision system and so on.The evaluation method had better conclude social assesent,internal assesent and personal assesent.We can refer to other countries’ experience and design a series of practical regulations.In my opinion,we should pay attention to the rationality to evaluation method and standard,because different panies he different situation.Besides,the index should be quantified and intuitive,so it will be easy to pare and rank.Moreover,we can establish credit record for the staff and record their dishonest or outstanding behior.In that way,we can reward and punish the right person according to the record.

4.Conclusion

Ethics is very important to the quality of accounting information.If accountants,managers and auditors he noble ethics in their hearts,they will resist the temptation and provide accurate accounting information.However,if they fail to obey ethical codes,the accountinginformation will e out to be untruthful,and then the pany,the stakeholders and they themselves will get into dilemma.Although ethics is just an abstract idea and sometimes hard to follow,we still he some methods to enhance moral quality in an enterprise.Just as I he mentioned above,we can improve their ethical level by long-term education,orderly internal environment and scientific evaluation system.The government,enterprises,regulators and people themselves should spare no efforts to build business ethics in our society.Only in that way,can the quality of accounting information be credible and reliable.

References:

［1］Whittington,G.,1993.Corporate Governance and the Regulation of Financial Reporting.Accounting and Business Research 23(91A),311-319

［2］Warfield,T.D.,John.J.Wild,and Kenh.L.Wild.1995.Managerial Ownership,Accounting Choices and Informativeness of Earnings.Journal of Accounting and Economics,20: 61-91

［3］Shleifer,A.,and R.W.Vishny,1997.A Survey of Corporate Governance.Journal of Finance 52,737-783

［4］Levine,R.,Loayza,N.,Beck,T.,2000.Financial intermediary development and economic growth: causality and causes.Journal of Moary Economics,46,31-77

［5］Lynn T Drennan,Ethics,Governance and Risk Management: Lessons From Mirror Group Newspapers and Barings Bank,2004

［6］ Bushman,R.M.,Q.Chen,E.Engel,and A.J.Smith,2004.Financial Accounting Information,Organizational Complexity and Corporate Governance Systems.Journal of Accounting and Economics 37,167-201(责任编辑：郭陈华)